SELF-HELP

A Balanced Life
A Guide For Creative Thinking
A Sense of Alignment
Accessing Your Intuition
The Art of Self Promotion
Becoming a Master of Persuasion
Becoming a Person of Integrity
Building Your Network
Capitalizing On Your Strengths
Confident Decision Making
Creating Your Own Security
Discovering Your Talents
Empowerng Others
Everyone's A Salesperson
Exercising Your Influence
The Courage To Take Action
Finding Your True Calling
Forging Your Self Confidence
Generating Energy
Getting Your Ideas Across
Increasing Your Earning Potential
Increasing Your Value
Living Without Limits
Mental Cross Training
Overcoming Adversity
The Power of Persuasion
Principles of Self-Management
Realizing Your Potential
The Role of a Leader
Teaming Up With Your Customers
Thinking Like A Winner
Unlocking Your Creativity
The Virtual Project Team
Your Personal Service
Seeing With Your Mind's Eyes
Setting Priorities
Sharpening Your Conversation Skills

"A Balanced Life" by Brian Tracy According to psychologist Sidney Jourard, fully 85 percent of your happiness in life will come from your personal relationships. Your interactions and the time that you spend with the people you care about will be the major source of the pleasure, enjoyment and satisfaction that you derive daily. The other 15 percent of your happiness will come from your accomplishments. Unfortunately, many people lose sight of what is truly important, and they allow the tail to wag the dog. They sacrifice their relationships, their major source of happiness, to accomplish more in their careers. But one's career, at best, can be only a minor source and a temporary one, at that of the happiness and satisfaction that everyone wants. There is no perfect answer to the key question of how to achieve balance in our lives, but there are a number of ideas that can help you to be and have and do more in the areas that are important to you. These ideas often require changes and modifications in the way you think and use your time, but the price is well worth it. You will find that by reorganizing your life in little ways, you can create an existence that gives you the highest quality and quantity of satisfaction overall. And this must be your guiding purpose. The ancient Greeks had two famous sayings: "Man, know thyself" and "Moderation in all things." Taken together, those two ideas are a good starting point for achieving the balance that you desire. With regard to knowing thyself, it is very important to give some serious thought to what you really value in life. All trade-offs and choices are based on your values, and all stress and unhappiness come from believing and valuing one thing and, yet, finding yourself doing another. Only when your values and your activities are congruent do you feel happy and at peace with yourself. So knowing yourself means knowing what you really value, knowing what is really important to you. The superior man or woman decides what is right before he or she decides what is possible. The advanced human being organizes his or her life to assure that everything that he or she is doing is consistent with his or her true values. It is essential for you to organize your life around yourself, rather than to organize yourself around the demands of your external world. The second quote, "Moderation in all things," is a wonderful and important dictate for successful living. But, at the same time, you know that you can't really be successful in any area by being moderate in that area. Peter Drucker once wrote, "Wherever you find something getting done, you find a monomaniac with a mission." You know that single-minded concentration on a goal or objective is absolutely necessary for achievement of any kind in a competitive society. So what's the solution? Over the years, I have worked with tens of thousands of men and women who have spent a lot of time and effort struggling to achieve balance in their lives. I have found that there is a simple formula; it is simple in that it is easy to explain, but you need tremendous self-discipline and persistence to implement it in your life. The formula revolves around a concept of time management, or what you might want to call life management. Time management is really a form of personal management in which you organize your 24 hours a day in such a way that they give you the greatest possible return of happiness and contentment. The key to time management, after you have determined your values and the goals that are in harmony with those values, is to set both priorities and posteriorities. The importance of setting priorities is obvious. You make a list of all the things that you can possibly do and then select from that list the things that are most important to you based on everything you know about yourself, about others and about your responsibilities. The setting of posteriorities is often overlooked. It is when you carefully decide which things you are going to stop doing so that you will have enough time to start doing something else. The greatest single shortage we experience in America today is that of time. We suffer from what has been called "time poverty." Men and women everywhere feel that their biggest single challenge is that they simply do not have enough time to do all the things that they have to do or want to do. People today feel pressured from all sides and are under an inordinate amount of stress. They feel overworked, fatigued and incapable of fulfilling all the responsibilities that they have taken on. The starting point to alleviate this time poverty is to stop and think. Most people are so busy rushing back and forth that they seldom take the time to think seriously about who they are and why they are doing what they are doing. They engage in frantic activity, instead of thoughtful analysis. They get so busy climbing the ladder of success that they lose sight of the fact that the ladder may be leaning against the wrong building. When my wife, Barbara, and I started our family, we were faced with a common dilemma: how can we balance the demands of work and home with the finite amount of time we are all given? Here's the answer I discovered: The key to success in a busy society is to devote your time to only two areas during the period of time when your family needs you, when your children are between the ages of birth to about 18 to 20 years. During this period of time, you need to curtail virtually all of your outside activities. You need to focus on two major areas your family and your career as I have done over the years. You need to place your family's needs above all else and then organize your work schedule so that you can satisfy those needs on a regular basis. Then, when you work, you must concentrate single-mindedly on doing an excellent job. Most people are time wasters. They waste their own time, and they waste your time as well. To be successful and happy, you must discipline yourself to work all the time you work. The average employee works at about 50 percent of capacity. Fully 80 percent of people working today are underemployed in that their jobs do not really demand their full capacities. Only 5 percent of workers surveyed recently felt that they were working at the outside limits of their potentials. But this is not for you. You must resolve to work all the time you work. You must decide that from the time you start in the morning until the time you finish in the evening, you will work 100 percent of the time. Even if no one is watching you, you should be aware that everyone is watching you. Everybody knows everything. In every company, everyone knows who is working and who is not. Your job must be to work all the time you work. If people come by and want to chat, you simply smile at them and say, "Could we talk about this later?" Tell them that you have to get back to work. Have a written list, and work on your list every day. Write down everything as it comes up, and add it to your list. Set priorities on your time, and be certain that you are working on the things that are most important to your boss and to your company. Refuse to get drawn into the time-wasting activities of the people around you. Work all the time you work. Remember that to be successful, you must become a monomaniac with a mission. This is true today, and it has always been true in our competitive society. To be successful at your job, you must work fast and efficiently and nonstop all the time you are on the payroll. You must become an expert at time management. You must become so efficient and effective that you get twice as much done as anyone else. In this way, you will advance your career at the fastest rate possible, and you will also be on top of your job most of the time, and it will be unnecessary for you to take work home for the evenings and weekends. Then, when you have finished your work, you can devote your full attention to your family and to the other important people in your life. The Bible says, "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." One of the meanings of this is that if you are thinking about your work while you are with your family, or if you are thinking about your family when you are at work, you end up accomplishing far less in each area. However, if you are on top of your work, when you come home you can devote yourself single-mindedly again, like a monomaniac to your relationships and to enhancing the quality of your interactions with the most important people in your life. The key to a happy family life is communication. And it is not quality of time but quantity of time that counts. Quality moments those little moments that are precious and important come unbidden and, usually, unexpectedly. They arise during the process of spending a large quantity of uninterrupted time with one or more people. You cannot dictate those moments in advance. You cannot decide to have quality time. You do not go to it. It comes to you. There are a variety of ways to extract the greatest amount of quality and happiness from your relationships with the members of your family. Perhaps the most important is to spend unbroken time with your spouse on a daily basis. Of course, you should spend time together talking after the children have gone to bed, but you should also seek out and utilize small segments of time during the morning and early evening during which you can communicate and interact. One of the most important things that couples can do is spend the first 30 to 60 minutes after work debriefing each other and discussing the day's activities. Your children also have a tremendous need to communicate with you. In fact, in my research on how to raise super kids, I found that the one factor that was more important than any other was the amount of one-on-one time that the parents spent with the children. When parents don't spend a lot of time with their children individually, they send a message to their children that they are not very valuable or important. Children then react by experiencing feelings of inferiority, lowered self-esteem, and negative self-images, and this is expressed in poor grades and behavioral problems. But when the parents take the time to sit down with their children and ask questions and listen to what is going on in their minds, the children tend to feel a deep sense of value and importance that is manifested in self-confidence, happiness, and good relationships with others. The key is learning to use your time better. You cannot get more hours out of each day, but you can put more of yourself into each of those hours. Turn off the television and spend time talking with the members of your family. Never read newspaper of books when a member of your family wants to communicate with you. Put the reading material aside. Concentrate single-mindedly on the most important people in your world. Everything else can wait. In regard to your work and family, continually ask yourself, "What is the most valuable use of my time right now?" Consider if what you are doing today will matter a week or a year from today. Sometimes, we become preoccupied with small things that are not really important in the long run. But what is important in the long run is the quality of our home life. You don't have to be a superman or superwoman to properly balance the demands of your work and the needs of your family. You must, however, be more thoughtful, be a better planner, use your time more effectively, and continually think of ways to enhance the quality of your life in both areas. If you set this as a goal and resolve to work toward it every day, you will gradually become far more efficient, far more effective, and a far happier human being. And that's the most important thing of all. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"A Guide For Creative Thinking" by Brian Tracy Einstein once said, "Every child is born a genius." But the reason why most people do not function at genius levels is because they are not aware of how creative and smart they really are. I call it the "Schwarzenegger effect." No one would look at a person such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and think how lucky he is to have been born with such tremendous muscles. Everyone knows that he, and people like him, have worked many thousands of hours to build up their bodies so they can compete and win in bodybuilding competitions. Your creative capabilities are just the same. They actually grow as they are used. But you don't need to spend thousands of hours to increase your creative-thinking abilities. By practicing a few simple exercises and applications, you can start your creative juices flowing, and you may even amaze yourself at the quality and quantity of good ideas that you come up with. Let's start off with the definition of creativity. In my estimation, after years of research on this subject, the very best definition of creativity is, simply, "improvement." You don't have to be a rocket scientist or an artist in order to be creative. All you have to do is develop the ability to improve your situation, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. All great fortunes were started with ideas for improving something in some way. In fact, an improvement needs to be only 10 percent new or different to launch you on the way to fame and riches. It has been estimated that each year, driving to and from work, the average person has about four ideas for improvement, any one of which could make him or her a millionaire. The problem is not that you don't have the ideas you need to accomplish anything you want but, rather, that you fail to act on those ideas. Most people dismiss their own ideas because they think that those ideas cannot be very valuable if they were the ones who thought of them. Thomas Edison, arguably the most successful creative genius in human history, once said that creativity is 99 percent perspiration and only 1 percent inspiration. Extensive research on creativity tends to bear him out. There are four generally accepted parts of the creative process: There is preparation, where much of the work is done. There is cerebration or rumination, where you turn the matter over to your subconscious mind. There is realization, where the idea or ideas come to you. And finally, there is application, where you work out the creative idea and turn it into something worthwhile. Of the four, preparation seems to be the most important, and it involves gathering the right data and asking the right questions. Your success in life will be determined largely by the quantity of ideas that you generate. It seems that the quality of ideas is secondary to the quantity and that if you have enough ideas, one or more of them will turn out to be prizewinners. You can begin building your creative muscles with focused questions. Some that you might think of are the following: What are we trying to do? How are we trying to do it? What are our assumptions? What if our assumptions are wrong? All improvements begin with questioning the current, existing circumstances. If you are not making progress for any reason, stop and think, and begin asking yourself the hard questions that will stimulate your mind to consider other possibilities. When they were doing the research to land a man on the moon, scientists were stumped for months and even years. They could not figure how to send a rocket to the moon with enough fuel to land on the moon, blast off, break the moon's gravity and come back to earth. The problem was that if the rocket had that much fuel to start with, it would be too heavy to take off from the earth in the first place. Finally, they began to question the assumption that the lunar rocket ship had to land on the moon. When they questioned that assumption, the scientists concluded that a main rocket could orbit around the moon while a smaller module dropped to the surface of the moon and then rejoined the orbiting rocket for the trip back to earth. The mental logjam was broken, and the rest is history. Asking focused questions-hard questions that penetrate to the core of the matter-is the real art of the creative person. The next step is to have the courage to deal with all the possible answers. Once you have come up with a possible solution, ask yourself, "What else could be the solution?" If your current method of operation were completely wrong, what would be your backup plan? What else would you or could you do? What if your current procedure or plan turned out to be a complete failure? Then what would you do? And what would you do after that? All of those questions will force you to think further and come up with better answers. The second way to build your mental muscles is with intensely desired goals. The more you want something and the clearer you are about it, the more likely it is that you will generate ideas that will help you to move toward it. That is why the need for clearly written goals and plans for their accomplishment is repeated over and over. Any intense emotion, such as desire, stimulates creativity and ideas to fulfill that desire. And the more you write down your goals and plans, and review them, the more likely it is that you will see all kinds of possibilities for achieving those goals. The third generator of creative-thinking muscles is pressing problems. A good question to ask is "What are the three biggest problems that I am facing in my life today?" Write the answer to this question quickly, in less than 30 seconds. When you write the answer to a question in less than 30 seconds, your subconscious mind will sort out all extraneous answers and give you the three most important ones. When you have your three most pressing problems, ask yourself, "What is the worst possible thing that can happen as a result of each of these problems?" Then ask yourself, "What are all the things that I can do, right now, to alleviate each problem?" If you have a problem that is worrying you for any reason, think about what you could do immediately to begin alleviating that concern. This is a prime use of your creative powers. So a key to success in creative thinking is clarity. Take the time to think through, discuss and ask questions that help you to clarify exactly what you are trying to accomplish and exactly what problems you are facing at the present moment. Just as fuzzy thinking leads to fuzzy answers, clear thinking leads to clear answers. A second key is concentration. Put everything else aside, and concentrate single-mindedly on focusing all your mental powers on solving one single problem, overcoming one particular obstacle or achieving one important goal. The ability to concentrate on a single subject without diversion or distraction is a hallmark of the superior thinker. A third key is an open mind. The average person tends to be rigid and fixed in his thinking about getting from where he is to where he wants to go. The creative thinker, however, tends to remain very flexible and open to a variety of ways of approaching the problem. The average person has a tendency to leap to conclusions and determine that there is only one way to achieve a particular goal. The superior thinker, on the other hand, tends to be more patient and willing to consider a variety of options before moving toward a conclusion. There is one other creative concept that can be very helpful when it is used in combination with what we have already discussed, and it is called the "limiting step." Between you and any goal that you want to achieve or any problem that you want to solve, there is almost invariably a limiting step or a "choke point" that determines the speed with which you move from where you are to your destination. This limiting step may be another person, a particular obstacle, a specific difficulty, or even a lack of some information or skill. Invariably, there is a particular factor that determines how fast you get there. Your job is to think about it and decide what it is, and then go to work to remove it. For example, if you are in sales, your limiting step may be the number of prospects you have. If this is the case, then your job is to do everything possible and to use all your creative capacities to increase your number of prospects until it is no longer a problem. Then, of course, there will be another limiting step, and your job is to go to work on that. If you have a business, your limiting step may be the number of qualified people who are responding to your advertising. If this is the choke point that hinders the amount you sell and the speed at which your company grows, it behooves you to concentrate your mental powers on relieving that bottleneck. You must concentrate the very best thinking abilities of yourself and others on increasing the number of qualified prospects that your advertising and promotional efforts attract. In relationships and misunderstandings between people, there is almost invariably a sticking point or subject area that needs to be resolved in order to bring about harmony again. Your job is, first, to identify this limiting step and then, second, to find a way to alleviate the difficulty to the satisfaction of everyone involved. You are a genius, and you were born with the potential for exceptional creativity. But creative abilities are latent. They are like muscles that grow with use. You can increase your creative powers by using them, over and over, in every situation, deliberately and specifically, until creativity and a creative response to life is as natural to you as breathing in and out is. There are very few things that you can do that can have a more powerful positive impact on your entire life than becoming excellent in creative thinking. And you can if you think you can. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"A Sense of Alignment" by Brian Tracy Your most important aim in life is to be happy, to be calm, confident and relaxed and to feel in complete control of every aspect of your life. Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals and values are in alignment. Nature demands balance in all things. You see balance all around you, from the most distant stars in the universe down to the individual cells of your body. Each of your billions of cells contains hundreds of chemicals, each of which is carefully regulated and kept in balance by your autonomic nervous system to ensure your health and longevity. The wonderful thing is that balance is the norm in your life. Your body has a natural bias toward health and energy. It's built to last for a hundred years and to perform smoothly and efficiently for most of that time. It's only improper maintenance and incorrect operation that, in most cases, cause your body to get out of balance and lead to disease and pain, rather than ease and pleasure. Emotionally, you also have a natural bias toward happiness and enjoyment. In fact, you have a natural barometer inside of you that tells you when you're doing the things that are just right for your unique personality and temperament. This is your inner voice, your intuition, and it's manifested in your level of peace of mind. Whenever you feel at peace with yourself and the world around you, you know that you're doing the very things that you're meant to do and that your inner and outer worlds are properly balanced and in alignment with each other. There are two major areas of balance that you need to be concerned with on a daily basis. They are the physical and the emotional. You need to adjust your behaviors in such a way that you enjoy high levels of physical health and energy most of the time. Even the richest person in the world is at a tremendous disadvantage if he loses his health. You need to guard your health like a sacred object. From the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed at night, you need to think about the things you can do to assure that you live a long, healthy life, free from the diseases and the debilitating illnesses that are causing our health-care outlays to be the highest in the world. A study was conducted over a period of 20 years on 8,000 men to determine what physical habits they had that caused them to live longer lives or caused them to die earlier than their peers. This study, The Alameda County Study, discovered that there were seven common habits practiced regularly by the people who seemed to be the healthiest, live the longest and have the fewest sick days per year. The first of these seven habits is eating regularly. Researchers found that people who ate irregularly, at different times and in different amounts throughout the day, were far more likely to be fatigued and have physical ailments than were those who ate on a regular basis. The second habit is eating lightly. We know today that foods high in fat, sugar and salt are very bad for us. The more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and lean sources of protein you incorporate into your diet, the better you will feel, the deeper you will sleep, the fresher you will be and the better your whole life will be. The third habit, which also involves diet, is not snacking between meals. The researchers found that when a person eats snacks between meals, the introduction of new food interrupts the ongoing digestive process and leads to drowsiness and improper digestion. The fourth habit for longevity is not smoking. Smoking is so detrimental to the entire human system that it alone causes more illnesses than all the other environmental or hereditary factors put together. Researchers have identified at least 32 forms of illness, including a variety of cancers, that are caused by or aggravated in some way by smoking. The very act of quitting smoking can do more to improve a person's overall health than a change in any other single health habit. The fifth habit identified in the Alameda study is consuming alcohol moderately. This is a fairly narrow range that suggests not more than one or two drinks per day, and fewer is desirable. Since the number one cause of premature death up to the age of 40 is automobile accidents, and as many as 50 percent of automobile accidents are alcohol-related, this is a good piece of advice. The sixth habit for longevity is sleeping seven to eight hours every night. Keeping yourself properly rested is one of the most important things you can do. If you allow yourself to become overtired for any period at all, your immune system begins to break down, and you become susceptible to a variety of illnesses, including colds, flu and even pneumonia. Getting regular rest is one of the most important things you can do to keep your physical life balanced. The seventh habit identified in the Alameda study is exercising regularly. The rule with regard to your body is "If you don't use it, you lose it." Regular exercise, even moderate exercise, can have a tremendous impact in helping you to feel better, digest better, sleep better and be a happier and more positive person. Since the Alameda study was completed, insurance companies have identified two additional habits: first, wearing automobile seat belts, to reduce the possibility of harm in an automobile accident; and, second, deep breathing each day, to improve your digestion, increase the amount of oxygen going through your brain, and enable you to relax into a "state of alpha" on a regular basis. One of the very best ways to engage in the process of "centering" is to take a few moments prior to any event of importance to breathe deeply six or seven times. Deep breathing causes you to relax and makes you feel more confident and more in control of yourself and the situation. It brings your inner world into better alignment with what is going on around you. In fact, whenever you face a stressful situation, you can better prepare yourself to deal with it by taking a few moments to breathe deeply before you say or do anything. When you prepare yourself in this way, your words and actions will be far more effective than they would if you had just reacted when the situation came up. You will feel more in balance. And the more you act as though you are in balance, the more it becomes a habit for you to behave in a balanced way. Vince Lombardi once said, "Fatigue does make cowards of us all." When you are physically out of balance for any reason, when you are tired or you have eaten too much, or too much of the wrong foods, your emotions, your level of energy and your reactions to the various situations around you are adversely affected. When you are in excellent health, well rested, properly exercised and properly fed, you tend to perform at your best. The second area of balance that is important to you is your emotional life. We know that how you feel emotionally has a dramatic impact on your physical body. The field of psychosomatic medicine deals with the impact of psycho-, the mind, on soma, the body; according to studies in this area, 80 to 90 percent of all your physical illnesses are mentally and emotionally caused. How can you tell if you are out of balance emotionally? it's easy. Just listen to your body and your emotions. Like a doctor, take a stethoscope to your life and listen intently to how you feel about how things are going on around you. When you are in balance, you feel calm, confident, relaxed, poised and at peace with yourself and life. When you are out of balance, you feel unhappy, stressed, anxious, angry, resentful, negative, pessimistic and depressed. In each area of your life, you will have a different set of feelings. In some parts of your life, you will be perfectly happy. In other parts of your life, you will feel uneasy, tense and sometimes frustrated. Your job is to go through your life, like going through your closet to weed through old clothes, and take the time to develop a strategy to deal with each part of your life that is detracting from your happiness. The most important breakthrough in psychology in the 20th century may have been the discovery of the self-concept. You have a self-concept, as does everyone else. This self-concept is the master program of your personal computer. it's made up of all the ideas, experiences, decisions, emotions, knowledge and beliefs that you've developed from infancy, and possibly from even before that. This self-concept forms the operating instructions for your computer, and you always behave on the outside in a manner consistent with your self-concept on the inside. You cannot change anything in your outer world permanently unless you first change your self-concept. You have a self-concept for the kind of person you are, for your personality and your attitude and your values. You have a self-concept for the kind of life you lead, for your income, your home, your car and the type of work that you do. You have a self-concept for your health and your weight and your level of fitness, for how well you perform in any athletic endeavor. You have a self-concept that governs your level of creativity, intelligence, sense of humor, memory, ability to speak to a public audience and level of competence in everything else that you do. And you always act on the outside consistent with this self-concept. To get your life into greater balance, it's essential that you examine your inner world in relation to your outer world; compare both worlds to find where there is incongruence or imbalance that might be causing you to perform poorly or, more importantly, to be unhappy and frustrated. Your self-concept is made up of three parts. The first part is your self-ideal. This is the person you would most like to be. This is a description of the values that you feel are the highest you can have and live by. Your self-ideal is made up of a combination of all the qualities that you most admire in yourself and in other people. Sometimes, you can define your self-ideal by asking yourself what you would look like, and how you would be described by others, if you developed yourself into the finest human being you could ever become. The second part of your self-concept is your self-image. Your self-image can be defined as the way you see yourself in the present moment. Your self-image is a combination of how you see yourself, how others see you and how you think others see you. All three may be different. That is, you may see yourself in a certain way, you may think others see you in a different way, and, then, others may see you differently from your perceptions. You always perform on the outside consistent with the mental picture that you have of yourself on the inside. If you see yourself as positive and happy and confident, competent and capable in your personal life and your work, you'll behave like that on the outside, toward other people. You can always tell what your self-image is, in any area of your life, by examining how you feel when you're with people. A person with a positive self-image is relaxed and confident with others. A person with a negative self-image feels insecure and inferior with others, especially with people he feels are ahead of him or better than him in some way. Now, here's the interesting thing about your self-image. When your self-image is fully integrated, the way you see yourself, the way others see you and the way you think others see you all are the same. And the more you're living your life consistent with your values and ideals, the more integrated your self-image is, and the better you perform at everything you attempt. The third part of your self-concept is your self-esteem. Your self-esteem can be defined as how much you like yourself and respect yourself. it's your reputation with yourself. it's how you think about yourself relative to the world when you're in the privacy of your room. it's the emotional component of your self-concept and is more important than anything else. Your level of self-esteem determines your personality, your level of stress, how much enthusiasm and excitement you have in life, how happy you are, how positive you are, and how well you get along with people. Psychologists today have come to the overwhelming conclusion that your self-esteem is the real measure and monitor of your personality and largely determines everything that happens to you in your interactions and relationships with others. And what is the key to high self-esteem? The key is simply this: When your external behaviors and your highest values and ideals are consistent with each other, your self-esteem goes up. When your ideals and values are clear, and when the qualities and behaviors that you most admire are the same qualities and behaviors that you manifest in your interactions with others, you like yourself better. You respect yourself more. You feel happier. Whenever your inner world and your outer world are in alignment, whenever your activities and your values are congruent, whenever your activities are in balance with the highest values that you hold, you feel terrific and perfectly centered in your life. If you say and do one thing while you admire and respect another set of behaviors, you feel unhappy and dissatisfied. You feel out of balance. You feel a sense of incongruency. it's not easy to attain a sense of balance and equilibrium. It requires effort on your part. It requires that you think through who you are and who you want to be. It requires that you take the necessary steps to do more of the things that are consistent with the actions of the very best person that you can imagine yourself becoming, and that you simultaneously stop doing and saying the things that are inconsistent with your best ideals and aspirations. You achieve a greater sense of balance by, first of all, determining your values in each area, in regard to your health, your relationships, your work, and so on. Next, you examine your behaviors and identify the things that you're doing and saying that are not consistent with those values. And then you resolve to change them, one by one. In bringing your behaviors into alignment with your innermost convictions, you start to feel wonderful about yourself; you start to feel more in balance; you start to feel happier and healthier. Just as a car with perfectly aligned and balanced wheels runs more smoothly down the highway, you also will run more smoothly down the highway of your life when you've taken the time and made the effort to bring everything that you do and say into balance and alignment. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Accessing Your Intuition" by Brian Tracy It has been said that men and women start to become great when they begin to listen to their inner voices. Your intuition is your direct connection with infinite intelligence. Intuition is so powerful that it has been studies and written about by the greatest men and women of history for thousands of years. When you begin to use it regularly and systematically, there is virtually nothing that you cannot accomplish. Your intuition has often been called the "still small voice" within. You may experience your intuition as a gut-feeling, as an inner sense of what is right or wrong for you. Sometimes your intuition manifests itself as a hunch or an inspiration. Often it comes as a flash of insight. Your intuition leads you to new ideas, concepts and breakthroughs. Sometimes, an intuitive flash will enable you to see a situation completely differently and solve it on a completely different level. Einstein was referring to intuition when he said, "No problem can be solved on the same level at which you meet it." In breakthrough thinking, we are taught to redefine a problem and take it to a higher level in order to find a solution for it. Since the more you do of what you're doing, the more you'll get of what you've got, trying to solve your current problem at your current level is often an exercise in frustration. You can unlock your intuition by using your imagination to think about your problem in a completely different way. There are two major types of imagination that you use continually, both of which require the highest use of your intuitive powers. They are first, synthetic imagination and, second, creative imagination. Synthetic imagination is your ability to assemble existing pieces of knowledge and information into new forms. It is very much like taking all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, having a clear idea of the picture or goal that you want to accomplish and assembling them into a single piece. This form of imagination is often called, "integrative intelligence." It is one of the highest forms of intelligence for success and achievement anywhere. Integrative intelligence is defined as your ability to integrate a large number of different pieces of information into a single precept for decision and action. It is your ability to recognize and sort many different facts and insights together, emphasizing some and discarding others, in the process of making the correct decision. This form of intelligence is extremely valuable in fast-moving, fluid situations that require your considering a large number of different pieces of information in making a decision. It has been estimated that you need between 20,000 and 50,000 bits of information at your disposal to be really successful in any field of endeavor. We live in the information age, and knowledge is the raw material of production and value in this age. So the more different bits or "bytes" of information that you have, the more effective your integrative intelligence, or synthetic imagination, will be. The people who rise to the top of any field of endeavor are invariably those who know more than others. In fact, the division in our society today is not between those who "have more" and "have less" but between those who "know more" and those who "know less." One of your jobs is to be continually gathering additional bits of practical and useful information so that you have plenty of different ideas and concepts to draw upon when you are wrestling with any problem or striving toward any goal. Your intuition then goes to work for you by helping you quickly sort out the relevant facts and giving you the answers you need when you need them. The more ideas you expose yourself to, the greater the probability that the right idea will appear at the right time. When it does, your intuition will help you to recognize the idea and integrate it into everything else you are doing. The second form of imagination is creative imagination. This is a higher form of imagination where intuition plays an even more important part. Creative imagination refers to your ability to come up with completely new and different ideas and concepts to solve your problems and achieve your goals. It is the highest form of imagination and is responsible for all the great breakthroughs in science, technology, art, music, literature, and medicine. The most successful men and women of all time have been those who have deliberately trained themselves to tap into their creative imagination on a regular basis. And so can you, if you learn how. Your creative imagination is the source of all hunches, inspirations, imagination, flashes of insight and new understandings of complex concepts. The cultivation and development of your creative imagination can enable you to make more progress in one or two years than the average person might make in ten or twenty. And your creativity, your intuitive sense is like a muscle. It grows with use. The more you practice with it and rely on it, the stronger it becomes and the faster it acts for you. Men and women who have highly developed imaginations have often reached the point where they completely trust their intuition, their inner voices, to guide them in every situation. They never speak or act until they feel an inner urging to do so. They know that their intuition will always bring them exactly the right answer, at exactly the right time. Your intuition is your direct pipeline to a form of intelligence that is completely beyond your conscious brain. It is accessed by your subconscious mind, which his controlled by the thoughts you think and the beliefs you hold in your conscious mind. The more you affirm and visualize your desired goals in your conscious mind, the more readily they are picked up by your subconscious mind and the more rapidly your intuition or creative imagination is triggered. Successful, effective, happy people are those who have gotten onto the beam of their own intuitive senses and who rely continuously on their inner guidance. And they seldom make mistakes. In your lifetime, you have made a lot of decisions, some of them right and some of them wrong. But when your intuition tells you to do or to not do something, it is always correct. If you have ever gone against your intuition, your inner voice, haven't you regretted it? Wherever you have pushed aside that nagging inner feeling, hasn't it come back to haunt you? This is because your intuition is always correct. It always gives you exactly the right answer for you at any given time, and in any given situation. One of the smartest things that you can ever do is to listen carefully to your intuition and to postpone making a decision until you have an inner sense of what choices are correct. You will often find that your intuition will urge you to either speak up or to remain silent in a social or business situation. Later, it will turn out that that was exactly the right thing to do. In retrospect, you will find that your intuitive learning has always been more accurate than anything that you could think of with your conscious mind. All the great writers, composers, artists, and scientists have developed the habit of listening to their intuition. You have access to the same intuitive powers as the smartest men and women who ever lived. By the way, research shows that men and women, tested separately, have intuitions that are equally accurate. They seem to come up with the same intuitive answers for complex problems and questions. Why is it, then, that women's intuition is more respected than men's? The answer is simple. Women listen to their intuition more, while men have a tendency to brush it aside. When a woman says, "This situation doesn't feel right," she views this feeling as a valid and important assessment of whether the situation is right or wrong. Women are very respectful of their intuitive feelings and they generally refuse to go against them. Men will often put aside their intuitive leanings in favor of short-term advantage, only to pay the price later. Perhaps the best method for stimulating your intuition is by learning to practice solitude on a regular basis. Throughout the ages, the greatest thinkers of all time have practiced solitude as a regular part of their work and life. They have taken time to be alone with themselves. They have gone off and sat quietly prior to any situation of importance. Most of the great thinkers of today use solitude as an essential tool in developing the creative insights and intuitions that often have the power to change our lives. Most people have never practiced solitude because they wrongly believe that they have no time for it. However, one good idea that comes to you in the silence of solitude can save you a year of hard work. You cannot afford not to practice solitude on a regular basis. Here's how you do it. First, find a place to sit where you can be completely alone, in silence, without interruptions. You want to avoid any activities that will disturb your reverie, such as eating, drinking, listening to music, and getting telephone calls. You can sit in your basement, your backyard, or on a park bench. The main objective is to be completely alone with yourself. And second, force yourself to sit without moving for 60 minutes. The first 25 or 30 minutes will be excruciatingly difficult. You will have an irresistible urge to get up and walk around. But you must persist. You must force yourself to stay still. After 25 or 30 minutes, a wonderful thing will happen. You will start to feel very good about yourself and your life. You will relax completely. Your mind will become calm and clear. You will feel energy flowing through your body. The situations and difficulties of your life will seem to fade away, and you will begin to get tremendous clarity on how to reach your goals. At the end of your 60 minutes, get up and do exactly what your intuition told you to do. Don't worry about whether or not people will like it or approve of it. Just take the action, make the commitment, do the deed. You will find later that this was exactly the right thing to do. Solitude requires no energy, no effort, no trying at all. It simply requires a state of relaxed awareness where you open your mind to infinite intelligence. And at the right moment, exactly the right answer you need will come to you, in exactly the right form. You can overcome any obstacle, solve any problem or achieve any goal by tapping into the incredible powers of your mind and by trusting your intuition in everything you do. Once you begin to develop and use your intuition, you will become more alert, more aware, smarter and more effective in everything that you do. And your potential will begin to unfold at a speed that you cannot now imagine. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"The Art of Self-Promotion" by Brian Tracy The starting point of self-promotion is to set a goal and make a plan to become one of the very best people in your field. The better you get and the more respected you become, the more you will have in common with other people who also are farther along on the road of life. You must ask for advice and follow it. You must make every effort to overcome the obstacles within yourself that might be holding you back. You must develop the essential skills that you need to join the top 20 percent in your field. The wonderful thing about this aspect of self-promotion is that it is totally under your control. It depends on no one else. It is an ongoing journey. As Denis Waitley says, "It is continually viewing yourself as a 'do it to yourself' project." Meanwhile, there are a variety of things that you can do to promote yourself by getting to know more and more of the most important people in your community and your industry. This is the second aspect of self-promotion. As you are getting better at what you do, you deliberately and systematically make efforts to meet more people who you can help and who can help you. People in any field eventually take on the attitudes and behaviors of the other people in that field. Your peer group has a powerful effect on the person you are today and on the person you will become tomorrow. The friends you socialize with after work and on the weekends have an enormous impact on everything you do and accomplish. Every major turning point in your life will coincide with the development of a new group of friends and associates. I have seen many occasions where an average salesperson joined a company that was full of top salespeople; within three months, he or she also was a top salesperson in the industry. The very change of reference groups often leads to a complete change of aspirations, goals, work routines, and levels of achievement. Many people's lives are, unfortunately, a series of random or haphazard events, like bumper cars at a carnival. They take whatever job is offered to them. They have lunch with whoever is available, and they socialize with whoever they run into, whoever happens to be going out the door at the same time. Their human relationships are largely unplanned and uncoordinated. Their lives seem to go back and forth, and they make very little progress. Successful people, on the other hand, are very deliberate about their choice of friends, associates and colleagues. Successful people make a plan for their lives, and then they look around them to see which people fit into their plans for where they are going in the years ahead. Successful people are very specific about what they need to do and who they need to know if they want to get ahead rapidly. Baron Rothschild, one of the world's wealthiest men in his time, wrote in his rules for success, "Make no useless acquaintances." To some people, this seems a little undemocratic. Aren't you just supposed to like and hang around with anybody who happens to be there, regardless of personality or direction? Not if you want your life to take a specific, upward path. In one study, it was found that the top 20 percent of high achievers strongly identified with other high achievers, even before they had had a chance to accomplish very much in life. Their role models were men and women at the top of their organizations. The high achievers did not identify with the average people around them. Their sights were set much higher. And in almost no time at all, they were up among the top 20 percent, exactly as they had planned it. There are a variety of things that you can do to promote yourself to the front of the line, to the head of the pack. You can bring yourself to the attention of people who can help you quite rapidly, simply by engaging in the same behaviors that others have used over the years to rise rapidly in competitive careers. Start with your work. As I said earlier, you must be very good at what you do and continually get better if you want to get ahead in your company. Sometimes, people are convinced that they can play politics to get ahead. However, it has been shown again and again that politics and gamesmanship will get a person only so far before he is found out. Peter Drucker, the management consultant, says, "Only the truly competent person can rise above politics." Politics in organizations has to do with gaining control of people and resources. If you are one of the most valuable people in your organization, you will not have to engage in very much politicking because you will be one of the precious resources that others will be eager to court and influence. You can rise above petty politicking simply by getting better and better at what you do. When you reach the point where you are making an invaluable contribution, everyone else, including your boss, will come to you. Being good at what you do is the key to gaining the respect and esteem of people around you. Now, let's say you are in an organization that has quite a few people who are good at what they do. How can you stand out from the crowd? In a study of 104 senior executives, the vast majority said that the key to rapid promotion in their organizations was twofold. First, they said, an individual had to have the ability to set clear priorities, to focus on what was valuable and relevant rather than waste time on what was small and insignificant. Second, they said, the employee had to have a "sense of urgency," a desire and a drive to get the job done fast. In short, your developing a reputation for speed and dependability, for doing the right things and doing them right, and quickly, is the most important reputation you can develop with your boss. It's invaluable to getting ahead rapidly. I recommend that you make a list of everything that you feel you have been hired to accomplish. Take the list to your boss and ask your boss to organize the list in order of priority. What does your boss consider to be the most important thing you do? What does she consider to be the second most important thing? Discuss the list with your boss so that you and your boss are perfectly clear about exactly why you are on the payroll. Then, concentrate on doing an excellent job at the things that are most important to him or her. I have discussed this with thousands of managers, all over the country, they all say that there is nothing that pleases them more than to have an employee who is working hard on something that the managers consider to be of top priority. Continually ask your boss if there is anything that he does on a regular basis that you can take off his shoulders. Every boss has tasks that he or she dislikes. If you can take one or more of these tasks away, and learn how to do it yourself, you will be promoting yourself in one of the most professional ways possible. Self-promotion also means looking for every opportunity to help your boss and coworkers to look good at their jobs. Concentrate on cooperation rather than competition. If you help others get ahead, it will come back to you exponentially. And the more you help others, the more they will help you in return. According to the Law of Sowing and Reaping, the more you give of yourself, without expectation of return, the more will come back to you from the most unexpected sources. Successful people in every organization are always looking for ways to help, always looking for ways to put in more than they take out. As my father once said, "It's amazing how much you can get done when no one cares who gets the credit." In self-promotion, you never need to worry about who will get the credit. The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you help others, the more they will want to help you. The more you put in to help your boss look good and stay on top of his or her work, the more your boss will want to open doors of opportunity that enable you to get ahead. Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote, "All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all." Your job is to engage in deliberate self-promotion by becoming very good at what you do, by becoming indispensable to your boss and your company, and by becoming better and better known to the important people in your field. The rewards that will come back to you eventually will be much greater than the efforts that you have put in. And there is no limit to what you can put in. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Becoming a Master of Persuasion" by Brian Tracy Persuasion power can help you get more of the things you want faster than anything else you do. It can mean the difference between success and failure. It can guarantee your progress and enable you to use all of your other skills and abilities at the very highest level. Your persuasion power will earn you the support and respect of your customers, bosses, coworkers, colleagues and friends. The ability to persuade others to do what you want them to do can make you one of the most important people in your community. Fortunately, persuasion is a skill, like riding a bicycle, that you can learn through study and practice. Your job is to become absolutely excellent at influencing and motivating others to support and assist you in the achievement of your goals and the solving of your problems. You can either persuade others to help you or be persuaded to help them. It is one or the other. Most people are not aware that every human interaction involves a complex process of persuasion and influence. And being unaware, they are usually the ones being persuaded to help others rather than the ones who are doing the persuading. The key to persuasion is motivation. Every human action is motivated by something. Your job is to find out what motivates other people and then to provide that motivation. People have two major motivations: the desire for gain and the fear of loss. The desire for gain motivates people to want more of the things they value in life. They want more money, more success, more health, more influence, more respect, more love and more happiness. Human wants are limited only by individual imagination. No matter how much a person has, he or she still wants more and more. When you can show a person how he or she can get more of the things he or she wants by helping you achieve your goals, you can motivate them to act in your behalf. President Eisenhower once said that, "Persuasion is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do, and to like it." You need always to be thinking about how you can get people to want to do the things that you need them to do to attain your objectives. People are also motivated to act by the fear of loss. This fear, in all its various forms, is often stronger than the desire for gain. People fear financial loss, loss of health, anger or disapproval of others, loss of the love of someone and the loss of anything they have worked hard to accomplish. They fear change, risk and uncertainty because these threaten them with potential losses. Whenever you can show a person that, by doing what you want them to do, they can avoid a loss of some kind, you can influence them to take a particular action. The very best appeals are those where you offer an opportunity to gain and an opportunity to avoid loss at the same time. There are two ways to get the things you want in life. First, you can work by yourself and for yourself in your own best interest. You can be a "Robinson Crusoe" of modern life, relying on yourself for the satisfaction of your needs. By doing this, you can accomplish a little, but not a lot. The person who looks to himself or herself completely is limited in his or her capacities. He or she will never be rich or successful. The second way to get the things you want is by gaining and using leverage. Leverage allows you to multiply yourself and get far more out of the hours you put in rather than doing everything yourself. There are three forms of leverage you must develop to fulfill your full potential in our society: other people's efforts, other people's knowledge, and other people's money. You leverage yourself through other people's efforts by getting other people to work with you and for you in the accomplishment of your objectives. Sometimes you can ask them to help you voluntarily, although people won't work for very long without some personal reward. At other times you can hire them to help you, thereby freeing you up to do higher-value work. One of the most important laws of economics is called "Ricardo's Law." It is also called the Law of Comparative Advantage. This law states that when someone can accomplish a part of your task at a lower hourly rate than you would earn for accomplishing more valuable parts of your task, you should delegate or outsource that part of the task. For example, if you want to earn $100,000 a year, in a 250 day year, you need to make $50.00 per hour. That means you must be doing work that is worth $50.00 per hour, eight hours per day, 250 days per year. Therefore, if there is any part of your work, like making photocopies, filing information, typing letters, or filling out expense forms, that is not valued at $50.00 per hour, you should stop doing it. You should persuade someone else who works at a lower hourly rate to do it for you. The more lower level tasks you can persuade others to do, the more time you will have to do tasks that pay you higher amounts of money. This is one of the essential keys to getting the leverage you need to become one of the higher paid people in your profession. Management can be defined as "getting things done through others." To be a manager you must be an expert at persuading and influencing others to work in a common direction. This is why all excellent managers are also excellent low-pressure salespeople. They do not order people to do things; instead, they persuade them to accept certain responsibilities, with specific deadlines and agreed-upon standards of performance. When a person has been persuaded that he or she has a vested interest in doing a job well, he or she accepts ownership of the job and the result. Once a person accepts ownership and responsibility, the manager can step aside confidently, knowing the job will be done on schedule. In every part of your life, you have a choice of either doing it yourself or delegating it to others. Your ability to get someone else to take on the job with the same enthusiasm that you would have is an exercise in personal persuasion. It may seem to take a little longer at the beginning, but it saves you an enormous amount of time in the completion of the task. The second form of leverage that you must develop for success in America is other people's knowledge. You must be able to tap into the brain power of many other people if you want to accomplish worthwhile goals. Successful people are not those who know everything needed to accomplish a particular task, but more often than not, they are people who know how to find the knowledge they need. What is the knowledge that you need to achieve your most important goals? Of the knowledge required, what knowledge must you have personally in order to control your situation, and what knowledge can you borrow, buy, or rent from others? It has been said that, in our information-based society, you are never more than one book or two phone calls away from any piece of knowledge in the country. With on-line computer services that access huge data bases all over the country, you can usually get the precise information you require in a few minutes by using a personal computer. Whenever you need information and expertise from another person in order to achieve your goals, the very best way to persuade them to help you is to ask them for their assistance. Almost everyone who is knowledgeable in a particular area is proud of their accomplishments. By asking a person for their expert advice, you compliment them and motivate them to want to help you. So don't be afraid to ask, even if you don't know the individual personally. The third key to leverage, which is very much based on your persuasive abilities, is other people's money. Your ability to use other people's money and resources to leverage your talents is the key to financial success. Your ability to buy and defer payment, to sell and collect payment in advance, to borrow, rent or lease furniture, fixtures and machinery, and to borrow money from people to help you multiply your opportunities is one of the most important of all skills that you can develop. And these all depend on your ability to persuade others to cooperate with you financially so that you can develop the leverage you need to move onward and upward in your field. There are four "Ps" that will enhance your ability to persuade others in both your work and personal life. They are power, positioning, performance, and politeness. And they are all based on perception. The first "P" is power. The more power and influence that a person perceives that you have, whether real or not, the more likely it is that that person will be persuaded by you to do the things you want them to do. For example, if you appear to be a senior executive, or a wealthy person, people will be much more likely to help you and serve you than they would be if you were perceived to be a lower level employee. The second "P" is positioning. This refers to the way that other people think about you and talk about you when you are not there. Your positioning in the mind and heart of other people largely determines how open they are to being influenced by you. In everything you do involving other people, you are shaping and influencing their perceptions of you and your positioning in their minds. Think about how you could change the things you say and do so that people think about you in such a way that they are more open to your requests and to helping you achieve your goals. The third "P" is performance. This refers to your level of competence and expertise in your area. A person who is highly respected for his or her ability to get results is far more persuasive and influential than a person who only does an average job. The perception that people have of your performance capabilities exerts an inordinate influence on how they think and feel about you. You should commit yourself to being the very best in your field. Sometimes, a reputation for being excellent at what you do can be so powerful that it alone can make you an extremely persuasive individual in all of your interactions with the people around you. They will accept your advice, be open to your influence and agree with your requests. The fourth "P" of persuasion power is politeness. People do things for two reasons, because they want to and because they have to. When you treat people with kindness, courtesy and respect, you make them want to do things for you. They are motivated to go out of their way to help you solve your problems and accomplish your goals. Being nice to other people satisfies one of the deepest of all subconscious needs, the need to feel important and respected. Whenever you convey this to another person in your conversation, your attitude and your treatment of that person, he or she will be wide open to being persuaded and influenced by you in almost anything you need. Again, perception is everything. The perception of an individual is his or her reality. People act on the basis of their perceptions of you. If you change their perceptions, you change the way they think and feel about you, and you change the things that they will do for you. You can become an expert at personal persuasion. You can develop your personal power by always remembering that there are only two ways to get the things you want in life, you can do it all yourself, or you can get most of it done by others. Your ability to communicate, persuade, negotiate, influence, delegate and interact effectively with other people will enable you to develop leverage using other people's efforts, other people's knowledge and other people's money. The development of your persuasion power will enable you to become one of the most powerful and influential people in your organization. It will open up doors for you in every area of your life. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Becoming a Person of Integrity" by Brian Tracy Integrity is a value, like persistence, courage and industriousness. Even more than that, it is the value that guarantees all the other values. You are a good person to the degree to which you live your life consistent with the highest values that you espouse. Integrity is the quality that locks in your values and causes you to live consistent with them. Integrity is the foundation of character. And character development is one of the most important activities you can engage in. Working on your character means disciplining yourself to do more and more of those things that a thoroughly honest person would do, under all circumstances. To be impeccably honest with others, you must first be impeccably honest with yourself. You must be true to yourself. You must be true to the very best that is in you, to the very best that you know. Only a person who is living consistent with his or her highest values and virtues is really living a life of integrity. And when you commit to living this kind of life, you will find yourself continually raising your own standards, continually refining your definition of integrity and honesty. You can tell how high your level of integrity is by simply looking at the things you do in your day-to-day life. You can look at your reactions and responses to the inevitable ups and downs of life. You can observe the behaviors you typically engage in and you will then know the person you are. The external manifestation of high integrity is high-quality work. A person who is totally honest with himself or herself will be someone who does, or strives to do, excellent work on every occasion. The totally honest person recognizes, sometimes unconsciously, that everything he or she does is a statement about who he or she really is as a person. When you start a little earlier, work a little harder, stay a little later and concentrate on every detail, you are practicing integrity in your work. And whether you know it or not, your true level of integrity is apparent and obvious to everyone around you. Perhaps the most important rule you will ever learn is that your life only becomes better when you become better. All of life is lived from the inside out. At the very core of your personality lie your values about yourself and life in general. Your values determine the kind of person you really are. What you believe has defined your character and your personality. It is what you stand for, and what you won't stand for, that tells you and the world the kind of person you have become. Ask yourself this question: What are your five most important values in life? Your answer will reveal an enormous amount about you. What would you pay for, sacrifice for, suffer for and even die for? What would you stand up for, or refuse to lie down for? What are the values that you hold most dear? Think these questions through carefully and, when you get a chance, write down your answers. Here's another way of asking that question. What men and women, living or dead, do you most admire? Once you pick three or four men or women, the next question is: Why do you admire them? What values, qualities, or virtues do they have that you respect and look up to? Can you articulate those qualities? What is a quality possessed by human beings in general that you most respect? This is the starting point for determining your values. The answers to these questions form the foundation of your character and your personality. Once you have determined your five major values, you should now organize them in order of importance. What is your first, most important value? What is your second value? What is your third value? And so on. Ranking your values is one of the very best and fastest ways to define your character. Remember, a higher order value will always take precedence over a lower order value. Whenever you are forced to choose between acting on one value or another, you always choose the value that is the highest on your own personal hierarchy. Who you are, in your heart, is evidenced by what you do on a day-to-day basis, especially when you are pushed into a position where you have to make a choice between two values or alternatives. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Guard your integrity as a sacred thing." In study after study, the quality of integrity, or a person's adherence to values, ranks as the number one quality sought in every field. When it comes to determining whom they will do business with, customers rank the honesty of a salesperson as the most important single quality. Even if a they feel that a salesperson's product, quality and price is superior, customers will not buy from that salesperson if they feel that he or she is lacking in honesty and character. Likewise, integrity is the number one quality of leadership. Integrity in leadership is expressed in terms of constancy and consistency. It is manifested in an absolute devotion to keeping one's word. The glue that holds all relationships together-including the relationship between the leader and the led-is trust, and trust is based on integrity. Integrity is so important that functioning in our society would be impossible without it. We could not make even a simple purchase without a high level of confidence that the price was honest and that the change was correct. The most successful individuals and companies in America are those with reputations of high integrity among everyone they deal with. This level of integrity builds the confidence that others have in them and enables them to do more business than their competitors whose ethics may be a little shaky. Earl Nightingale once wrote, "If honesty did not exist, it would have to be invented, as it is the surest way of getting rich." A study at Harvard University concluded that the most valuable asset that a company has is how it is known to its customers, its reputation. By the same token, your greatest personal asset is the way that you are known to your customers. It is your personal reputation for keeping your word and fulfilling your commitments. Your integrity precedes you and affects all of your interactions with other people. There are several things you can do to move you more rapidly toward becoming the kind of person that you know you are capable of becoming. The first, as I mentioned, is to decide upon your five most important values in life. Organize them in order of priority. Then write a brief paragraph defining what each of those values means to you. A value combined with a definition becomes an organizing principle, a statement that you can use to help you make better decisions. It is a measure and standard which enables you to know how closely you are adhering to your innermost beliefs and convictions. The second step to developing integrity and character in yourself is to study men and women of great character. Study the lives and stories of people like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Thatcher. Study the people whose strength of character enabled them to change their world. As you read, think about how they would behave if they were facing the difficulties that you face. Napoleon Hill, in his book, The Master Key to Riches, tells about how he created an imaginary board of personal advisors made up of great figures of history. He chose people like Napoleon, Lincoln, Jesus, and Alexander the Great. Whenever he had to make a decision, he would relax deeply and then imagine that the members of his advisory council were sitting at a large table in front of him. He would then ask them what he should do to deal effectively with a particular situation. In time, they would begin to give him answers, observations, and insights that helped him to see more clearly and act more effectively. You can do the same thing. Select someone that you very much admire for their qualities of courage, tenacity, honesty, or wisdom. Ask yourself, "What would Jesus do in my situation?" or, "What would Lincoln do if he were here at this time?" You will find yourself with guidance that enables you to be the very best person that you can possible be. The third and most important step in building your integrity has to do with formulating your approach based on the psychology of human behavior. We know that if you feel a particular way, you will act in a manner consistent with that feeling. For example, if you feel happy, you will act happy. If you feel angry, you will act angry. If you feel courageous, you will act courageously. But we also know that you don't always start off feeling the way you want to. However, because of the Law of Reversibility, if you act as if you had a particular feeling, the action will generate the feeling consistent with it. You can, in effect, act your way into feeling. You can "fake it until you make it." You can become a superior human being by consciously acting exactly as the kind of person that you would most like to become. If you behave like an individual of integrity, courage, resolution, persistence and character, you will soon create within yourself the mental structure and habits of such a person. Your actions will become your reality. You will create a personality that is consistent with your highest aspirations. The more you walk, talk, and behave consistent with your highest values, the more you will like yourself and the better you will feel about yourself. Your self-image will improve and your level of self-acceptance will go up. You will feel stronger, bolder, and more capable of facing any challenge. There are three primary areas of your life where acting with integrity is crucial. These are the three areas of greatest temptation for forsaking your integrity, as well as the areas of greatest opportunity for building your integrity. When you listen to your inner voice and do what you know to be the right thing in each of these areas, you will have a sense of peace and satisfaction that will lead you on to success and high achievement. The first area of integrity has to do with your relationships with your family and your friends, the people close to you. Being true to yourself means living in truth with each person in your life. It means refusing to say or do something that you don't believe is right. Living in truth with other people means that you refuse to stay in any situation where you are unhappy with the behavior of another person. You refuse to tolerate it. You refuse to compromise. Psychologists have determined that most stress and negativity comes from attempting to live in a way that is not congruent with your highest values. It is when your life is out of alignment, when you are doing and saying one thing on the outside, but really feeling and believing something different on the inside, that you feel most unhappy. When you decide to become an individual of character and integrity, your first action will be to neutralize or remove all difficult relationships from your life. This doesn't mean that you have to go and hit somebody over the head with a stick. It simply means that you honestly confront another person and tell them that you are not happy. Tell them that you would like to reorganize this relationship so that you feel more content and satisfied. If the other person is not willing to make adjustments so that you can be happy, it should be clear to you that you don't want to be in this relationship much longer anyway. The second area of integrity has to do with your attitude and behavior toward money. Casualness toward money brings casualties in your financial life. You must be fastidious about your treatment of money, especially other people's money. You must guard your credit rating the same way you would guard your honor. You must pay your bills punctually, or even early. You must keep your promises with regard to your financial commitments. The third area of integrity has to do with your commitments to others, especially in your business, your work and your sales activities. Always keep your word. Be a man or a woman of honor. If you say that you will do something, do it. If you make a promise, keep it. If you make a commitment, fulfill it. Be known as the kind of person that can be trusted absolutely, no matter what the circumstances. Your integrity is manifested in your willingness to adhere to the values you hold most dear. It's easy to make promises and hard to keep them, but if you do, every single act of integrity will make your character a little stronger. And as you improve the quality and strength of your character, every other part of your life will improve as well. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Building Your Network" by Brian Tracy We live in a society, and as a member of that society, it is likely that every change in your life is strongly influenced by other people in some way. The courses you take in school that shape your career are often at the instigation of a friend or counselor. The books you read, the tapes you listen to, and the seminars you attend are almost invariably the result of a suggestion from someone you respect. The occupation you select, the job you take, and the key steps in your career are largely determined by the people you meet and talk to at those critical decision points in your life. In fact, at every crossroad in your life there is usually someone standing there pointing you in one direction or another. The more people you know, the more doors of opportunity will be open to you and the more sound advice you will get in making the important decisions that shape your life. Dr. David McLelland of Harvard did a 25-year research study into the factors that contribute most to success. He found that, holding constant for age, education, occupation and opportunities, the single most important factor in career success is your "reference group." Your reference group is made up of the people with whom you habitually associate and identify. These are the people you live with, work with and interact with outside of your work. You identify with these people and consider yourself to be one of them. They consider you one of them as well. When you develop a positive reference group, you begin to become a member of the in-crowd at your level of business. The starting point in this process is to develop a deliberate and systematic approach to networking throughout your career. People like to do business with people they know. They like to socialize and interact with people with whom they are familiar. And they like to recommend people they trust. Fully 85% of the best jobs in America are filled as the result of a third party recommendation. The best networkers are never unemployed for very long. One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they begin networking is scattering their time and energy indiscriminately and spending their time with people who can be of no help at all. Even if they attend organization meetings, they often end up associating with people who are neither particularly ambitious or well-connected. When you network, you must be perfectly selfish. You want to become all you can over the course of your career. You want to rise as far as you can. Any success you could ever desire will require the active involvement and help of lots of other people. Your job is to focus your energies and attention on meeting the people who can help you and the only way you can do this is by staying away from the people who cannot help you at all. When you network, your aim is to meet people who are going places in their lives. You want to meet people who are ahead of you in their careers and in their organizations. You want to meet people you can look up to with pride. You want to meet people who can be friends, guides and mentors. You want to think ahead and meet people who can help you move into your ideal future more readily. For this reason, you must sort people into categories: helpful vs. non-helpful, ambitious vs. non-ambitious, going somewhere vs. going nowhere. Remember, your choice of a reference group in your networking will determine the success of the process. You begin your networking process at your place of work. Look around and identify the top people in your organization. Make these people your role models and pattern yourself after them. One of the best ways to start networking is to go to someone you admire and ask for his or her advice. Don't be a pest. Don't tie up several hours of their time. Initially you should ask for only a few minutes and you should have two or three specific questions. When you talk to a successful person, ask questions like, "What do you think is the most important quality or attribute that has contributed to your success?" and, "What one piece of advice would you give to someone like me who wants to be as successful as you some day?" You could also ask, "Can you recommend a particular book, tape, or training program that would help me move along more rapidly in my career?" There is a law of incremental commitment in networking. It says that people become committed to helping you, or associating with you, little by little over time. In some cases the chemistry won't be right and the person with whom you would like to network will really not be interested in networking with you. Don't take this personally. People get into, or out of, networking for a thousand reasons. However, if there is good chemistry, if you like the person and the person likes you, be patient and bide your time. Don't rush or hurry, just let the networking relationship unfold without over-eagerness on your part. If you try to go too fast, you will scare people away. Instead of asking your superiors for more money, ask for more responsibility. Tell your boss that you are determined to be extremely valuable to the organization and that you are willing to work extra hours in order to make a more important contribution. There is nothing so impressive to a boss as an employee who continually volunteers for more responsibility. Many people have the unfortunate goal of doing as little as possible for as much money as possible. But not the winners. The winners realize that if all you do is what you're being paid for today, you can never be paid any more in the future. The person who continually volunteers for extra assignments and does more than is expected gains the respect, esteem and support of his or her boss. Whenever you do something nice or helpful for others, they feel a sense of obligation. They feel like they owe you one. They have a deep subconscious need to pay you back until they no longer feel obligated to you. The more things you do for people without expectation of return, the more they feel obligated to help you when the time comes. We have moved from the age of the go-getter to the age of the go-giver. A go-giver is a person who practices the law of sowing and reaping. He or she is always looking for opportunities to sow, knowing that reaping is not the result of chance. You will find that successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, "What's in it for me?" The surprising thing is that the more of yourself you give away with no direct expectation of return, the more good things come back to you in the most unexpected ways. In fact, it seems that the help we get in life almost invariably comes from people whom we have not helped directly. Rather, it comes from others who have been influenced by people whom we have helped directly. Therefore, since you can't control where your help or assistance is coming from, you must establish a blanket policy of giving with complete confidence that it will come back to you in the most wonderful ways. Whatever your job or occupation, there are trade and industry associations, business associations and service clubs that you can join. Excellent networkers are among the best known and most respected people in the community. To reach that status, they followed a simple formula. They carefully identified the clubs and associations whose members they can help and support and who can help and support them in return. And then they joined and participated. When you look at the various organizations you should join, you should select no more than two or three. Target the ones with the people that can be the most helpful to you. When you join, your strategy should be to look at the various committees of the organization. Volunteer for the committee that engages in the activities that are most important to the organization, such as governmental affairs or fundraising. Then get fully involved in your chosen responsibilities. You will find that the members of the key committees are usually key players in the business community as well. By joining the committee, you create an opportunity to interact with them in a completely voluntary and non-threatening way. You give them a chance to see what you can really do, outside the work environment. And you contribute to the committee as a peer, not as an employee or subordinate. Remember, in any committee 20% of the people do 80% of the work. In any association, fully 80% of the members never volunteer for anything. All they do is attend the meetings and then go home. But this is not for you. You are determined to make your mark and you do this by jumping wholeheartedly into voluntary activities that move the association ahead. And the key people will be watching and evaluating you. The more favorable attention you attract, the more people will be willing to help you when you need them. Networking fulfills one of your deepest subconscious needs -- getting to know people and being known by them. It fulfills your need for social interaction and for the establishing of friendly relationships. It broadens your perspective and opens doors of opportunities for you. It increases the number of people who know and respect you. It makes you feel more in control of your career. And it can be one of the most exciting and fulfilling experiences of your life. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Capitalizing on Your Strengths" by Brian Tracy One of the qualities of superior men and women is that they are extremely self-reliant. They accept complete responsibility for themselves and everything that happens to them. They look to themselves as the source of their successes and as the main cause of their problems and difficulties. High achievers say, "If it's to be, it's up to me." When things aren't moving along as fast as they want, they ask themselves, "What is it in me that is causing this problem?" They refuse to make excuses or to blame people. Instead, they look for ways to overcome obstacles and to make progress. Totally self-responsible people look upon themselves as self-employed. They see themselves as the president of their own personal services corporation. They realize that no matter who signs their paycheck, in the final analysis they work for themselves. Because they have this attitude of self-employment, they take a strategic approach to their work. The essential element in strategic planning for a corporation or a business entity is the concept of "return on equity." All business planning is aimed at organizing and reorganizing the resources of the business in such a way as to increase the financial returns to the business owners. It is to increase the quantity of output relative to the quantity of input. It is to focus on areas of high profitability and return and, simultaneously, to withdraw resources from areas of low profitability and return. Companies that do this effectively in a rapidly changing environment are the ones that survive and prosper. Companies that fail to do this form of strategic analysis are those that fall behind and often disappear. To achieve everything you are capable of achieving as a person, you also must become a skilled strategic planner with regard to your life and work. But instead of aiming to increase your return on equity, your goal is to increase your return on energy. Most people in America start off with little more than their ability to work. More than 80 percent of the millionaires in America started with nothing. Most people have been broke, or nearly broke, several times during their young-adult years. But the ones who eventually get ahead are those who do certain things in certain ways, and those actions set them apart from the masses. Perhaps the most important thing they do, consciously or unconsciously, is to look at themselves strategically, thinking about how they can better use themselves in the marketplace, how they can best capitalize on their strengths and abilities to increase their returns to themselves and their families. Your most valuable financial asset is your earning ability, your ability to earn money. Properly applied to the marketplace, it's like a pump. By exploiting your earning ability, you can pump tens of thousands of dollars a year into your pocket. All your knowledge, education, skills and experience contribute toward your earning ability, your ability to get results for which someone will pay good money. And your earning ability is like farmland. If you don't take excellent care of it, if you don't fertilize it and cultivate it and water it on a regular basis, it soon loses its ability to produce the kind of harvest that you desire. Successful men and women are those who are extremely aware of the importance and value of their earning ability, and they work every day to keep it growing and current with the demands of the marketplace. One of the greatest responsibilities in life is to identify, develop and maintain an important marketable skill. It is to become very good at doing something for which there is a strong market demand. In corporate strategy, we call this the development of a "competitive advantage." For a company, a competitive advantage is defined as an area of excellence in producing a product or service that gives the company a distinct edge over its competition. In capitalizing on your strengths, as the president of your own personal services corporation, you also must have a clear competitive advantage. You also must have an area of excellence. You must do something that makes you different from and better than your competitors. Your ability to identify and develop this competitive advantage is the most important thing you do in the world of work. It's the key to maintaining your earning ability. It's the foundation of your financial success. Without it, you're simply a pawn in a rapidly changing environment. But with a distinct competitive advantage, based on your strengths and abilities, you can write your own ticket. You can take charge of your own life. You can always get a job. And the more distinct your competitive advantage, the more money you can earn and the more places in which you can earn it. There are four keys to the strategic marketing of yourself and your services. These are applicable to huge companies such as General Motors, to candidates running for election and to individuals who want to accomplish the very most in the very shortest time. The first of these four keys is specialization. No one can be all things to all people. A "jack-of-all-trades" also is a "master of none." That career path usually leads to a dead end. Specialization is the key. Men and women who are successful have a series of general skills, but they also have one or two areas where they have developed the ability to perform in an outstanding manner. Your decision about how, where, when and why you are going to specialize in a particular area of endeavor is perhaps the most important decision you will ever make in your career. It was well said that if you don't think about the future, you can't have one. The major reason why so many people are finding their jobs eliminated and finding themselves unemployed for long periods of time is because they didn't look down the road of life far enough and prepare themselves well enough for the time when their current jobs would expire. They suddenly found themselves out of gas on a lonely road, facing a long walk back to regular and well-paying employment. Don't let this happen to you. In determining your area of specialization, put your current job aside for the moment, and take the time to look deeply into yourself. Analyze yourself from every point of view. Rise above yourself, and look at your lifetime of activities and accomplishments in determining what your area of specialization could be or should be. And by the way, you might be doing exactly the right job for you at this moment. You already might be capitalizing on all your strengths, and your current work might be ideally suited to your likes and dislikes, to your temperament and your personality. Nevertheless, you owe it to yourself to be continually expanding the scope of your vision and looking toward the future to see where you might want to be going in the months and years ahead. Remember, the best way to predict the future is to create it. You possess special talents and abilities that make you unique, different from anyone else who has ever lived. The odds of there being another person just like you are more than 50 billion to one. Your remarkable and unusual combination of education, experience, knowledge, problems, successes, difficulties and challenges, and your way of looking at and reacting to life, make you extraordinary. You have within you potential competencies and attributes that can enable you to accomplish virtually anything you want in life. Even if you lived for another 100 years, it would not be enough time for you to plumb the depths of your potential. You will never be able to use more than a small part of your inborn abilities. Your main job is to decide which of your talents you're going to exploit and develop to their highest and best possible use right now. So, what is your area of excellence? What are you especially good at right now? If things continue as they are, what are you likely to be good at in the future-say one or two or even five years from now? Is this a marketable skill with a growing demand, or is your field changing in such a way that you are going to have to change as well if you want to keep up with it? Looking into the future, what could be your area of excellence if you were to go to work on yourself and your abilities? What should be your area of excellence if you want to rise to the top of your field, make an excellent living and take complete control of your financial future? When I was 22, I answered an advertisement for a copywriter for an advertising agency. As it happened, I had failed high-school English, and I really had no idea what a copywriter did. I remember the executive who interviewed me and how nice he was at pointing out that I wasn't at all qualified for the job. But something happened to me in the course of the interview process. The more I thought about it, the more I thought how much I would like to write advertising. Having been turned down flat during my first interview, I decided to learn more about the field. I went to the city library and began to check out and read books on advertising and copywriting. Over the next six months, while I worked in a department store, I spent many hours devouring them. At the same time, I applied for copywriting jobs to advertising agencies in the city. I started with the small agencies first. When they turned me down, I asked them why they did so. What was wrong with my application? What did I need to learn more about? What books would they recommend? And to this day, I remember that virtually everyone I spoke with was helpful to me. By the end of six months, I had read every book on advertising and copywriting in the library and applied to every agency in the city, working up from the smallest agency to the very largest in the country. And by the time I had reached that level, I was ready. I was offered jobs as a junior copywriter by both the number-one and number-two agencies in the country. I took the job with the number-one agency and was very successful in a short period of time. The point of this story is that you can become almost anything you need to become, in order to accomplish almost anything you want to accomplish, if you simply decide what it is and then learn what you need to learn. This is such an obvious fact that most people miss it completely. Some years later, I decided that I wanted to get into real-estate development. Again, I went to the library and began checking out and reading all the books on real-estate development. At the time, I had no money, no contacts and no knowledge of the industry. But I knew the great secret: I could learn what I needed to learn so that I could do what I wanted to do. Within 12 months, I had tied up a piece of property with a $100 deposit and a 30-day option. I put together a proposal for a shopping center, and I tentatively arranged for major anchor tenants and several minor tenants that together took up 85 percent of the square footage I had proposed. Then I sold 75 percent of the entire package to a major development company in exchange for the company's putting up all the cash and providing me with the resources and people I needed to manage the construction of the shopping center and the completion of the leasing. Virtually everything that I did I had learned from books written by real-estate experts, books on the shelves of the local library. As you might have noticed, the fields of advertising and copywriting and real-estate development are very different. But these incidents, and every business situation I have been in over the years, had one element in common. Success in each area was based on the decision, first, to specialize in that area and, second, to be extremely knowledgeable in that area so that I could do a good job. In looking at your current and past experiences for an area of specialization, one of the most important questions to ask yourself is, "What activities have been most responsible for my success in life to date?" How did you get from where you were to where you are today? What talents and abilities seemed to come easily to you? What things do you do well that seem to be difficult for most other people? What things do you most enjoy doing? What things do you find most intrinsically motivating? What things make you happy when you are doing them? In capitalizing on your strengths, your level of interest, excitement and enthusiasm about the particular job or activity is a key factor. You'll always do best and make the most money in a field that you really enjoy. It will be an area that you like to think about and talk about and read about and learn about. Successful people love what they do, and they can hardly wait to get to it each day. Doing their work makes them happy, and the happier they are, the more enthusiastically they do it, and the better they do it as well. In capitalizing on your strengths, the second key is differentiation. You must decide what you're going to do to be not only different but also better than your competitors in the field. Remember, you have to be good in only one specific area to move ahead of the pack. And you must decide what that area should be. The third strategic principle in capitalizing on your strengths is segmentation. You have to look at the marketplace and determine where you can best apply yourself, with your unique talents and abilities, to give yourself the highest possible return on energy expended. What customers, companies, markets, can best utilize your special talents and offer you the most in terms of financial rewards and future opportunities? The final key to personal strategic planning is concentration. Once you have decided the area in which you are going to specialize, how you are going to differentiate yourself, and where in the marketplace you can best apply your strengths, your final job is to concentrate all of your energy on becoming excellent there. The marketplace pays extraordinary rewards only for extraordinary performance. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Confident Decision Making" by Brian Tracy Just imagine that someone gave you a simple but powerful computer that had the capacity to answer any question or solve any problem you would ever face. All you would have to do is properly program the problem into the computer. Then, at exactly the right time, it would bring you exactly the answer that you need; the answer would always be perfectly correct for you. The fact is that you already have such a computer, and it's installed right between your ears. The only real difference between extremely effective men and women and men and women who are not happy with their results is the degree to which they use this amazing computer. The wonderful thing is that you can easily learn to use this computer, and when you do, you will immediately start to benefit by making better decisions and getting better results. To begin, it's important for you to understand that your brain is divided into two hemispheres, commonly called the right brain and the left brain. Extensive research suggests that each part of the brain is responsible for specific functions. Your left brain tends to be responsible for linear, sequential, orderly and organized functions. It is practical, analytical and skeptical. It is the part of the brain that deals with categories and concrete things. Your left brain deals with the verbal, the mathematical and the scientific. It is the engineering half of the brain, and it is primarily focused on processing facts in a step-by-step fashion. Your right brain, on the other hand, is very different. Your right brain is holistic and spontaneous. While your left brain deals with individual details, your right brain deals with complete pictures and fully integrated ideas and situations. Your right brain is also in charge of your creative, musical and artistic abilities. It is responsible for dance and singing and laughter. Your right brain is also responsible for the intuitive processes of thinking, feeling, problem solving and decision making. When you learn to harmonize the operations of both of these brains so they work together in cooperation, you begin to perform at exceptional levels. In fact, men and women begin to become great when they begin to utilize the marvelous capacities of the right brain, especially for making important decisions. An intuitive decision, one that comes to you from within, is always superior to anything else that you can arrive at by simply considering the facts and details. An intuitive decision integrates all of your knowledge about a subject simultaneously and gives you an answer that is a superior synthesis to anything that you could have worked out in a step-by-step fashion. This is why the men and women who are at the top of virtually all organizations tend to be extremely intuitive in the way they solve problems and make decisions for themselves and others. Ralph Waldo Emerson called intuition the "still, small voice within." This inner voice is like an unfailing guide or mechanism that always tells you the correct thing to do or say. The more you trust it and believe in it, the better and more accurately it works for you. And your ability to use your intuitive decision-making powers precedes and predicts your success and effectiveness in virtually everything you do. To trigger your intuition and tap into higher levels of your mind on a regular basis, you need to have four mental qualities. The first, as I mentioned, is a complete trust and belief, almost a childlike faith, in your intuition, and the disposition to just "go with the flow" of your inner mind. Your intuition functions effortlessly and works best when you stop trying to make something happen and instead just "let go" and accept whatever solution comes to you. The second mental quality that enables you to use your intuition more efficiently is a positive mental attitude. By this, I mean that you are simply calm, relaxed and cheerful about outcomes. A positive mental attitude has been described as a constructive response to stress and adversity. When you respond in a relaxed, easygoing way, you create the mental climate that enables your brain to function at its best, and this is what triggers your intuition. The third mental quality for enhancing your intuition is an attitude of confident expectation. The more positive and more confident you are, the sharper and quicker your intuitions and solutions will be. So confidently expect things to go well for you. Look for the valuable lesson in every difficulty and adversity. Seek out the advantage or benefit in each setback or obstacle that you face. Your conscious decision to keep your mind focused on the good parts of your situation, coupled with your refusal to dwell on the negative parts, will give you a mind that functions at its best to help you achieve your goals. The fourth mental quality for intuitive decision making is listening. Women tend to be better at listening to their intuition than men are. This is probably why women's intuition is so much more respected than men's intuition is. However, both men and women have the same intuitive abilities. All they have to do is listen to them on a regular basis. Most of our mistakes in life result from ignoring our intuition or refusing to listen to our intuition because we think that by doing so, we will be better off. It always turns out to be a mistake. There are three areas where you can use your intuition continuously to enable you to make better decisions and avoid costly mistakes. The first place where intuition plays a major role is in your personal relationships. Whether it is with your spouse or child or a friend, your intuition will always tell you the right thing to do or say. All you need to do, in any situation, is to quietly turn to your intuition and listen, and then say or do what seems to be the most proper and natural thing to do. In my experience, one of the major reasons for problems in relationships is that one or both parties are ignoring their intuition and refusing to listen to it or act on it. People get into, or out of, relationships, or make decisions in their interactions with others, even when, deep inside, they know that they are doing the wrong thing. And if ever you do the wrong thing from the standpoint of your intuition, you always create a problem that is bigger and more difficult to deal with than if you had made the intuitive decision at the beginning. Many people actually make themselves physically ill by refusing to follow their intuition and do what they know is the right thing to do. A second area where your intuitive decision-making capabilities can be extremely helpful is in business. If you listen quietly, you will always get a good feeling, or intuition, about the right thing to do, or not to do, in every business situation. If you are in sales, when you are with a prospect or a client, you can rely completely on your intuition to tell you what to do and what to say, and when you follow it, you will always find that it is the right thing. Many salespeople have told me of their having a sudden impulse to bring up a particular subject in a sales interview, and later finding that it was exactly the right thing to say at exactly the right time. In fact, all top salespeople tend to trust their intuition and listen to it continuously in their sales work. The third, and perhaps the most obvious, area to use your intuitive abilities is in the area of making choices. Whether you are communicating or negotiating or buying or selling, or accepting or leaving a job, you are always making choices of one kind or another. Some of these choices are not important, but many of them have potentially serious long-term consequences. Accepting a job, or a salary, or going to work for a particular company, at a particular time, can have a significant impact on the whole direction of your life. Investing or spending or borrowing money for any reason can have significant long-term consequences. Any decision that has results that last long after you have made the decision is the kind of decision to which you need to apply your amazing intuitive powers. Fortunately, there are some specific steps that you can take to hone your intuitive mind. Select any area of your life, any problem or situation that you are dealing with at the current time, and begin to program it into your mental computer by taking the following steps. First, define your problem or situation clearly, in writing if possible. Your mind cannot go to work to bring you the right answer if the question itself is jumbled up and unclear. Exactly what are you trying to achieve, avoid or preserve? Is it a single problem, or is it a cluster problem¾a problem made up of several smaller problems? Whichever it is, take some time to think it out and describe it clearly on paper so that you know exactly what you are trying to do. This is the beginning of the intuitive process. Once you have a clear idea of the problem, ask yourself, "What else is the problem?" Are you dealing with a real problem, or are you simply dealing with a symptom of a deeper problem? Many people try to solve a problem with their dissatisfaction at work or in a relationship, but often, the real problem is that they are in the wrong job or relationship altogether. There is an old saying, "There is a price that you can pay to be free of any problem, and you always know what it is." This is just another way of saying that if you listen to your intuition, it will tell you the right thing to do, although the right thing may not be the easy or convenient thing. But you must keep your mind open, in any case. Once you have defined your problem clearly, begin to research and read and gather information about the problem. Has anyone else had this problem before you? What did he do about it? Don't try to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes a little research will turn up exactly the answer you are seeking. For several months, two scientists at the IBM research laboratories in Zurich, Switzerland, had been intensely working on the problems of superconductivity. They knew what they were looking for but were making no progress, so they decided to take a break and come back to the problem later. During the break, one of the scientists went down to the company library and began browsing through a French journal on ceramics. One of the articles told of a new ceramic application that had just been developed. It turned out to be exactly the key that the scientist had been looking for. He immediately took the article back to the laboratory, and by applying the principle, they discovered the secret of superconductivity. It was such an important scientific breakthrough that these two men were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics the following year. Once you have defined your problem clearly and researched it as thoroughly as you can, speak to people who may have information that you can use. It's amazing how much you can learn simply by asking questions of others who may have had similar experiences. If you ask enough people, you can often find yourself in the position of being better informed than any one of them could be, acting in isolation. A friend of mine, who is a management consultant, was employed by a large company to investigate the feasibility of placing a large sum of money in a particular type of real-estate investment. Company executives asked him to evaluate the possibilities nationwide and give them some advice on which direction to go. First of all, he went to the library and got copies of several articles that had been written in this field over the past few months. After reading the articles, he phoned some of the people and companies mentioned in the articles, and told them he was thinking of investing a large amount of money in this industry. He asked them for their insights and their ideas and what advice they would give. Over the next few days, he spoke to about 30 people in different parts of the country, all of whom specialized in this particular industry. Most of them were quite open to giving him whatever information he required, sometimes sending it via Federal Express, because they looked upon him as a prospective investor. By the time he was finished with his inquiries, he was one of the most well-informed people on this subject in the United States. He then summarized his findings and recommendations in a detailed report and submitted it to his client, along with a bill of $30,000 for consulting services. The client read the report and paid the bill willingly. And the consultant went on to his next assignment. Your most valuable asset is your ability to think, and to apply your mind toward getting results. The more you utilize your mental capabilities, by doing the things that other successful people do with their minds, the more successful and prosperous you will be, and the faster it will happen for you. Let's say that you have now defined your problem clearly, read and researched thoroughly, asked others for their advice and input, and written down every single detail of the problem or situation. The very act of writing out all the details often stimulates intuitive breakthroughs that lead to ideas and solutions that are superior to those that are currently being used. Once you have written out the details, go over them several times, and let your mind soak them up so that your right brain is properly fueled to synthesize and integrate all the facts and respond intuitively. If you still have no solution, your next step is to force yourself, discipline yourself, to write out 20 ways in which you think the problem could be solved. Quickly write out 20 solutions, or 20 answers or 20 courses of action, that might be possible. Forcing yourself to think in this way will often trigger your intuition and bring you an answer that will solve the situation perfectly. If you have followed the previous steps and you still have not come up with a solution that satisfies you, take the next step in intuitive decision making, which is called "rumination" or "cerebration." These words refer to the process of dropping all the information into your subconscious mind and then just forgetting about it for a while. During this period, your mind goes to work unconsciously to solve the problem while you are busy doing something else. When they reach a dead end in problem solving or decision making, many people find it helpful to turn the entire matter over to their subconscious mind and simply "ask" for an answer. A good time to do this is just before you go to sleep. Sometimes you will wake up in the morning with the answer springing "full blown" into your mind. In other cases, as long as you keep your mind on other subjects, at a certain point the answer will emerge in its entirety, and you will know exactly what to do. How do you recognize an intuitive decision? How do you know that this is not simply a decision or a solution that will lead to greater problems in the future? Well, there are four indicators that accompany every intuition-based solution or decision. First of all, if the answer is truly from your intuition, it will come in a flash and be complete in every detail, answering every aspect of the problem, from beginning to end. The solution will integrate all of the various details and answer all of the concerns. Second, an intuitive solution seems so simple that you wonder why you had not thought of it before. It feels like a "blinding flash of the obvious." You are amazed at how perfect it is, and you have the feeling that it was lying under your nose all the time. The third indicator of an intuitive decision is that, whatever it is, the actions required are completely within your capabilities and your resources. The solution will be something that you can do right now, with what you have, right where you are. You can act on it immediately. And the fourth indicator is that each intuitive flash or solution comes accompanied by a burst of joy and energy, a feeling of elation, that excites you and makes you happy and makes you feel eager to implement the solution. You will be excited, and you will feel terrific about yourself. Intuitive problem solving and decision making is your key to the future. It is perhaps the most powerful faculty of your brain. And the regular use of your intuitive abilities will make them better and stronger and sharper, until you reach the point where you believe that there is really nothing that you cannot do if you put your mind to it. And you're probably right. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Finding Your True Calling" by Brian Tracy In my courses on time management, I point out that the very worst use of time in life is to stay at a job for months and years for which you are completely unsuited. There are a great number of people who spend their whole lives doing something during the week so that they can somehow find something enjoyable to do on the weekends. In every case, these are men and women with very little future before them. They look upon their jobs as a form of drudgery, a penance they have to pay in order to enjoy the rest of their lives. And because of this attitude, they will seldom advance or be promoted. They will stay pretty much at the level they are, moving from job to job, and always wondering why other people seem to be living the good life while they feel like they are living lives of quiet desperation. People who are not successful and happy in their work are those who have not taken the time to sit down and deal honestly and openly with themselves. They have not looked deep within themselves to find the inner treasures of talent and ability that they have demonstrated throughout their lives. They are content to do work that other people design and to achieve goals that other people have set. Over time, people who are not following their true callings begin to feel helpless. They feel that there is nothing they can do to change things. Their income only rises enough to meet their expenditures, and they worry about money all the time. The future looks to them to be very much the same as the past. But this is not for you. Your aim in life is to become everything you are capable of becoming, to enjoy full self- expression of your talents and abilities. Your job is to develop yourself to the point where every day is a source of joy and satisfaction, and you have so many interesting things to do that you do not have enough time to do them. Your job is to continually hold up a mirror to yourself and refuse to work at anything that is not an expression of everything that is good and capable within you. Success comes from being excellent at what you do. The market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance. It pays average rewards for average performance and below-average rewards and insecurity for below-average performance. But excellence is a journey, not a destination. You never really get there. You can never relax. The market is always changing and what constitutes excellence today will be different tomorrow and very different next year and the year after. All really successful and happy people know in their hearts that they are very good at what they do. If you are doing what you really love and enjoy, if you are following your true calling, you will know because of your attitude toward excellence. When you have found your true calling, nothing but the best will do for you, and you will go any distance, pay any price, overcome any obstacle to develop yourself to the point where you are really good at your occupation. When you find your true calling, you will have a continuous desire to learn more about it. People who are not driven to learn more about their fields are people who are in the wrong jobs. And if a person is in the wrong job and not constantly learning and growing in their field, their value and their employability is diminishing with each passing day. When you find your true calling, you will be determined to join the top 10 percent of people in your field. You will be willing to pay any price that is necessary to rise to the top. You will be willing to start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later. You will take additional courses on the evenings and weekends. You will see technology as an opportunity to do your job better. You will be interested in the various learning programs that you can install on your computer that can help you learn better and faster. You will be hungry for new knowledge in your quest to move upward in your chosen field. A simple test as to whether or not you are in your true calling is this: If you are doing the job that is meant for you, that uses your unique talents and abilities, you will automatically admire those who are at the top of your field. You will look up to them and want to be like them. They will be your role models and you will pattern your work and activities after them. You will want to meet them, talk to them, read their books, and listen to their talks. The very best people in your chosen field will become the examples that give you guidance, both spoken and unspoken, on your upward journey. Throughout the years, I have been continually asked by people what they can do to be more successful. In almost every case, they are working in jobs that they don't like, for bosses they don't particularly respect, producing or selling products or services to customers they don't care about. And many of them think that if they just hang in there long enough, the clouds will part and everything will get better. But the fact is that you are where you are and who you are because you have chosen to be there. Nobody can help you or change your situation for you. The economic goal of your company is to hire people at the very lowest cost so that they can serve customers at the very lowest cost in a competitive market. For this reason, no one has any obligation to pay you any more than you are getting. If possible, they would like to pay you less. The one thing I tell people over and over again is that they must become very good at doing what they are doing if they want to move up. And if they don't have the inner desire to be very good at their jobs, it means they are probably in the wrong jobs. The great tragedy is the number of people who do their job in an average or mediocre fashion with the idea that, when the right job comes along, they will really put their heads down and do a good job. But for some reason, the right job never comes along. They are always passed over for promotion and advancement. They are always the last ones hired and the first ones laid off. If you're still not sure about your true calling, ask the people the closest to you. Ask them, "What do you think I would be the very best at doing with my life?" It is absolutely amazing how people around you, including your spouse, your best friends, and your parents can see clearly what you should be doing when often you cannot see it yourself. Remember, you are put on this earth to do something wonderful with your life. You have within you talents and abilities so vast that you could never use them all if you lived to be a thousand. You have the natural skills and talents that can enable you to overcome any obstacle and achieve any goal you could ever set for yourself. There are no limits on what you can be, have, or do if you can find your true calling, and then throw your whole heart into doing what you are made to do in an excellent fashion. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Forging Your Self Confidence" by Brian Tracy A young woman wrote to me recently, telling me that her whole life had taken a different turn since she heard me ask the question, "What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?" She wrote that, up to that time, this was a question she had never even dared to consider, but now, she thought of nothing else. She had realized, in a great, blinding flash of clarity, that the main thing separating her from her hopes and dreams was the belief in her ability to achieve them. Most of us are like this for most of our lives. There are many things that we want to be, and have and do, but we hold back. We are unsure because we lack the confidence necessary to step out in faith in the direction of our dreams. Abraham Maslow said that the story of the human race is the story of men and women "selling themselves short." Alfred Adler, the great psychotherapist, said that men and women have a natural tendency toward feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. Because we lack confidence, we don't think we have the ability to do the kind of things that others have done, and in many cases, we don't even try. Just think: What difference would it make in your life if you had an absolutely unshakable confidence in your ability to achieve anything you really put your mind to? What would you want and wish and hope for? What would you dare to dream if you believed in yourself with such deep conviction that you had no fears of failure whatsoever? Most people start off with little or no self-confidence, but as a result of their own efforts, they become bold and brave and outgoing. And we've discovered that if you do the same things that other self-confident men and women do, you, too, will experience the same feelings and get the same results. The key is to be true to yourself, to be true to the very best that is in you, and to live your life consistent with your highest values and aspirations. Take some time to think about who you are and what you believe in and what is important to you. Decide that you will never compromise your integrity by trying to be or say or feel something that is not true for you. Have the courage to accept yourself as you really are-not as you might be, or as someone else thinks you should be-and know that, taking everything into consideration, you are a pretty good person. After all, we all have our own talents, skills and abilities that make us extraordinary. No one, including yourself, has any idea of your capabilities or of what you might ultimately do or become. Perhaps the hardest thing to do in life is to accept how extraordinary you really can be, and then to incorporate this awareness into your attitude and personality. In developing unshakable levels of self-confidence, your self-esteem and self-regard are important starting points, but they are not enough. People have tried positive thinking and wishing and hoping for years, with only mixed results. To develop the deep-down kind of self-confidence that leads to victory, you need positive knowing, not just positive thinking. Lasting self-confidence really comes from a sense of control. When you feel very much in control of yourself and your life, you feel confident enough to do and say the things that are consistent with your highest values. Psychologists today agree that a feeling of being "out of control" is the primary reason for stress and negativity and for feelings of inferiority and low self-confidence. And the way for you to get a solid sense of control over every part of your life is to set clear goals or objectives, to establish a sense of direction based on purposeful behavior aimed at predetermined ends. Being true to yourself means knowing exactly what you want and having a plan to achieve it. Lasting self-confidence comes when you absolutely know that you have the capacity to get from where you are to wherever you want to go. You are behind the wheel of your life. You are the architect of your destiny and the master of your fate. Instead of being preoccupied with the fear of failure and loss, as most people are, you focus on the opportunity and the possible gains of achievement. With a clearly defined track to run on, you become success-oriented, and you gradually build your confidence up to the stage where there is very little you will not take on. Another essential way to build your self-confidence, through positive knowing rather than just positive thinking, is to become very good at what you do. The flip side of self-confidence is "self-efficacy," or the ability to perform effectively in your chosen area. You can raise your self-confidence instantly by the simple act of committing yourself to becoming excellent in your chosen field. You immediately separate yourself from the average individual who drifts from job to job and accepts mediocrity as the adequate standard. Some years ago, a young man named Tim came to one of my personal-development seminars. He was shy and introverted. His handshake was weak and he had tremendous difficulty making eye contact. He sat in the back of the seminar room with his head down, taking notes. He seemed to have few friends, and he didn't socialize very much during the breaks. At the end of the seminar, he told me that he was in sales and hadn't been doing very well up to that time. But he had resolved to change, to go to work on himself, to overcome his shyness and to become very good at selling for his company. He then said good-bye, and I wished him the best of luck as he went on his way. A year later, he came back to take the seminar again. But this time, he was distinctly different. He was calmer and more self-assured. He was still a little shy, but when he shook hands, his grip was firmer, and his eye contact was better. He sat toward the middle of the seminar room, and he interacted quietly with people around him. At the end of the seminar, he told me that he was starting to move up in his sales force and had had his best year ever. He was determined to do even better in the year to come. About 14 months later, Tim came back to the seminar. This time, he brought five people from his company, all of whom he had convinced to come to the seminar, and he had offered to pay their tuition if they weren't satisfied. He walked right up to me and shook hands firmly, looking me straight in the eye with a strong, self-confident smile. He asked if I remembered him, and I told him that I remembered him very well. He said that he had brought something that he wanted to show me. He took out of his pocket a letter from the president of a national corporation-one of the biggest companies in the country-personally congratulating him for the outstanding job he had done in sales in his territory in the past year. It turned out that Tim had gone from number 33 to number one out of 42 salespeople. His income had risen from $26,000 a year to $98,000, and he had increased his sales volume at a faster rate than any other salesperson in the country had. He was still quiet, but he had a wonderful air of power and purposefulness about him. He had taken the steps and paid the price to build himself into a fine young man. He had made the decision to do whatever was necessary to overcome his shyness and to develop the kind of personality that he admired in others. He was, and is, in every sense of the word, a self-made man. Perhaps the most wonderful result of developing high levels of self-confidence is the positive impact that your personality will have on your relationships. There are two mental laws that are always operating and that determine much of what happens to you in your interactions with people. The first is the law of attraction, which says that you will inevitably attract into your life people who are very much like you. The second law is the law of correspondence, which says that your outer world of relationships will correspond perfectly, like a mirror image, to your inner world of personality and temperament. In combination, these laws simply say that as you change in a positive direction, you will find yourself surrounded by people who are very much like the new person you are becoming. As you get better, the quality and quantity of your relationships will get better. You will meet nicer, more self-confident, more interesting and enjoyable people. You will find yourself getting along better with members of the opposite sex, including your spouse. You will find yourself doing better at your job, or even in a new job, and getting along better with your boss and your coworkers. Your attitude of confidence and calm assurance will make you more attractive to people. They will want to be around you, to open doors for you, to make opportunities available to you that would not have arisen when you didn't feel as terrific about yourself as you do now. Often, people lack self-confidence in their relationships with others because they judge themselves poorly in comparison. Sometimes you become self-conscious of what you are doing and saying, and sometimes you are afraid that people will not like you or accept you the way you want them to. Well, there is an important mindset that you can adopt to improve your ability to get along well with others in a more relaxed and confident fashion. It's important to remember that no one can affect your thoughts or feelings unless there is something that you want from him, or something that you want him to refrain from doing. As soon as you begin to practice detachment and decide in your own mind that there is nothing that you want or expect from another person, you will find that his ability to shake your self-confidence is greatly reduced. The people who are the most successful in human relationships are those who practice a calm, healthy detachment from others, and although they are friendly and engaged in the conversation, they don't allow the behaviors of others to determine how they think and feel about themselves. As you can see, it is our fears and doubts that, more than anything else, undermine our self-esteem and self-confidence and cause us to think in negative terms about ourselves and our possibilities. As Maslow said, we begin to "sell ourselves short" and see all the reasons why something might not be possible for us. We magnify the difficulties and minimize the opportunities. We become preoccupied with the possible losses we might suffer and the possible criticisms we might endure. Our fears and doubts paralyze us, preventing us from acting boldly, lowering our self-confidence and causing us to think and talk in negative terms. In fact, this probably describes the great majority of mankind. Most people are so preoccupied with their fears that they have time for little else, and this preoccupation manifests itself in much of what they say and do. The only real antidote to doubt and worry and fear and all the other negative emotions that sabotage our self-confidence is action. Your conscious mind can hold only one thought at a time, positive or negative. When you engage in systematic, purposeful action, using and stretching your abilities to the maximum, you cannot help but feel positive and confident about yourself. Act as though it were impossible to fail. Act as though you already had a high level of self-confidence. And continually ask yourself, "What one great thing would I dare to achieve if I knew I could not fail?" Whatever your answer, you can have it if you can dream it, and if you have the self-confidence to go out and get it. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Generating Energy" by Brian Tracy You may have a thousand different goals over the course of your lifetime, but they all will fall into one of four basic categories. Everything you do is an attempt to enhance the quality of your life in one or more of these areas. The first category is your desire for happy relationships. You want to love and be loved by others. You want to have a happy, harmonious home life. You want to get along well with the people around you, and you want to earn the respect of the people you respect. Your involvement in social and community affairs results from your desire to have happy interactions with others and to make a contribution to the society you live in. The second category is your desire for interesting and challenging work. You want to make a good living, of course, but more than that, you want to really enjoy your occupation or profession. The very best times of your life are when you are completely absorbed in your work. The third category is your desire for financial independence. You want to be free from worries about money. You want to have enough money in the bank so that you can make decisions without counting your pennies. You want to achieve a certain financial state so that you can retire in comfort and never have to be concerned about whether or not you have enough money to support your lifestyle. Financial independence frees you from poverty and a need to depend upon others for your livelihood. If you save and invest regularly throughout your working life, you will eventually reach the point where you will never have to work again. The fourth category is your desire for good health, to be free of pain and illness and to have a continuous flow of energy and feelings of well-being. In fact, your health is so central t your life that you take it for granted until something happens to disrupt it. The common denominator of these four goals, and the essential requirement for achieving each of them, is a high level of energy. The achievement of even a small amount of success in any one of these areas requires the development and expenditure of energy. Energy is a critical fuel and the one ingredient without which no other accomplishment is possible. The aim of strategic planning for corporations is to find ways to organize the business to increase ROE, return on equity. ROE refers to the return on the capital invested in the enterprise. By shifting resources from areas of lower value to areas of higher potential value, the ROE in the business an be increased. In personal strategic planning, the aim is similar. It is also to increase ROE, but in this case, ROE stands for return on energy. All the work on personal development, self-improvement, goal setting, and time management is aimed at helping you to increase your return on energy, or as my friend Ken Blanchard calls it, "your return on life." You are continually organizing and reorganizing your time and your resources so that you can get the very most pleasure, satisfaction, and rewards from the time and energy you put into your activities on a day-to-day basis. Whereas companies have financial capital, you have human capital. Your human capital is composed of mental, emotional, and physical energy. The more energy you have to invest, and the more intelligently you invest it, the greater will be your rewards. It is not the amount of time that you spend at your work or on your relationships that matters. Rather, it is the amount of yourself that you put into the time. If you have gone to bed late, gotten up early, and gone to work tired, you may be physically present for eight hours, but the quality and quantity of work that you can accomplish during that period of time is compromised. You'll achieve only a small percentage of your potential productivity compared with what you can accomplish when you are fully rested and filled with enthusiasm. In every area of your life, it is the quality of the time that you put into your activities that determines the rewards and satisfaction that you receive from them; this depends upon your energy level. Building and sustaining your energy level is imperative. Since your energy is central to everything you accomplish, you should be very sensitive to things that either build or deplete it. Here are six keys to building and maintaining a high level of energy and vitality: Proper weight. Carrying extra weight on your body is like carrying a pack loaded with bricks on your back - uphill. Excess weight tires you out. It taxes your heart, your lungs, and your muscles. Extra weight forces your body to burn up more energy than it normally would just to maintain life and proper functioning. On the other hand, losing weight will increase your energy level almost immediately. Your self-esteem will go up. You will feel healthier and happier. As you lose weight, you will feel a greater sense of power and personal control. When you reach your ideal weight, you will be more effective in everything else you do. Proper diet. The foods you eat have a tremendous impact on your energy level throughout the day. Changes in your diet can make you feel fresher, more alive, more alert, and filled with greater vitality than you can imagine. The way to live to a ripe, happy, healthy old age is to shift the proportions of food you eat so you are consuming more fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain products. When you get used to eating highly nutritious foods, you'll be less willing to eat foods that are not particularly good for you. Proper exercise. The more regularly you exercise, the more energy you have, the better you feel, and the longer you will live. Regular exercise enhances your digestion, reduces the number of hours that you need to sleep, and increases your vitality in the physical, mental, and emotional realms. There are three basic types of exercise: flexibility, strength, and endurance. Flexibility exercises, such as yoga, require gentle stretching of all your muscles and the articulation of each of your joints each day. The more you stretch your muscles on a regular basis, the more relaxed, coordinated, and looser you will feel. Strength exercises include calisthenics, weight lifting, and other exercises that build your muscles. But perhaps the most important are endurance, or aerobic, exercises. One of the keys to long life and good health is aerobic exercise at least three times per week for a minimum of 30 minutes per time. You can achieve aerobic fitness by walking, running, swimming, cycling, rowing, or cross-country skiing. The important thing is that you exercise at least three times per week - and many people say five times per week - for the rest of your life. This will affect your levels of health and energy in everything else you do. Everything counts. Proper rest and recreation. On average, you need seven to eight hours of good, solid sleep each night. Some people can get by on less. But you should plan and organize your evenings so that you are "early to bed and early to rise." Remember, nature demands balance in all things. If you are going to work hard during the day, you must take time off to rest and recuperate in the evenings and on the weekends. The more balance you have between work and recreation, the more energy you will have and the more productive you will be. Proper breathing. By breathing, I mean deep diaphragmatic breathing, where you fill your lungs to the count of 10, hold to the count of 10, and then exhale to the count of 10. If you do this seven to 10 times, two or three times per day, you will be amazed at how much fresher and more relaxed you feel. Proper attitude. Positive Mental Attitude seems to go hand in hand with great achievement and success in every walk of life. The more positive you are, the more energy you have. The more positive you are, the happier you are. The more positive you are, the more positive are the people and situations you attract into your life. The more positive you are, the easier it seems for you to get the cooperation of other people. The more positive you are, the more effectively you perform. On the other hand, negative emotions drain your energy, enthusiasm, and vitality. They tire you out and depress your immune system. Bouts of fear, anger, doubt, resentment, or guilt will be manifested in your physical body. Keep your energy level high by always looking for the good in every person, in every situation. Seek the valuable lesson in every setback or adversity. Look for the equal or greater benefit that comes out of every disappointment. Be a perennial optimist. Be cheerful and positive. Be helpful and supportive. Be a source of encouragement and inspiration. Be the kind of person everybody looks forward to seeing and talking to. Every success is the result of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of tiny efforts that nobody may ever see or appreciate. These tiny efforts, sacrifices, and disciplines accumulate to make you an extraordinary person. Everything that you do counts in some way. Nothing is neutral. Everything either helps you or hurts you. Everything either adds up or takes away. Everything either propels you toward your goal or moves you away from it. Everything counts. With regard to your levels of health and energy, everything that you do, or don't do, will have an impact on how you feel and how you perform. And the results of all these activities are cumulative. People who are healthy and energetic in their 50s and 60s were engaging in positive health habits in their 20s and 30s. People who live a long, healthy, happy life into their 80s are people who began planning for it and disciplining themselves in their 30s and 40s. Everything counts. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Getting Your Ideas Across" by Brian Tracy Over the years, I've learned that fully 85 percent of what you accomplish in your career and in your personal life will be determined by how well you get your message across and by how capable you are of inspiring people to take action on your ideas and recommendations. You can be limited in other respects by education, contacts and intelligence, but if you can interact effectively with others, minute by minute and hour by hour, your future can be unlimited. I an going to share with you some ideas, techniques and skills that you can use to accelerate your progress toward power communication. But first, there are two major myths about communication that must be dispelled. The first myth, which many people believe, is that because they can talk, they can communicate with others. Men especially, according to the research, think that by speaking louder and faster, they're more effective in dealing with people. Many people think that because they have the gift of gab, because they have no problem talking to others on any subject that comes to mind, they're good communicators. Often, exactly the opposite is true. Many people who talk a lot are often poor communicators even terrible communicators. Many people in sales and business think that being able to string a lot of words together in a breathless fashion makes them excellent at getting a message understood by others. However, in most cases, those people are seen as boring or obnoxious, or both. Let me say this slowly and clearly: The ability to talk is not the same as the ability to communicate. As I will discuss later, the ability to communicate is the ability both to send and to receive a message. The ability to communicate is the ability to make an impact on the thoughts, feelings and actions of someone. Many people who consider themselves excellent talkers are not very effective at all in this regard. So let's dispel the first myth, the myth that talking is equal to communicating. Don't allow yourself to become complacent. The ability to talk to one or more persons is only the basic requirement for communication. It's the starting point. It's the jumping-off place. Effective communication is something else again. The second myth about effective communication is that it's a skill that people are born with. Either you have it or you don't have it. If you're not extroverted, gregarious and outgoing, you don't have what it takes to be a good communicator. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. Communication is a skill that you can learn. it's like riding a bicycle or typing. It takes time and practice, over and over. But if you're willing to work at it, you can rapidly improve the quality of every part of your life, as you will soon see. Communication requires both a sender and a receiver. The process of communication happens rapidly, and this same process takes place whenever two or more people exchange ideas. First, the sender thinks of an idea or image that he or she wishes to convey to the receiver. The sender then translates the idea or image into a form, or words, either written or spoken. Those words constitute the basic message that is transmitted to the receiver. The receiver catches the words, like a baseball player catches a baseball, and then translates the words into the ideas and pictures that they represent in order to understand the message that was sent. The receiver then acknowledges receipt, and replies by translating his or her ideas and pictures into words and transmitting them to the sender. When the message has been sent and the receiver has acknowledged receiving it by transmitting a response that the sender receives, accepts and understands, the communication is complete. If this sounds complicated, it is. Probably 99 percent of all the difficulties between human beings, and within organizations, are caused by breakdowns in the communication process. Either the senders do not say what they mean clearly enough, or the receivers do not receive the message in the form in which it was intended. An enormous number of factors can interfere in any communication, and every one of them can lead to a distortion of the message in some way. Probably every problem you'll ever have will be somehow associated with a failure or breakdown in the communication process. Let me explain. According to Albert Mehrabian, a communications specialist, there are three elements in any direct, face-to-face communication: words, tone of voice and body language. You've probably heard that words account for only 7 percent of the message, tone of voice accounts for 38 percent of the message, and body language accounts for fully 55 percent of the message. For an effective communication to take place, all three parts of the message must be congruent. If there is any incongruency, the receiver will be confused and will tend to accept the predominant form of communication rather than simply the literal meaning of the words. Very often, you will say something that you feel is innocuous to a person and he will be offended. When you try to explain that you felt the words you used were inoffensive, the person will tell you that your tone of voice was the issue. The third ingredient of communication, body language, is also very important. The way you sit or stand or incline your head or move your eyes, relative to the person with whom You're communicating, will have an enormous effect on the message received. For example, you can dramatically increase the effect of your communications by leaning toward the person You're speaking with. If You're sitting down, this is easy. If You're standing up, you can accomplish the same effect by shifting your weight forward onto the balls of your feet and leaning slightly toward the person You're talking to. When you make direct eye and face contact with the person, combined with focused attention, you double the impact of what You're saying. In fact, one of the easiest ways for you to break off a conversation, almost like knocking a needle off a phonograph record, is by just turning away from a person and looking into the distance when he is speaking. That will usually abruptly cause the person to stop speaking. He will feel that he's just been abandoned in the middle of the conversation. So your choice of words is important, but even more important is your tone of voice and your body language. The better you can coordinate all three of those ingredients, the more impact your message will have, and the greater will be the likelihood that a person will both understand it and react the way you want him to. You've heard the saying that God gave man two ears and one mouth, and in conversation, you should use them in those proportions. Truer words were never spoken. The best communicators are excellent listeners. The worst communicators are continuous talkers. In fact, often the most important part of the message is the part that is conveyed by the pauses you make between thoughts and ideas. The message is conveyed in the silence that takes place during the lulls in conversation. All master communicators have learned to be comfortable with silence. Remember that a person can absorb only a certain amount of information, as ground can absorb only a certain amount of water. If you pour too much water onto the ground, it will form into puddles instead of soak in. A person's mind is very much the same. If you don't give someone an opportunity to absorb what you're saying, by pausing and waiting quietly and patiently, he will be overwhelmed by the continuous stream of thoughts and ideas, and often will distort the message and miss the point. One of the most vital requirements for effective communication, especially with important messages, is preparation. Preparation is the mark of the true professional. The late Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant of the University of Alabama football team was famous for saying, "It's not the will to win but the will to prepare to win that counts." In all communications, the will to prepare in advance of talking and interacting with people is the key to achieving maximum effectiveness. In high school and college debating, where the individuals and teams are judged on the effectiveness of their ability to get their ideas across and to win their points, they're taught to prepare exhaustively. Especially, they're taught to prepare the debate from the point of view of the opposition before they prepare their own arguments. Lawyers were taught to do this in law school. Before they go into court, lawyers think through every possible piece of evidence or information that favors the opposing party. They then prepare their arguments in such a way as to undermine what they think the opposing party will present as its strongest point. Remember that in communicating, people do things for their own reasons, not for yours. Everyone's favorite radio station is WIIFM, which means "What's in it for me?" The more important the communication, either in business or personal life, the more important it is to prepare for it. Think through where the other person is coming from. What is his or her point of view? What are his or her problems or concerns? What is he or she trying to accomplish? What is his or her level of knowledge or information about the subject under discussion? The best communicators do not use a lot of words, but they choose their words carefully, in advance. People appreciate straight talking. Avoid the tendency to dress up your message and sugarcoat it. When you have a question or a concern, or you want something, come right out and say it without confusion or distortion. You'll be amazed at how much better you feel and how much more positively someone will respond to your message. In getting your point across, perhaps the most important word of all is the word ask. The most effective people are those who are the best at asking for what they want. They ask questions to uncover real needs and concerns. They ask questions to illuminate objections and problems that people might have with what They're suggesting. They ask questions to expand the conversation and to increase their understanding of where people are really coming from. You get your message understood by getting out of yourself, by putting your ego aside, and by focusing all of your attention on the other person. You get people to do the things you want them to do by presenting your arguments in terms of their interests, in terms of what they want to be and have and do. You prepare thoroughly in advance of any important conversation. You think before you speak, and you think on paper. You can say almost anything if you say it, or ask it, pleasantly, positively and with courtesy and friendliness. The ability to communicate is a skill that you can learn by becoming genuinely interested in people and by putting their needs ahead of your own when sending a message or asking them to do something for you. When you concentrate your attention on building trust, on the one hand, and on seeking to understand, on the other hand, You'll become known and respected as an effective communicator everywhere you go. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Increasing Your Earning Potential" by Brian Tracy Throughout most of human history, we have been accustomed to evolution, or the gradual changing and progressing of events in a straight line. Sometimes the process of change was faster and sometimes it was slower, but it almost always seemed to be progressive, from one step to the other, allowing you some opportunities for planning, predicting and changing. Today, however, the rate of change is not only faster than ever before, but it is discontinuous. It is taking place in a variety of unconnected areas and affecting each of us in a variety of unexpected ways. Changes in information processing technologies are happening separately from changes in medicine, changes in transportation, changes in education, changes in politics and changes in global competition. Changes in family formation and relationships are happening separately from the rise and fall of new businesses and industries in different parts of the country. And if anything, this rate of accelerated, discontinuous change is increasing. As a result, most of us are already suffering from what Alvin Toffler once called, "future shock." You can't do very much about the enormity of these changes, but the one thing that you can do is to think seriously about yourself and your basic need for security and stability. In no area is this more important than in the areas of job security and financial security. You must give special attention to your ability to make a good living and provide for yourself in the months and years ahead. Above all, to position yourself for tomorrow, you must think continuously and seriously about your work today, your earning ability , and the work that you will be doing one, three, and five years from today. You must plan to achieve your own financial security, no matter what happens. Charles Kettering said that you should give a lot of thought to the future because that is where you are going to spend the rest of your life. One of the greatest mistakes that people can make, and the one with the worst long-term consequences, is to think only about the present and give very little thought to what might happen in the months and years ahead. When our grandfathers started work, it was quite common for them to get a basic education and then go to work for a company and stay with that same company for the rest of their working lives. When our parents went to work, it was more common for them to change jobs three or four times during their lifetime, although it was difficult and disruptive. Today, with increased turbulence and change in the national and global economy, a person starting work can expect to have five full-time careers between the ages of 21 and 65, and 14 full-time jobs lasting two years or more. According to Fortune Magazine, fully 40 percent of American employees in the 21st Century will be "contingency" workers. This means that they will never work permanently for another company. They will continue to move as needed, from company to company, from job to job, earning less money than full-time employees and accruing very few, if any, benefits in terms of health care and pension plans. Imagine what your job will look like five years from today. Since knowledge in your field is probably doubling every five years, this means that fully twenty percent of your knowledge and your ability in your field is becoming obsolete each year. In five years, you will be doing a brand new job with brand new skills and abilities. Ask yourself, "What parts of my knowledge, skills and work are becoming obsolete? What am I doing today that is different than what I was doing one year ago and two years ago?" What are you likely to be doing one year, two years, three years, four years and five years from today? What knowledge and skills will you need and how will you acquire them? What is your plan for your economic and financial future? We are now in the knowledge age. Today, the chief factors of production are knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge to achieving results for other people. Your earning ability today is largely dependent upon your knowledge, skill and your ability to combine that knowledge and skill in such a way that you contribute value for which customers are going to pay. The Law of Three says that you must contribute three dollars of profit for every dollar that you wish to earn in salary. It costs a company approximately double your salary to employ you in terms of space, benefits, supervision, and investment in furniture, fixtures, and other resources. For a company to hire you, they have to make a profit on what they pay you. Therefore, you must contribute value greatly in excess of the amount you earn in order to stay employed. To put it another way, your earning ability must be considerably greater than the amount you are receiving, or you will find yourself looking for another job. To position yourself for tomorrow, here is one of the most important rules you will ever learn: "The future belongs to the competent." The future belongs to those men and women who are very good at what they do. Pat Riley, in his book The Winner Within, wrote that, "If you are not committed to getting better at what you are doing, you are bound to get worse." To phrase it another way, anything less than a commitment to excellent performance on your part is an unconscious acceptance of mediocrity. It used to be that you needed to be excellent to rise above the competition in your industry. Today, you must be excellent even to keep your job in your industry. The marketplace is a stern task master. Today, excellence, quality, and value are absolutely essential elements of any product or service, and of the work of any person. Your earning ability is largely determined by the perception of excellence, quality, and value that others have of you and what you do. The market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance. It pays average rewards for average performance, and it pays below average rewards or unemployment for below average performance. Customers today want the very most and the very best for the very least amount of money, and on the best terms. Only the individuals and companies that provide absolutely excellent products and services at absolutely excellent prices will survive. It's not personal. It's just the way our economy works. To earn more, you must learn more. You are maxed out today at your current level of knowledge and skill. However much you are earning at this moment is the maximum you can earn without learning and practicing something new and different. And here's the rub. Your accumulated knowledge and experience is becoming obsolete bit by bit, day by day. The knowledge in your field is doubling every three to five years. That means that your knowledge must double every three to five years just for you to stay even. The solution to the dilemma of unavoidable change and restructuring is continuous self-development. Your personal knowledge and your ability to apply that knowledge are your most valuable assets. To stay on top of your world, you must continually add to your knowledge and your ability. You must continually build up your mental assets if you want to enjoy a continuous return on your investment. And only by building on your current assets do you stop them from deteriorating. By engaging in continuous self-improvement, you can put yourself behind the wheel of your own life. By dedicating yourself to enhancing your earning ability, you will automatically be engaging in the continuous process of personal development. By learning more, you prepare yourself to earn more. You position yourself for tomorrow by developing the knowledge and skills that you need to be a valuable and productive part of our economy, no matter which direction it goes. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Increasing Your Value" by Brian Tracy We are living in an economic age for which most people are largely unprepared. Massive shifts in economic activities and incredible dislocations of businesses and industries are taking place all over the country. Being either an employer or an employee today is like being a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. Your goal is to organize your life in such a way that you enjoy a good income, a high standard of living, and that you are the master of your economic destiny rather than a victim of changing economic times. In 1945, at the end of World War II, America and Americans entered into a golden age that had never existed before and will never exist again. Those of us who grew up during this golden age developed a particular way of looking at the world that was greatly influenced by what was going on in America at the time. We developed certain assumptions about our lives and about business in general, and we have a hard time giving them up. But give them up we must if we are going to survive in the economy of the future. At the end of World War II, America and American industry dominated the world. We had not only abundant natural resources but also advanced technology, an intact industrial base, most of the money in the world, an advanced educational system, millions of competent workers, and a fully integrated system of roads, schools, hospitals, cities, and farms. It was said that America got rich by coming late into two world wars, and it was certainly true in the late '40s and '50s. Meanwhile, the rest of the industrialized world, in both Europe and the Far East, was bombed to rubble. Our industrial and economic competitors had been ravaged by war. For this reason, anything that American factories produced found a ready market, both nationally and internationally. The economy took off. There was good-paying work for everyone. The '50s became an age of expanding prosperity, tremendous job security, and opportunities for all. In this economic environment, anyone could get a job. Not only that, but there were plenty of low-skill jobs that paid high salaries and benefits for average work. A working person in America could have a nice house, a car, maybe two cars and eventually a motor home, a boat, and all the other trappings of the good life. After a few years of this robust, expanding economy with opportunities and jobs for all, Americans began to accept the good life as their birthright. People began to feel that because they were born in America, they were entitled to the good life, whether or not they worked hard. The Unions took full advantage of this mind-set and negotiated ever higher wages and benefits from American manufacturers. The increased costs of the products and services were simply passed on to the customers. Since the rest of the industrial world was still rebuilding, the only products to buy were American products. And since American consumers were also workers who were making good wages, as prices went up, sales also went up. But by the '60s, the world was already changing. Our industrial competitors, especially Germany and Japan, had begun to rebuild and to manufacture and export products. Competition for the good life began to emerge all over the world. The pace began to pick up, slowly. The average American wasn't aware of it, but the golden age was coming to an end. In the '70s, America began to be flooded with high-quality products from all over the world. American companies and American working people had become complacent with their captive markets and had let their quality deteriorate. Low-price, high-quality products coming in from Japan, Germany and other countries began to take sizable chunks of the market. The affected industries cried out to government for protection, which was just another way of selling higher-priced goods to captive customers. And it didn't work. By the '80's, we were in a real race. Everyone in the world wanted to enjoy the same living standards Americans had. And people were willing to work long hours and produce high-quality goods and services in order to achieve those living standards. We lost our advantage in natural resources. We lost our edge in technology. And we lost our edge in capital. Today, any change in economic policy anywhere, in any country, instantly causes capital to flow in or out of the affected areas. Countries can not even control the value of their currencies. The one edge that America maintained is that we have the most productive workforce in the world. America and Americans produce more goods and services per capita than any other country. But there is a race on, and we are in it, and if you want to be employed in a good job for the indefinite future, you must get in and start competing as you have never done before. Your job is an opportunity to contribute a value to your company in excess of your cost. In its simplest terms, your job is as secure as your ability to render value in excess of what it costs to keep you on the payroll. If you want to earn more money at your current job, you have to increase your value, your contribution to the enterprise. If you want to get a new job, you have to find a way to contribute value to that enterprise. If you want any kind of job security, you must continually work at maintaining and increasing your value in the competitive marketplace. And here's a key point. Your education, knowledge, skills and experience all are investments in your ability to contribute a value for which you can be paid. But they are like any other investments. They are highly speculative. Once you have learned a subject or developed a skill, it is a sunk cost. It is time and money spent that you cannot get back. No employer in the marketplace has any obligation to pay you for it, unless he can use your skill to produce a product or service that people are ready to buy, today. Whatever job you are doing, you should be preparing for your next job. And the key question is always: Where are the customers? Which businesses and industries are growing in this economy, and which ones are declining? I continually meet people who ask me how they can increase their income when their entire industry is shrinking. I tell them that there are jobs with futures and there are jobs without futures, and they need to get into a field that is expanding, not contracting. There are three forms of unemployment in America: voluntary, non-voluntary, and frictional. Voluntary employment exists when a person decides not to work for a certain period of time, or not to accept a particular type of job, hoping that something better will come along. Non-voluntary unemployment exists when a person is willing and able to work but cannot find a job anywhere. Frictional unemployment is the natural level; this includes the approximately 4 or 5 percent of the working population who are between jobs at any given time. However, there are always jobs for the creative minority. You never have to be unemployed if you will do one of three things: change the work that you are offering to do, change the place where you are offering to work, or change the amount that you are asking for your services. If there is no demand for your particular skills and experience, you will have to learn to do something else and provide skills that are in demand at the time. Employers don't care about your past. They care only about your future and your ability to contribute value to their customers. You can change your location. Sometimes you will have to move from one part of the country to another, from where there are few jobs to where there are more jobs. Many people transform their entire lives by moving from an area of high unemployment to an area of low unemployment. The third thing you can do to get back into the work force is to lower your demands. Remember, because your labor is a commodity, it is subject to the laws of supply and demand. If you ask too much, people will not hire you, because customers will not pay your demands in the price of the product or service that your organization produces. It is not the employer who is forcing this downward revision in wage requirements; it is the customer, through his or her buying behavior. There is a small, creative minority in America who are never unemployed. No matter what happens, they always have a job, sometimes two jobs. If they lose a particular position in one place, they find another position doing the same thing, or something else, somewhere else. They are fast on their feet. They move quickly and they don't accept unemployment as an option. And they always have jobs. There are always jobs to be done. Even in the worst economy, there are always problems to be solved and consumer needs to be met. For this reason, all long-term unemployment is ultimately voluntary. There are more opportunities for you to fulfill your dreams and aspirations in the American economy than have ever before existed, or than exist anywhere else in the world. You can be, have, or do anything that you can dream of by preparing yourself for better and better jobs. It is never crowded at the top. There are no traffic jams on the extra mile. Your job is to get good, get better, and then make yourself indispensable. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Living Without Limits" by Brian Tracy The starting point of great success and achievement has always been the same. It is for you to dream big dreams. There is nothing more important, and nothing that works faster than for you to cast off your own limitations than for you to begin dreaming and fantasizing about the wonderful things that you can become, have, and do. As a wise man once said, "You must dream big dreams, for only big dreams have the power to move the minds of men." When you begin to dream big dreams, your levels of self-esteem and self-confidence will go up immediately. You will feel more powerful about yourself and your ability to deal with what happens to you. The reason so many people accomplish so little is because they never allow themselves to lean back and imagine the kind of life that is possible for them. A powerful principle that you can use to dream big dreams and live without limits is contained in what Elihu Goldratt calls the "Theory of Constraints." This is one of the greatest breakthroughs in modern thinking. What Goldratt has found is that in every process, in accomplishing any goal, there is a bottleneck or choke cord that serves as a constraint on the process. This constraint then sets the speed at which you achieve any particular goal. What Goldratt found is that if you concentrate all of your creative energies and attention on alleviating the constraint, you can speed up the process faster than by doing any other single thing. Let me give you an example. Let us say that you want to double your income. What is the critical constraint or the limiting factor that holds you back? Well, you know that your income is a direct reward for the quality and quantity of the services you render to your world. Whatever field you are in, if you want to double your income, you simply have to double the quality and quantity of what you do for that income. Or you have to change activities and occupations so that what you are doing is worth twice as much. But you must always ask yourself, "What is the critical constraint that holds me back or sets the speed on how fast I double my income?" A friend of mine is one of the highest-paid commission professionals in the United States. One of his goals was to double his income over the next three to five years. He applied the 80/20 rule to his client base. He found that 20 percent of his clients contributed 80 percent of his profits, and that the amount of time spent on a high-profit client was pretty much the same amount of time spent on a low-profit client. In other words, he was dividing his time equally over the number of tasks that he does while only 20 percent of those items contributes 80 percent of his results. So he drew a line on his list of clients under those who represented the top 20 percent and then called in other professionals in his industry and very carefully, politely, and strategically handed off the 80 percent of his clients that only represented 20 percent of his business. He then put together a profile of his top clients and began looking in the marketplace exclusively for the type of client who fit the profile; in other words, one who could become a major profit contributor to his organization, and whom he in turn could serve with the level of excellence that his clients were accustomed to. And instead of doubling his income in three to five years, he doubled it in the first year! So what is holding you back? Is it your level of education or skill? Is it your current occupation or job? Is it your current environment or level of health? Is it the situations that you are in today? What is setting the speed for you achieving your goal? Remember, whatever you have learned, you can unlearn. Whatever situation you have gotten yourself into, you can probably get yourself out of. If your real goal is to dream big dreams and to live without limits, you can set this as your standard and compare everything that you do against it. The three keys to living without limits have always been the same. They are clarity, competence, and concentration. Clarity means that you are absolutely clear about who you are, what you want, and where you're going. You write down your goals and you make plans to accomplish them. You set very careful priorities and you do something every day to move you toward your goals. And the more progress you make toward accomplishing things that are important to you, the greater self-confidence and self-belief you have, and the more convinced you become that there are no limits on what you can achieve. Competence means that you begin to become very, very good in the key result areas of your chosen field. You apply the 80/20 rule to everything you do and you focus on becoming outstanding in the 20 percent of tasks that contribute to 80 percent of your results. You dedicate yourself to continuous learning. You never stop growing. You realize that excellence is a moving target. And you commit yourself to doing something every day that enables you to become better and better at doing the most important things in your field. Concentration is having the self-discipline to force yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important thing, and stay with it until it's complete. The two key words for success have always been focus and concentration. Focus is knowing exactly what you want to be, have, and do. Concentration is persevering, without diversion or distraction, in a straight line toward accomplishing the things that can make a real difference in your life. When you allow yourself to begin to dream big dreams, creatively abandon the activities that are taking up too much of your time, and focus your inward energies on alleviating your main constraints, you start to feel an incredible sense of power and confidence. As you focus on doing what you love to do and becoming excellent in those few areas that can make a real difference in your life, you begin to think in terms of possibilities rather than impossibilities, and you move ever closer toward the realization of your full potential. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Mental Cross Training" by Brian Tracy World-class athletes have known for many years that the only way that they can perform at their very peak is by developing all of their various muscles and abilities in a balanced way. In its simplest form, physical cross-training requires that you work on endurance, strength, and flexibility in a rotating format. When I was lifting weights as a young man, it was quite standard for us to work on the muscle groups that were less developed to keep them growing in balance with those muscle groups that were further ahead. In mental cross-training, you must do the same thing with your repertoire of knowledge and skills. First of all, you need to determine the subjects that you have to be good at in order to be in the top ten or 20 percent in your field. Your job is to make the decision, right now, to go all the way to the top. And the fortunate thing is that, if anyone else has done it, you can do it as well. You simply need to follow in their tracks. Harvard Business Review did a study some years ago on a subject that they called, "Critical Success Factors." The idea of critical success factors revolved around the discovery that to dominate any field of endeavor there are seldom more than five to seven skill areas that you absolutely, positively have to be good at. There may be a hundred or a thousand things that you have to do, but there are basically only five to seven areas where you need to commit yourself to excellent performance in order to move way ahead of the rest of the field. These critical success factors are where you begin your program of mental cross-training. If you are in sales, for example, your seven critical success factors may be prospecting, getting appointments, establishing a relationship with the client, identifying the problem that the client has that your product or service will solve, presenting your product or service as the solution, closing the sale, and personal management. You will have to be absolutely, positively excellent in every one of these areas for you to be a great success in selling any product or service in any market. And here's one of the most important discoveries about mental cross-training. If you are weak in any one critical area, that one area will set the height at which you use all your other skills. It will be the chief factor that determines your income and your level of success in your field. If you are absolutely excellent in six out of seven critical success factors but you are terrible in the seventh, you will be held back from ever realizing your full potential in whatever it is you do. Let me give you an example. Let's say that you are absolutely excellent in every single part of selling except prospecting. Because of fear or negativity or competition in the marketplace, you are poor at getting appointments with new prospects who can and will buy your product or service. You may be outstanding at everything else but if you can't get in front of people, you will ultimately fail. In another example, let's say you are good at prospecting and getting appointments and establishing rapport, but when it comes to actually getting the client to take action or to closing the sale, you tense up, you are unable to do it, and you leave empty-handed. Again, you could be outstanding at everything except closing the sale and that alone will sabotage your entire career. If you are in sales, or in any other field, here's an action strategy for assessing your current level of performance. First, identify your critical success factors, the key areas in which you must be excellent if you want to be successful. Then give yourself a score from one to ten¾with one being the lowest and ten being the highest¾in each area. You will find that areas in which you have given yourself a low score are primary areas of stress, frustration, anxiety, and underachievement in whatever it is you are doing. You need to have a score above seven in every area for you to perform excellently in a well-balanced way. It is essential that you be perfectly honest with yourself. It will do you no good to pretend that you are good at something when in reality it is interfering with your success in your career. Once you have worked out your critical success factors and you have given yourself a score in each of the five to seven areas, take your score to someone who knows you and ask him or her to score you. The best person for this is your boss, but if you have a friendly customer, ask if he or she will give you a score as well. If you are in management, there will also be seven critical success factors that determine your level of achievement in your position. They could be a variety of skills but the most common, what I call the "big seven", are planning, organizing, staffing, delegating, supervising, innovating, and reporting. If you are poor in any one of these seven areas, that could be sufficient, in itself, to hold you back from using all your other talents. Fortunately, if you feel that you are not particularly good in a critical success factor area, like delegating, you can read books, listen to tapes, and take courses, thereby bringing up your skills to above seven out of ten so that this area is no longer a problem for you. In mental cross-training, the areas where you are weak are the sources of your major problems in your career. They are the areas that preoccupy you and concern you the most. And they are often in the activity areas where you get the worst results. You are likely to become anxious when it comes to performing those activities. If you are not careful, you will have a tendency to avoid performing in those areas, or even go one step further and convince yourself that you are already quite good in those areas. This is why it is so important that you ask other people around you to evaluate you in an objective way and tell you how well they think you are doing. There is a new management technique that is becoming quite popular throughout the country. It is called the "360 Degree Method." In this managerial method, managers and subordinates are evaluated by all the people who work around them. Questionnaires are sent out to everyone within an organization, and each person is asked to evaluate their superiors and their subordinates. These questionnaires are then collected and analyzed for presentation at a meeting where each person sits in the middle of a 360 degree circle and is critiqued and evaluated by all the people with whom he or she works. If this is done properly, it is extremely helpful to people. It comes as a great shock to most people that in areas where they think they are quite good, their coworkers and subordinates think they are quite poor. For example, I had an executive working for me some years ago who felt that he was absolutely excellent at hiring people. He would not take any advice or input from anyone. He made his hires from the seat of his pants. And every single person that he hired turned out to be a disaster. Eventually, his right and authority to hire people had to be removed completely. This inability to learn how to properly interview and select the right people eventually proved to be fatal in his career. He had to go back to working on his own because he was simply incapable of picking people to work with him, no matter what position he had. So here's the question: What are the areas you need to work on to bring yourself up to a high level of performance? If you are not sure, have the courage and the honesty to go to other people and ask for their feedback. Remember, feedback is the breakfast of champions. You can't get better unless someone is willing to give you an honest critique and help you see yourself as you really are. If you are in sales, it is absolutely essential that you get your sales manager or someone else to go out with you at least once per month for an entire day to evaluate your sales performance. When this person comes out, he or she should sit there quietly and say nothing, just watching the way you interact with the customer. Afterward, this person should tell you exactly what he or she saw, both the good and the bad. Unless you have this kind of honest feedback, it is impossible for you to improve. But once you get this feedback, instead of being defensive, make a decision to go to work on yourself and improve that skill area so that it is no longer a limitation on your performance. There are three rules that I want to emphasize with regard to mental cross-training: First: It doesn't matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going. The future is more important than the past. You can't change the past, but you can change your future by changing what you do today. Second: For your life to get better, you must get better. If you want to earn more, you must learn more. Knowledge is the chief source of value today. If you want to improve the quality of your life, you must improve the quality of your knowledge and skills. Third: You can learn anything that you need to learn to become any person that you want to become and to achieve any goal that you can possibly set for yourself. There are no limits except the limits that you set on your own mind. From this day forward, make yourself a "do-it-to-yourself project." Begin and continue the lifelong process of continually getting better in all the areas that are important to you. Just as a champion athlete develops all of his or her muscles symmetrically and in balance, you must develop your mental muscles in a balanced way as well. Mental cross-training is truly an important step toward gaining control of your destiny. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Overcoming Adversity" by Brian Tracy Here's a question for you: What are you made of? What are you really made of? When push comes to shove, when the rubber meets the road, when the chips are down, what lies at the very core of your character? You learn what you're really made of only when things go wrong and you are tumbled, end over end, by some adversity or setback that hits you like a Mack truck coming out of an alley. Since your behaviors on the outside are the real indicators of who you are on the inside, only by observing how you behave when things go wrong can you tell what you really have inside you. Let's make one thing clear at the beginning. Life is a continuous succession of both small and large problems. They never end. No sooner do you get control of one situation when you are hit by another. Life is a process of "two steps forward and one step back." When you become a great success, you simply exchange one type of problem for another. Before, you had small problems with limited consequences; now you have large problems with enormous consequences. No matter how smart and clever and careful you are, you'll face challenges, difficulties and sometimes heartbreaking adversities every day, week and month of your life. And thank heaven for that! You couldn't possibly have become the person you are today if you had not had to contend with adversity on your way up. Perhaps your chief aim in life is to develop a noble character, to become an excellent human being, to become everything you are capable of becoming. Only by contending with challenges that seem to be beyond your strength to handle at the moment can you grow more surely toward the stars. The starting point in dealing with any difficulty is simply to relax. Clear your mind. Get yourself into a state where you're calm and cool and in full control of your emotions and senses. Back off mentally, and become as objective as possible. Step back and look at the problem with a certain amount of detachment, as if it were happening to someone else. When you can analyze your adversities clearly, you sometimes see opportunities to turn them to your best advantage. One of the rules in dealing with adversity in life is that you are only as free as your well-developed alternatives. You are only as free as the options you have. Only when you can switch and do something else can you be flexible in dealing with your current situation. If you have not developed an option or an alternative, you will become anxious and even panicky when you are threatened with a sudden loss or reversal in a particular area of your life. For example, if you're in business, look into the future and imagine that your biggest customer could go broke or start buying your product or service from someone else. If that were to happen, what would you do? How would you compensate for the loss of business? What could you do right now to ensure that it doesn't happen? How could you increase the quantity or the quality of your service or your product in such a way that your major customer would never think of switching? How could you develop additional customers so that you wouldn't be so dependent upon a single purchaser? If you are in sales and your goal is to make a certain amount of money so that you can enjoy a certain quality of lifestyle, you have to look down the road in your sales work and ask, "Where will my sales come from? How many prospective customers do I have who can generate the business that I need to make my numbers?" And ask yourself, "What would I do if I lost my best customer? What would I do if I lost my biggest prospect?" When I was a boy, I read a story that contained one of the most important messages about adversity that I've ever learned in my life. As I recall, in this story a young man went up to Alaska and worked with an old Indian trapper, learning how to lay traps, clean pelts, live in the bush and take care of himself in the wilderness. At the end of his apprenticeship, the old Indian gave him some advice. He said, "Remember this. Whatever you do when you travel, always use two logs crossing." He was referring to the best method for crossing the many small rivers and streams that the young man would come upon between the small town where the Indian lived and the distant wilderness where he would be trapping. The young man went off on his own and trapped throughout the summer, until he had all the furs that he could possibly carry. When the leaves began to turn, he began his long hike back to the small town where he would trade his furs for enough money to live on for the winter and outfit himself again for the spring. He did everything exactly right, as he had been taught, until he came to the last, fast-running stream remaining between him and civilization. In his eagerness to get back to town, he tried to cross it on a single log that stretched from one bank to the other. Alas! He lost his footing and fell into the stream. He had to throw off his pack to avoid drowning. He lost everything. His whole year was wiped out. He arrived in town, wet, bedraggled and exhausted. There he met the old Indian, who looked at him, shook his head and said, "You forgot to use two logs crossing." The moral of this story is clear. To contend with adversity in your life, you have to develop alternatives. You have to expand your range of choices. You can never afford to put all your hopes in a single person or a single possibility. You, too, must use two logs crossing. As a consequence of disregarding the Indian's advice, that young man faced some truly dire circumstances. We can avoid tragedy on that scale by following a four-step method for dealing with any adversity. Dale Carnegie wrote about it more than 50 years ago, and it's still one of the most powerful mental tools that anyone can use when confronted with problems or worries of any kind. 1. Define the problem clearly. What exactly is the problem? What exactly are you worrying about? Write out the definition of your problem. Make sure that it's a single problem. If it's more than one problem, write out clear definitions of all the problems that together constitute what you are worrying about right now. 2. Determine the worst possible outcome. Ask, "What's the worst possible thing that can happen in this situation?" Be frank and honest with yourself. You might lose your money, or your relationship, or your customer, or someone or something else that is really important to you. If everything fell apart, what is the worst thing that could occur? 2. Resolve to accept the worst, should it occur. Having identified the worst possible outcome, you now can go through the mental exercise of accepting that it is going to happen, no matter what you do. The remarkable thing is that as soon as you stop resisting the worst possible outcome, you'll relax, your mind will clear, and your ability to deal with the situation will improve dramatically. 3. Begin immediately to improve upon the worst, which you have already accepted is going to happen. Throw all of your mental resources into the battle to minimize the problem or resolve the difficulty. Concentrate on the future. Don't worry about what happened, why it happened and who was responsible. Think only about the question, "What do I do now?" How can you minimize the consequences? What's the first step you can take? And the second step? And the third step? And so on. Successful people are not people without problems. They are people who respond quickly and positively to their problems. They think them through in advance; they anticipate them. And when they can't, they use the four-step method to resolve whatever difficulty they face. They define the problem clearly. They define the worst possible thing that could happen as a result of the problem. They resolve to accept the worst, should it occur. And then they concentrate all of their energies on making sure that the very worst doesn't happen. In dealing with adversity effectively, your ability to ask questions is essential. As long as you are asking questions, you are expanding the range of options and possibilities that are open to you. As long as you are asking questions, you are keeping your mind calm and cool and objective. You are not allowing yourself to get caught up emotionally, thereby shutting down large parts of your brain and your creative powers. Many problems and adversities arise because of misunderstandings and incorrect information. One of the smartest things you'll ever do in facing any adversity is to ask yourself, "Who else may have had this problem, and what did he do?" Ask around. Don't be afraid to admit that you're in a bind. If you made a mistake, or dropped the ball and found yourself in a difficult situation, don't be afraid to go to someone and admit that you need help. You'll be amazed at the valuable advice that you can get from someone who has already experienced the difficulty that you're going through. In dealing with adversity, perhaps the four most important words that you can remember are these: "This, too, shall pass." Whatever it is, however difficult it may appear, say to yourself, "This, too, shall pass." Remember, too, that you are never sent a difficulty that is too big for you to handle. Whatever problems or adversities you face, you have within you the resources to deal with them. You have the creative ability to find a solution to your problem. You have within you, right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you. One of your main jobs in life is to become an expert in dealing with adversity, to triumph over difficulty, to rise above the challenges of day-to-day life. Keep your thoughts on where you're going, not on where you've been. Keep your eyes on your goals, and keep your chin tilted upward toward the sunshine. Resolve in advance that you will meet and overcome every difficulty, and then, no matter what happens, don't give up until you do. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"The Power of Persuasion" by Brian Tracy Persuasion power can help you get more of the things you want faster than anything else you do. It can mean the difference between success and failure. It can guarantee your progress and enable you to use all of your other skills and abilities at the very highest level. Your persuasion power will earn you the support and respect of your customers, bosses, coworkers, colleagues and friends. The ability to persuade others to do what you want them to do can make you one of the most important people in your community. Fortunately, persuasion is a skill, like riding a bicycle, that you can learn through study and practice. Your job is to become absolutely excellent at influencing and motivating others to support and assist you in the achievement of your goals and the solving of your problems. You can either persuade others to help you or be persuaded to help them. It is one or the other. Most people are not aware that every human interaction involves a complex process of persuasion and influence. And being unaware, they are usually the ones being persuaded to help others rather than the ones who are doing the persuading. The key to persuasion is motivation. Every human action is motivated by something. Your job is to find out what motivates other people and then to provide that motivation. People have two major motivations: the desire for gain and the fear of loss. The desire for gain motivates people to want more of the things they value in life. They want more money, more success, more health, more influence, more respect, more love and more happiness. Human wants are limited only by individual imagination. No matter how much a person has, he or she still wants more and more. When you can show a person how he or she can get more of the things he or she wants by helping you achieve your goals, you can motivate them to act in your behalf. President Eisenhower once said that, "Persuasion is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do, and to like it." You need always to be thinking about how you can get people to want to do the things that you need them to do to attain your objectives. People are also motivated to act by the fear of loss. This fear, in all its various forms, is often stronger than the desire for gain. People fear financial loss, loss of health, anger or disapproval of others, loss of the love of someone and the loss of anything they have worked hard to accomplish. They fear change, risk and uncertainty because these threaten them with potential losses. Whenever you can show a person that, by doing what you want them to do, they can avoid a loss of some kind, you can influence them to take a particular action. The very best appeals are those where you offer an opportunity to gain and an opportunity to avoid loss at the same time. There are two ways to get the things you want in life. First, you can work by yourself and for yourself in your own best interest. You can be a "Robinson Crusoe" of modern life, relying on yourself for the satisfaction of your needs. By doing this, you can accomplish a little, but not a lot. The person who looks to himself or herself completely is limited in his or her capacities. He or she will never be rich or successful. The second way to get the things you want is by gaining and using leverage. Leverage allows you to multiply yourself and get far more out of the hours you put in rather than doing everything yourself. There are three forms of leverage you must develop to fulfill your full potential in our society: other people's efforts, other people's knowledge, and other people's money. You leverage yourself through other people's efforts by getting other people to work with you and for you in the accomplishment of your objectives. Sometimes you can ask them to help you voluntarily, although people won't work for very long without some personal reward. At other times you can hire them to help you, thereby freeing you up to do higher-value work. One of the most important laws of economics is called "Ricardo's Law." It is also called the Law of Comparative Advantage. This law states that when someone can accomplish a part of your task at a lower hourly rate than you would earn for accomplishing more valuable parts of your task, you should delegate or outsource that part of the task. For example, if you want to earn $100,000 a year, in a 250 day year, you need to make $50.00 per hour. That means you must be doing work that is worth $50.00 per hour, eight hours per day, 250 days per year. Therefore, if there is any part of your work, like making photocopies, filing information, typing letters, or filling out expense forms, that is not valued at $50.00 per hour, you should stop doing it. You should persuade someone else who works at a lower hourly rate to do it for you. The more lower level tasks you can persuade others to do, the more time you will have to do tasks that pay you higher amounts of money. This is one of the essential keys to getting the leverage you need to become one of the higher paid people in your profession. Management can be defined as "getting things done through others." To be a manager you must be an expert at persuading and influencing others to work in a common direction. This is why all excellent managers are also excellent low-pressure salespeople. They do not order people to do things; instead, they persuade them to accept certain responsibilities, with specific deadlines and agreed-upon standards of performance. When a person has been persuaded that he or she has a vested interest in doing a job well, he or she accepts ownership of the job and the result. Once a person accepts ownership and responsibility, the manager can step aside confidently, knowing the job will be done on schedule. In every part of your life, you have a choice of either doing it yourself or delegating it to others. Your ability to get someone else to take on the job with the same enthusiasm that you would have is an exercise in personal persuasion. It may seem to take a little longer at the beginning, but it saves you an enormous amount of time in the completion of the task. The second form of leverage that you must develop for success in America is other people's knowledge. You must be able to tap into the brain power of many other people if you want to accomplish worthwhile goals. Successful people are not those who know everything needed to accomplish a particular task, but more often than not, they are people who know how to find the knowledge they need. What is the knowledge that you need to achieve your most important goals? Of the knowledge required, what knowledge must you have personally in order to control your situation, and what knowledge can you borrow, buy, or rent from others? It has been said that, in our information-based society, you are never more than one book or two phone calls away from any piece of knowledge in the country. With on-line computer services that access huge data bases all over the country, you can usually get the precise information you require in a few minutes by using a personal computer. Whenever you need information and expertise from another person in order to achieve your goals, the very best way to persuade them to help you is to ask them for their assistance. Almost everyone who is knowledgeable in a particular area is proud of their accomplishments. By asking a person for their expert advice, you compliment them and motivate them to want to help you. So don't be afraid to ask, even if you don't know the individual personally. The third key to leverage, which is very much based on your persuasive abilities, is other people's money. Your ability to use other people's money and resources to leverage your talents is the key to financial success. Your ability to buy and defer payment, to sell and collect payment in advance, to borrow, rent or lease furniture, fixtures and machinery, and to borrow money from people to help you multiply your opportunities is one of the most important of all skills that you can develop. And these all depend on your ability to persuade others to cooperate with you financially so that you can develop the leverage you need to move onward and upward in your field. There are four "Ps" that will enhance your ability to persuade others in both your work and personal life. They are power, positioning, performance, and politeness. And they are all based on perception. The first "P" is power. The more power and influence that a person perceives that you have, whether real or not, the more likely it is that that person will be persuaded by you to do the things you want them to do. For example, if you appear to be a senior executive, or a wealthy person, people will be much more likely to help you and serve you than they would be if you were perceived to be a lower level employee. The second "P" is positioning. This refers to the way that other people think about you and talk about you when you are not there. Your positioning in the mind and heart of other people largely determines how open they are to being influenced by you. In everything you do involving other people, you are shaping and influencing their perceptions of you and your positioning in their minds. Think about how you could change the things you say and do so that people think about you in such a way that they are more open to your requests and to helping you achieve your goals. The third "P" is performance. This refers to your level of competence and expertise in your area. A person who is highly respected for his or her ability to get results is far more persuasive and influential than a person who only does an average job. The perception that people have of your performance capabilities exerts an inordinate influence on how they think and feel about you. You should commit yourself to being the very best in your field. Sometimes, a reputation for being excellent at what you do can be so powerful that it alone can make you an extremely persuasive individual in all of your interactions with the people around you. They will accept your advice, be open to your influence and agree with your requests. The fourth "P" of persuasion power is politeness. People do things for two reasons, because they want to and because they have to. When you treat people with kindness, courtesy and respect, you make them want to do things for you. They are motivated to go out of their way to help you solve your problems and accomplish your goals. Being nice to other people satisfies one of the deepest of all subconscious needs, the need to feel important and respected. Whenever you convey this to another person in your conversation, your attitude and your treatment of that person, he or she will be wide open to being persuaded and influenced by you in almost anything you need. Again, perception is everything. The perception of an individual is his or her reality. People act on the basis of their perceptions of you. If you change their perceptions, you change the way they think and feel about you, and you change the things that they will do for you. You can become an expert at personal persuasion. You can develop your personal power by always remembering that there are only two ways to get the things you want in life, you can do it all yourself, or you can get most of it done by others. Your ability to communicate, persuade, negotiate, influence, delegate and interact effectively with other people will enable you to develop leverage using other people's efforts, other people's knowledge and other people's money. The development of your persuasion power will enable you to become one of the most powerful and influential people in your organization. It will open up doors for you in every area of your life. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Principles of Self-Management" by Brian Tracy The starting point of maturity is the realization that "No one is coming to the rescue." Everything you are or ever will be is entirely up to you. This life is not a rehearsal for anything else. This is the real thing. The game is on. Time is passing quickly, and all of your decisions and indecisions, your actions and inactions, have added up to create the life you're living at this very minute. If you want things to be different in the future, you'll have to make things different in the present. You'll have to take complete charge of yourself and your life and make things change, because they won't change by themselves. Self-management is really personal management, time management, life management. It's putting your hands firmly on the steering wheel of your life and then taking yourself in your chosen direction. Remember the old Confucian saying, "If you don't change the road you're traveling on, you'll probably end up where you're going." Every successful man or woman in America made, at one time or another, a firm decision about where he or she wanted to go and then took deliberate steps to get there. And you can do this for yourself as well. One of the most useful ideas I ever learned was to view myself as a "bundle of resources." You can benefit from this idea by standing back and looking at yourself in terms of what you are, instead of what you do. We tend to define ourselves in terms of our work, in terms of what we're spending most of our time doing at the present moment. When we meet someone, even at a bus stop, we describe ourselves in terms of our jobs. We say things such as "I'm a salesperson," "I'm a manager," or "I work in such-and-such a business doing such-and-such a job." Since we tend to become what we think about, the more we describe ourselves to others as being what we do, the more we think of ourselves as what we do. Perhaps this is why people who are fired or laid off go through a period of shock and emotional turmoil. it's as though they've been cut off from their identities. You may have had that experience. The fact is that you're not what you do. Instead, you're a bundle of resources. You have the combination of ingredients that makes you a unique and remarkable human being, different from anyone else who ever has lived or who ever will live. You've undergone a wide variety of experiences, both positive and negative. You've had a formal education, and you've learned from the various jobs and activities that you've engaged in. You have a unique intelligence, much of which isn't yet developed to the full. You have skills that you've acquired through hard work, discipline and practice. You have abilities that you were born with, which make it easy for you to do certain jobs and to accomplish certain tasks. You have energy and ambition and goals and opportunities. You have a philosophy of life, however developed it is, and you have attitudes and perspectives that make you extraordinary. The federal government has identified more than 22,000 different job categories; when you put all your skills together, you're probably capable of excelling at hundreds of jobs, doing different things in different organizations, businesses and industries. As the psychologist Abraham Maslow once wrote, "The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short." The average person tends to settle for far less than he's capable of and then wonders why he's so dissatisfied and frustrated with his life. The fact is that you have an inborn drive toward the realization of your full capacity. There's a force within you that makes you restless and discontent, and that drives you onward and upward toward the achievement of your dreams and aspirations. Many people attempt to deaden that ambition by drinking too much alcohol, watching too much television, socializing too much and even resorting to drugs and dangerous activities. But it will not be denied. You have been put in this world to do something wonderful with your life. You have a unique destiny, a special purpose. And the starting point for realizing that purpose is self-management. It is taking full control over yourself and everything that you are doing so that you are moving progressively toward the realization of a worthy ideal, so that you are firmly on the road toward becoming everything you are capable of becoming. In self-management, you begin by accepting that you are self-employed. You work for yourself. No matter who signs your paycheck, no matter if you've worked for a company all your life, you are always self-employed. You are the president of your own personal services corporation. You go out into the marketplace and sell your services to the highest bidder, but you always work for yourself. One of the great tragedies of our educational system is that almost everyone is brought up to think of himself as an employee rather than an employer, as a company-owning entrepreneur. This attitude that most people accept unquestioningly is a major cause of unhappiness and underachievement in life. The myth of the employee leads people to see themselves as helpless and dependent. From an early age, they look for someone to provide them with work to do and money to live on. They see themselves as cattle being herded into the barn every day from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. to be milked and then sent back to the pasture to graze and prepare for the next day's milking. When you accept complete responsibility for your life and begin to view yourself as self-employed, you automatically move into the top 3 percent of employed men and women in America. At the point where you see that you're in charge of your working destiny, you begin to realize that self-management is the vehicle that you need to take you from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. You're not a passive passenger. You're not an idle dreamer. You're not subject to the whims and fancies of fate and circumstance. You're in charge. You determine your own cause of action. You decide where you want to work and what you want to do. Then you, first, prepare yourself and, second, go out to get the job that most satisfies you and allows you to use yourself to your best advantage. You start the process of self-management by looking deeply into yourself and asking, "What do I most enjoy doing? What have I most enjoyed in my work and activities in the past? If I won $1 million in cash tomorrow, what would I choose to work at for the indefinite future?" Imagine, for a moment, that someone has offered to give you any job in the world and to pay you well at it if you can define that ideal job clearly on paper. By the way, most people find this to be a difficult, if not impossible, task. Most people are so used to accepting the job that is offered to them that the very idea of defining and determining their own job is somewhat overwhelming. But don't worry. The more often you think about it and jot down your ideas, the clearer it will become to you. Then the most remarkable thing will happen: As a result of your being absolutely clear about what you want to do, you will find yourself moving toward your ideal job, and your ideal job will begin moving toward you. Another way to determine your purpose in life, once you have accepted complete responsibility for yourself and begun seeing yourself as self-employed, is strategic thinking. Strategic thinkers are those who take the time to sit down and work out where they are and where they want to go. They determine how to achieve their goals in a step-by-step fashion. They look into the future and think about how they could allocate themselves as a bundle of resources to most rapidly move toward the accomplishment of their desires. In personal strategic thinking and planning, you look at your unique talents and abilities and ask yourself, "Where can I best deploy myself in this marketplace to bring myself the greatest rewards?" A key part of self-management is disciplining yourself to work on only those things that can make the greatest difference in your life. If you are not extremely well-managed personally, you will find yourself spreading your efforts across a wide variety of tasks and getting nothing really important done. Self-management means self-mastery, self-control and even self-denial. It means putting off doing all the things of a lower priority so that you can work on just the one or two things that make all the difference. Self-management means getting things done through yourself. It means standing back and looking upon yourself as a bundle of resources out of which you want to get the highest possible return. You need to organize, manage and motivate yourself as if you were your own employee. The manager of an enterprise has seven basic functions, all of which are important. Sometimes one function is more important than another, but all are essential to success in the manager's job. Those seven functions are: productivity, customer satisfaction, profitability and cost control, quality, people building, organizational development, and innovation. You must become capable of each of those functions in managing yourself so that you achieve the highest possible payoff. Productivity improvement means constantly increasing output while maintaining the costs of input or even reducing them. You must continually manage yourself to produce more, faster, cheaper and better than you have before. To increase your productivity, you must think every day about the things that you can do to increase your value, to increase your ability to earn money by producing more and better goods and services for yourself and for your company. One way to increase your productivity is to work on more important things. Another way to increase your productivity is to get better at your key tasks. You can increase your productivity by working longer hours or by working harder during normal business hours. You can increase your productivity by becoming an expert at time management and by always asking yourself the powerful question, "What can I do to increase the value of my service to my company today?" Remember, you're being paid today exactly what you're worth, not a penny more, not a penny less. If you want to earn more tomorrow, you must increase the value of your output. There is no other way. The second self-management task is customer satisfaction. There's a lot of talk today about total quality management. However, in its simplest terms, total quality management means finding out what the customer wants and then giving it to him or her. In managing yourself, you must be very clear about who your customers are. What do they need from you in order to be satisfied? Also, what does your spouse require from you? What do your children require? At work, what are your boss's top priorities? One of the main reasons you're on the payroll is to please your boss by helping him or her to fulfill his or her responsibilities. The clearer you are about what you need to do to make your boss happy, the more successful you'll be. The third self-management task is profitability. That means increasing revenues while keeping costs constant or decreasing costs while keeping revenues constant. Your job at work is to help your company be more profitable, to contribute far more than your company pays you in salary or commission. Personally, profitability means that you spend less than you earn, that you make a profit from your work. It means that you live within your means and save part of everything you earn. Perhaps the most important part of self-management is financial management. This means that you are 100 percent responsible for achieving your financial independence. And this is possible only by saving and investing part of your income every single paycheck. The fourth function of personal management is quality, quality in the work you do. Vince Lombardi said, "The quality of a person's life will be determined by the depth of his commitment to excellence, no matter what the chosen field." Your job is to become very good at what you do, to become valuable and then to become indispensable. Your job is to join the top 20 percent of people in your field, and then the top 10 percent, and then the top 5 percent. Excellent work is the key to high earnings, recognition, prestige and the esteem of those around you. If you want to be successful, as a wise man once told me, "Get good; get better; be the best." One of the most important self-management responsibilities that you take on is that of becoming very good at what you do. The fifth job of management is people building. Most managers realize that the business of the company can't get better unless the people get better. The very best companies in America spend 3 percent or more of their gross sales revenues on training their people. These are the most profitable and fastest growing companies in America. By the same token, you need to build yourself continually. You need to read at least an hour a day about your chosen field. At least four times per year, you need to attend workshops and seminars given by experts. You need to work on yourself as though your life and your future depended on it, because they do. You must become a lifelong student of your craft just to stay even and, certainly, to get ahead. The sixth management function is organizational development. For business managers, this involves planning and organizing resources in order to accomplish particular tasks and goals. In self-management, this means that you set clear goals for yourself in every area of your life and you make detailed plans to achieve them. You organize yourself, your time and your resources in order to move rapidly toward achieving the goals that are most important to your life and to your success. You continually upgrade and downgrade your priorities. You continually revise your schedule of activities so that you are always concentrating on the most valuable use of your time. You determine how much you want to be earning five years from today, and how much you want to be worth in financial terms, and you organize yourself so that you are moving toward those goals every day, every week and every month. You keep saying, "If it's to be, it's up to me." The seventh self-management function is innovation. You are born with enormous reserves of creativity that can enable you to improve every part of your life. Constantly seek for faster, better and easier ways to fulfill your tasks and goals. Read, research, and ask questions. Talk to others who are ahead of you on the road of life, and ask for their advice. Look into yourself, and listen to your intuition. You can achieve any goal, you can overcome any difficulty and solve any problem on the path to a goal, as long as that goal is clear. You have the creative resources within you to be, have or do anything that you could possibly want. The only limitations are the ones you place on yourself and your mind. Today, modern management techniques rule the world. In your personal life, modern self-management techniques can make you rich and happy and healthy and fulfilled beyond your wildest imagination. it's up to you to learn them and apply them in every area of your life. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Realizing Your Potential" by Brian Tracy One of the most wonderful and exciting facts about your life is that you already know a lot of the things you need to know to become the person you want to be. You have your "heart's desire" deep inside of you. There's something that you were put on this earth uniquely to accomplish. There's something that you, and only you, can do. And when you find your heart's desire, you'll have the key to unlocking your potential in every other part of your life. You'll have the key to happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment and the joy that's your natural birthright. You can unlock your inner potential only when you're doing something that you really love to do. You can fulfill your innermost aspirations only when you're doing something that interests you, something that holds your attention, something in which you can become completely absorbed. And this is the key to unlocking the giant within. You must dream big dreams and do what you love to do. You must decide what's right for you, what will make you happiest, before you decide what's possible. You must set ideal standards and goals and results as your aim and then determine how to accomplish them. In his book The Act of Will, Roberto Assagioli, the Italian psychiatrist, said that the starting point of great individual achievement is the definition, by yourself, of the ideal result that you wish to accomplish. Take some time to determine your ideal lifestyle. Take some time to determine the kind of person you'd like to be, and the kind of person you'd have to become in order to live the kind of life that you'd like to live. Remember, you can't accomplish it on the outside until you become it on the inside. I recently read a beautiful line in a book: "In order to achieve things you've never achieved before, you must be willing to do things you've never done before." To unlock your inner potential, you must set very clear, challenging and, yet, realistic goals and then make plans to accomplish them. You need to work, step-by-step, every day, in the direction of your dominant aspirations. You need to develop an unshakable level of self-confidence that makes you virtually unstoppable. Momentum is the key to long-term success. The momentum theory of success simply says that while it may take 10 units of energy to get you moving in a particular direction, it takes only one unit of energy to keep you moving once you're in motion. You have the principle of momentum working in your favor. For example, if you've come back from a vacation of a week or two weeks, you'll notice that it takes you several days to start working at peak efficiency again. This is part of the momentum principle. When you stop, it's hard to get started again. But once you're moving forward, it's easy to continue moving forward. How do you use the momentum principle in your life? Well, it's simple. You decide upon one key quality that you need to develop in order to accomplish one key goal that you want to accomplish. Then every single day, you work simultaneously on developing that quality and on taking steps toward the accomplishment of that goal. Once you put the ball into play, you keep the game going, every single day, without stopping. Let's say that your goal is to become financially independent. To do this, you have to pay off all of your existing debts and build up a cash reserve of three to six months of living expenses. When you reach that point, your entire personality will change. You'll be more clearheaded, you'll be more positive, you'll be more determined, you'll be more optimistic, you'll be a finer and better human being when you absolutely know that you're not dependent upon anyone for your living expenses. You'll be able to choose the job you want to do and go to the places you want to go. You won't have to tolerate any situation that you do not enjoy or that you feel isn't the best use of your personal potential. If you simultaneously work on strengthening your self-discipline and using it to achieve the goal of financial independence, you'll become a better, stronger and more powerful human being. You'll cast off the bonds of helplessness and begin to feel that there's nothing in the world that you can't do or be or have. When you set clear goals or objectives for yourself, when you dream big dreams and then determine to become the kind of person who's capable of achieving the kind of goals that you want to achieve, you convince yourself, at a deep, subconscious level, that you're absolutely unstoppable. You realize at last that nothing in the world can hold you back except your own thinking, and you don't even let your own thinking limit your potential. If you learn to be powerful and develop self-confidence by working progressively, every day, toward becoming the kind of person you want to be, and toward living the kind of life you want to live, you'll unlock the giant within you, and it will never go back inside. Believing in Yourself In her wonderful book You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay says that each one of us has feelings of inferiority that are manifested in the conclusion that we are not good enough. We think that we are not as good as other people, and we feel that we are not good enough to acquire and enjoy the things that we want in life. Very often, we feel that we don't deserve good things. Even if we do work hard and achieve some worthwhile objectives, we believe that we are not really entitled to our successes, and we often engage in behaviors that sabotage our successes. The fact is that you deserve every good thing that you are capable of acquiring as the result of the application of your talents. The only real limitation on what you can be and have is your absence of desire. If you want something badly enough, nothing in the world can stop you from getting it, if you are willing to persist long enough and hard enough. Over and over, we find that our beliefs, more than anything else, act as the brakes on our capacities. We have high hopes and dreams and aspirations, but we let doubts creep in and undermine our competence and effectiveness. You need to develop your beliefs about yourself to the point where they serve you every day in every way. Men and women who accomplish extraordinary things are just ordinary people who developed themselves mentally to the point where they were able to overcome the obstacles that stood in their way, and they kept on keeping on until the goal was attained. Psychologist William James of Harvard University said that beliefs create the actual fact. The reason for this is because we always act in a manner consistent with our innermost beliefs and convictions. If you believe yourself capable of accomplishing good things, you will walk and talk and act like it. Your behaviors will actually make your beliefs a reality. The most harmful beliefs that you can have are what we call "self-limiting beliefs." These are beliefs about yourself, most of which are not true; but they hold you back nonetheless. Sometimes you, or others, will say that you cannot achieve certain goals because you did not get enough education. Sometimes you will say that it is because of your gender or race or age or the state of the economy. Many people blame their parents or their bosses or their families or their current relationships for their failure to make progress in life. Others say that there is no opportunity in their particular area or their particular field. Some complain because they have no money. Others complain because they received poor grades in school or did not go to, or finish, college. Still others say that they have never had a natural talent or ability for a particular field. The humorist Josh Billings once said, "It ain't what a man knows what hurts him. It's what a man knows what ain't true." It isn't the actual truth about yourself and your abilities that hurts you; it's the things that you consider to be true and that have no basis in truth. The starting point to change your beliefs is to get up the courage to question them seriously. Question your basic premises. Check your assumptions. Ask yourself, "What assumptions am I making about myself or my situation that might not be true?" It's a fact that we fall in love with our excuses and our assumptions. We fall in love with our reasons for not moving ahead. Even if someone comes along and challenges those reasons, even if someone tells you that you have the capacity to accomplish marvelous things, you will argue with him. If someone tells you that you can do far better than you're doing right now, you will come up with reasons to dispute this person's greater belief in your potential. The author Richard Bach wrote this beautiful line: "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours." Very often, we become the prosecuting attorney in the case against ourselves. We dispute and argue and attempt to prove to ourselves and others that our limitations are real. And the less justification these ideas or beliefs have, the more adamant we become in attempting to prove them to others. What beliefs might you have that are holding you back right now? Think about them. Remember, most of our self-limiting beliefs have no basis whatsoever in fact. They are based on information and ideas that we have accepted as true, sometimes in early childhood, and to the degree to which we accept them as true, they become true for us. Your beliefs about reality are based on a thousand influences, many of which began even before you were aware of what was going on. You have beliefs that are deep and beliefs that are shallow. Deep beliefs, with regard to your religion or your political party or your family, or especially yourself, are very hard to change. Shallow beliefs are easily changed. And many of your beliefs are in fact very shallow. They have no substance to them whatsoever. If you challenge them hard enough, you'll find that they are made of tissue paper. They'll simply blow away. You can always tell what your true values and beliefs are by looking at your actions. It isn't what you say or wish or hope or intend that demonstrates what you really believe. It's only what you do. It's only the behaviors that you engage in. It's only the actions that you choose to undertake. Your values and beliefs are always expressed in your actions and behaviors. And out of your actions come all of the elements of your life. You are where you are what you are because of what you've said and done in the past. The wonderful thing is this. Each of us is in a state of becoming. Many years ago, a great teacher of mine said that each human being is a "becomingness." You are constantly evolving toward the fulfillment of your individual possibilities. You can become anything you want by sitting down at the keyboard of your own mental computer and beginning the process of programming in new beliefs. To develop beliefs that serve your life better than your current beliefs, decide exactly where you want to end up sometime in the future. Dr. Roberto Assagioli calls this you "ideal result." Robert Fritz, in his book The Path of Least Resistance, calls this your "future vision." The clearer you are about your ideal result or future vision, the easier it is for you to alter your actions and behaviors in the short term to assure that you get where you want to be in the long term. Once you've clearly decided on the person you would like to become, you are on the path toward developing new beliefs. You then discipline yourself each day to behave exactly as you would if you were already that person. That simple technique, the "act as if" technique, is extraordinarily powerful. The more you act like the person you want to be, the more consistent your attitude will be with that person's. Your attitude will have the back-flow effect of affecting your expectations. Positive expectations will have the back-flow effect of building beliefs that are consistent with them. And your beliefs will exert an influence on your values. You have no limitations on your potential except for those that you believe you have. Remember this wonderful little poem: "If you think you're beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't. If you would like to win, but think you can't, It's almost certain you won't. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man, But sooner or later the man who wins Is the man who thinks he can." People succeed not because they have remarkable characteristics or qualities. The most successful people are quite ordinary, just like you and me. Most of us start off poor and confused. We spend many years getting some sort of direction in our lives. But the turning point comes when we begin to believe that we have within us that divine spark that can lead us onward and upward to the accomplishment of anything that we really want in life. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"The Role of a Leader" by Brian Tracy Your ability to negotiate, communicate, influence, and persuade others to do things is absolutely indispensable to everything you accomplish in life. The most effective men and women in every area are those who can quite competently organize the cooperation and assistance of other people toward the accomplishment of important goals and objectives. Of course, everyone you meet has different values, opinions, attitudes, beliefs, cultural values, work habits, goals, ambitions, and dreams. Because of this incredible diversity of human resources, it has never been more difficult and yet more necessary for diplomatic leaders to emerge and form these people into high-performing teams. Fortunately, leaders are made, not born. You learn to become a leader by doing what other excellent leaders have done before you. You become proficient in your job or skill, and then you become proficient at understanding the motivations and behaviors of other people. As a leader, you combine your personal competencies with the competencies of a variety of others into a smoothly functioning team that can out-play and out-perform all its competitors. When you become a team leader, even if your team only consists of one other person, you must immediately develop a whole new set of leadership skills. In order to determine what these skills are, you need to consider the genesis of high-performing teams. Teams generally go through four phases as they evolve toward high performance. These stages are called forming, storming, norming, and performing. The forming stage is very important, perhaps even critical, to the success of the team. Your ability to select the proper team members in order to accomplish a particular task-personal or business-is the mark of the superior leader. If you select the wrong people in the first place, it becomes almost impossible afterward to build a winning team, just as it would be impossible to win athletic championships with unskilled or ill-suited players. In the forming stage, the team members come together and begin to get a feeling for each other. There will be a good deal of discussion, argument, disagreement, personal expression of likes and dislikes, and the forming of friendly alliances between team members. This stage, especially the discussions and conversations that take place, may seem time consuming, but it is absolutely indispensable to the development of a unified group of people that you can lead. One of the most important qualities of a leader is that of patience. And patience is never more necessary than when you are going through the early stages of assembling your team. The second stage of team development is called storming. Storming is a shortened form of the word "brainstorming." It is during this stage when the group, whose members are now comfortable with each other, begins the hard work of setting goals and deadlines, dividing up the tasks, and getting on with the job. During the storming phase, people learn about the contributions that each member can make to achieve the purposes of the team. The third stage of team development is called norming. This is where norms and standards are established among the team members so that everyone feels secure and confident in his or her place. All members know what is expected and how it is to be measured. And all members are aware of the responsibilities and obligations that they have, not only to the job, but to the each other as well. Your ability as a leader to promote the norming process is critical to the success of the team. The fourth stage of team development is performing. In the final analysis, your ability to get results is all that really matters. Your lifestyle, your rate of promotion and level of rewards, and your respect and esteem among your co-workers and bosses will all be determined by your ability to perform and to get others to perform. There are basically five qualities of the most productive work teams that you need to foster throughout the stages of team development. The degree to which you accomplish this before you start working will determine your success as a team leader and the success of the team as a whole. The first quality is the existence of shared values. You can foster this quality by asking the question, "What are our values?" or, "What do we stand for?" People will contribute the values they consider the most important. As they do, you or someone else can write them on a flipchart. The values will usually be something like: integrity, excellence, quality, caring about people, profitability, and harmony. The second quality of top teams is shared objectives. It is absolutely essential that everyone takes the time to discuss the actual reason for forming the team and the chief results that are expected of them. Leaders are those who can see the big picture. They are absolutely clear about what it is they want to accomplish and what it will look like. They have the ability to articulate this vision in the minds and hearts of others and to get everyone, no matter what their background or personality, working together in harmony toward the realization of that vision. People cannot hit a target they cannot see. Again, even though it may appear time consuming, everyone needs to have ample opportunity to discuss and agree on the ultimate goals desired before work begins. The more thorough the discussion on goals and objectives, the more effective the team will be when it begins working. The third quality of highly-productive teams is shared activities. Everyone knows what they are supposed to contribute to the achievement of the overall goals and objectives of the team. Everyone also knows what each of the other members is expected to do. All the work that has to be done is clearly divided up among the team members, and everyone knows their role in the process. The fourth quality of high-performing teams is that the head of the team leads the action. You become the role model for all of the others. You go out in front. You continually look for ways to make it easier for your team members to do their jobs. You accept complete responsibility for the achievement of the overall goal. You start a little earlier, you work a little harder, and you stay a little later. You set careful priorities on your time and you always work on your highest value tasks. You never ask anyone to do something that you wouldn't do yourself. You always put yourself out in front and go to bat for your people in every circumstance. You are a leader because you continually lead. The fifth and final quality of high-performing teams is that individually and as a group, they continually evaluate their progress toward their goals and values. The are always asking themselves, "How are we doing, and how can we do better?" When they manufacture or sell products in the marketplace, they ask their customers for ongoing feedback and evaluation. They set incredible standards of excellence and they are constantly striving to be better. Whenever they have problems, misunderstandings, or difficulties within the team, they reexamine their values, their goals, their activities, their assignments, and their responsibilities. They are more concerned with what's right than with who's right. They are more concerned with winning than with not losing. High-Performing teams run by excellent leaders, are determined to perform in an excellent fashion. All members know that their ability to work together in harmony and cooperation is the key to the success of every one of them. The wonderful thing about becoming a leader in your work and personal life is that you can practice the skills of influencing and persuading others toward a common objective. You can promote the principles of excellent teamwork by establishing your values and goals, determining your activities, and then leading the action. And you can improve yourself by continually evaluating your performance against your standards. One of the marks of excellent people is that they never compare themselves with others. They only compare themselves with themselves and with their past accomplishments and future potential. You can become an even more excellent person by constantly setting higher and higher standards for yourself and then by doing everything possible to live up to those standards. The more proficient you become at getting the results for which you were hired, the more opportunities you will have to get results through others. And your ability to put together a team and then to lead that team to high performance will enable you to accelerate your career and fulfill your goals faster than ever before. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Teaming Up With Your Customers" by Brian Tracy What is the purpose of a business? Every time I ask this question during a business seminar, the immediate answer that I get back is, "To make a profit." But this answer is wrong. The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer. If a business successfully creates and keeps customers in a cost-effective way, it will make a profit while continuing to survive and thrive. If, for any reason, a business fails to attract or sustain a sufficient number of customers, it will experience losses. Too many losses will lead to the demise of the enterprise. According to Dun and Bradstreet, the single, most important reason for the failure of businesses in America is lack of sales. And, of course, this refers to resales as well as initial sales. So your company's job is to create and keep a customer, and your job is exactly the same. Remember, no matter what you official title is, you are a salesperson for yourself and your company. And the best way to increase your value as a salesperson is to build your customer base. The two most important words to keep in mind in developing a successful customer base are Positioning and Differentiation. Positioning refers to the way your customers think and talk about you and your company when you are not there. The position that you hold in the customer's mind determines all of his reactions and interactions with you. Your position determines whether or not your customer buys, whether he buys again and whether he refers others to you. Everything that you do with regard to your customer affects the way your customer thinks about you. Differentiation refers to your ability to separate yourself and your product or service from that of your competitors. And it is the key to building a maintaining a competitive advantage. This is the advantage that you and your company have over your competitors in the same marketplace, the unique and special benefits that no one else can give your customer. When you begin to think about acquiring and keeping customers for life, you need to think about the particular types of customers for whom your competitive advantage is so important that they would be poorly served by using anyone else's product. You need to then emphasize again and again that the special features and benefits you offer are so important that they should not even think of going somewhere else. If, for any reason, you fail to do this, you may lose the customer and all the work you've done in building that relationship in the first place. There are three keys to keeping customers for life: relationship selling, partnering for profit, and consultative selling. These are all methods for differentiating yourself from anyone else who is offering the same product or service. They are ways to get customers and keep them. I will explain each of these in detail. Relationship Selling is the core of all modern selling strategies. Your ability to develop and maintain long-term customer relationships is the foundation for your success as a salesperson and your success in business. Relationship selling requires a clear understanding of the dynamics of the selling process as they are experienced by your customer. For your customer, a buying decision usually means a decision to enter into a long-term relationship with you and your company. It is very much like a "business marriage." Before the customer decides to buy, he can take you or leave you. He doesn't need you or your company. He has a variety of options and choices open to him, including not buying anything at all. But when your customer makes a decision to buy from you and gives you money for the product or service you are selling, he becomes dependent on you. And since he has probably had bad buying experiences in the past, he is very uneasy and uncertain about getting into this kind of dependency relationship. What if you let the customer down? What if your product does not work as you promised? What if you don't service it and support it as you promised? What if it breaks down and he can't get it replaced? What if the product or service is completely inappropriate for his needs? These are real dilemmas that go through the mind of every customer when it comes time to make the critical buying decision. Because of the complexity of most products and services today, especially high-tech products, the relationship is actually more important than the product. The customer doesn't know the ingredients or components of your product, or how your company functions, or how he will be treated after he has given you his money, but he can make an assessment about you and about the relationship that has developed between the two of you over the course of the selling process. So in reality, the customer's decision is based on the fact that he has come to trust you and believe in what you say. In many cases, the quality of your relationship with the customer is the competitive advantage that enables you to edge out others who may have similar products and services. The quality of the trust bond that exists between you and your customers can be so strong that no other competitor can get between you. The single biggest mistake that causes salespeople to lose customers is taking those customers for granted. This is a form of "customer entropy." It is when the salesperson relaxes his efforts and begins to ignore the customer. Almost 70 percent of customers who walked away from their existing suppliers later replied that they made the change primarily because of a lack of attention from the company. Once you have invested the time and made the efforts necessary to build a high-quality, trust-based relationship with your customer, you must maintain that relationship for the life of your business. You must never take it for granted. Beyond relationship selling, the second key to keeping customers for life is the "partnering for profit" approach to business sales. When you deal with a businessperson, you can be sure of one thing: that person thinks about his business day and night. It is very close to him. It is dear to his heart. And if you come in and talk to him and ask him questions about his business, looking for ways to help him run his business better, the customer is going to warm up to you and want to be associated with you and your company. As a partner, you should always be looking to help your customer to cut costs and improve results in his or her area of responsibility. You should look for ways to help your customer in non-business areas as well. You should position yourself as someone who cares more about the success of your customer than anything else, even more than you care about selling your product or service. This approach to partnering in profit with your customer is a key way to differentiate yourself and to keep your customer for the indefinite future. There is a principle of reciprocity in business that is extremely powerful. It is simply this: If you do something nice for someone else, they will feel obligated to do something nice for you. You should be looking for opportunities to go the extra mile, to do more than you are paid for, to put in more than you take out. By extending yourself, you improve your positioning in the customer's mind and increasingly differentiate yourself and your company from your competitors who are after the same business. If you do this long enough and strong enough, you will eventually develop the partnership to the point where your competitors don't have a chance against you. The third part of keeping customers for life is the consulting approach to your customer, or what is called consultative selling. When you position yourself as a consultant, you are really positioning yourself to serve your customer as a problem solver. Instead of trying to sell something to your customer, you concentrate all of your efforts and attention on helping your customer solve his problems, achieve his goals, or satisfy his needs. You ask excellent questions that help your customer think through his situation in greater depth. And you listen carefully to the answers, knowing that listening builds trust. Most successful salespeople are invariably referred to as friends, advisors, and counselor by their customers. The final description, and perhaps the best description customers use for top salespeople, is contained in the words, "He (or she) really understands my situation." When customers are asked why they decided to buy from a particular salesperson or company, they invariably give these reasons: the reputation of the company, the level of service and support that the company offers, the reliability of the company and the salesperson, the responsiveness of the organization to complaints and requests, and the quality of the individual salesperson with whom they have been dealing. Price ranks at number seven or eight, if it comes up at all in the surveys. This is important for you to know because it is amazing how many salespeople get sidetracked into negotiating on the basis of price and then they can't understand why they failed to get the sale. 84 percent of all sales in America originate from the recommendations of satisfied customers. A referral to a new customer is worth ten times more than a cold call. And it is 16 times easier to sell a satisfied customer something new than it is to sell something to a brand new prospect. In the final analysis, dedicating yourself to serving your customers in such a way that you keep them for life is one of the smartest and most profitable things that you can ever do. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Thinking Like A Winner" by Brian Tracy After studying the research done in cognitive psychology over the last 25 years, I've come to a simple conclusion: The degree to which you feel in control of your life will largely determine your level of mental well-being, your peace of mind, your happiness and the quality of your interactions with people. Cognitive psychologists call this a "sense of control." It is the foundation of happiness and high achievement. And the only thing in the world over which you have complete control is the content of your conscious mind. If you decide to exert that control and keep your mind on what you want, even when you are surrounded by difficult circumstances, your future potential will be unlimited. Your aim should be to work on yourself and your thinking until you reach the point where you absolutely, positively believe yourself to be a total winner in anything you sincerely want to accomplish. When you reach the point where you feel unshakable confidence in yourself and your abilities, nothing will be able to stop you. And this state of self-confidence comes from, first, understanding the functioning of your remarkable mind and, second, practicing the techniques of mental fitness over and over, until you become a completely optimistic, cheerful and positive person. Italian psychologist Dr. Roberto Assagioli left us two remarkable pieces of writing, Psychosynthesis and The Act of Will. In those books, Assagioli brought his remarkable intelligence to bear on the entire subject of human potential and human happiness. He studied the mind and personality for his entire lifetime, and he came up with several ideas that are profoundly simple and powerfully effective in helping you and me to lead happier, more satisfying lives. In The Act of Will, he laid out a series of psychological principles, or laws, that can be very helpful to you in understanding the way your mind works and how you can take control of it. The third of Assagioli's laws is that images or pictures, either from within or from the outside, will trigger thoughts and feelings consistent with them. In turn, those thoughts and feelings will trigger behaviors that lead to the realization of the pictures. For example, when you become absolutely convinced that you are a total winner and you are meant to be a complete success in anything that you really want to do, every picture or image that you see that somehow represents winning to you will trigger thoughts of what you could do to achieve that same state. The picture will also trigger the feeling of excitement that will motivate you to take action. A friend of mine who was a sales manager had a simple technique to make new salespeople successful, and it worked in more than 90 percent of cases. When he hired a salesperson, he would take that person to a nearby Cadillac dealership and force the person to trade in his current car on a new Cadillac. The payments on the Cadillac would be substantially more than the new salesperson had ever imagined paying, and he would strongly resist getting into the commitment. However, the sales manager would insist until, finally, the salesperson bought the new Cadillac and drove it home. No matter how unsure or insecure the salesperson felt, when his spouse and friends saw the new Cadillac and he experienced the pleasure of driving it down the street, he began to think about himself and to see himself as a big success selling his product. And in almost all cases, it turned out to be true. Those salespeople went on to become great successes in their field. Take every opportunity you can to surround yourself with images of what success means to you: Get brochures on new cars; get magazines containing pictures of beautiful homes, beautiful clothes and other things that you could obtain as a result of achieving the success that you are aiming for. Each time you see or visualize those images, you trigger the thoughts, feelings and actions that make them materialize in your life. Assagioli's fourth law is that thoughts, feelings and images trigger the words and actions consistent with them. This is another way of saying that your inner impressions will motivate you to pursue the outer activities that will move you toward the achievement of your goals. Assagioli's fifth law is that your actions will trigger thoughts, emotions and images consistent with them. That has been referred to as the Law of Reversibility. It is one of the most important success principles ever discovered. Simply, that law says that you are more likely to act yourself into feeling than you are to feel yourself into acting. On many days, you wake up feeling not as positive and optimistic as you would like. However, if you act as if you already have the feeling that you desire, the action itself will trigger the feelings and the thoughts and mental pictures consistent with them. In her book Wake Up and Live, Dorothea Brande said that the most important success secret she ever discovered was this: "Act as if it were impossible to fail, and it shall be." In the book, she goes on to explain that you need to be very clear about the success that you desire, and then simply act as if you already had it. Act as if your success were inevitable. Act as if your achievement were guaranteed. Act as if there were no possibility of failure. The wonderful thing is this: You can control your actions easier than you can control your feelings. If you choose to exert control over your actions, those actions will have a "back flow" effect and trigger the feelings, thoughts and images that are consistent with those of the person you want to be, of the person who lives the life you want to live. There is a principle called the Law of Expression, which says that whatever is expressed is impressed. This means that whatever you say, whatever you express to another in your conversation, is impressed into your subconscious mind. The reverse of this law is that whatever is impressed will, in turn, be expressed. It will come out. Your conversation reveals an enormous amount about you, the kind of person you are and the things that you believe about yourself and others. In identifying those laws, one of the most important facts I discovered is that your brain is a multisensory, multistimulated, extremely complex, interactive organ. Everything that you think, imagine, say, do or feel triggers everything else, like a chain reaction, or like a series of electrical impulses going out in all directions and turning on lights everywhere. Let's say that you are driving down the street, listening to the radio and thinking about a variety of things. Suddenly, you hear a song that you associate with an old romance that you had many years before. Instantaneously, your brain reacts and re-creates all the sensations that were present when you were with that person a long time ago. You instantly get a mental picture of the person. You see and remember where you were and what you were doing when the song was playing back then. You feel the emotion that you experienced at that time. You recall what was going on around you-the sounds, the season, the lights, the people and the activities. You temporarily forget whatever you were thinking about and are transported, in a split second, back across the years. Sometimes, the emotion that you recall is so intense that it brings you close to tears or fills you with happiness. That is the way your mind works. By understanding that, you can make your mind work for you as a powerful engine of growth and development. You can consciously surround yourself with a series of sensory inputs that bombard you with messages and cause you to think and feel like a total winner. Thinking like a winner is the first step to living like a winner. You do become what you think about most of the time. You are not what you think you are; but what you think, you are. In fact, you are what you most intensely believe. And if you think like a winner and do the things that winners do to keep their minds positive and optimistic, you will be a winner. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Unlocking Your Creativity" by Brian Tracy I began studying creativity more than 20 years ago. I thought it was an ability that was possessed by a few, especially intelligent people, such as artists and writers and scientists. But as I delved further into the subject, I came to a remarkable conclusion: I am a genius! Not only that, but you, too, are a genius! In fact, probably 95 percent of the population has the capacity to function at exceptional levels. Creativity is as natural to human beings as is breathing in and out. Everyone is creative to a certain extent. People are highly creative because they decide to be highly creative. It's no miracle. Creativity is like any human faculty; it can be developed with practice and strengthened with constant use. If you improve things in small ways, you are engaging in small acts of creativity. If you make major breakthroughs, and improve parts of your life in extraordinary ways, you are demonstrating high levels of creativity. And the amount of creativity you use in your life is largely up to you. If creativity is improvement, in what areas do you want to use it? The answer is simple. You want to use your inborn creativity to improve the parts of your life that are most important to you. You can use your creativity to improve your relationships, to increase your income and improve your business, and to assure yourself higher levels of health and happiness. With that definition, you can see clearly that you have opportunities to be creative from the time you get up in the morning to the time you go to bed at night. Creativity is like a muscle. If you do not deliberately and consciously flex your creativity on a regular basis, it becomes weak and soft. It loses its strength. If people criticize you for your ideas, or if you have concluded that you are not particularly creative, you will tend to be more passive and submissive and look to others for new and better ways of solving problems and achieving goals. However, if you start to practice creative thinking, along the lines that I'm going to share with you, you will be absolutely amazed at how smart you really are. I used to think that you had to be highly intelligent to be creative. Then I found that intelligence is not just a matter of IQ. There are many people with high IQs who got excellent grades in school but who are doing very poorly at life. They are working at jobs they don't like and earning salaries that are far below their potentials. They probably haven't come up with a creative idea in years. Intelligence is a way of acting. If you act intelligently, you are intelligent. If you act stupidly, you are stupid. That's all there is to it. You can decide to be highly intelligent and highly creative simply by doing the things that highly intelligent and highly creative people do. If you do these things over and over, you'll soon get the same results. People around you will be talking about how bright and full of ideas you have become. There are three basic qualities of genius. Since you are a genius, you should know what they are and apply them regularly. The first quality of genius is open-mindedness. People who are fluent, flexible and adaptive in their thinking are far brighter than those who are rigid, mechanical and straitlaced. The more open you are to new ideas and possibilities, to new approaches and solutions, the more creatively you will function. Most people tend to fall into what are called "thinking traps." They assume that there is only one right answer to a problem; in reality, there could be several right answers. They jump to conclusions, assuming that because one thing happens, it is the reason for another thing's happening; there may be no relationship at all between the two events. Sometimes people think that the problem has to be solved immediately; often, the problem can be deferred for some time, and often it will solve itself if left alone. People think that certain problems have to be solved without spending any money; often, if the solution is important enough, it is a good idea to spend money on it. Another thinking trap people fall into is thinking they have to solve the whole problem; sometimes, solving just one part of the problem is enough for the time. A final thinking trap is thinking that it is your problem and you are the one who must solve it; often, it is someone else's problem, and the very best thing for you to do is to turn it over to that person and refuse to get involved. The second quality of genius is the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing at a time, on one problem at a time. And to stay with it until it's solved. Highly creative people practice focusing on single questions and single problems, while uncreative people diffuse their mental energies by trying to do several things at once. They work on this and work on that. They pick something up and put it down. Then they go on to something else and come back. Often, they are scatterbrained, and if they do come up with ideas, their ideas are shallow and poorly thought-out. The difference between diffusion and concentration in creativity is the difference between gentle sunlight and sunlight concentrated through a magnifying glass. It is the difference between light and a laser beam. It is the difference between a small flame and a welding torch. Your job, in increasing your creativity and enhancing your intelligence, is to concentrate your powers where they can do the most good. The third quality of genius is the ability to approach problems systematically. People who throw themselves at their problems often become frantic and confused. They take a haphazard approach to thinking, and then they are amazed when they find themselves floundering and making no progress. In his book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Peter Drucker makes the point very clearly that innovation must be a systematic process. It must be planned and organized. It is too important to be random and haphazard. Here is a 10-step method you can use to think systematically. With this method, you develop your creativity to genius levels. 1. Change your language from negative to positive. Instead of using the word problem, use the word situation, or call it a challenge or an opportunity. If a sale falls through, you can say something like, "This is an interesting challenge. It is an opportunity for me to improve my sales effectiveness so this doesn't happen again in the future." The more positive your language is, the more confident and optimistic you will be when approaching any difficulty. The more creative and insightful you will be in identifying solutions and breakthrough ideas. 2. Define your situation or difficulty clearly. What exactly is the challenge you are facing? What is causing you the stress and anxiety? What is causing you to worry? Why are you unhappy? Write it out clearly in detail. Sometimes what you are worrying about is what is called a "cluster problem." It is a series of small problems clustered together. You need to sort them out and define them separately. 3. Ask, "What else is the problem?" Don't be satisfied with a superficial answer. Look for the root cause of the problem rather than get sidetracked by the symptom. Approach the problem from several different directions. For example, if your business is slow, you could ask, "What exactly is the challenge facing me?" Your first answer might be that sales are down. But what else is the problem? How else could you phrase your answer to make the problem more amenable to a solution? Here are some different ways of answering that question. You could say that sales are down. You could say also that you are not selling enough. Or you could say that people are not buying enough. Or you could say that people are buying too much of your competition's product. Or you could say that people are not buying your product the way it is currently produced or packaged. Or people are not buying your product the way you are selling it, or for the reasons you think they should, or in the quantity you need them to buy it for you to be financially successful. In each case, by changing your definition of the problem, you change your possible approach to the solution. You expand your possibilities. You become more creative. You unlock more of your inner genius. 4. Ask, "What are my minimum boundary conditions?" What must the solution accomplish? What ingredients must the solution contain? What would your ideal solution to this problem look like? Define the parameters clearly. 5. Pick the best solution by comparing your various possible solutions against your problem, on the one hand, and your ideal solution, on the other. What is the best thing to do at this time under the circumstances? 6. Before you implement the decision, ask, "What's the worst possible thing that can happen if this decision doesn't work?" I remember once spending all the advertising money of the company I was working for on a single advertising campaign. I was convinced that, even at a low rate of return, sales would more than justify the expenditure. I failed to ask that question about the worst possible outcome. I got blindsided by the "fallacy of large numbers," which says that if you advertise to an enormous number of people, the odds are that you will get a certain number of sales. What happened was that I got no sales at all from the advertising. As a result, I almost ruined the business. I should have asked, "What effect would there be on the business if the advertising did not work at all?" In fact, before you make any expenditure of money or effort in trying to achieve your goal, you should evaluate what would happen if your decision were a complete failure. 7. Set measures on your decision. How will you know that you are making progress? How will you measure success? How will you compare the success of this solution against the success of another solution? If you decide to sell or market in a particular way, how will you know that you have made the right decision? How will you define a success? Make it measurable. Then monitor it on a regular basis. 8. Accept complete responsibility for implementing the decision. You might want to delegate responsibility for the implementation of the action steps to someone else. Many of the most creative ideas never materialize because no one is specifically assigned the responsibility of carrying out the decision. 9. Set a deadline. A decision without a deadline is a meaningless discussion. If it is a major decision and will take some time to implement, set a series of short-term deadlines and a schedule for reporting. If you have a one-year goal to increase your income, break down the goal into months, and then break down the months into weeks. Break down the weeks into days and the days into hours. Then discipline yourself to do the things you need to do, every hour of every day, to assure that you achieve your weekly and monthly goals and your annual goal on schedule. With the deadlines and subdeadlines, you will know immediately if you are on track or if you are falling behind. You can then use your creativity to alleviate further bottlenecks or choke points. 10. Take action. Get busy. Get going. Develop a sense of urgency. The faster you move in the direction of your clearly defined goals, the more creative you will be. The more energy you will have. The more you will learn. And the faster you will develop your capacity to achieve even more in the future. The world is full of creative individuals who have wonderful ideas. But almost all of them fall down when it comes to implementation. And this is where you can excel. The future belongs to the creative minority who can not only think but also take action and put their ideas into effect. You can solve any problem, overcome any obstacle or achieve any goal that you can set for yourself by using your wonderful creative mind and then taking action consistently and persistently until you attain your objective. Success is a mark of a creative thinker, and when you use your ability to think creatively, your success can be unlimited. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"The Virtual Project Team" by Brian Tracy When I began studying time management some years ago, I was amazed to discover that all great accomplishments are the result of "multi-task jobs." Everything worthwhile is achieved by a variety of people coming together to perform a variety of jobs, all of which are coordinated and sequenced together to achieve a final result. Today, this model of the virtual corporation or the virtual team is becoming the key to success in both individual and business life. A perfect example of the virtual project team would be the video crew that makes my video training programs. This crew consists of about 10 people, most of whom know each other but all of whom work independently from each other. This is the way this type of team comes together. When I decide to create a training program, I negotiate an agreement for the finished product with a person who becomes the project's executive producer. The executive producer knows where to find the key people to make up the team. And here is an important point: selection is 95 percent of success in management. For you to select the right people, you must be clear about the key result areas and the standards of job performance. Most people judge themselves on the basis of what they feel they are capable of doing in the future, but you must only judge people based on what they have actually accomplished in the past. The inability to choose people well for a team can lead to under-achievement and failure. The executive producer of the film crew will then begin hiring the individual members of the video shooting team. First, he or she will hire three cameramen, who come complete with state-of-the-art camera equipment that they either own or rent for this project. Then there will be lighting and sound specialists. A combination carpenter and designer will be hired to concept and build the set for the video project. A floor director will be selected who will coordinate the activities of the cameramen, the people appearing in the video shoot, the sound person, the light person, and the designer. In addition to these people, there will be an editor and mixer who will sit in the video sound booth and mix the project as it is shot and edit it afterwards. Finally, there will be a make-up specialist who prepares each of the performers for the shoot. This makes for a total of 10 people, all specialists who are brought together to focus on the production of a single video project. The actual shoot itself can take anywhere from two hours to two weeks. When it is over and everyone has done their jobs, the crew shakes hands and disperses in different directions, going on to join other crews for other video shoots under other circumstances. In corporations today, the continuous formation and dissolution of these "virtual teams" is becoming the norm for achieving goals. People who specialize in their fields are brought together under a team leader to perform a function or do a job and then disperse to become members of other teams performing other functions. It is into this constant formation and reformation of teams that you must integrate yourself so that you can maximize your capacity to make a significant contribution wherever you work. Peter Drucker, in his book Managing in a Time of Great Change, points out that there are three different types of teams, each of which is appropriate for the achievement of specific goals. The first type of team is the "baseball team" model. A surgical team in an operating room, or even a video crew working as a team, fall into this category. In this model, the players have specific positions on the team that they never leave. They do not have interchangeable positions: the cameraman is always a cameraman, the shortstop is always a shortstop, etc. They may work together in harmony, supporting and assisting each other, but they always play their specific, designated role in their area of specialization. In this "baseball team" type of model, each performer can be evaluated and rewarded independently of the others. The second type of team is the "football team" model. This is a little different from the "baseball team" in that each player has a specific role but they all work together in parallel to contribute their talents to the achievement of a single goal. In the "football team" model, there is a coach who calls the plays, there is a team against which they compete, and there is a specific goal to be achieved. The members work very closely with each other to move the ball down the field. The third type of team is the "tennis doubles" model. This team functions like a jazz combo, with the players harmonizing all their activities, but with each player in charge of a specific instrument. Each person has a fixed position, based on their area of specialization, but they also cover for each other and respond as a team to the changes being driven on the outside by the explosion of information, technology, and competition. The one thing all these teams have in common is that they must enjoy a high degree of harmony and trust if they are to function at their best. The principle of "synergy" says that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Five or six people working together in complete harmony toward a common goal can produce the work of 10 or 15, or even 20 people who are disorganized or working at cross purposes. None of these teams can substitute for each other. Each of them is based on individuals performing in coordination with each other, but a "baseball team" model cannot substitute for a "football team" model. And neither of these models can substitute for a "tennis doubles" model. One of the most important jobs you have is to determine the type of team that you are either putting together or serving on. A team is a tool with a specific purpose. Each team has its own use, its own characteristics, its own requirements, and its own limitations. Each team is formed to achieve a specific goal of some kind. Remember, on every team, the 80/20 Rule applies. 80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the people. Your goal is to be among the 20 percent of the team players who do 80 percent of the work. And never worry about who gets the credit. Everyone always knows who the key team players are. In fact, the more you give the credit away to others, the more you will get back for yourself. Your ability to integrate yourself into your organization and be an excellent team player will do more to earn you the respect of others and open doors of opportunity than you can possibly imagine. The winners and high achievers in every area of life throw themselves wholeheartedly into whatever they commit themselves to doing. They start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later. They look upon every assignment as an opportunity to grow in both experience and reputation. And they recognize that every job they do carries their own personal signature on it for everyone to read. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Your Personal Services" by Brian Tracy You are the President of your own personal services corporation. You are the Chief Executive Officer of your own life. You are completely responsible for this business of your life, and for everything that happens to both it and you. You are in charge of production, distribution, marketing, quality, finance, and research and development. You determine your own salary. Everything that you are or ever will be is completely up to you. In the long run, you write your own paycheck and determine your own salary. If you are not happy with the money that you are making, you can go the nearest mirror and negotiate with your boss. We are all where we are and what we are because that is where and what we have decided to be. If we are not happy with any part of our lives, it is up to us to make whatever changes are necessary to bring about a better state of affairs. As the President of your own personal services corporation, everything that affects business in the world today affects your personal business as well. We no longer have the luxury of standing aside and looking at the rate of change, thinking that it affects some people but not us. Every innovation, discovery, and paradigm shift in modern business is as applicable to you as it is to a multi-billion dollar corporation. Every piece of information being generated by management and business thinker in some way relates to you. The men and women who will survive and thrive in the years ahead are those who are continually looking for ideas and insights that they can use to be faster, more flexible, and more effective in their work on a day-to-day basis. Like all high achievers, your goal is to be a market leader. In fact, if you are not committed to being the best in your field, you are unconsciously accepting mediocrity. If you are not getting better, you are probably getting worse. If you are not committed to being one of the top 10 percent of the people in your field, you will end up somewhere far below. One of the most important findings in the last few years is that defining core values is a vital step for successful individuals and corporations. Companies that have clear, written values and mission statements based on those values are more consistently more profitable than those that do not. Likewise, individuals who have clear core values and personal mission statements seem to be far more effective and successful than those who do not. You can dramatically improve the quality of your life by thinking through what your values are, or should be, and then committing yourself to live consistently by those values, no matter what the external circumstances may be. My wife and I sat down one day and wrote out all the values that we believed in and were committed to. We came up with a list of 163 values. We immediately recognized that this list was far too large for us to use as the basis for decision making. So we cut the list down to about five key values. We then dedicated ourselves to organizing our lives around those five key values. And it has made an enormous difference in everything that we have accomplished in the last few years. Once you have determined what your personal values are, you can work toward organizing your life around them. Values give you a foundation upon which you can make your decisions. Whenever you are confronted with a choice between alternatives, you can evaluate the alternatives based on what you most value. What are your core values? What do you believe in? What do you stand for? What will you not stand for? Here's a great exercise. Imagine that a market research firm is going to come into your community and do a study on you. The researchers are going to ask all the people who know you, your family, friends, customers, coworkers, and bosses, to give their opinions of you. They are going to ask them what kind of person you are. They are going to ask what sort of values you have and what you stand for as an individual. They are going to ask about your philosophy and beliefs, based on your words and actions. They are going to work up a complete profile on you to be broadcast on national television. Based on this scenario, consider these questions: What would the people around you say to the researchers? How would they describe you? What kind of a quality rating would you get in your personal marketplace? Most importantly, how would you like them to talk about you in the future? Successful companies almost invariably sit down and think through the answers to these questions. Dr. Theodore Leavitt of the Harvard Business School says that a company's reputation is its most valuable asset in the marketplace. Any company that can positively influence the way customers think and talk about them to others has accomplished a tremendous feat. Its products, processes, and people may all change over time, but its reputation can last for decades. It is the same with you. What kind of reputation do you have in your marketplace? And what kind of reputation would you like to have sometime in the future? Once you have determined your core values, develop them into a mission statement. A mission statement is a future-tense description of the kind of person or corporation that you would ideally like to be in three to five years. These core values and the mission statement that flows from them then become your operating principles for everything you do. You commit all your resources to living consistently with them. With your values and your mission statement clear, you can further your effort to become a market leader by engaging in the seven Rs of modern management. These seven Rs are Re-engineering, Restructuring, Reorganizing, Reinventing, Re-evaluating, Rethinking, and Refocusing. In re-engineering your personal services corporation, you stand back and look at the entire process of your work, from the first thing you do to the ultimate result that you get for your company or your customer. You analyze this process and look for ways to streamline it by reducing steps, consolidating activities, outsourcing parts of the work, and even changing the process completely so that you can achieve the same or better results with less time and fewer resources. Re-engineering is an ongoing process in which you must engage throughout your work life. In restructuring, you continually look at the specific things you do that contribute the most value to your customers. You focus more and more of your time and talent on those few things that represent the highest pay-off for everyone involved. In reorganization, you are continually moving resources around so that you operate with greater efficiency and perform your tasks with greater effectiveness. You continually look for ways to increase your output relative to your input of time and money. In reinventing, you stand back from your work and imagine starting over again. Imagine for a moment that you were going to move across the street or across the country and begin your career or your business all over. What would you do differently? Where do you want your business to be in three to five years? What changes would you have to make in reinventing your business to create the future that you desire? Re-evaluating yourself and your business is the process of standing back and looking at yourself in terms of the marketplace. Whenever you experience stress, frustration, or continual roadblocks in achieving your goals, you need to take time to re-evaluate your situation and be sure that you are on the right track. The basic rule of business is that if you cannot develop a competitive advantage, don't compete. Your problems may be caused by your not being particularly good in a critical area. And you may have no real desire to excel in that area. Sometimes, the very best thing to do in a situation like this is to change your product, your service, your market, or your desired competitive advantage so that it is More consistent with your talents, abilities, and desires. In rethinking, you take time on a regular basis to think about who you are and where you are going. Since everything is changing so rapidly around you, more options are available to you now than ever before. And because it is very likely that you are going to be doing something completely different in a few years anyway, you can begin thinking today about where you want to be in the future. You can rethink and replan your entire career. One of the best ways to do this is to determine what it is that you really enjoy doing more than anything else, and then begin figuring out how you can find or create a job doing more of those things. The final R stands for refocusing. This is really the key to the future. It is your ability to concentrate your energies single-mindedly on doing those few things that make all the difference in your life. I am convinced that people are unsuccessful because they spend too much time doing things that contribute little to their lives. They spend more and more time doing things that have less and less value. On the other hand, highly successful people do not do a lot of things, but the few things they, they do extremely well. This seems to be the secret to great success and achievement in every area of life. The advantage of practicing the seven Rs, of focusing on the disciplines that enable you to be a market leader and master the forces of change, is that they allow you to regain control over your present and future. With a sense of control comes a feeling of personal power and greater self-confidence. When your life and your future are determined by you, rather than by the unpredictable winds of change, you feel happier, healthier, and more effective in everything you do. You the president of your own personal services corporation. You are in charge of your own life. You are responsible. When you begin to see yourself as an active participant in the dynamic world around you, you take full control of your own destiny. You become the architect of your own future, and the primary creative force in your own life. And always remember: You are your own best customer. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Seeing With Your Mind's Eye" by Brian Tracy Success is not an accident. It is a deliberate, systematic process of deciding where you want to go and what it will look like when you get there, and then taking the steps, day by day, to turn those dreams into realities. And perhaps the most powerful of all tools for success you can learn to use is visualization, seeing with the mind’s eye. Visualization is an absolutely amazing process that is used by highly successful men and women. However, it is a power that is available to everyone. And the better you get at visualization, the more rapidly you move forward to accomplish your goals and aspirations. Perhaps the best statement on visualization comes from Denis Waitley, who says, “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” All improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures. Your mental pictures act as a guidance mechanism that causes you to act in ways that make your mental pictures come true in your life. The Law of Correspondence says that “As within, so without.” It says that your outer world tends to be a reflection of your inner world-like a mirror. What you see in the world around you will be consistent over time with the world inside you. The Law of Concentration says that “Whatever you dwell upon grows in your reality.” Those two laws in combination explain much of success and most of failure. Successful people are those who continually think about pictures and images of the people they would like to be and the lives they would like to lead. Unsuccessful people, unfortunately, are those who continually dwell upon and imagine exactly the things they don’t want to happen in their lives. Your subconscious mind is extraordinarily powerful, but it is a servant, not a master. Your subconscious mind coordinates every aspect of your thoughts, feelings, behaviors, words, actions and emotions to fit a pattern consistent with your dominant mental pictures. It guides you to engage in the behaviors that move you ever closer to achieving the goals you visualize most of the time. But your subconscious mind merely accepts commands from your conscious, visualizing mind. If you visualize something that you fear, your subconscious mind will accept that as a command as well. It will then use its marvelous powers to bring your fears, instead of your dreams and aspirations, into reality. Over and over, in surveys and tests, it has been found that successful, happy people think about successful, happy things most of the time. Unsuccessful, unhappy people, on the other hand, continually dwell upon and mull over the people they dislike, the situations they are angry about and the events that they don’t wish to occur in their lives. And-surprise! surprise!-whatever a person thinks about continually, either positive or negative, tends to materialize in the world around him. Since virtually no schools or courses ever teach people about the power of visualization, average people use it in a random, or haphazard, way most of the time. Instead of continually thinking about the things they desire and, therefore, moving consistently toward them, average people think first about something they want, and then they think about something they don’t want. They think about things they desire, and they think about things they fear. They think about people they like, and they think about people they dislike. They think about success, and they think about failure. They think about wealth, and they think about poverty. They think about having a nice life, and they think about being impoverished or being deeply in debt. And then they can’t understand why their life seems to go back and forth, back and forth, and they make very little progress. The starting point of great success in your life begins, in the simplest terms, when you discipline yourself to think and talk about only the things you want and refuse to think and talk about anything you don’t want. The fact is that your mind is so powerful that if you don’t want something, you must absolutely refrain from allowing yourself to think about it when it comes into your mind. You must push it out, knock it aside, get rid of it, and get your mind back on what you want. One of the best formulas for positive thinking I ever learned was this: No matter what is going on around you, think about your goals. If you have problems with your finances, stop-refuse to dwell upon them-and instead think about your goals. If you are having difficulties with other people, change your mind by switching your thinking off of your problems with them and onto your goals. Eventually, through repetition, you will find yourself thinking about your goals most of the time. And, as we’ve known for more than 2,000 years, as you think about your goals, you begin to move toward them, and they begin to move toward you. All manner of remarkable things happen in your life that bring you closer to your goals. You see, your subconscious mind can’t tell the difference between something that you vividly imagine-such as a goal, a hope or a dream-and a real experience. For example, if you go to an automobile dealership and take your dream car for a drive, and, as you drive along, you imagine you already own that car, and you create the feeling of enjoyment that would accompany your being the proud possessor of that beautiful machine, your subconscious mind simply accepts that the car belongs to you. It doesn’t argue; it doesn’t complain; it doesn’t try to change your instructions. It simply tries to make your instructions a reality. Think of your subconscious mind as a photo lab and your conscious mind as a camera, or a photographer. Your conscious mind takes pictures of what you want and passes the film to the photo lab, your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind then develops the pictures and passes them back up to your reality. The photo lab doesn’t argue with you over the content of the film that you sent to it. It simply develops the photographs exactly as you saw them through the lens of your mind’s eye. To get back to our car example, when you resume driving your old car after having driven the new car from the dealership, your subconscious mind accepts the new car as your desired reality and the old car as your past situation. Your subconscious mind then goes to work and consistently, continuously begins to urge you in the direction of doing the things that will make it possible for you to have that new car. A friend of mine, who was unemployed at the time, decided to use this technique to get a new BMW. He began visiting the dealership every Saturday and taking a new BMW for a drive. He feasted his mind and senses on the car. He smelled the leather, he looked through the windshield and at the dashboard, and he thought of himself owning this car as he drove it around on test-drives. He got a brochure on the car from the dealership, cut out the pictures and put them everywhere, including on the steering wheel of his old car. Each time he glanced down at the steering wheel and saw a picture of his new BMW, he imagined that he was already driving it. The most remarkable things began to happen. First, he went from being unemployed to being employed. After two months, he changed to a better job, and after four months, he changed jobs again. By the end of the year, he was making three times what he had made at his very best job in the past. This time, he was working in an area of sales that was totally suited to him. Almost exactly to the day one year after he began this visualization process, he walked into the BMW dealership, traded in his old car, bought his brand-new BMW, and drove it away. He was still driving it the last time I spoke to him. Does visualization work? Well, here’s an exercise that has worked for me and might work for you. Everyone I know wants to have his “dream home.” The first problem with obtaining a dream home is that most people have never even sat down to think about what it would look like. Many years ago, when my wife, Barbara, and I were going through financial difficulties, we began putting together a composite of our dream home. We subscribed to magazines full of beautiful pictures and descriptions of lovely homes for sale. We cut out pictures and descriptions that were consistent with what we were looking for. We discussed our dream home at great length. We went to open houses in the best neighborhoods in the city. We looked at beautiful, expensive homes and at the details and furnishings in them. We read Architectural Digest and House Beautiful. We eventually came up with a mutually agreed on composite of what our dream home would look like. Within a year after beginning this exercise, we moved from a rented home to a beautiful home that we had purchased. It wasn’t quite what we had in mind, but we both recognized at the time that it was merely a stepping-stone to what we really wanted. A year later, after looking at 150 houses in different cities, we walked into a home that was for sale, took one look around and, without speaking, both knew that we had found it. This was the home that we had been looking for. It cost twice as much as we ever had imagined paying for a house, and it required a good deal of renovation to make it conform to the mental pictures we had developed. Nonetheless, we bought it, renovated it, repainted it, furnished it and landscaped the grounds exactly as we had imagined. And it all began to come together after we had carefully crafted a clear mental picture of what it would look like when it was done. Many, many books and articles have been written on the process of visualization. I’ve personally studied the subject for many years. Because the ability to visualize is a natural attribute, it is something that you can learn to do extremely well with practice. If you do it properly, and consistently, visualization can help you to move ahead further and faster than perhaps any other process you could engage in. There are four specific dimensions of visualization that can contribute to its effectiveness in bringing you the things you want in life. The first of these is vividness. The more vividly you can see something that you want in your mind’s eye, the more rapidly it will materialize in your reality. Most people have only a vague, fuzzy picture of what they want. They say they want to be rich or healthy or happy. But when you ask them exactly what that means to them, they don’t really know. If it fell on them out of the second story of a building, they probably wouldn’t recognize it. Vividness refers to the clarity of detail in your mental pictures. The more time you spend examining pictures of your desired goals, or drawing your own pictures of them, or writing out clear descriptions of what your goals and dreams would look like when they came true, the more rapidly the pictures are accepted by your subconscious as a command. Your subconscious mind immediately goes to work to coordinate all of your other resources, internal and external, to bring those desires into your life. “As within, so without.” The clearer and more vivid your goal is in your mind’s eye, the more rapidly it materializes in the world around you. The second dimension of visualization is intensity. This refers to the amount of emotion you accompany your mental pictures with. Emotion is central to all accomplishments. There is a little formula, T x F = R. Thought times feeling equals realization. This means that the thought or picture multiplied by the feeling or emotion that accompanies it equals the speed at which it occurs in your reality. For example, you might think of increasing your income by 20 percent this year. The thought in and of itself has no power to affect your subconscious mind or your behavior. But then combine the thought of an increase in income with the emotion and excitement of what that would mean to your standard of living. Think of why you want to earn more money, what you would do with it, how you would spend it, and how it would improve your standard of living. Think of the vacation you could take, the clothes you could buy, the home you could live in, the beautiful furniture you could acquire, the car you could drive. The more you think about those exciting reasons for increasing your income, the more emotional and intense you become about it. You become more excited and enthusiastic about any increase in income, and this emotional energy begins to drive you toward doing the things that make your income increase a reality. Men and women whose lives don’t improve from year to year are those who have never thought about why they want their lives to improve in the first place. If you don’t think about the reasons why, you can’t generate the emotional excitement and energy that motivates you to do the things that make your dreams come true. One of the most important exercises in visualization is “getting the feeling.” This means that you imagine something you would like to be, have or do. You then imagine that you have already accomplished it, and you create the emotion that would accompany the accomplishment of the goal. Let’s say that you wanted to win a prize for being the best achiever of the year in your company. Imagine you have already won the prize. Then imagine how you would feel accepting the prize in front of an audience of your peers. Imagine the pride and happiness and joy and satisfaction of having risen to the top. As you bask in that feeling, like a sunbather basks in the sun, the mental picture is combined with the emotion and passed on to your subconscious mind. Suddenly, amazing things will begin to happen. You will have more energy and enthusiasm. You will be more creative and imaginative. You will be more focused and directed. You will be more efficient and effective. You will do more and more of the things that move you in the direction of making that mental picture a real picture. The third dimension of visualization is frequency. This refers to how often you play the mental picture of your desired outcome on the screen of your mind. You see, when you begin to think of yourself accomplishing something that you have never accomplished before, your subconscious mind will tend to keep you stuck in the old, lower levels of achievement. In fact, your subconscious mind will be a little skeptical of your new ambition. You must convince your subconscious mind that you really want it by repeating the command, that mental picture, over and over, until it is finally accepted as an absolute instruction for your subconscious mind to act on. When many people see others driving nice cars, wearing nice clothes, living in nice homes and going to nice restaurants, they say to themselves, “I surely wish I could do things like that.” Then, just as quickly, they start talking about their problems, their bills, their relationships, and what they are going to watch on television that night. Then they wonder why nothing good ever happens to them. In fact, if they think about what they are going to watch on television that night, that becomes their visual image, their guiding force, and their subconscious mind organizes their thoughts, feelings and activities so that they get home, get onto the couch and watch television. They have realized their visualization. The fourth dimension of visualization is duration. This refers to how long you hold the mental image or picture in your mind at one time. The longer you can hold that picture, combined with emotion and vividness, in your mind, the more rapidly it will be accepted by your subconscious mind as new operating instructions. That is why you must think about your goals all of the time. Highly successful men and women think about virtually nothing but the things they want to accomplish. For instance, wealthy people think about engaging in activities that will create wealth. Healthy people think about engaging in activities-proper diet, exercise and rest-that will bring about health. Men and women who are happy in their relationships continually think about the things they can do and the kind of people they can become so that they will be more enjoyable to be around. Successful people are serious about their lives, and they are especially serious about keeping their minds on what they want and off what they don’t want. My friend Ed Foreman says that worrying, for example, is a form of negative goal setting. It is setting goals that you absolutely don’t want to accomplish. It is thinking about and vividly imagining and emotionalizing pictures of exactly the things that you don’t want to happen. It doesn’t really matter to your subconscious whether your mental images are positive or negative. It will bring you whatever you ask for. There are seven methods that you can use to tap into the powers of visualization to help yourself move ahead more rapidly. You can use any or all of them. They are used by the most successful men and women in our society. 1. Continuously flood your mind with pictures and images of the person you want to be and the things you want to have and accomplish. Read magazines that contain pictures and stories of what you want to achieve. Go to stores and visit open houses that give you mental images of the kind of lifestyle you want to live. At the same time, stop watching long, drawn-out television shows depicting images of things that you don’t want to have in your life. Stop reading about characters you don’t admire and situations you don’t like. Stop associating with people who are going nowhere. 2. Read stories about and autobiographies by successful people. Continually read self-development materials filled with ideas and examples of men and women who have set goals, overcome adversity, and accomplished great things. As you read, you will begin to identify with those people, and you will actually begin to become like them in your own personality and character. 3. Listen to success audiocassettes, and watch success videos. Also, on television, watch the specials that feature biographies of successful people and interviews with men and women who have accomplished the kind of things that you want to accomplish. Soak your mind in images of success, and success soon will appear in the world around you. 4. Rewrite your major goals, in the present tense, each morning. When you rewrite your major goals for a greater income, thinner waistline, better relationships, and so on, stop to get the feeling or emotion of pleasure and satisfaction that would go along with the accomplishment of those goals. Imagine that you have achieved them already. Smile, and enjoy the feelings of achievement. If you do this every day, you will be amazed at how much more rapidly you will move toward achieving the things you really want. 5. Use the quick affirmation technique. Prior to every event in which you want to be successful, such as an interview or a sales presentation, close your eyes, and take a few seconds to create a clear mental picture of this meeting going extremely well. Breathe deeply. See yourself as relaxed, calm and confident, and see the other person as positive, happy and cooperative. See, in your mind’s eye, the exact outcome or result that you want at this meeting. Smile, and enjoy the feeling of success. Then open your eyes, stand up straight, and, with complete confidence, go into the meeting, knowing that you have already succeeded in your own mind. 6. Use the standard affirmation technique. On three- by five-inch index cards, write down your major goals, in the present tense, and review them on a regular basis. As you read a goal on a card-for example, “I earn $50,000 per year”-close your eyes for a few seconds, and imagine what it would be like if you were earning that kind of money. Visualize your ideal lifestyle. Imagine the restaurants you would dine at, the clothes you would wear, the car you would drive, the people you would associate with. Get the feeling of success and achievement that goes with that greater income. Then open your eyes, smile, and go about your business, knowing that you have already succeeded in your mind’s eye in achieving your goal. 7. Feed your mind a clear mental picture of your desired goals for the coming day, the coming week, the coming months, just before you go to sleep at night. You should use this method every day. We know that in the last 15 minutes before you drop off to sleep, your subconscious mind is the most receptive to the input of new commands. Since your mental pictures are a command, take those last few minutes before you fall off to sleep to daydream and fantasize about exactly the person you want to be and the life you want to have. Your subconscious mind will then take the picture down into its laboratory and work on it all night long. Very often, when you wake up in the morning, you will have ideas and insights to help make those mental pictures a part of your life. Visualization is a wonderful power. But it is like fire. It can either create or destroy. It can generate warmth or heat and power, or it can cause destruction and failure. Your job is to join the rare few who consciously, consistently and deliberately use visualization to achieve the goals they want to achieve and to become the people they want to become. Your job is to use the power of visualization consciously and continuously to create the kind of future you want for yourself. Remember, as Denis Waitley says, “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” Use it with care. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Setting Priorities" by Brian Tracy In 1970, sociologist Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University wrote a book entitled The Unheavenly City. He described one of the most profound studies on success and priority setting ever conducted. Banfield’s goal was to find out how and why some people became financially independent during the course of their working lifetimes. He started off convinced that the answer to this question would be found in factors such as family background, education, intelligence, influential contacts, or some other concrete factor. What he finally discovered was that the major reason for success in life was a particular attitude of mind. Banfield called this attitude "long time perspective." He said that men and women who were the most successful in life and the most likely to move up economically were those who took the future into consideration with every decision they made in the present. He found that the longer the period of time a person took into consideration while planning and acting, the more likely it was that he would achieve greatly during his career. For example, one of the reasons your family doctor is among the most respected people in America is because he or she invested many years of hard work and study to finally earn the right to practice medicine. After university courses, internship, residency and practical training, a doctor may be more than 30 years old before he or she is capable of earning a good living. But from that point onward, these men and women are some of the most respected and most successful professional people in the United States. They had long time perspectives. The essential key to success in setting priorities is having a long time perspective. You can tell how important something is today by measuring its potential future impact on your life. For example, if you come home from work at night and choose to play with your children or spend time with your spouse, rather than watch TV or read the paper, you have a long time perspective. You know that investing time in the health and happiness of your children and your spouse is a very valuable, high-priority use of time. If you take additional courses in the evening to upgrade your skills and make yourself more valuable to your employer, you’re acting with a long time perspective. Learning something practical and useful can have a long-term effect on your career. The key word, then, to keep in mind when you’re setting priorities is sacrifice. Setting priorities usually requires sacrificing present enjoyment for future enjoyment. It requires giving up a short-term pleasure in the present in order to enjoy a far greater and more substantial pleasure in the future. Economists say that the inability to delay gratification-that is, the natural tendency of individuals to spend everything they earn plus a little bit more, and the mind-set of doing what is fun, easy and enjoyable-is the primary cause of economic and personal failure in life. On the other hand, disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem and personal satisfaction. So setting priorities begins with your deciding what you want most in life and then organizing your time and activities so that everything you do is the most valuable use of your time in achieving those objectives. With your larger, long-term priorities in order, you can much more easily decide upon your short-term priorities. You can say that the process of setting short-term priorities begins with a pad of paper and a pen. Whenever you feel overwhelmed by too many things to do and too little time in which to do them, sit down, take a deep breath, and list all those tasks you need to accomplish. Although there is never enough time to do everything, there is always enough time to do the most important things, and to stay with them until they are done right. Peter Drucker once said, "Efficiency is doing things right, but effectiveness is doing the right things." And this requires thought. Once you have listed your tasks, ask yourself this question: "If I were to be called out of town for a month, and I could finish only one thing on this list, which one thing would it be?" Think it through, and circle that one item on your list. Then ask yourself: "If I could do only one more thing before I was called out of town for a month, what would it be?" This then becomes the second thing you circle on your list. Perform this exercise five or six times until you have sorted out the highest priorities on your list. Then number each according to its importance. With these priorities, you are now ready to begin working effectively toward the achievement of your major goals. Another popular method for setting priorities on your list, once you have determined your major goals or objectives, is the A-B-C-D-E method. You place one of those letters in the margin before each of the tasks on your list. "A" stands for "very important; must do; severe negative consequences if not completed." "B" stands for "important; should do; but not as important as my ‘A’ tasks, and only minor negative consequences if not completed." "C" stands for "nice to do; but not as important as ‘A’ or ‘B,’ and no negative consequences for not completing." "D" stands for "delegate, or assign to someone else who can do the task in my place." "E" stands for "eliminate, whenever possible." When you use the A-B-C-D-E method, you can very easily sort out what is important and unimportant. This then will focus your time and attention on those items on your list that are most essential for you to do. Once you can clearly see the one or two things that you should be doing, above all others, just say no to all diversions and distractions and focus single-mindedly on accomplishing those priorities. Much stress that people experience in their work lives comes from working on low-priority tasks. The amazing thing is that as soon as you start working on your highest-value activity, all your stress disappears. You begin to feel a continuous stream of energy and enthusiasm. As you work toward the completion of something that is really important, you feel an increased sense of personal value and inner satisfaction. You experience a sensation of self-mastery and self-control. You feel calm, confident and capable. Here are six ideas that you can use, every day, to help you set priorities and to keep you working at your best: 1. Take the time to be clear about your goals and objectives so that the priorities you set are moving you in the direction of something that is of value to you. Remember that many people scramble frantically to climb the ladder of success, only to find that it is leaning against the wrong building. 2. Develop a long time perspective and work on those things in the present that can have the greatest positive impact on your future. Maintain your balance in life by setting priorities in the areas of your health, your personal relationships and your financial goals. 3. Make the commitment to improve those aspects of your life that are most important to you. If you’re in sales, learn how to be an excellent salesperson. If you’re a parent, learn how to be an outstanding mother or father. The power is always on the side of the person with the best practical knowledge. 4. Be sure to take the time to do your work right the first time. The fewer mistakes you make, the less time you will waste going back and doing it over. 5. Remember that what counts is not the amount of time that you put in overall; rather, it’s the amount of time that you spend working on high-priority tasks. You will always be paid for the results that you obtain, not merely the hours that you spend on the job. 6. Understand that the most important factor in setting priorities is your ability to make wise choices. You are always free to choose to engage in one activity or another. You may choose a higher-value activity or a lower-value activity, but once you have chosen, you must accept the consequences of your choice. Resolve today to set clear priorities in every area of your life, and always choose the activities that will assure you the greatest health, happiness and prosperity in the long term. The long term comes soon enough, and every sacrifice that you make today will be rewarded with compound interest in the great future that lies ahead for you. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back

"Sharpening Your Conversation Skills" by Brian Tracy There are three aims and purposes of conversation. The first is the plain enjoyment and pleasure of self-expression and interaction with other people. One of the most enjoyable things we ever do is to spend time with people we like and whose company we find stimulating. This potential pleasure is the driving force behind all of our social activities. We like to get together with people with whom we have a lot in common and just share ideas, letting the conversation go where it will. The second aim or purpose of conversation is to get to know the other person better. In sales, and in all kinds of business, you require prolonged exposure to another person in order to get a feel for how he or she thinks, feels and reacts. This can't be accomplished in a short meeting. The third aim of conversation is to build trust and credibility between the two people. This is perhaps the most important thing we do as we proceed through life and it is only possible with the kind of continuous conversation that reveals us to each other. In our personal relationships, there is no substitute for extended periods of conversation in the development of friendships and more intimate relationships. People who get along very well together have almost invariably spent a lot of time just talking about various subjects as they come up. One of the very best ways to learn about another person is to spend unbroken time in their company. I've found that a two- or three-hour car trip is one of the most revealing experiences you will ever have with another human being. People who have gotten along well for many years, working or socializing together in brief stints, will often find that an extended car trip brings out elements of their personalities that they did not know existed. Before you enter into any serious business or personal relationship with anyone, you should spend several hours with them experiencing the ebb and flow of sustained conversation. It's amazing what you will learn. Many people think that the art of good conversation is to speak in an interesting and arresting fashion, to be noted for your humor, ability to tell stories and your general knowledge of a variety of subjects. Many people feel that, if they want to be better at conversation, they must become more articulate, outgoing and expressive. They must become better talkers. Nothing could be further from the truth. As you've heard many times before, we come into this world with two ears and one mouth and we should use them in that same proportion. In conversation, this simply means that you should listen twice as much as you talk if you want to get a reputation for being an enjoyable person with whom to converse. The art of good conversation centers very much on your ability to ask questions and to listen attentively to the answers. You can lace the conversation with your insights, ideas, and opinions, but you perfect the art and skill of conversation by perfecting the art and skill of asking good, well-worded questions that direct the conversation and give other people an opportunity to express themselves. Ask open-ended questions that cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or "no." Open-ended questions encourage the speaker to expand on his thoughts and comments. And one question will lead to another. You can ask open-ended questions almost endlessly, drawing out of the other person everything that he or she has to say on a particular subject. In order to be an excellent conversationalist, you must resist the urge to dominate the discussion. The very best conversationalists seem to be low-key, easy-going, cheerful, and genuinely interested in the other person. They seem to be quite content to listen when other people are talking and they make their own contributions to the dialogue rather short and to the point. In fact, good conversation has an easy ebb and flow, like the tide coming in and going out. Whether it is between two people or among several, the conversation should shift back and forth, with each person getting an opportunity to talk. Conversation in this sense is like a ball that is tossed from person to person, with no one holding on to it for very long. If you feel that you have been talking for too long, you should stop and ask a question of someone in the group. You will be tossing the conversational ball and giving that individual an opportunity to converse. Listening is the most important of all skills for successful conversation. Many people are very poor listeners. Since everyone enjoys talking, it takes a real effort to practice the fundamentals of excellent listening and to make them a habit. Here are the four major rules for active listening in a conversation. They will work for you whether you are conversing with a sales prospect, a business associate, your manager or a friend or member of your family. They are powerful, practical and proven techniques to increase your influence with other people dramatically. The first key to effective listening is for you to listen attentively, without interruptions. When you pay close attention to another person, you convey to that person that you very much value what he or she has to say. This is very flattering to your conversation partners, and they will respond warmly to your attentiveness. The major reason why most people are poor listeners is that they are busy preparing a reply while the other person is still speaking. In fact, they are not even listening closely to what the other person is saying. They are very much like boxers waiting for the other person to let their guard down so they can jump in with a quick verbal punch and take over the conversation. But this is not for you. Effective listening requires that you lean slightly forward, face the other person directly, and hang on every word. Listen as though there were nothing else in the world more fascinating to you than what the other person is saying. The very best listeners seem to have developed the knack of making the person who is speaking feel as if he or she were the only person in the world. Good conversationalists can even do this in the middle of a crowded room. In addition to listening without interrupting, you should also nod, smile and agree with what the person is saying. Be active rather than passive. Indicate that you are totally engaged in the conversation. Make eye contact as the other person talks. Relax your body and, if you are standing, allow your weight to roll forward onto the balls of your feet. Only you will know that you have done this, but the overall impression you will give is that your whole energy is now forward and focused on what the speaker is saying. The second key to effective listening is to pause before replying. A short pause, of three to five seconds, is a very classy thing to do in a conversation. When you pause, you accomplish three goals simultaneously. First, you avoid running the risk of interrupting if the other person is just catching his or her breath before continuing. Second, you show the other person that you are giving careful consideration to his or her words by not jumping in with your own comments at the earliest opportunity. The third benefit of pausing is that you will actually hear the other person better. His or her words will soak into a deeper level of your mind and you will understand what he or she is saying with greater clarity. By pausing, you mark yourself as a brilliant conversationalist. The third key to effective listening is to question for clarification. Never assume that you understand what the person is saying or trying to say. Instead, ask, "What do you mean, exactly?" This is the most powerful question I've ever learned for controlling a conversation. It is almost impossible not to answer. When you ask, "What do you mean?" the other person cannot stop himself or herself from answering more extensively. You can then follow up with other open-ended questions and keep the conversation rolling along. The fourth key to effective listening is to paraphrase the speaker's words in your own words. After you've nodded and smiled, you can then say, "Let me see if I've got this right. What you're saying is . . ." By paraphrasing the speaker's words, you demonstrate in no uncertain terms that you are genuinely paying attention and making every effort to understand his or her thoughts or feelings. And the wonderful thing is, when you practice effective listening, other people will begin to find you fascinating. They will want to be around you. They will feel relaxed and happy in your presence. The reason why listening is such a powerful tool in developing the art and skill of conversation is because listening builds trust. The more you listen to another person, the more he or she trusts you and believes in you. Listening also builds self-esteem. When you listen attentively to another person, his or her self-esteem will naturally increase. Finally, listening builds self-discipline in the listener. Because your mind can process words at 500-600 words per minute, and we can only talk at about 150 words per minute, it takes a real effort to keep your attention focused on another person's words. If you do not practice self-discipline in conversation, your mind will wander in a hundred different directions. The more you work at paying close attention to what the other person is saying, the more self-disciplined you will become. In other words, by learning to listen well, you actually develop your own character and your own personality. The final key to becoming a great conversationalist is to practice the friendship factor. The friendship factor is based on the three Cs of caring, courtesy and consideration. You've heard it said that, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Caring is the catalyst in all good relationships. The people you like the best and who like you the best are the ones with whom you have the most caring relationships. Whenever you show another person that you genuinely care about him or her, you come across better as a conversationalist and as a friend. The second C in the friendship factor is courtesy. It is a magic quality of politeness that causes people to want to be around you. All good conversationalists make other people feel calm and comfortable in their presence. They never do or say anything that could hurt of offend the other person in any way. They are continually diplomatic and they keep their concerns and irritations to themselves. They always remain warm and friendly on the outside. The third C in the friendship factor is consideration. One of the major sources of positive emotions is the feeling that we are respected and considered highly by other people. Whenever you treat another person as an important and worthwhile human being, you trigger this consideration factor. You show that you not only value the conversation, but you value the speaker as well. Becoming a good conversationalist is based on learning and practicing the Golden Rule. This simply says that you treat other people the way you would like them to treat you. Just as you would like other people to ask you questions about yourself and to listen attentively to you when you talk, others would like the same courtesy extended to them. Remember, the purpose of conversation is not to dominate, control, or be right. The purpose of conversation is to enjoy yourself and to make sure that others enjoy themselves when they are with you. If these Brian Tracy Articles were of value to you, then we invite you to learn about the EmpowerMe!Online Fast-Track Success System. These are Mr. Tracy's comprehensive self-development seminars provided via online streaming video over the internet Click here to learn more... back