SELF IMPROVEMENT AND MOTIVATION

One of your major goals in life should be financial independence. You must aim to reach the point where you have enough money so that you never have to worry about money again. The good news is that financial independence is easier to achieve today than it has ever been before. The Law of Abundance We live in an abundant universe in which there is sufficient money for all who really want it and are willing to obey the laws governing its acquisition. People become wealthy because they decide to become wealthy. People are poor because they have not yet decided to become rich. The world is full of thousands of people who have had far more difficulties to overcome than you could ever imagine, and they've gone on to be successful anyway. So can you. The Law of Exchange Money is the medium through which people exchange their labor in the production of goods and services for the goods and services of others. The amount of money you earn is the measure of the value that others place on you...

Problems, difficulties, and setbacks are a normal, natural, and unavoidable part of life and business. When you set a new goal or launch toward a new destination, you will experience challenges and difficulties that you never expected or anticipated. By the true test of character is the inevitable and unavoidable crisis. Your ability to solve problems is important, but your ability to deal with a crisis largely determines your success or failure in life.   Leadership Abilities In a multi-year study conducted at Stanford University, researchers examined the annual performance appraisals of hundreds of presidents and chief executive officers of Fortune 1000 companies, some of the most successful executives in every business or industry. This study revealed that top executives had two dominant qualities in common. The first was the ability to function well as a member of a team. When they were starting out, they were good team players, making valuable contributions to the teams they were ...

Have Everything At Hand One of the best ways for you to overcome procrastination and get more things done faster is for you to have everything you need at hand before you begin. When you are fully prepared, you are like a cocked gun or an archer with an arrow pulled back taut in the bow. You just need one small mental push to get started on your highest value tasks.   Clear Your Workspace Begin by clearing off your desk or workspace so that you only have one task in front of you. If necessary, put everything on the floor or on the table behind you. Gather all the information, reports, details, papers, and work materials that you will require to complete the job. Have them at hand so you can reach them without getting up or moving. Be sure that you have all writing materials, computer disks, access codes, email addresses and everything else you need to start and continue working until the job is done. Make It Comfortable Set up your work area so that it is comfortable, attractive and co...

What is selling? In its simplest terms, selling is the process of persuading a person that your product or service is of greater value to him than the price you are asking for it. Our market society is based on the principles of freedom of choice and mutual benefit. Each party enters into a transaction when he feels that he will be better off as a result of the transaction than he would be without it. Convince the Customer For the customer to buy your particular product or service, he or she must be convinced, not only that is it the best choice of product or service available, but also that there is no better way for him to spend the equivalent sum of money that it costs. Your job as a salesperson is to convince the customer that these conditions exist and then to elicit a commitment from him to take action on your offer. The Critical Factor: Risk The critical factor in selling today is risk. Because of the continuous change, rapid obsolescence, and an uncertain economy, the risk of b...

The first and most important question is: what business am I in? This question is not as simple as it seems. To identify your career or business goals, you must first learn to define your business in terms of what you do for your customer or for your company. Expand the definition of your business so that it is as broad as possible. Never stop with the first answer. Take the first answer to this question and find new applications, new markets, and new definitions for it.   Railroads For example, at the beginning of the last century, those railroads that defined themselves strictly as railroads—providers of rail transport—failed to see that new technologies and methods of transport, such as trucks and airplanes, were a potential threat to their business. If they had defined themselves instead as movers of goods and people—providers of transportation—their response to the changes in technology might have been different. When you define your business, think in terms of how your products o...

Fighting against a sense of despair will only make it worse. Instead of letting despair feed on itself, do something positive and proactive to break the pattern. When you become angry about being angry, that will only make your anger more destructive. The more intensely you feel your frustration, the more frustrated you will become. The way out is to quickly and decisively break the pattern. Realize that the negative momentum is building and do something so completely unrelated that you knock it off track. Don't make your negativity stronger by fighting against it. Instead, make it irrelevant and powerless by turning your attention and putting your energy in a radically different direction. Be outrageously and unreasonably positive. Be funny and creative and ridiculous and joyful all at the same time. Smile, laugh and be enthusiastic about life even when you have no reason to be. By breaking the negative pattern, you'll create many great reasons to smile.   Are you waiting for ...

Never Worry About Money Again 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."   The Real Purpose of A Business 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.   Why Businesses Fail 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 your official title is, you are ...

There are seven disciplines you must develop if you want to achieve all that is possible for you. You can learn these disciplines through practice and repetition until they become automatic.   Goal Setting Every morning, take three to five minutes to write out your top goals in the present tense. Get a spiral notebook for this purpose. By writing out your ten goals at the beginning of each day, you will program them deep into your subconscious mind.   This daily goal writing will activate your mental powers. It will stimulate your mind and make you more alert. Throughout the day, you will see opportunities and possibilities to move more rapidly toward your goals.   Planning and Organizing Take a few minutes, preferably the night before, to plan out every activity of the coming day. Always work from a list. Always think on paper. This is one of the most powerful and important disciplines of all for high performance. Concentration on your Highest-Value Activities Your ability to work sin...

The most successful people in any society are those who take the longest time period into consideration when making their day-to-day decisions. This insight comes from the pioneering work on upward financial mobility in America conducted by Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University in the late 1950's and early 1960's. After studying many of the factors that were thought to contribute to individual financial success over the course of a person's lifetime, he concluded that there was one primary factor that took precedence over all the others. He called it "time perspective."   Plant Trees What Banfield found was that the higher a person rises in any society, the longer the time perspective or time horizon of that person. People at the highest social and economic levels make decisions and sacrifices that may not pay off for many years, sometimes not even in their own lifetimes. They "plant trees under which they will never sit."   Doctors An obvious exampl...

Once you have become clear about who you are, what you want, and what your true goals are in each area of your life, you can begin to evaluate all the different routes by which you can reach your destination. Now you can determine the strategies and tactics that you can use to achieve your goals and arrive at your destination on schedule.   Develop Options Continually One of the most important rules that I have ever learned is this: You are only as free as your well-developed options. Before you can plan your time and your life, you must be absolutely clear about both the hourly rate that you are earning today and the hourly rate that you want to earn in the future. Every hour that you spend on a low-value or no-value activity is costing you $25, $50, or more.   Determine the Highest and Best Use of Your Time Whatever job you choose to take, company you choose to make with your money, or time you choose to spend on a particular activity, think it through carefully in advance and be cer...

The greatest need we have today, in every area, is for men and women to practice the values of integrity, discipline, responsibility, courage, and long time perspective, both as individuals and in their families. These are the key qualities of leadership. Our society needs leaders at all levels who practice the principles that lead to long-term success. Especially, we need people in positions of authority and political power to support and encourage others, whose lives and work they influence, to develop character and resist the tendency to act expediently in ways that are harmful to themselves and others. Everyone needs to take "The Values Pledge," to live by it, and then encourage others to live by it. It is only the solid bulwark of character, based on values, virtues, long-term thinking, and the accurate assessment of secondary consequences that can curb and mitigate the destructive influences and behavior of the Expediency Factor (the E-Factor)   Live In Truth The philos...

Studying and practicing the principles of effective delegation have given you the foundation necessary to exploit the power of leverage. We will now examine other forms of this key tool of professional and business success. Each of the seven forms of leverage can help you expand the reach of your own talents and strengths. Each involves building on the work, talents, experiences, and contacts of other people.   Leveraging Other People's Energy The most productive people make sure they have time for the few things that give them the highest payoff by routinely seeking to delegate or outsource their lower-value activities.   Leveraging Other People's Knowledge Applying one simple piece of key knowledge to your situation can make a world of difference in the result you achieve. Finding and applying knowledge from another source can spare you tremendous amounts of money and labor. Follow the lead of successful people and scan books, magazines, tapes, articles, and conferences for i...

There are three places (besides savings accounts) where you can park your savings that will give you high degrees of safety and liquidity: money market accounts, certificates of deposit (CDs), and government saving bonds.   Money Market Accounts Money market accounts are available at your bank and pay a higher rate of interest than savings accounts. They are also quite competitive, so you should shop around and look at what different banks offer. As soon as your savings account balance exceeds $1,000, move that money into a money market account at a higher rate of interest.   Certificates of Deposit Another savings instrument that you may consider is a certificate of deposit (CD). These are issued by banks, savings and loans, and other financial institutions for periods of time ranging from 30 days up to 10 years. The longer you lock up your money in a CD, the higher the interest rate you will receive.   The weakness with CDs is that if you need your money back before the date of matur...