Overview
Jim Rohn's 1981 seminar presents a comprehensive framework for personal development, emphasizing that the major key to a better future is self-improvement rather than external circumstances. The core philosophy: income rarely exceeds personal development, and success is attracted by who you become, not pursued through luck.
Personal Development Philosophy
- Life challenge: you can have more by becoming more; income does not far exceed personal development
- Until you change who you are, you'll always have what you've got
- Success is something you attract by working on yourself, not something you chase
- Major question on any job: not what you're getting, but what you're becoming
- True happiness is contained in what you become, not what you get
- The major key to your better future is you—underline "major" and "you"
- Time is fixed; what changes results is the value you bring to the marketplace
- You primarily get paid for value brought to the marketplace, not time spent
- Possible to become twice as valuable and earn twice as much in the same time
- Work harder on yourself than you do on your job—this changes everything
- For things to change for you, you've got to change first
- It's not what happens that determines life quality; it's what you do about it
Four Major Lessons in Life
| Lesson | Key Principle | Action Required |
|---|
| Handle the Winters | Learn to handle difficulty, disappointment, and down times | Get stronger, wiser, and better; don't wish it was easier, wish you were better |
| Take Advantage of Spring | Opportunity follows difficulty with regularity | Plant in spring or beg in fall; take advantage quickly as springs are few |
| Protect Your Crops | All good will be attacked; all values must be defended | Tend your garden all summer; prevent intruders from taking what you start |
| Reap Without Complaint | Accept full responsibility for your harvest | Take responsibility without complaint if unsuccessful, without apology if successful |
Basic Laws from the Bible
- Life is governed by laws; you must learn the setup to avoid getting hurt and to benefit
- Don't have to like the laws, but you must learn them to succeed
- Law of Use: whatever you don't use, you lose—applies to abilities, talents, energy, faith
- Lack of use causes loss automatically; unused ambition declines, unused vitality diminishes
- Parable of talents illustrates: use what you have or forfeit it to those who do
- Law of Sowing and Reaping: whatever you sow, you shall reap—cannot be beaten
- Whatever you reap is what you've sown; if you don't like the crop, check who planted it
Seven Points to Sowing and Reaping
| Point | Principle | Implication |
|---|
| Negative | Sow bad, reap bad | Plant thistle seeds, get thistles—law is negative |
| Positive | Sow good, reap good | Plant pumpkin seeds, get pumpkins—law is positive |
| More | Always reap much more than sown | Both positive and negative multiply; sow to wind, reap whirlwind |
| Decide | Must decide what to sow | Anyone can find and work a good plan; fix the next 10 years now |
| Plan | Must have a plan | 10 years will pass; question is where you'll arrive |
| Lose Sometimes | Can lose despite doing right | Hailstorms happen; that's part of life on this planet |
| Don't Sow | If you don't sow, you don't reap | No sowing means no chance; must get sowing going |
Goal Setting Framework
- Learn how to set goals; it revolutionizes life economically, socially, personally
- Life can deteriorate into making a living instead of designing a life without goals
- Reasons come first, answers come second; need enough reasons to do incredible things
- Reasons change everything: personal reasons, family reasons, recognition, respect, winning feelings
- Andrew Carnegie's goal: spend first half accumulating wealth, second half giving it all away
Goal Categories:
| Category | Description | Importance |
|---|
| Economic | Money, income, business, profits, production | Meticulously plan economics; it's a major fundamental for wealth |
| Things | Material possessions, large and small | List everything; checking off creates momentum and habit |
| Personal Development | Skills, strengths, decisiveness, speaking, leadership | Become more skillful; skills attract good things to your life |
- Work on goals (it's hard work but necessary); write them down to show you're serious
- Check size and kinds of goals; your goals affect you constantly—handshake, attitude, personality
- Poor goals create poor effects; don't settle for "scraping up money to pay lousy bills"
- Ask and you shall receive—asking is the beginning of receiving; receiving is automatic
- Ask with intelligence (be clear, specific, describe what you want) and faith (believe like a child)
- Won't get everything you want (sometimes it hails), but can get plenty for wealth and happiness
Attitude Diseases to Avoid
- Attitude diseases are deadly; destroy all good things you start just like physical diseases
- Complaining, crying, whining, griping—engage even slightly and future is compromised
- Spend five minutes complaining, waste five minutes and begin economic cancer
- Children of Israel lost promised land because they complained constantly—trip canceled
- Over-caution and timid approach to life keeps people from achieving much
- Everything is risky: getting married, having children, business, investing—you won't get out alive
- Don't ask for security, ask for adventure; better 30 years full of adventure than 100 safe
- Pessimism: always looking on bad side, checking why things can't be done, seeing specs not sunset
- Poor thinking habits keep most people poor, not poor working habits; mind is mental factory
- As you think, so you become; what you read pours ingredients into mental factory
- Stand guard at the door of your mind daily; decide what goes into your mental factory
Four Life-Changing Emotions
| Emotion | Description | Power |
|---|
| Disgust | "I've had it" moment with mediocrity, lying, being broke | Day it begins, even if not day it ends; triggers commitment to change |
| Decision | Making tough choices despite inner civil war | Getting it done is easier than deciding; clean up decisions for inspiration |
| Desire | Wanting to badly enough; comes from inside, not outside | Can be triggered by book, song, sermon, conversation, event, experience |
| Resolve | "I will"—promise yourself you'll never give up | Nothing resists human will that stakes existence on its purpose; do it or die |
Action Items
- Transfer seminar theme to a card: "The major key to your better future is you"
- Take new inventory of yourself; ensure all talent, ability, mentality, vitality is being used
- Start tomorrow doing something that makes a difference in life's direction
- Read books to learn from others' experiences; one book might save you five years
- Keep a journal to capture ideas on how things work; repeat information until it takes root
- Create three goal lists: long-range dreams and short-range confidence builders for economics, things, personal development
- Write goals down to show you're serious; study yourself and your accomplishments
- Welcome every human experience; never know which one will turn everything on
- Select right ingredients for mental factory; keep out wrong ingredients starting with thought
- Be careful what you think about—life is both sugar and strychnine; watch your coffee