Transcript for:
Mastering Self-Discipline for Success

introduction the miracle of self-discipline Mark Dwayne said that there are thousand excuses for failure but never a good reason why are some people more successful than others why do some people make more money live happier lives and accomplish much more in the same number of years than the great majority what is the real secret of success often I begin a seminar with a little exercise I ask the audience how many people here would like to double their incomes almost everyone smiles and raises their hands I then ask how many people here would like to lose weight get out of debt Achieve Financial Independence again everyone Smiles some people cheer and they all raise their hands then I say wonderful these are great goals that everyone has we all want to make more money spend more time with our families be fit and trim and Achieve Financial Independence not only do we all want the same things but we all know what we have to do to achieve them and we all intend to do those things sometime but before we get started we decide that we need to take a little vacation to a wonderful fantasy place called someday I'll we say that someday I'll read that book someday I'll start that exercise program someday I'll upgrade my skills and earn more money someday I'll get my finances under control and get out of debt someday I'll do all the things that I know I need to do to achieve all my goals someday probably 80% of the population lives on someday aisle most of the time they think and dream and fantasize about all the things they're going to do someday and who are they surrounded by on someday aisle other people on somay aisle and what is the chief topic of conversation on somay aisle excuses they all sit around and swap excuses for being on the island why are you here they ask each other and not surprisingly their excuses are largely the same I didn't have a happy childhood I didn't get a good education I don't have any money my boss is really critical my marriage is no good no one appreciates me or the economy is terrible they have come down with the disease of excusitis which is invariably fatal to success they all have good intentions but as everyone knows the road to hell is paved with good intentions the first rule of success is simple vote yourself off the island no more excuses do it or don't do it but don't make excuses stop using your incredible brain to think up elaborate rationalizations and justifications for not taking action do something do anything get on with it repeat to yourself if it's to be it's up to me losers make excuses winners make progress now how can you tell if your favorite excuse is valid or not it's simple look around and ask is there anyone else who has my same excuse who is successful anyway when you ask this question if you're honest you'll have to admit that there are thousands and even millions of people who've had it far worse than you who have gone on to do wonderful things with their lives and what thousands and millions of other people people have done you can do as well if you try it's been said that if people put as much energy into achieving their goals as they spend making up excuses for failure they would actually surprise themselves but first you have to vote yourself off the island very few people start off with many advantages personally I did not graduate from high school I worked at laboring jobs for several years I had a limited education limited skills and and a limited future and then I began asking that question why are some people more successful than others this question changed my life over the years I've read thousands of books and articles on the subject of success and achievement it seems that the reasons for these accomplishments have been discussed and written about for more than 2,000 years in every conceivable way one quality that most philosophers teachers and experts agree on is the importance of self-discipline discipl is what you must have to resist the lure of excuses it is self-discipline that enables you to vote yourself off the island it is the key to a great life and without it no lasting success is possible the development of self discipline changed my life and it will change yours as well by continually demanding more from myself I became successful in sales and then in management I caught up in my schooling and took an MBA degree in my 30s which required thousands of hours of determined study I imported Suzuki Vehicles into Canada before anyone else set up 65 dealerships and sold $25 million worth of the vehicles and this is all after I had started with no knowledge of the industry what I had however was the discipline and determination to learn what I needed to know and then to apply and do what I needed to do I got into real estate development with no knowledge or experience applied the hour of discipline which was then backed by hundreds of hours of work and study I then went on to build shopping centers industrial parks office buildings and residential subdivisions with self-discipline I have built successful businesses in training Consulting speaking writing recording and distribution my audio and video programs books seminars and training programs have sold more than $500 million worth in 36 languages in 54 countries over the years I've consulted for more than a thousand companies and trained more than 5 million people in live seminars and talks in every case the practice of self-discipline has been essential to my success I discovered that you can achieve almost any goal you set for yourself if you have the discipline to pay the price to do what you need to do and to never give up so who should read this book this book is written for ambitious determined men and women who want to achieve everything that is possible for them in life it is written for people who are hungry to do more to have more and to be more than they ever have been before perhaps the most important Insight of all with regard to success is that to achieve greatly you must become a different person it is not the material things you accomplish or acquire that matter so much as it is the quality of the person that you must become to accomplish well above the average the development of self-discipline is the high high road that makes everything possible for you this book will serve as your step-by-step guide to becoming a remarkable person who is capable of making remarkable achievements a chance encounter reveals the reason for Success some years ago I was attending a conference in Washington DC during the lunch break I was eating at a nearby food fair the area was crowded so I sat down at the last open table by myself even though it was a table for four a few minutes later an older gentleman and a younger woman who appeared to be his assistant came along carrying trays of food and obviously looking for a place to sit having lots of room at my table I immediately arose and invited the older gentleman to join me he was hesitant but I insisted finally he sat down quite thankfully and we began to chat over lunch it turned out that his name was cop copm as it happened I immediately knew who he was he was a legend in the field of success and achievement cop copm had written four best-selling books Each of which contained 250 success principles that he had derived from more than 50 years of research and study I had read all four books from cover to cover each more than once after we had chatted for a while I asked him the question that many people in this situation would ask of all the 1,000 success principles that you have discovered which do you think is the most important he smiled at me with a twinkle in his eye as if he had been asked this question many times and he replied without hesitating the most important success principle of all was stated by Albert Hubbert one of the most prolific writers in American history at the beginning of the 20th century he said self-discipline is the ability to do what you should do when you should do it whether you feel like it or not he went on to say there are 999 other success principles that I have found in my reading and experience but without self-discipline none of them work with self-discipline they all work thus self-discipline is the key to personal greatness it's the magic quality that opens all doors for you and makes everything else possible with self discipline the average person can rise as far and as fast as his talents and intelligence can take him but with without self-discipline a person with every blessing of background education and opportunity will seldom rise above mediocrity your two worst enemies just as self-discipline is the key to success the lack of self- discipline is the major cause of failure frustration underachievement and unhappiness in life it causes us to make excuses and sell ourselves short perhaps the two biggest enemies of success happiness and personal fulfillment are first the path of least resistance and second the expediency Factor the path of least resistance to what causes people to take the easy way in almost every situation they seek shortcuts to everything they arrive at work at the last minute and leave at the first opportunity they look for getrich quick schemes and easy money over time they develop the habit of always seeking an easier faster way to get the things they want rather than than doing what is hard but necessary to achieve real success the expediency factor which is an extension of the law of least resistance is even worse when leading people to failure and underachievement this principle says people invariably seek the fastest and easiest way to get the things they want right now with little or no concern for the long-term consequences of their behaviors in other words most people do what is expedient what is fun and easy rather than what is necessary for Success every day and every minute of every day there's a battle going on inside of you between doing what is right hard and necessary like the angel on one shoulder or doing what is fun easy and of little or no value like the devil on your other shoulder every minute of every day you must fight and win this battle with the expediency factor and resist the pull of the path of least resistance if you truly desire to become everything you are capable of becoming take control of yourself another definition of self-discipline is self-mastery success is only possible when you can master your own emotions appetites and inclinations people who lack the ability to master their appetites become weak and dissolute as well as unreliable in other things as well self-discipline can also be defined as self-control your ability to control yourself and your actions control what you say and do and ensure that your behaviors are consistent with your long-term goals and objectives is the mark of the superior person discipline has been defined as self-denial this requires that you deny yourself the easy Pleasures The Temptations that lead so many people astray and instead discipline yourself to do only those things that you know are right for the long term and appropriate for the moment self-discipline requires delayed gratification the ability to put off satisfaction in the short term in order to enjoy greater rewards in the long term think longterm sociologist Dr Edward Banfield of Harvard University conducted a 50-year study into the reasons for Upward socioeconomic mobility in America he concluded that the most important single attribute of people who achieved great success in life was longtime perspective Banfield defined time perspective as the amount of time an individual takes into consideration when determining his present actions in other words the most successful people are long-term thinkers they look into the future as far as they can to determine the kind of people they want to become and the goals they want to achieve they then come back to the present and determine the things that they will have to do or not do to achieve their desired Futures this practice of long-term thinking applies to work career marriage relationships money and personal conduct Each of which is covered in the pages ahead successful people make sure that everything they do in the short term is consistent with where they want to end up in the long term they practice self-discipline at all times perhaps the most important word in long-term thinking is sacrifice Superior people have the ability throughout their lives to make sacrifices in the short term both large and small so as to assure greater results and rewards in the long term you see this willingness to sacrifice in people who spend many hours and even years preparing studying and upgrading their skills to make themselves more valuable so that they can have a better life in the future rather than spending most of their time socializing and having fun in the present Longfellow once wrote those Heights by Great Men won and kept were not achieved by sudden flight but they while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night your ability to think plan and work hard in the short term and to discipline yourself to do what is right and necessary before you do what is fun and easy is the key to creating a wonderful life for yourself your ability to think long-term is a developed skill as you get better at it you become more able to predict with increasing accuracy what is likely to happen to you in the future as the result of your actions in the present this is a quality of the superior thinker short-term gain can cause long-term pain there are two laws that you fall victim to when you fail to practice self-discipline the first is called the law of unintended consequences this law states that the unintended consequences of an action can be far worse than the intended consequence of that behavior because of a lack of long-term thinking the second law is the law of perverse consequences which says that a short-term action aimed at immediate gratification can lead to perverse or the opposite consequences from those at which it was aimed for example you might make an investment of time money or emotion with a desire and intent to be better off and happier as a result but because you acted without carefully thinking or doing your homework the consequences of your behavior turned out to be far worse than if you had done nothing at all every person has had this experience and usually more than once the common denominator of success Herbert gray a businessman conducted a long-term study searching for what he called the common denominator of success after 11 years he finally concluded that the common denominator of success was that successful people make a habit of doing the things that unsuccessful people don't like to do and what were these things it turned out that the things that successful people don't like to do are the same things that failures don't like to do either but successful people do them anyway because they know that this is the price they will have to pay if they want to enjoy greater success and rewards in the future what gray found was that successful people are more concerned with pleasing results whereas failures were more concerned about pleasing methods successful happy people were more concerned with the Positive long-term consequences of their behaviors whereas unsuccessful people were more concerned with personal enjoyment and immediate gratification motivational speaker Dennis Wadley has said that the top people were those who were more concerned with activities that were goal achieving whereas average people were more concerned with activities that were tension relieving dinner before dessert the simplest rule in the the practice of self-discipline is to eat dinner before dessert in a meal there is a logical order of dishes and dessert comes last first you eat the main courses and clean your plate only then do you have dessert there's a cute but misleading bumper sticker that says life is short eat dessert first just think about what would happen if you came home from work and instead of eating a healthy dinner you ate a large piece of apple pie with ice cream what kind of appetite for healthy nutritious food would you have afterward with all that sugar in your stomach how would you feel would you feel re-energized and eager to do something productive or would you feel tired and sluggish and ready to write off the day as largely finished you get the same result when you go for a drink or two after work and then come home and turn on the television these are simply different forms of dessert that largely eliminate your ability to do anything useful for the rest of the evening perhaps the worst part of all is that whatever you do repeatedly soon becomes a habit and a habit once formed is hard to break the habit of taking the easy way of doing what is fun and enjoyable or eating dessert before Dinner becomes stronger and stronger and it leads inevitably to personal weakness underachievement and failure the habit of self-discipline fortunately you can develop the habit of self-discipline the regular practice of disciplining yourself to to do what you should do when you should do it whether you feel like it or not becomes stronger and stronger as you practice it you simply refuse to make excuses bad habits are easy to form but hard to live with good habits are hard to form but easy to live with and as gut has said everything is hard before it's easy it's hard to form the habits of self-discipline self-mastery and self-control but once you've developed them they become automatic and easy to practice when the habits of self-discipline are firmly entrenched in your behavior you start to feel uncomfortable when you're not behaving in a self-disciplined manner the best news is that all habits are learnable you can learn any habit you need to learn in order to become the kind of person that you want to become you can become an excellent person by practicing self-discipline whenever it's called for every practice of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline unfortunately every weakness in discipline weakens your other disciplines as well to develop the habit of self-discipline you first make a firm decision about how you will behave in a particular area of activity you then refuse to allow exceptions until the habit of self-discipline in that area is firmly established each time you slip as you will you resolve once again to keep practicing self-discipline until it becomes easier for you to behave in a disciplined way than to behave in an undisciplined way the big payoff the payoff for developing high levels of self-discipline is extraordinary there is a direct relationship between self-discipline and self-esteem the more you practice self-mastery and self-control the more you like and value yourself the more you discipline yourself the greater is your sense of self-respect and personal Pride the more you practice self-discipline the better is your self-image you see yourself and think about yourself in a more positive way you feel happier and more powerful as a person the development and maintenance of the habit of self-discipline is a lifelong task and ongoing battle it never ends the temptation to follow the path of least resistance and the expediency Factor lurk continually in the back of your mind they are always waiting for an opportunity to pounce to Lead You astray into doing what is fun easy and unimportant rather than what is hard necessary and life-enhancing Napoleon Hill concluded his best-selling book of the same name by saying that self-discipline is the master key to riches self-discipline is the key to self-esteem self-respect and personal Pride the development of self-discipline is your guarantee that you will eventually overcome all your obstacles and create create a wonderful life for yourself the ability to practice self-discipline is the real reason why some people are more successful and happy than others how this book is written in the pages ahead I will describe the 21 areas in life in which the practice of self-discipline is vital to fulfilling your full potential and achieving everything that is possible for you this book is divided into three sections for greater ease of use part one is entitled self-discipline and personal success uccess in these seven chapters you will learn how to release more and more of your personal potential by practicing self-discipline in every area of your personal life including setting goals building character accepting responsibility developing courage and backing everything you do with persistence and determination in the seven chapters of part two you will learn how to achieve vastly more than ever before in the areas of business sales and personal finance you learn why and how self-discipline is essential to becoming a leader in your field to operating a business more profitably to making more sales investing more intelligently and managing your time for maximum results finally in the seven chapters of part three you will learn how to apply the miracle of self-discipline to your personal life you will learn how to practice self-discipline in the areas of Happiness Health Fitness marriage children friendship and the attainment of Peace of Mind you will learn how to enhance the quality of your life in your relationships in every area in each chapter I will show you how you can incorporate higher levels of self-discipline and self-mastery into everything you do in the pages ahead you will learn how to take complete control over your own personal and professional development and how to become a stronger happier more self-confident person in every area of your life that is important to you you will learn how to break old habits that may be holding you back and how to develop the habits of self-reliance self-determination and self-discipline that will enable you to set and Achieve any goal you'll learn how to take complete control over your mind your emotions and your future when you master the power of self-discipline you will become Unstoppable like a force of nature you will never make excuses for not making progress you will accomplish more in the the next few months and years than most people accomplish in a lifetime part one self-discipline and personal success your success in life depends more on the person you become than on the things you do or acquire as Aristotle wrote the ultimate end of life is the development of character in these chapters you will learn how to devel V and use discipline in order to become an excellent person you'll learn how to develop greater self-esteem self-respect and personal Pride you will learn the essential disciplines required for personal greatness and how to build them into your own character and personality chapter 1 self-discipline and success Plato wrote the first and best Victory is to conquer self why do do some people accomplish so much more in their personal and professional lives than others this question has occupied some of the very best Minds throughout human history more than 2,300 years ago Aristotle wrote that the ultimate aim of human life is to be happy he said that the great question that each of us must answer is how shall we live in order to be happy your ability to ask and answer that question correctly for yourself and then to follow where your answer leads you will largely determine whether you achieve your own happiness and how soon begin with your own personal definition how do you define success if you could wave a magic wand and make your life perfect in every way what would it look like describe your ideal life if your business work and career were ideal in every way what would they look like what would you be doing what sort of a company would you work for what position would you have how much money would you earn what kind of people would you work with and especially what would you need to do more or less of to create your perfect career if your family life were perfect in every way what would it look like where would you live and how would you be living what kind of a lifestyle would you have what sort of things would you want to have and do with the members of your family if you had no limitations and you could wave a magic wand in what ways would you change your family life today if your health were perfect how would you describe it how would you feel how much would you weigh how would your levels of health and fitness be different from what they are today most of all what steps could you take immediately to begin moving toward your ideal levels of health and energy if your financial situation were ideal how much would you have in the bank how much would you be earning each month and each year from your Investments if you had enough money so that you never had to worry about finances again how much would that be and what steps could you take starting today to create your ideal Financial life Do Your Own Thing a popular definition of success is being able to live your life in your own way doing only those things that you want to do with the people who you choose in the situations you desire in each case when you begin to Define what success means to you you can immediately see things that you should be doing more of or less of in order to begin creating your ideal life and the biggest thing that holds you back from moving in the direction of your dreams is usually a lack of self-discipline and your favorite excuses it's not that you don't know what to do but rather that you don't have the discipline to make yourself do what you should do whether you feel like it or not join the top 20% in our society the top 20% of people earn 80% of the money and enjoy 80% of the riches and rewards this par principle has been proven over and over again since it was first formulated in 1895 by vredo Paro your first goal in your career should be to get into the top 20% in your chosen field in the 21st century there's a premium on knowledge and skill the more knowledge you acquire and the greater skill that you apply the more competent and valuable you become as you get better at what you do your income earning ability increases like compound interest unfortunately the majority of people the bottom 80% make little or no effort to upgrade their skills most people according to Jeffrey cvan's 2009 book Talent is overrated learn their jobs in the first year of their employment and then they never get any better it is only the top people in every field who are committed to continuous Improvement because of this increasing disparity of productive ability based on knowledge skill and hard work the top 1% of people in America today control as much as 33% of the financial assets starting with nothing interestingly almost everyone starts out the same in life with little or nothing almost all four in America and worldwide our first generation this means that most individuals started with little or nothing and earn everything they own in their current lifetime the wealthiest people in America are almost all first generation multi-billionaires this is the case with wealthy Americans such as Bill Gates Warren Buffett Larry Ellison Michael Dell and Paul Allen fully 80% of millionaires and multi-millionaires started with little money often p penous and sometimes deeply in debt with few advantages such as Sam Walton who died worth more than $100 billion why have these people been able to achieve so much when so many have achieved so little in their book The Millionaire Next Door Thomas Stanley and William Dano interviewed more than 500 millionaires and surveyed 11,000 more over a 25e period they asked them why they felt they had been able to Achieve Financial Independence when most of the people around them who started at the same place were still struggling fully 85% of this new generation of millionaires replied by saying something like I didn't have a better education or more intelligence but I was willing to work harder than anyone else hard work is the key the indispensable requirement for hard work is self-discipline success is only possible when you can overcome the natural tendency to cut corners and take the easy easy way lasting success is only possible when you can discipline yourself to work hard for a long long time as I mentioned in the introduction I started my own life with no money or advantages for years I worked at laboring jobs at which I earned just enough to get from paycheck to paycheck I stumbled into sales when I could no longer find a laboring job where I spun my wheels for many months before I begin asking that question why is it that some people are more successful in selling than others one day a top salesman told me that the top 20% of salespeople earn 80% of the money I had never heard that rule before this meant that the bottom 80% of salespeople had to be satisfied with the remaining 20% with what was left over after the top people had taken the Lion Share I decided then and there that I was going to be in the top 20% and and this decision changed my life the Great Law then I learned the iron law of the universe which made getting into the top 20% possible it was the law of cause and effect or sewing and reaping this law says that for every effect there is a specific cause or series of causes this law says that if you want to achieve success in any area you must determine how success is achieved in that area and then practice those skills and activ acties repeatedly until you achieve the same results here's the rule if you do what other successful people do over and over again nothing can stop you from eventually enjoying the same rewards that they do but if you don't do what successful people do nothing can help you the law of sewing and reaping from the Old Testament is a variation of the law of cause and effect it says that whatsoever a man Seth that also shall he reap this law says that whatever you put in you get out it also says that whatever you are reaping today is a result of what you have sewn in the past so if you're not happy with your current crop it's up to you starting today to plant a new crop to begin doing more of those things that lead to success and to stop engaging in those activities that lead nowhere success is predictable Success is Not an Accident sadly failure is Not an Accident either you succeed when you do what other successful people do over and over until these behaviors become a habit likewise you fail if you don't do what successful people do in either case nature is neutral nature does not take sides nature doesn't care what happens to you is simply a matter of law the law of cause and effect you can look at yourself as a machine with a default mechanism your default mechanism is is the almost irresistible attraction of the expediency factor and the path of least resistance that I described in the introduction in the absence of self-discipline your default mechanism goes off automatically this is the main cause of underachievement and the failure to realize your true potential when you are not working deliberately consciously and continuously to do being have those things that constitute success for you your default mechanism is at work you end up doing those fun easy and low value things in the short term that lead to frustration Financial worries and failure in the long term the great Oil Man HL hunt who was at one time the richest self-made billionaire in the world was once asked by a television journalist for his secrets of success he replied there are only three requirements for Success first decide exactly what it is you want in life second deter determine the price that you're going to have to pay to get the things you want and third and this is most important resolve to pay that price one of the most important requirements for Success once you have decided what it is that you want is the quality of willingness successful people are willing to pay the price whatever it is and for as long as it takes until they achieve the results they desire everyone wants to be successful everyone wants to be healthy happy thin and Rich but most people are not willing to pay the price occasionally they may be willing to pay part of the price but they're not willing to pay the whole price they always hold back they always have some excuse or rationalization for not disciplining themselves to do everything that they need to do to achieve their goals pay the price how can you tell when you have paid the full price of success it's simple look around you there it is you can always tell how much of the price of success you have paid by looking at your current lifestyle and your bank account by the law of Correspondence your outer world will like a mirror always reflect the person you are and the price that you have paid on the inside there's an interesting point about the price of success it must always be paid in full and in advance success however you define it is not like a restaurant where you pay after you've enjoyed your meal instead it's like a cafeteria where you can choose whatever you want but you must pay for it before you eat it motivational speaker Zig Ziggler says the elevator to success is out of order but the stairs are always open learn from the experts cop copm who I mentioned in the introduction also told me that the second most important success principle after self-discipline is that you must learn from the experts he said you will never live long enough to learn it all for yourself if you want to be successful your first job is to learn what you need to learn in order to achieve the success you desire learn from the experts read their books listen to their audio programs attend their seminars write to them or approach them directly and ask for advice sometimes one idea is all you need to change the direction of your life let me give you an example of what I mean some years ago I was referred by a friend to an excellent dentist I learned later that he had a superb reputation he was called the dentist's dentist he was the dentist that the other dentists went to when they needed excellent dental work he told me that he attended every major Dental conference that he could when he was there he attended every session listening to dentists from all over the country and all over the world discussed the latest breakthroughs in dental technology one week at Great sacrifice in time and money he attended an international Dental conference in Hong Kong at that conference he sat in on a session given by a Japanese dentist who had discovered a new technology in cosmetic surgery that improved the appearance of teeth and enabled people to look handsome or beautiful indefinitely he returned to San Diego and immediately began using the new technique in his practice soon he became excellent in this area and developed a national reputation within a couple of years people were coming to him from all over southwestern United States for this treatment because he had developed this expertise he could raise his fees again and again eventually he had made so much money that he was able to retire at the age of 55 financially independent and able to spend the rest of his life with his family traveling and fulfilling his dreams the point of this story is that by continually seeking out ideas and advice from other experts in his field he came across a new technology that helped him become the leader in his field and saved him 10 years of hard work in order to achieve the same level of financial success this could happen to you as well but only if you become a lifelong student of your craft mental and physical fitness need to be ongoing a achieving success is like achieving physical fitness it is like bathing brushing your teeth and eating it is something that you need to do continuously every day once you begin you never stop until your life and career are over and you've achieved all the success you desire not long ago I was giving a seminar in Seattle just before the break I encouraged people to buy and listen to my audio programs on sales time management and personal success at the break several people came came up to me to ask me questions about the seminar content one salesman pushed his way forward and said loudly when you encourage people to buy your programs you should tell them the whole truth I asked how do you mean he went on to say you are not telling the whole truth about your programs you should tell people that they only work for a certain period of time and then they stop working again I asked him how do you mean he said well I came to your seminar about 5 years ago and I was completely convinced by your presentation I bought all your programs and began listening to them I read every day in sales and you were right over the next 3 years I tripled my income and became the top seller in my company but then my income flattened out and is not increased at all over the last 2 years the fact is that your materials stop working after a certain point I then asked him in front of all these other people what happened to you 2 years ago when your income flattened out out and stopped increasing he searched his memory thought for a while and said well I was selling so much that I was hired Away by another company ever since I started my new job my income has remained flat I asked him what did you do differently in your new job in comparison with your previous job he started to answer and then he stopped a shocked look came over his face finally he replied oh my gosh I stopped doing it when I changed jobs I stopped reading in sales I stopped listening to audio programs I stopped attending seminars I stopped doing it he walked away shaking his head muttering to himself I stopped doing it I stopped doing it I stopped doing it becoming an expert in your field continually upgrading your skills which I will talk about in chapter 5 is like physical fitness if you stop exercising for any period of time you don't maintain your Fitness at the same level you begin to decline your body and your muscles become softer and weaker you lose your strength flexibility and stamina in order to maintain them you must keep working at them every day every week and every month become all you can be there's an even more important reason for you to practice the self-discipline that leads onward and upward to the great successes that are possible for you the practice of self-discipline enables you to change your character to become a stronger and better person the exercise of self-discipline has a power effect on your mind and emotions developing you into a different person from the one that you would have been without self-discipline imagine yourself in a chemistry lab you mix a series of chemicals in a Petri dish and put it over a bunson burner the bunson burner heats the chemicals to the point at which they crystallize and become hardened but once you crystallize these chemicals using intense heat they cannot be transformed back into liquid form in the same way your personality begins like a liquid soft fluid and formless but as you apply the heat of self-discipline as you exert yourself to do what is hard and necessary rather than what is fun and easy your personality crystallizes and hardens at a higher level as well the greatest benefit you enjoy from exerting self-discipline in the pursuit of your goals is that you become a different person you become stronger and more Resolute you develop greater self-control determination you actually shape and strengthen your personality and transform yourself into a better person the rule is that to become someone that you have never been before you must do something that you have never done before this means that to develop a superior character you must exert ever higher levels of self-discipline and self-mastery on yourself you must do the things that average people don't like to do another success principle is that to achieve something that you've never achieved before you must learn and practice qualities and skills that you've never had before by practicing self-discipline you become a new person you become better stronger and more clearly defined you develop higher levels of self-esteem self-respect and personal Pride you move yourself up the ladder of human evolution and become a person of higher character and resolve success is its own reward the wonderful thing about the achievement of success is that every step in that direction is rewarding in itself each step you take toward becoming a better person and accomplishing more than you ever have before makes you feel happier more confident and more fulfilled you've heard it said that nothing succeeds like success what this means is that the greatest reward of success is not the money you make but rather the excellent person you become in the process of striving toward success and exerting self-discipline every time it's required in the next chapter I will explain to you how you can become the truly excellent person you are capable of becoming now here are some action exercises take out a pen right now and write down your answers to the questions below one if your work life and career were ideal what would they look like what one discipline could you develop would help you to achieve it two if your family life were ideal what would it look like and what one discipline would help you the very most to make it a reality three if your health were perfect in every way what discipline would you have that would make that possible four if your financial situation were ideal today what one discipline would you have that would help you the most five why aren't you already as successful as you would like to be and what one discipline would help you the most to achieve all your goals six what one skill could you develop that would help you to realize more of your goals and seven if you could wave a magic wand and be completely disciplined in any one area which one discipline would have the greatest positive impact on your life chapter 2 self-discipline and character Henry Ward beer wrote hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you never excuse yourself never pity yourself be a hard Master to yourself and be lenient to everyone else the development of character is the great business of Life your ability to develop a reputation as a person of character and honor is the highest achievement of both social and business life Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote what you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear a word you say the person you are today your innermost character is the sum total of all your choices and decisions in life up to this date each time you have chosen rightly and acted consistently with the very best that you know you have strengthened your character and become a better person the reverse is also true each time you have compromised taken the easy way or behaved in a manner inconsistent with what you knew to be right you have weakened your character and softened your personality the great virtues there are a series of Virtues or values that are usually possessed by a person of character these are courage compassion generosity Temperance persistence and friendliness among others we'll talk about some of these in part three of this book coming before all these values however is the most important one of all when determining the depth and strength of your character integrity it is your level of Integrity living in complete truth with yourself and others that demonstrates more than anything else the quality of your character in a way Integrity is actually the value that guarantees all the other values when your level of Integrity is high higher you are more honest with yourself and more likely to live consistently with all the other values that you admire and respect however it takes tremendous self-discipline to become a person of character it takes considerable willpower to always do the right thing in every situation and it takes both self-discipline and willpower to resist the temptation to cut Corners to take the easy way or to act for short-term advantage all of life is a test to see what you are really made of deep down inside wisdom can be developed in private through study and reflection but character can only be developed in the give and take of daily life when you are forced to choose and decide among Alternatives and temptations the test of character it is only when you are under pressure when you are forced to choose one way or another to either live consistently with a value or to compromise it that you demonstrate your true character Emerson also said guard your integrity as a sacred thing nothing at last is sacred except the Integrity of your own mind you are a choosing organism you are constantly making choices one way or the other every choice you make is a statement about your true values and priorities at each moment you choose what is more important or of higher value to you over what is less important or of lesser value the only Bull workk against Temptation the path of least resistance and the expediency factor is character the only way you can develop your full character is by exerting your willpower in every situation when you are tempted to do what is easy and expedient rather than what is correct and necessary the big payoff the payoff for becoming a person of character for exercis iing your willpower and self-discipline to live consistently with the very best that you know is tremendous when you choose the higher value over the lower the more difficult over the easy the right over the wrong you feel good about yourself your self-esteem increases you like and respect yourself more you have a greater sense of personal pride in addition to feeling excellent about yourself when you behave with character you also earn the respect respect and esteem of all the people around you they will look up to you and admire you doors will be open for you people will help you you'll be paid more promoted faster and given even greater responsibilities as you become a person of honor and character opportunities will appear all around you on the other hand you can have all the intelligence talent and ability in the world but if people do not trust you you will never get ahead people will not hire you and if they do they will dehy you as soon as possible financial institutions will not lend you money because birds of a feather flock together the only Associates never friends you will ever have will be other people of questionable character furthermore since the people you associate with have a major effect on your attitude and personality you make or break your entire life with the quality of your character or the lack thereof the development of character Aristotle wrote All advancement in society begins with the development of the character of the young this means that advancement in your life begins with the learning and practice of values you learn values in one or all of three ways instruction study and practice let's look at each of these more closely teach your children values one of the chief roles of parenting is to teach children values this requires patient instruction and explaining values to them over and over again as they are growing up once is Never Enough the value and the importance of living by that value must be explained parents must not only give illustrations but also contrast the adherence to a value especially that of telling the truth with its opposite that of lying or telling Hal truths children are very susceptible to the lessons they receive from the important people in their lives as they are growing up they accept what you say as their parent as a fact as absolute truth they absorb what you say like a sponge you write your description of values on their souls which are like wet clay so that what you write becomes a permanent part of the way they see the world and relate to life more than anything else as we'll see in chapter 19 you demonstrate your values in your behavior your children watch you and strive to emulate the values that you not only teach and preach but also practice and they are always watching the Rockefeller family children were famous for being taught Financial values at an early age even though their father was one of the richest men in America the children were given tasks and chores to perform before they received their allowances they were then instructed on how to spend their allowances how to save how much to give to charity and how much to invest as a result they grew up to become successful businessmen and Statesmen unlike children who had growing up in wealthy homes who are seldom disciplined in Money Matters study the values you admire you learn values by studying them closely the law of concentration says that whatever you dwell upon grows and increases in your life what this means is that when you study and read stories about men and women who demonstrated the kind of values that you admire and respect and then think about those stories and that behavior those values sink ever deeper into your mind once these values are programmed into your subconscious they create a propensity within you to behave consistently with those values when the situation requires them for example in military training soldiers are continually told stories of Courage obedience discipline and the importance of supporting their fellow soldiers the more they hear these stories discuss them and think about them the more likely they are to behave consistently with these values when they're under the pressure of actual combat the core value or virtue of character is truth whenever you tell the truth however inconvenient it may be at the time you feel better about yourself and you earn the respect of the people around you one of the highest accolades you can pay another person is to say that he or she always tells the truth emulate the people you most admire much of your character is determined by the people you most admire both living and dead who are they looking over your life and history make a list of the people whom you most admire and next to their names write out the virtues or values that they most represent to you if you could spend an afternoon with anyone living or dead what one person would you choose why would you choose that person what would you talk about during your afternoon together what questions would you ask and what would you want to learn consider this as well why would that person want to spend an afternoon with you what are the virtues and values that you have developed that make you a valuable and interesting person what makes you special practice the values you respect you develop values by practicing them whenever they are called called for as the Roman stoic philosopher epicas said circumstances do not make the man they merely reveal him to himself when a problem occurs people tend to react automatically based on the highest values that they have developed up to that moment we develop values by repetition by behaving consistently with a particular value over and over again until it becomes a habit and locks in so that we come to practice it automatically men and women with highly developed characters behave in a manner consistent with their highest values and they do so without thought or hesitation there's no question in their minds about whether or not they are doing the right thing the structure of personality the psychology of character involves the three parts of your personality your self ideal your self-image and your self-esteem your self ideal is that part of your mind composed of your values virtues ideals goals aspirations and your idea of the very best person that you could possibly be in other words your self ideal is composed of those values that you most admire in others and most aspire to possess in yourself the most important part of your self ideal is summarized in the word Clarity Superior people are those who are absolutely clear about who they are and what they believe they have complete clarity about the values they believe in and what they stand for they are not confused or indecisive they are firm and Resolute when it comes to any decision in which a value is involved on the other hand weak and irresolute people are fuzzy and unclear about their values they have only a vague notion of what is right or wrong in any situation as a result they take the path of least resistance and act expediently they do whatever seems to be the fastest and easiest thing to get what they want in the short term giving little or no consideration or concern about the consequences of their acts the evolution of character in biology life forms are categorized from the least to the most complex from single cell Plankton all the way up to the increasingly complex spectrum of life to the human being similarly human beings can be organized along a spectrum as well from the least to the most most developed the lowest forms of humans are those with no values virtues or character these people always act expediently and take the path of least resistance in their search for immediate gratification at the highest levels of development of the human race however are those men and women of complete Integrity who would never compromise their honesty or their character for anything including the threat of financial loss pain or even death George Washington is famous for his honesty which was demonstrated in the story in which he admitted that he had cut down the cherry tree in the same vein the founding fathers of the United States wrote that we hereby pledge Our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in his book trust the social virtues and the creation of prosperity philosopher Francis fukuyama observed that societies worldwide can be divided into two kinds High trust and low trust he also argues that the highest trust societies those in which Integrity is most admired incouraged and respected are also the most law-abiding free and prosperous at the other end of the societal Spectrum however are those societies characterized by tyranny thievery dishonesty and Corruption each of these are without exception both undemocratic and poor trust is the key Trust is the lubricant of Human Relationships where there is high trust among and between people economic activity flourishes and there are opportunities for all on the other hand where there is low trust economic resources are squandered in an attempt to protect against thievery and Corruption or those resources are not available at all in the United States we have the Constitution and Bill of Rights these documents lay out the rules by which Americans agree to live they create these structure of our government and guarantee our rights but they assume that our elected representatives will be men and women of Honor committed to protecting and defending those rights they attempt to assure that only men and women of character can Thrive and prosper over the long term in our economic political and social system they aim to assure that in most cases only men and women of character can rise to high positions in society Although our system is not perfect and people of questionable character occasionally rise to positions of prominence it is seldom for very long the basic demand of Americans for honesty and integrity eventually leads to the exposure and censure of dishonest people the demand for men and women of character continues unabated your self-image your inner mirror the second part of your personality is your self-image this is the way we see and think about ourselves especially esally prior to any event of importance people always tend to behave on the outside consistently with way they see themselves on the inside this is often called our inner mirror into which WE peer before we engage in any behavior when you see yourself as calm positive truthful and possessed of High character you behave with greater strength and personal power other people respect you more you feel in control of yourself and the situation ation what's more whenever you actually behave in a manner that is consistent with your highest values your self-image improves you see and think about yourself in a better light you feel happier and more confident your behavior and outward performance then reflects this increasingly improving inner picture you have of yourself as the very best person you can possibly be people tend to accept you at your own evaluation of yourself at at least initially if you see and think of yourself as an excellent person who is possessed of High character you will treat other people with courtesy Grace and respect in turn they will likewise treat you as a person of honor and character your self-esteem how much you like yourself the third part of your personality is your self-esteem this is how you feel about yourself your emotional core your self-esteem is defined as how much you like yourself but it's more than only this the more you see yourself as the valuable and important person the more positive and optimistic you will be when you truly consider yourself to be important and valuable you will treat other people as if they are important as well your self-esteem is largely determined by how consistent your self-image Which shapes your personal behavior is with your self ideal or your vision of the very best person you can possibly be whenever you act consistently with who you consider an excellent person to be your self-image improves and your self-esteem increases you like and respect yourself more you feel happy about yourself and others the more you like yourself the more you like others and the more they like you in return by acting with character and in harmony with your highest values you put your whole life internally and externally into an upward spiral in every area of your life things will get better and better for you Your Role Models have a tremendous impact on shaping your character the more you admire a person and his or her qualities the more you strive both consciously and unconsciously to become like that person this is why Clarity is so important always behave consistently whenever you act in a way that is consistent with your values you you feel good about yourself whenever you compromise your values for any reason you feel bad about yourself this also means that when you compromise your values your self-confidence and self-esteem go down you feel uneasy and inferior inadequate and uncomfortable when you compromise your values deep down inside you feel that something is fundamentally wrong almost all human problems can be solved by a return to your highest value Val and your innermost convictions when you look back there have probably been situations in your life when you have compromised your values in order to save an investment keep a job preserve a relationship or maintain a friendship in each case you have felt worse and worse until you finally broke it off and walked away and how did you feel when you finally had the strength of character to walk away you felt wonderful whenever you use your willpower and strength of character to return to the values that are most dear to you you are rewarded with a wonderful feeling of happiness and exhileration you feel energized and free you wonder why you didn't make that decision a long time ago do the right thing in the development of character that is based on self-discipline and willpower long-term thinking is essential the more you think about the long-term consequences of your behavior the more likely it is that you will do the right thing in the short term so when you have to make a choice or decision always ask the magic question what's important here practice the universal maxim of Emanuel K the philosopher he said resolve to behave as though your Every Act were to become a universal law for all people one of the great questions for the development of character is this what kind of a world would this world be if everyone in it was just like me whenever you slip whenever you do or say something that is inconsistent with your highest values immediately get back on your horse say to yourself This is not like me and resolve that next time you'll do better what you dwell upon grows if you are in a situation today in which you are not living up to your highest values make a decision this very minute to conf front the situation and straighten it out the minute you do you will once again feel happy and back in control there's an old Indian story on my shoulders are two wolves one is a black wolf evil who continually tempts me to do and say the wrong things on my other shoulder is a white wolf that continually encourages me to live up to my very best a listener asked the old man which of these wolves has the the greatest power over you the old man replied the one I feed by the law of concentration whatever you dwell upon grows and increases in your life when you think and talk about the virtues and values that you most admire and respect you therefore program those values deeper and deeper into your subconscious until they begin to operate automatically in every situation whenever you exercise your self-discipline and willpower to live your life consistently with those values that you most aspire to be known for you begin to move rapidly along the path to becoming an excellent person now here are some action exercises for you take out a sheet of paper and write out your answers to these questions one name three people living or dead who you most admire and describe one quality of each of them that you respect two determine the most important virtue or quality in your life that you strive the most to practice or emulate three identify those situations in which you feel the most confident in which you feel like the very best person you could possibly be four what situations give you your greatest feelings of self-esteem and personal worth five if you are already an excellent person in every respect how would you behave differently from today onward six what one quality would you like people to think of when your name is mentioned and what could you do to ensure this happens seven in what one area do you need to be more truthful and practice higher levels of Integrity than you do today whatever your answers write them down and then begin to practice them chapter three self-discipline and responsibility J Paul Getty said the individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit he must be quick to break those habits that can break him and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires your ability willingness to discipline yourself to accept personal responsibility for your life is essential to happiness health success achievement and personal leadership accepting responsibility is one of the hardest of all disciplines but without it no success is possible the failure to accept responsibility and the attempt to voice responsibility for things in your life that make you unhappy onto other people institutions and situations completely distorts cause and effect undermines your character weakens your resolve and diminishes your Humanity it leads to making endless excuses my great Revelation when I was 21 I was living in a tiny apartment and working as a constructure laborer I had to get up at 5:00 a.m. so that I could take three buses to work in order to be there by 8:00 a.m. I didn't get home until 700 p.m. tired out from carrying construction materials all day I was making just enough money to get by and I had no car almost no savings and just enough clothes for my needs I had no radio or television it was in the middle of a cold winter with the temperature atus 35° F so I seldom went out in the evening instead if I had enough energy I sat in my small apartment at my little table in my kitchen nook and read one evening late at night as I was sitting there by myself at the table it suddenly dawned on me that this is my life this life was not a rehearsal for something else the game was on and I was the main character as in a play it was like a flash bulb going off in my face I looked at myself and around me at my small apartment and I considered the fact that I had not graduated from high school the only work that I was qualified to do was manual labor I earned just enough money to pay my basic expenses and I had very little left over at the end of the month I suddenly knew that unless I changed nothing else was going to change no one else was going to do it for me in reality no one else really cared I realized at that moment that from that day forward I was completely responsible for my life and for everything that happened to me I was responsible I could no longer blame my situation on my difficult childhood or mistakes I had made in the past I was in charge I was in the driver's seat this was my life and if I didn't do something to change it it would go on like this indefinitely by the simple force of inertia this Revelation changed my life I was never the same again from that moment on I accepted more and more responsibility for everything in my life I accepted responsibility for doing my job better than before rather than doing only the minimum that was necessary to avoid getting fired I accepted responsibility for my finances my health and especially my future the very next day I went down to a local bookstore at my lunch break and began the lifelong practice of buying books with information ideas and lessons that could help me I dedicated my life to self-improvement to continuous learning in every way possible for the rest of my business life right up to the present moment whenever I've wanted or needed to learn something to help me I have returned to learning to reading to listening to audio programs and attending courses and seminars I found that you could learn anything you need to learn in order to accomplish any goal you set for yourself over time I learned that fully 80% of the population never accepts complete responsibility for their lives they continually complain criticize make excuses and blame other people for things in their lives about which they're not happy the consequences of this way of thinking however can be disastrous they can SA all hopes for success and happiness later in life from childhood to maturity when you are growing up from an early age you become conditioned to see yourself as not responsible for your life this is normal and natural when you're a child your parents are in charge they make all your decisions they decide what food you will eat what clothes you will wear what toys you will play with what home you will live in what school you'll attend and what activities you'll engage in during your spare time because you are young innocent and unknowing you do what they want you to do you have little choice or control as you grow up however you begin to make more and more of your own decisions in each of these areas but because of your early programming you are conditioned unconsciously to feel that someone else is still responsible for your life that there's still someone else out there who can or should take care of you most people grow up believing that if something goes wrong someone else is responsible someone else is to blame someone else is guilty someone else is the villain and they are the victim as a result most people make more and more excuses for the things in their lives past and present that make them unhappy get over the mistakes your parents made if your parents criticized you or got angry with you for mistakes you made when you were growing up you began to unconsciously assume that somehow you were were at fault if your parents punish you physically or emotionally for doing or not doing something that pleased or displeased them you felt inferior and inadequate when your parents withheld their love to punish you for not doing something they demanded you might have grown up with deep feelings of guilt unworthiness and undeservingness all these negative feelings could then intersect to make you feel like a victim like you are not responsible for yourself or your life once you became an adult the most common feeling that we have as adults if we have been raised in a critical home environment is the feeling that I'm not good enough because of this feeling we compare ourselves unfavorably to others we think that other people who seem to be happier or more confident are better than us we develop feelings of inferiority this can become an emotional trap the Fatal fallacy if we think for any reason that others are better than us we unconsciously assume that we must be worse than they are if they are worth more than we are we assume that we must be worth less this feeling of inadequacy or worthlessness lies at the root of most personality problems in our lives as well as most political and social problems in our world both nationally and internationally to escape from these feelings of guilt and worthlessness that have been instilled in us as a result of destructive criticism in childhood we lash out at our world other people and situations in any part of our life with which we are unhappy or discontented our first reaction is to look around and ask who's to blame most religions teach the concept of sin which states that whenever something goes wrong someone is to blame someone has done something bad someone is guilty someone must be punished this whole idea of guilt and Punishment leads to ever increasing feelings of anger resentment and irresponsibility an attitude of irresponsibility our courts today are clogged with thousands of people demanding redress and payment for something that went wrong in their lives backed up by ambitious plaintiff lawyers people go to court demanding compensation even if they themselves are completely at fault for what happened especially if they are at fault fault people don't want to accept responsibility people spill hot coffee on themselves and Sue the fast food restaurant that sold them the coffee in the first place people get drunk and drive off the road and then turn around and Sue the manufacturer of the 15-year-old car they were driving people climb up on a step ladder and lean over too far falling to the ground they then sue the ladder manufacturer for their injury in each case people are attempting to escape responsibility for their own behaviors by blaming someone else making excuses and then demanding compensation eliminating negative emotions the common denominator of all people is the desire to be happy in its simplest terms happiness arises from the absence of negative emotions where there are no negative emotions all that is left is positive emotions therefore the elimination of negative emotions is your great business in life if you truly wish to be happy there are dozens of negative emotions although the most common are guilt resentment Envy jealousy fear and hostility they all ultimately boil down to a feeling of anger directed either inward or outward anger is directed inwardly when you bottle it up rather than expressing it constructively to others anger is directed outwardly when you criticize or attack other people psychosomatic illness negative emotions are the major causes of psychosomatic illness this occurs when the Mind psycho makes the body Soma sick negative emotions especially as expressed in the form of anger weaken your immune system and make you susceptible to colds flu and other diseases uncontrolled bursts of anger can actually bring about heart attacks strokes and nervous breakdowns here's the Great Discovery all negative emotions especially anger depend for their very existence on your ability to blame someone or something else for something in your life that you're not happy about it takes tremendous self-discipline to refrain from blaming others for our problems it takes enormous self-control to refuse to make excuses it takes tremendous self-discipline for you to accept complete responsibility for everything you are everything you become and everything that happens to you even if you are not directly responsible for something that happens like Hurricane Katrina you are responsible for your responses for what you do and say from that moment forward it takes tremendous self-mastery for you to take complete control of your conscious mind and deliberately choose to think positive constructive thoughts that enhance your life and improve the quality of your relationships and results but the payoff of this form of positive thinking is tremendous blaming is Easy by following the path of least resistance the easiest and most Mindless Behavior of all is for a person to lash out and blame someone else anytime anything goes wrong for any reason people who develop the habit of automatically blaming often become angry at things blaming inanimate objects when they do not function as expected is so silly that it almost becomes a mild form of insanity people become angry at dors that stick they swear at tools that they are using when they themselves make a mistake they get mad when their car doesn't start even if it is an inanimate object if it doesn't work perfectly then the thing must be to blame people will often kick a car that they are mad at or a box that they tripped over the antidote to negative emotions the fastest and most Dependable way to eliminate negative emotions is to immediately say I am responsible whenever something happens that triggers anger or negative reaction of any kind quickly neutralize the feelings of negativity by saying I am responsible the law of substitution says that you can substitute a positive thought for a negative one since your mind can only hold one thought at a time when you deliberately choose the positive thought I am responsible you cancel out any other thought or emotion at that moment it is not possible to accept responsibility and remain angry at the same time it's not possible to accept responsibility and experience negative emotions it's not possible to accept responsibility without becoming calm clear positive and focused once more as long as you are blaming someone else for something in your life that you don't like you will remain a mental child you continue to see yourself as small and helpless like a victim you continue to lash out however when you begin to accept responsibility for everything that happens to you you transform yourself into a mental adult you will see yourself as being in charge of your own life and no longer a victim in Alcoholics Anonymous people who are having problems with drinking attend meetings with others going through the same situation what they have found is that until the individual accepts responsibility for his or her problems both with alcohol and in other areas of life no progress is possible but after the person accept accept responsibility everything is possible this is true with almost every difficult situation in life in which you project your unhappiness onto other people or factors outside yourself money and emotions many of our biggest problems and concerns in life have to do with money earning it spending it investing it and especially losing it as a result many of our negative emotions are associated with money in some way however the fact is that you are responsible for your financial life you choose you decide you're in charge you cannot blame your financial problems or situation on other people you are in the driver's seat so it is only when you accept responsibility for your income who chose to accept the job you are working at your bills who spent the money that put you into debt and your Investments who made those decisions can you move from becoming an economic child to an economic adult responsibility and control there's a direct relationship between the acceptance of responsibility and the amount of personal control you feel you have over your life this means that the more you accept responsibility the greater sense of control you experience there's also a direct relationship between the amount of control you feel you have and how positive you feel the more you feel that you have a high sense of control in the important areas of your life the more positive and happy you are in everything you do when you accept responsibility you feel strong powerful and purposeful accepting responsibility eliminates the negative emotions that Rob you of happiness and contentment in every situation the antidote to negative emotions is to say I am responsible then look into the situation to find the reasons why you are responsible for what happened or for what is going on your intelligence is like a double-edged sword it can cut in either direction you can use your intelligence to rationalize justify and blame other people for things you're not happy about or you can use your intelligence to find reasons why you are responsible for what happened and then take action to solve the problem or resolve the situation you can make excuses or you can make progress you choose even if an accident has occurred such as your car being damaged in the parking lot while you were at work you may not be legally at fault for the accident but you are still responsible for your responses for how you behave as a result of what happened never complain never explain the mark of the leader the truly Superior person is that he or she accepts complete responsibility for the situation it's not possible to imagine a true leader who whines and complains rather than taking action when problems and difficulties arise this sense of responsibility is the mark of the highly developed personality you take responsibility for your life by resolving in advance that you will not become upset or angry over something that you cannot affect or change just as you do not become angry about the weather you do not become angry over circumstances and situations over which you have no control furthermore you especially do not allow yourself to be angry and unhappy in the present because of unhappy experiences or situations from the past you say what cannot be cured must be endured it's amazing how many people are unhappy today because of a past event even something that happened many years ago each time they think of the negative experience they become angry or depressed once more the good news is that at any time you can stop thinking about discussing and rehashing the past you can let it go if and begin thinking instead about your goals and your unlimited future as Helen Keller said when you turn toward the sunshine the Shadows Fall behind you self-mastery and self-control any self-discipline self-mastery and self-control begins with taking responsibility for your emotions you take charge of your emotions by accepting 100% responsibility for yourself and for your responses to everything that happens to you you you refuse to make excuses complain criticize or blame other people for anything instead you say I am responsible and then you take action of some kind the only antidote is action the only real antidote for anger or worry is purposeful action in the direction of your goals which is the subject of the next chapter before you turn to that however resolve today to First Take complete control of your thoughts feelings feelings and actions and then to get so busy working on things that are important to you that you don't have time to think about or Express negative emotions to or about anyone for any reason when you exert your self-discipline and willpower in the acceptance of personal responsibility for your life you take complete control of your thoughts and feelings by doing so you become a much more effective happy and positive person in everything you do now here are some action exercises for you one resolve today to accept 100% responsibility for everything you are and for everything you become never complain never explain two look into your past and select a person or incident that still makes you unhappy today instead of justifying your negative feelings look for reasons why you were partially responsible for what happened three select a relationship in your past that made you unhappy and then give three reasons why you were responsible for what occurred four select one person in your past with whom you are still angry and resolve to forgive that person completely for what happened this act will liberate you emotionally five accept complete responsibility for your financial situation and refuse to blame any financial problems on anyone else now now what steps are you going to take to resolve that situation six accept complete responsibility for your family situation with each person and then take immediate action to improve your relationships wherever there may be problems and number seven accept 100% responsibility for your health resolve today to do or stop doing whatever is necessary for you to attain excellent allaround health chapter 4 self-discipline and goals Jim ran said discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals for yourself and then to work toward them every day will do more to guarantee your success than any other single Factor you need to have goals to accomplish worthwhile things in life life you've probably heard it said that you can't hit a Target that you can't see if you don't know where you're going any road will get you there and as Wayne Gretzky said you miss every shot you don't take the very active taking the time to decide what you really want in each area of your life can change your life completely the 3% Factor it seems that only 3% of adults have written goals and plans and this 3% % earn more than all of the other 97% put together why is this the simplest answer is that if you have a clear goal and a plan to achieve it you therefore have a track to run on every single day instead of being sidetracked by distractions and diversions getting lost or going astray more and more of your time is focused in a straight line from where you are to where you want to go this is why people with goals accomplish so much more than people without them the tragedy is that most people think that they already have goals but what they really have are hopes and wishes however hope is not a strategy for success and a wish has been defined as a goal with no energy behind it goals that are not written down and developed into plans are like bullets without powder in the cartridge people with Unwritten goals go through life shooting blanks because they think they already have goals they never engage in the hard disciplined effort of goal setting and this is the master skill of success multiply your chances of success in 2006 USA Today reported a study in which researchers selected a large number of people who had made New Year's resolutions they then divided these people into two categories those who had set New Year's resolutions and written them down and those who had set New Year's resolutions but had not written them down 12- month later they followed up on the respondents in this study and what they found was astonishing of the people who had set New Year's resolutions but had not written them down only 4% had actually followed through on their resolutions but among the group who had written down their New Year's resolutions an exercise requiring only a couple of minutes 44% had followed through on them this is a difference of more than 1,00% in success and it was achieved by the simple Act of crystallizing the resolutions on paper the discipline of writing in my experience working with several million people over the past 25 years the disciplined Act of writing out goals making plans for accomplishing them and then working on those goals daily increases the likelihood of achieving your goals by 10 times or 1,000% this doesn't mean that writing out your goals guarantees success but rather only that it increases the probability of success by 10 times these are very good odds to have working in your favor especially when there is no cost or risk involved in putting pen to paper just a little time writing is called a psychon neurom motor activity the AC of writing forces you to think and concentrate it forces you to choose what is more important to you and your future as a result when you write down a goal you impress it into your sub Sub Conscious mind which then goes to work 24 hours a day to bring your goal to reality sometimes I tell my seminar audiences only 3% of adults have written goals and everyone else works for those people in life you either work to achieve your own goals or you work to achieve the goals of someone else which is it going to be success versus failure mechanisms your brain has both a success mechanism and a failure mechanism the failure mechanism is the temptation to follow the undisciplined path of least resistance to do what is fun and easy rather than what is hard and necessary your failure mechanism operates automatically throughout your life which is the major reason why most people fail to fulfill their individual potentials while your failure mechanism functions automatically your success mechanism is triggered by a goal when you decide on a goal you override your failure mechanism and can help you change the direction of your life you go from being a ship without a Rudder drifting with the tide to be in a ship with a Rudder a compass and a clear destination sailing in a straight direction towards your goal the power of goals a client of mine recently told me an interesting story he said that he had attended one of my seminars in 1994 where I spoke about the importance of writing down goals and making plans for a accomplishing them at that time he was 35 years old selling cars for a dealership in Nashville and earning about $50,000 a year he told me that that day changed his life he began writing out his goals and plans and working on them Daily 12 years later he was earning more than $1 million a year and was the president of a fastrowing company that sells services to some of the biggest companies in the country he told me that he could not imagine what his life would have been like if he had not taken out a piece of of paper and written down the goals he wanted to achieve in the years ahead take control of your life Aristotle wrote that human beings are teleological organisms which simply means that we are Purpose Driven therefore you only feel happy and in control of your life when you have a clear goal that you aren't working toward each day this also means that this ability to become a lifelong goal Setter is one of the most important disciplines you will ever develop in nature the homing pigeon is a remarkable bird it has an uncanny Instinct that enables it to fly back to its home Roost no matter how far away it starts or in what direction it must go you can take a homing pigeon out of its Roost put it in a cage put the cage in a box cover the box with a blanket and put the covered box in the back of a pickup truck you could then drive 1,000 m in any direction open up the truck take out the box take off the blanket open the cage and throw throw the homing pigeon up into the air the homing pigeon will Circle three times get its bearings and then fly straight back to its home Roost this is the only creature on Earth that has this ability except for human beings except for you you also have this remarkable homing ability within your own brain but with one special difference the homing pigeon seems to know instinctively exactly where its home Roost is located it then has the ability to fly directly back to that Roost in contrast when human beings program a goal into their minds they can then set out without having any idea where they will go or how they will achieve that goal but by some miracle they will begin to move uniring toward that goal and the goal will begin to move toward them still many people aren't hesitant to set goals they say I want to be financially independent but I have no idea how I'm going to get there as a result they don't even set financial success as a goal but the good news is that you don't need to know how to get there you just need to be clear about what you want to accomplish and the goal striving mechanism in your brain will guide you uniring to your destination for example you can decide that you are going to find your ideal job in which you work for and with people you like and respect and do work that is both challenging and en Joy able you take some time to write down an exact description of what your ideal job and workplace would look like and then you go out into the job market and begin searching after a series of interviews you will often walk into the right place at the right time and find yourself in exactly the right job almost everyone has had this experience at one time or another you can have it by Design rather than by chance simply by developing absolute clarity about what you really want the seven step methods to achieving your goals there are seven simple steps that you can follow to set and achieve your goals faster there are more complex and detailed goal achieving methodologies but this seven-step method will enable you to accomplish 10 times more than you've ever accomplished before and you will do so far faster than you can currently imagine step one decide exactly what you want be specific if you want to increase your income decide on a specific amount of money rather than to just make more money step two write it down a goal that is not in writing is like cigarette smoke it drifts away and disappears it is vague and insubstantial it has no Force effect or power but a written goal becomes something that you can see touch read and modify if necessary step three set a deadline for your goal pick a reasonable time period and write down the date when you want to achieve it if it's a big enough goal set a final deadline and then set sub deadlines or interim steps between where you are today and where you want to be in the future a deadline serves as a forcing system in your brain just as you often get more done when you're under the pressure of a specific deadline your subconscious mind works faster and more efficiently when you have decided that you want to achieve a goal by a specific time the rule is there are no unrealistic goals there are only unrealistic deadlines what do you do if you don't achieve your goal by your deadline simple you set another deadline a deadline is just a guesstimate sometimes you will achieve your goal before the deadline sometimes at the deadlines and sometimes after the deadline when you set your goal it will be within the context of a certain set of external circumstances but these circumstances may change causing you to change your de deadline as well be flexible step number four make a list of everything that you could think of that you could possibly do to achieve your goal as Henry Ford said the biggest goal can be accomplished if you just break it down into enough small steps make a list of the obstacles and difficulties that you will have to overcome both external and internal in order to achieve your goal make a list of the additional Knowledge and Skills that you will require in order to achieve achieve your goal make a list of the people whose cooperation and support you will required to achieve your goal make a list of everything that you can think of that you will have to do and then add to this list as new tasks and responsibilities occur to you keep writing until your list is complete step five organize your list by both sequence and priority a list of activities organized by sequence requires that you decide what you need to do first what you need to do second and what you need to do later on in addition a list organized By Priority enables you to determine what is more important and what is less important sometimes sequence and priority are the same but often they are not for example if you want to start a particular kind of business the first item in order of sequence might be for you to purchase a book or enroll in a course on that business but what is most important is your ability to develop a business plan based on complete market research that you can use to gather the resources you need and actually start the business you have in mind step six take action on your plan immediately take the first step and then the second step and the third step get going get busy move quickly don't delay remember procrastination is not only the thief of time it's the thief of Life the difference between success and failures in life is simply that winners take the first step step they are action oriented as they said in Star Trek they go boldly where no man has ever gone before winners are willing to take action with no guarantees of success though they're willing to face failure and disappointment they're always willing to take action as well step seven do something every day that moves you in the direction of your major goal this is the key step that will guarantee your success do something s days a week 365 days a year do anything that moves you at least one step closer to the goal that is most important to you at that time when you do something every day that moves you in the direction of your goal you develop momentum this momentum this sense of Forward Motion motivates inspires and energizes you as you develop momentum you'll find it increasingly easy to take more steps toward your goal in no time at all you will have developed the discipline of setting and achieving your goals it will soon become easy and automatic you will soon develop that habit and the discipline of working toward your goals all the time the 10 goal exercise this is one of the most powerful goal achieving methods I have ever discovered I teach it all over the world and I practice it myself almost every day here's how it works take out a clean sheet of paper at the top of the page write the word goals and today's date then discipline yourself to write down 10 goals that you'd like to accomplish in the next 12 months write down Financial family goals and fitness goals as well as goals for personal possessions like a house or a car don't worry for the moment about how you're going to achieve these goals just write them down as quickly as you can you can write as many as 15 goals if you like but this exercise requires that you write down a minimum of 10 within 3 to 5 minutes select one goal once you've written out your 10 goals imagine for the moment that you can achieve all the goals on your list if you wanted them long enough and hard enough also imagine that you have a magic wand that you can wave that will enable you to achieve any one goal on your list within 24 hours if you could achieve any one goal on your list within 24 hours which one would have the greatest positive impact on your life right now which one goal would change or improve your life more than anything else which one goal if you were to achieve it would help you to achieve more of your other goals than anything else whatever your answer to this question put a circle around this goal and then write it at the top of a clean sheet of paper this goal then becomes your major definite purpose it becomes your focal point and the organizing principle of your future activities make a plan once you've written out this goal clearly and specifically and made it measurable set a deadline on your goal your subconscious mind needs a deadline so that it can focus and concentrate all your mental powers on goal attainment make a list of everything that you could think of that you could do to achieve your goal organize this list by sequence and priority select the most important or logical next step in your plan and take action on it immediately take the first step do something do anything result olve to work on this goal every single day until it's achieved From This Moment forward as far as you are concerned failure is not an option once you've decided that this one goal can have the greatest positive impact on your life and you've set it as your major definite purpose resolve that you will work toward this goal as hard as you can as long as you can and that you will never give up until it's achieved this decision alone can change your life use mind storming to get started here's another technique that you can use to dramatically increase the likelihood that you will achieve your most important goal this is the most powerful creative thinking technique I've ever seen more people have become wealthy using this method than any other way take another clean sheet of paper write out your major definite purpose your number one goal at the top of the page in the form of a question then discipline yourself to write a minimum of 20 answers to the question for example if your goal is to earn a certain amount of money by a certain date you would write the question how can I earn this amount of money by this specific date you then discipline yourself to generate 20 answers to your question this exercise of Mind storming will activate your mind Unleash Your creativity and give you ideas that you may have never thought of before the first three to five answers will be easy the next five will be difficult and the last 10 10 answers will be harder than you can imagine at least the first time you do this exercise nonetheless you must exert your discipline and willpower to persist until you have written down at least 20 answers once you've generated 20 answers look over your list and select one of those answers to take action on immediately it seems that when you take action on a single idea on your list it triggers more ideas and motivates you to take action on even more of these answers the Great Law of cause and effect the most important application of the law of cause and effect is that thoughts are causes and conditions are effects your thoughts create the conditions of your life when you change your thinking you change your life your outer World becomes a mirror image reflection of your inner World perhaps the greatest discovery in the history of thought is that you become what you think about most most of the time moreover the teacher John Bole said whatever you can think about on a continuing basis you can have Napoleon Hill author of the success classic Think and Grow Rich which was first published in 1939 and is still selling today said whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe it can achieve when you think about your goal continually and work on it every day more and more of your mental res resources will be concentrated on moving you toward that goal and moving your goal toward you the discipline of daily goal setting will make you a powerful purposeful and irresistible person you'll develop self-esteem self-confidence and self-respect as you feel yourself moving toward your goals faster and faster you will ultimately become Unstoppable in the next chapter I'll explain how the use of self-discipline to develop personal excellence is the most powerful step you can take to achieve all your material and emotional goals now here are some action exercises for you one resolve today to switch on your success mechanism and unlock your goal achieving mechanism by deciding exactly what you really want in life two make a list of 10 goals that you want to achieve in the foreseeable future write them down in the present tense as if you had already achieved them three select the one goal that could have the greatest positive impact on your life if you were to achieve it and write it down at the top of another piece of paper four make a list of everything that you could do to achieve this goal organize it by sequence and priority and then take action on it immediately number five practice mind storming by writing out 20 ideas that could help you to achieve achieve your most important goal and then take action on at least one of these ideas six resolve to do something every day seven days a week to achieve your most important goal until you are successful and number seven continually remind yourself that failure is not an option no matter what resolve to persist until you succeed chapter five self-discipline and personal Excellence Aristotle wrote we are what we repeatedly do Excellence therefore is not an act but a habit you are your most valuable asset your life your potential and your possibilities are the most precious things you have thus your great goal in life should be to fulfill that potential and become everything you are capable of becoming your ability to learn grow and fulfill your potential is unlimited today people are graduating from high school and college in their 70s learning new subjects and developing new capabilities your ability to learn and remember can continue throughout your life if you keep your brain alive alert and functioning at its best your most precious financial asset is your earning ability your ability to work is your primary source of cash throughout your life you could lose your home your car your bank account and everything you own but as long as you have your earning ability you can earn it all back and more in the months and years ahead your biggest investment most people don't realize this they take their earning ability for granted but it has taken you your entire life to develop your earning ability every bit of Education experience and hard work that you have invested in learning your craft and developing your skills has gone into building this asset your earning ability is very much like a muscle it can increase in strength and power Year bye as the result of regular exercise likewise the opposite is true too if left alone or ignored your earning ability like your muscles can become weaker or even decline because you have simply fail to upgrade it continually in other words your earning ability can be either an appreciating or a depreciating asset an appreciating asset is something that grows in value and cash flow every year as a result of continual investment and Improvement a depreciating asset on the other hand is something that loses value over time and finally reaches the point at which it is written off being of little or no further value the choice is yours as to whether your earning ability is increasing or decreasing month by month and year by year see yourself as the president of your own personal services Corporation imagine that you going to take your company public on the stock market would you recommend your company as a growth stock continually increasing its value and earning ability each year or would you describe your company as one that has leveled off in the marketplace that is not really going anywhere in terms of increased value and income would you recommend stock in U in as an excellent investment why or why not what got you here won't get you any further some people are actually losing value each year declining in earning ability because they are not continually upgrading their Knowledge and Skills they don't realize that whatever knowledge and skill they have today is rapidly becoming obsolete it's being replaced by new Knowledge and Skills that if you don't have them and someone else does you'll be in danger of being overtaken by your competition join the top 20% in chapter 1 I mentioned that the 8020 rule applies to income the top 20% of people in our society earn and control 80% of the assets according to Forbes Fortune business weekend Wall Street Journal and the IRS by many estimates the top 1% of Americans control as much as 33% of the assets the most interesting discovery income inequality is that most millionaires multi-millionaires and billionaires in America are first generation they started with little or nothing and earned all their money by themselves in one lifetime in America there's a high level of income Mobility which means that you are able to move from the lower levels of income to the upper levels almost everyone who is in the top 20% today started in the bottom 20% from that point they began to do do something different with their time and their lives and as a result they put themselves squarely onto the upward escalator of financial success no limits on your potential the average income increase in America is about 3% a year just about the same as the rate of inflation and cost of living increases people whose income is increasing at 3% a year seldom get ahead they have a job which can also be thought of as an acronym for just over broke but the fact is that no one is better than you and no one is smarter than you if someone is doing better than you are today it is simply proof that they have learned how the law of cause and effect applies to their work and they have begun doing the things that other successful people have also done the application of the law of cause and effect to your personal life is learn and do the achievement of personal Excellence is a decision you make or that you fail to make but in the absence of a Comm commitment to Excellence in your chosen field you automatically default to average performance or even mediocrity no one becomes excellent accidentally or by just going to work each day Excellence requires a definite decision and a lifelong commitment the keys to the 21st century knowledge and skill are the keys to the 21st century becoming the best person you can possibly be and moving to the top of your field requires the application of self-discipline throughout your life mental Fitness is like physical fitness if you want to achieve either you must work at it all the time you can never let up you must be continually learning and growing every day week and month throughout your career and in other areas of your life if you're going to join the top 20% and stay there to earn more you must learn more Abraham Lincoln once wrote the fact that some have become wealthy is proof that others may do it as well what others have done you can do as well if you learn how everyone who is at the top was once at the bottom many people who come from average or poor families with average incomes or who grow up in ay circumstances have gone on to become some of the most prominent people in their fields and what hundreds of thousands and even millions of other people have done you can do as well the philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote the very best proof that something can be done is that someone else has already done it ordinary into extraordinary very often you see people who don't seem to be as intelligent or as talented as you are who are nonetheless accomplishing remarkable things with their lives there's nothing that will make you angrier than to see someone who seems to be dumber than you who is doing better than you how can this be the answer is simple at a certain point in their lives they realized that the key to success was personal and professional growth it was a dedication to lifelong learning that made them successful the good news is that almost every important skill is learnable every business skill is learnable everyone who is proficient in any area of business was at one time completely ignorant in that area every sales skill is learnable every top salesperson was once a beginning salesperson and unable to make a call or close a sale all money-making skills are learnable as well almost every wealthy person was once poor you can learn anything you need to learn to achieve any goal you can set for yourself make a decision the starting point of your moving upward and onward toward becoming one of the most competent most respected and highest paid people in your field is simple make a decision it's said that every major change in your life comes about when your mind collides with a new idea and then you make a decision to do something different you make a decision to complete your education upgrade your skills or get into a good college you make a decision to start a new business you make a decision to take a particular job or start a particular career you make a decision to invest your money in a particular way and especially you make a decision to be the best in your field many people say that they would like to be happy healthy thin and Rich but as discussed in chapter before wishing and hoping is not enough you have to make a firm unequivocal decision that you are going to pay any price and go any distance in order to achieve the goals you have set for yourself you have to make that decision and then burn your mental Bridges behind you from that moment on you resolve to continue working on yourself and your craft until you reach the top 20% or Beyond follow the leaders not the followers when you decide to be one of the best people in your field look around you and identify the people who are already at the top what characteristics do they have in common how do they plan and organize their days how do they dress how do they walk talk and behave with other people what books do they read how do they spend their spare time who do they associate with what courses have they taken What audio programs do they listen to in their car these are just a few of the questions you should ask in order to find out what successful people are doing that you might also need to do after all you can't hit a Target that you can't see your selection of the right Role Models can have an enormous impact on your future Dr David mcleland of Harvard an author of The achieving Society concluded that your choice of a reference group can determine as much as 95% of your success and achievement in life your reference group is made up of the people who you feel are just like me your natural tendency is to adopt the attitudes styles of dress opinions and lifestyles of the people with whom you identify and Associate most of the time fly with the Eagles some years ago one of my seminar participants told me his story Bob Barton said he had started off in his 20s in a large company with about 30 two salespeople in his Branch it was his first real job and he was starting at the bottom because he was new he hung around with the other Junior salespeople as they say birds of a feather flocked together after a month or two Bob noticed that the top salespeople in the office also associated with each other they did not spend time with the junior salespeople they also spent their time differently when Bob got into work in the morning the top salespeople were already there planning their days and working on the telephone and making appointments Bob also noticed that the junior salespeople would come in later drink coffee read the newspaper and make excuses for not making sales calls Bob decided that he was going to pattern himself after the top salespeople in the office he looked at the way they dressed and groomed and he resolved to dress and groom the way they did each morning he would stand in front of his mirror and ask himself do I look like one of the top salespeople in my office if the answer was no he would go back and change his clothes until he felt that he looked as good as the best people he began to come into the office and organize his day before 8:30 a.m. so that he was ready to make calls as soon as his customers were available to see him one day Bob asked one of the top salespeople if he could recommend a book or audio program that would help him it turns out that top people are always willing to help other people improve when he got the recommendation Bob immediately went out and got the book and sent away for the audio program he read the book and listened to the program and then reported back to the top salesman the top salesman gave him some more advice on things to read and listen to All of which Bob followed Bob asked another salesperson how he planned his day and that salesperson showed him his time management system so Bob began to plan and organize his day the way the top salespeople did it by using these top salespeople as his role models and emulating them whenever possible Bob started to make more appointments see more prospects and make more sales within six months he was one of the top salespeople in the office as well by that time the top salespeople had invited him for coffee and lunch and he became one of them rather than one of the junior people the next year Bob went to the national sales conference where he met a lot of the top people from around the country he deliberately sought them out and asked for their advice what books would they suggest What audio programs would they recommend what seminars had they attended what strategies did they find that were the most effective in building their sales business Bob did something that very few people do when he received advice he followed it he immediately took action on the advice and then reported back to the people who had given it to him within 4 years Bob became one of the top salespeople in the country his friends and Associates were the other top salespeople in his branch and in the other branches his income had increased several times he wore beautiful clothes drove a new car lived in a lovely home and had a wonderful wife and he said that it all came about as a result of asking top salespeople for their input and then following that input and applying it to his sales activities but here's the kicker over and over the top people the ones who had been winning the sales Awards year after year told Bob the same thing he was the first person who had ever come up to them and asked them for advice no one else had ever sought them out and ask them why they were so successful the answers have all been found here is a great discovery all the answers have been found all the roots to success have been discovered everything you need to learn to move to the top of your field has already been learned by hundreds and even thousands of other people and if you ask them for advice they will give it to you successful people will have their phone calls held cancel other appointments and put their work aside to help other people to be successful but you must ask and then you must follow their advice once they give it to you if you can't ask them directly read their books and attend their talks and seminars listen to audio programs created by successful people sometimes you can send them emails and ask for advice learn from the best set High income as a goal if your goal is to be in the top 20% of money makers in your field the first thing you need to do is to find out what the people in the top 20% are earning today this information is available just ask around check industry statistics go on to Google you can find this information if you look for it once you know the income Target at which you are aiming write it down as your goal make a plan to achieve this level of income and and work on it every day never stop until you reach it the secret to high income in business and sales is quite simple learn and do like jacking up a car you improve one notch at a time each time you learn and practice a new skill you ratchet up your earning ability and it locks in as long as you keep increasing your earning ability you keep ratcheting up to a higher level from which you seldom decline use the 3% formula to invest in yourself to guarantee your lifelong success make a decision today to invest 3% of your income back into yourself this seems to be the magic number for lifelong learning according to the American Society for training and development this is the percentage that the most profitable 20% of companies in every industry invest in the training and development of their staff decide today to invest 3% of your income into yourself in order to make yourself an appreciating asset to continually increase your earning ability if your annual income goal is $50,000 resolve to invest 3% of that amount or $1,500 back into yourself each year to maintain and upgrade your Knowledge and Skills if your income goal is $100,000 resolve to invest $3,000 per year back into yourself to assure that you reach that that level of income the payoff is extraordinary I was giving a seminar in Detroit a couple of years ago when a young man about 30 years old came up to me at the break he told me that he had first come to my seminar and heard my 3% rule about 10 years ago at that time he had dropped out of college was living at home driving an old car and earning about $20,000 a year as an office to office salesman he decided after the seminar that he was going to apply the 3% rule to himself and he did so immediately he calculated 3% of his income of $20,000 would be $600 he began to buy sales books and read them every day he invested in two audio learning programs on sales and time management he took one sales seminar he invested the entire $600 in himself in learning to become better that year his income went from 20,000 to 30,000 an increase of 50% he said he could trace the increase with great accuracy to the things he had learned and applied from the books he had read and the audio programs he had listen to so the following year he invested 3% of $30,000 a total of $900 back into himself that year his income jumped from $30,000 to $50,000 he began to think if my income goes up at 50% per year by investing 3% back into myself what would happen if I invested 5% the next year he invested 5% of his income $2500 into his learning program he took more seminars traveled cross country to a conference bought more audio and video learning programs and even hired a part-time coach and that year his income doubled to $100,000 after that like playing Texas Hold him he decided to go Allin and raised his investment into himself to 10% per year he told me that he'd been doing this ever since I asked him how has investing 10% of your income back into yourself affected your income he smiled and said I passed a million dollars in personal income last year and I still invest 10% of my income in myself every single year I said wow that's a lot of money how do you manage to spend that much money on personal development he said it's hard I have to start spending money on myself in January in in order to invest it all by the end of the year I have an image coach a sales coach and a speaking coach I have a large library in my home with every book audio program and video program on sales and personal success I can find I attend conferences both nationally and internationally in my field and my income keeps going up every year there are three simple steps to become the best becoming one of the top people in your field requires discipline and application more than anything else there are three simple steps that you can follow to become the very best in your field one read 60 Minutes in your field each day turn off the television and the radio put aside the newspaper and read material about your field for 1 hour each day before you start working two listen to educational audio programs in your car start them and stop them as you listen so that you can reflect on what you have just heard and think about how you can apply the ideas to your work three attend courses and seminars in your field regularly seek them out take online courses in the convenience of your own home courses that enable you to upgrade your skills and give you important ideas that you can use to be even more successful the power of compound learning like compound interest is quite amazing the more you learn the more you can learn the more you learn the better your brain functions and the smarter you get your memory and retention rate improves the more you learn the more relationships you find between something you learned at one time and something you learn at another time never stop learning and growing the achievement of Mastery how long does it take to achieve Mastery in your field according to the experts the acquisition of Mastery requires about 7 years or 10,000 hours of hard work it takes 7 years to be become a master salesperson it takes 7 years to become a successful business person it takes 7 years to become an excellent diesel mechanic it takes 7 years to become an excellent brain surgeon it seems to take 7 years or 10,000 hours of hard work to get to the top of any field so you might as well get started the time is going to pass anyway the starting point of your achieving Mastery is for you to commit to Excellence I've never met a person who made a decision to get into the top 20% in their field who did not eventually achieve it and I never met a person who got there having not made that decision making the decision and then following up with continuous purposeful disciplined action is essential Talent is not enough as I mentioned earlier according to Jeffrey culvin in his best-selling book Talent is overrated most people learn how to do their job in the first year and then they never get any better they just Coast in their jobs but the only Direction you can Coast is downhill many people will work away at a job for many years and never rise above the average they will do their job from 8 to 5 but they never lift a finger to upgrade their skills they will not invest any time learning their craft unless their company pays for the extra training and gives them the time off to take it the average person does only an average job and as a result he earns an average income and worries about money all his life he never realizes that often there's only a thin veil that separates the average person from the excellent person the fact is that if you're not getting better you're getting worse no one stays in the same place for long 2 hours each day will get you to the top it's been calculated that all you need to invest is about 2 extra hours per day to move from the average to the superior only two extra hours each day will move you from worrying about money all your life to being one of the highest paid people in your field people immediately ask where am I going to get an extra 2 hours each day it's simple take a piece of paper and do the following simple calculation calculate the number of hours in a week 7 Days * 24 hours equal 16 8 hours if you deduct 40 hours for work and 56 hours for sleep you have 72 hours left over if you deduct 3 hours per day 21 hours for getting ready for and traveling to and from work that leaves you 51 hours of spare time to do with as you please if you invest 2 hours per day back into yourself 14 hours per week you still have 37 hours left over that's an average of more than 5 hours per day of free time all you need to do is devote 2 hours each day to move you from average performance to Superior performance at whatever you choose to do form the habit of continuous learning the best news is that when you begin reading in personal or professional development literature listening to audio programs in your car taking additional courses and upgrading your skills in the evenings and on the weekends rather than watching television you soon get into the the habit of continuous learning in no time at all it will become automatic and easy for you to learn grow and upgrade your skills every day and every week the average adult watches about 5 hours of Television each day for some people it is seven or 8 hours they turn on the television first thing in the morning and watch it until they leave for work they turn it back on as soon as they get home from work they then watch television until 11: or 12:00 at night going to bed without enough time to get a good night's sleep they then get up in the morning drink coffee and watch television for as long as they can before they go off to work once more you can be rich or poor it's your decision your television set can make you rich or poor if you watch it all the time it will make you poor psychologists have shown that the more television you watch the lower are your levels of energy and self-esteem at an unconscious level you don't like or respect yourself as much if you sit there hour after hour watching television people who watch too much television also gain weight and become physically unfit from sitting around too much your television can also make you rich but only if you turn it off when you turn off your television you free out time that you can then use to invest in becoming a better smarter or more competent person when you leave your television off when you are with your family you'll find yourself Talking sharing communicating and laughing more often when you leave your television off for extended periods of time you break the habit of watching television and you'll hardly miss it at all your television can be an excellent servant but it's a terrible Master the choice is yours increase your income 1,000% there is a simple seven-step formula you can use in order to increase your productivity performance and output and income by 1,000% over the the next 10 years it works for everyone who tries it it is simple first answer this question is it possible for you to increase your overall productivity performance and output by 1/10th of 1% which is 1,000th in an entire working day your answer will probably be yes if you were to manage your time a little better and work on more valuable tasks you would quite easily increase your output by 1 1,000 in a day having done this for the first day could you increase your output by 1/10th of 1% the second day and the answer of course is yes having increased your performance by 1/10th of 1% on Monday and Tuesday could you continue to do this for Wednesday Thursday and Friday and again the answer is yes 1/2 of 1% per week 1/10 of 1% * 5 days per week equals 1 half of 1% per week is it possible for a normal intelligent hardworking individual to increase his or her output by 1/ half of 1% or one 12 200th in a single week of course it is having done this for the first week could you keep up the same pace of personal development the second week of course you could could you get one 1,000th of 1% better 5 days a week for an entire month if you could this means that you would be 1/ half of 1% better per week multipli times 4 or 2% more productive in an entire month there are 13 4-we months in a year 4 * 13 = 52 having become 2% better in a month could you repeat that in the second month in the third month the fourth month and so on of course you could by working on yourself a little bit each day learning new skills getting better at your key tasks setting priorities and FOC focusing on higher value activities you can become 26% more productive over the course of an entire year having achieved this goal for the first year could you do it for the second year and then the third could you keep it up for 10 years and the answer of course is yes and the best news is that when you continue to work on yourself it becomes easier and easier for you to get better and better as the weeks and months go by by the law of accumulation or the law of incremental Improvement by the end of 12 months you would be 26% better if you continue to improve at 26% per year by the end of 10 years with compounding you would be 1,4% more productive your income would increase at the same rate this formula works if you do there are seven steps in the 1,00% formula step one arise 2 hours before your first appointment or before you have to be at work invest the first hour in yourself by reading something educational motivational or spiritual as Henry Ward beer once said the first hour is the rudder of the day when you get up and invest the first hour in yourself you set yourself up mentally to have an excellent day you'll be more positive alert creative and productive all day long when you start your day by investing the first hour in yourself if you reading your your field 1 hour per day that will translate into about one book per week one book per week will translate into about 50 books per year since the average adult reads less than one non-fiction book per year if you were to Read 50 books in your field each year do you think that would give you an edge in your profession do you think that it would move you ahead of virtually everyone else in your business of course it would if you read 50 books per year for 10 years this would be 500 books that would help you to improve your productivity performance and income at the very least you would need a bigger house just to hold your books and you'd be able to afford it reading 1 hour per day in your field will make you a National Authority in 3 to 5 years this alone can give you your th% increase over the course of your career step two rewrite your goals every day get a spiral notebook and rewrite your major goals in the present t T every morning before you start out without looking back at what you wrote the previous day this writing and rewriting is the process of programming instructions into the guidance mechanism of your mind when you rewrite your 10 goals each morning you will continually see and think of opportunities to achieve those goals all day long you'll become more focused channeled and directed you'll be more purposeful and determined and you will achieve your goals much faster than if they were merely wishes floating around in the back of your mind writing and rewriting your goals each day can give you your 1,000% increase in income over 10 years step three plan every day in advance make a list and set priorities on your work before you start off your ability to set priorities and to choose the most important thing that you could be doing at every moment is the key to organizing your life and doubling your productivity we'll talk in detail about time management techniques in chapter 12 working on your top priorities can increase your income by 1,000% over 10 years and it is probably impossible to achieve without it step four discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing choose the most important thing that you can do each day then start on it first thing and work on it until it's 100% complete your ability to focus and concentrate when you develop and hone it into a habit all by itself will enable you to double your productivity performance and output in the next month and it will give you your 1,000% increase over 10 years step five listen to educational audio programs in your car the average business person who drives spend 500 to 1,000 hours per year behind the wheel of their car when you you turn your car into a university on Wheels a mobile classroom you get the educational equivalent of one to two fulltime University semesters as you drive around many people have gone from Rags to Riches by simply listening to educational audio programs in their cars as they drive from place to place you could do the same this alone could give you your 1,000% increase step number six ask two magic questions after every call or event first ask yourself what did I do right then ask yourself what would I do differently the first question what did I do right forces you to think through and recall all the correct things that you did in that last meeting presentation or event even if it was not successful write them down the second question what would I do differently forces you to think through all the different ways ways you could improve your performance in a similar situation write these ideas down as well in both cases by reviewing your performance by thinking about what you did right and what you would do differently you program yourself to perform even better the next time this is one of the fastest and most powerful exercises in personal growth and development I have ever discovered this process dramatically speeds up the rate at which you move into the top 20% step seven treat every person you meet like a million-- dooll customer treat each person you meet and work with both at home and in the office as though he or she is the most important person in the world when you treat people as if they are valuable and important they will return the favor by treating you as if you are valuable and important as well they will want to be associated with you work for you buy from you and introduce you to their friends you begin treating people like million dooll customers by starting at home with the members of your family remember they are the most important people in your life so when you start your day well first thing in the morning by making the members of your family feel important and telling them that you love them you'll be more positive relaxed and happier for the rest of the day fully 85% of your success will be determined by how much people like and respect you especially in business and sales never miss an opportunity to treat people well when you practice these seven steps each day for a month you will see changes and improvements in your life work and income that will astonish you after a month of regular practice you'll have formed a new habit of continuous personal Improvement that can carry you onward and upward for the rest of your life be the best lifelong personal development and the commitment to personal Excellence requires tremendous dedication discipline and and willpower the greatest payoff is that every time you learn and apply something new your brain releases endorphins which make you feel happier and more excited about your future every time you learn and apply something new you'll have a greater sense of personal power your self-esteem self-respect and personal Pride will increase you will feel very much in control of your earning ability which is one of the most important parts of your life in the next chapter we'll talk about the importance of Courage of overcoming the fears and doubts that hold most people back it is often the case that we know what we need to do but we lack the courage to take the risks that a company trying anything new instead we make excuses for in action now here are some action exercises that you can do number one make a decision today to invest in yourself and getting better as if your future depends on it because it does two identify the most important skills you have that determine the quality and quantity of results you get at your work and make a plan to get better in each one three if you could wave a magic wand and become absolutely excellent in any one skill which one skill would have the greatest impact on your earning ability whatever your answer set that skill as a goal make a plan and work on it every day four set excellent performance in your work as a goal and then determine exactly what you will need to do every day to join the top 20% or better in your field five look ahead 3 to 5 years and determine the new Knowledge and Skills you will need in order to lead your field in the future then start acquiring them today six select the top person in your field the one you admire most and and use him or her as a role model for your own development and seven commit yourself today to lifelong learning and never let a day go by without getting better in some area chapter six self-discipline and courage Mark Twain said courage is not absence of fear it is control of fear Mastery of fear you need large amounts of self-discipline to deal courageously with all the fear inducing events of your life this is probably why Churchill said courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues for upon it all others depend the fact is that everyone is afraid and usually of many things this is normal and natural often fear is necessary to preserve life prevent injury and guard against Financial mistakes so if if everyone is afraid what is the difference between the brave person and the coward the only difference is that the brave person disciplines himself to confront deal with and act in spite of the fear in contrast the coward allows himself to be dominated and controlled by the fear someone once said that with regard to Warfare although it applies to any situation the difference between the hero and the coward is that the hero sticks in there 5 minutes longer fortunately all fears are learned no one is born with fears fears can therefore be unlearned by practicing self-discipline repeatedly with regard to fear until it goes away the most common fears that we experience which often sabotage all hopes for Success are the fears of failure poverty and loss of money these fears cause people to avoid risk of any kind and to reject opportunity when it's presented to them they're so afraid of failure that they're almost paralyzed when it comes to taking any chances at all there are many other fears that interfere with our happiness people fear the loss of Love or the loss of their jobs and their Financial Security people fear embarrassment or ridicule people fear rejection and criticism of any kind people fear the loss of respect or esteem of others these and many other fears hold us back throughout life fear paralyzes action the most common reaction in a fear situation is the attitude of I can't this is the fear of failure and loss that stops us from taking action it is experienced physically starting in the solar plexus when a person is really afraid their mouth and throat goes dry their heart starts pounding sometimes they breathe shallowly and their stomach turns often they feel like getting up and running to the bathroom these are all physical manifestations of the inhibitive negative habit pattern which we all experience from time to time whenever a person is in the grip of Fear he feels like a deer caught in the headlights of a car this fear paralyzes action it often shuts down the brain and causes the individual to revert to the fight or flight reaction fear is a terrible emotion that undermines our happiness and can hold us back throughout our lives do the opposite Aristotle described courage as the golden mean between the extremes of cowardice and impetuousness he taught that to develop a quality that you lack act as if you already had that quality in every situation where it is called for in modern terms however we say fake it until you make it you can actually change your behavior by affirming visualizing and acting as if you already have the quality you desire by affirming by repeating the words I can do it emphatically whenever you feel afraid for any reason you can cancel the feeling of I can't every time you repeat the words I can do it with conviction you override your fear and increase your confidence by repeating this affirmation over and over again you can eventually build your courage and confidence to the point where you are unafraid visualize yourself as unafraid by visualizing yourself performing with confidence and confidence in an area where you are fearful your visual image will EV eventually be accepted by your subconscious mind as instructions for your performance your self-image the way you see yourself and think about yourself is eventually altered by feeding your mind these positive mental pictures of yourself performing at your best by using the act as if method you walk talk and carry yourself exactly as you would if you're completely unafraid in a particular situation you stand up straight smile move quickly and confidently and in every respect act as if you already had the courage that you desire the law of reversibility says that if you feel a certain way you will act in a manner consistent with that feeling but if you act in a manner consistent with that feeling even if you don't feel it the law of reversibility will create the feeling that is consistent with your actions this is one of the greatest breakthroughs in success psychology you develop the courage you desire by disciplining yourself repeatedly to do the thing you fear until that fear eventually disappears and it will blow away the fear when I work with sales organizations they often ask me how to help a salesperson break out of a sales slump especially in a tough economy I give them a simple formula that is guaranteed to work every single time it is called the 100 call method in practicing this method I instruct the salesperson to go out and call call on 100 prospects as fast as he can without caring it all whether or not he makes a sale when the salesperson doesn't care if he makes a sale his fear of rejection largely disappears he stops caring if the prospect he is speaking to is interested or not interested he has a single focus it is to make a 100 calls as fast as he possibly can one sales organization I work with has a daily prize for the first salesperson who gets rejected 10 times each morning at 8:30 a.m. all the salespeople sit down at their desk and start making calls to try to win the prize by the time the contest is over usually by 10:00 a.m. everyone's fears of rejection have been blown out of their systems they're ready to call on prospects all day long not caring at all about the reactions they get learn to speak on your feet in 1923 Toastmasters International was formed its Express purpose was to take people who were were terrified of public speaking and help them to become confident and competent when speaking on their feet in front of an audience according to the book of lists 54% of adults rate the fear of public speaking ahead of the fear of death but Toastmasters International had a solution they created a system based on what psychologists call systematic desensitization once a week at a lunch and or dinner meeting small groups of Toast Masters come together each person is required to stand up and give a short talk on a specific subject in front of a group of their peers at the end of each talk the speaker receives Applause positive input and comments from the other members at the end of the evening each person is given a grade on their talk even if it was only for 30 or 60 seconds after 6 months of attending Toastmasters meetings the individual will have stood on his feet and spoken 26 times receiving positive Applause and feedback each time because of this continuous positive reinforcement his confidence increases dramatically as a result of this process countless Toast Masters have gone on to become excellent public speakers and prominent people in their businesses organizations and communities their fears of public speaking are gone forever eliminate two fears at once psychologists have found that certain fears are bundled together in the subconscious mind like wires on the same circuit if you can overcome your fears in one of these areas you will also eliminate other fears on the same circuit the fear of rejection or call reluctance seems to be bundled together with the fear of public speaking when you discipline yourself to join Toast Masters or to take a Dale Carnegie course to learn to speak confidently on your feet your fears of rejection largely disappear as well your level of self-confidence in all your interactions with others increases dramatically your whole life changes in a part positive way confront your fears your ability to confront deal with and act in spite of your fears is the key to happiness and success one of the best exercises you can practice is to identify a person or situation in your life of which you are afraid and resolve to deal with that fear situation immediately do not allow it to make you unhappy for another minute resolve to confront the situation or person and put the fear behind you a woman and one of my seminars told me that her boss was a very negative person he was constantly criticizing and berating her about her work even though she was one of the highest rated employees in the organization he was making her life miserable she didn't want to give up her job but she was afraid of confronting him she asked me what she should do I gave her this advice which I've subsequently given to many other people the only reason that one person bullies another is because they feel they can get away with it the only way to deal with a bully is to confront him bullies are actually cowards at heart and they will flee from a confrontation I told her to do this the next time your boss criticizes you for any reason turn to him and say quite firmly I would appreciate it if you not talk to me like that ever again it hurts my feelings and stops me from doing my job the way you want I told her to look him straight in the eye after she had finished making this statement well she had tremendous courage rather than putting up with this situation any longer the next time her boss began to berate her she squared off with him and said those words she wrote to me and told me what had happened just as I had predicted he stopped dead in his tracks he immediately apologized and mumbled and then quickly went back to his office he never criticized her again she told me that she could have ended his bad treatment of her many months before if she had only had the courage to confront him directly the first time it happened happen as elanar Roosevelt said no one can make you feel inferior without your consent move toward the fear when you identify a fear and discipline yourself to move toward it it grows smaller and more manageable what's more as your fears grow smaller your confidence grows larger soon your fears lose their control over you in contrast when you back away from a fear inducing situation or person your fear grows larger and larger soon it dominates your thinking and feeling preoccupies you during the day and often keeps you awake at night leaders have two types of courage in leadership the most common quality is that of vision leaders have a clear vision of where they want to take their organizations leaders also have a clear vision of where they want to be sometime in the future in their personal lives the second most common quality of leaders is that of Courage leaders have the courage courage to do whatever is necessary to fulfill their Vision they lead from the front and dare to go forward there are two types of Courage that you need first you need the courage to launch to take action to take a leap of faith you need the courage to go all in without any guarantee of success and with a high possibility of failure at least in the short term the major feeling that holds most people back is that in spite of all their best intentions they don't have the courage to take the first step the second type of Courage that you need is called courageous patience this is the ability to hang in there and continue working and fighting after you've gone all in and before you have yet seen any results or rewards many people can muster up the courage to take action toward a new goal but when they see no immediate result they immediately lose heart and pull back to Safety and Security they don't have stain power deal with the fear directly the only way to deal with the fear is to address it headon remind yourself that denial is not a river in Egypt the natural tendency of many people is to deny that they have a problem caused by a fear of some kind they're afraid of confronting it in turn it becomes a major source of stress unhappiness and psychosomatic illness be willing to deal with the situation or person directly as Shakespeare said take arms against the Sea of troubles and in so doing end them the companion of fear is worry like twin sisters fear and worry go around together Mark Twain once wrote I have worried about a lot of things in life and most of them never happened it's been estimated that 99% of the things that you worry about never happen and most of the things that do happen happen so quickly that you didn't didn't have time to worry about them in the first place the disaster report whenever you're worried about something fill out a disaster report on the situation this will destroy your fear and worry almost instantly this is often called the worry Buster the disaster report has four parts first Define the worry situation clearly what exactly are you worried about very often when you take the time to be completely clear about the wor situation a way to resolve that situation becomes immediately evident second identify the worst possible thing that could happen if this worry situation were to take place would you lose your job would you lose your relationship would you lose your money what's the worst thing that could possibly happen be clear about this in many cases you will see that should the worst occur it would not ruin you it might be inconvenient or uncomfortable but you would eventually recover you will find that it's probably not worth all the worry that you are devoting to it the third step in the disaster report is to resolve to accept the worst possible outcome should it occur say to yourself well if that happens it won't kill me I'll find a way to get along most of the stress of worry comes from denial from not being willing to face the worst possible thing that could happen but once you resolve to accept the worst should it occur all the worst and stress seems to disappear fourth begin immediately to improve on the worst take every step that you possibly can to make sure that the worst possible outcome does not occur take action immediately do something get on with it act quickly get so busy making sure that the worst thing does not happen that you have no time to worry the real antidote in the final analysis the only real cure for fear or worry is disciplined purposeful action in the direction of your goals get so busy working on your goals or the solutions to your problems that you have no time to be afraid or to worry about anything when you practice the self-discipline of courage and force yourself to face any fear inducing situation in your life your self-esteem goes up your self-respect increases and your sense of personal power grows you eventually reach the point in life where you're not afraid of anything once you've developed the courage to step out in faith you must then develop the self-discipline of persistence which we'll talk about in the next chapter now here are seven action exercises for you one identify your three biggest fears in life right now what are they two determine what you would do in each of these situations if you are guaranteed of complete success what actions would you take three what have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt what would you do differently if you were guaranteed of success four in what three areas of life and work do you most experience the fears of failure and loss what steps could you take immediately to confront and eliminate those fears five in what three areas of life do you most experience the fears of criticism rejection or embarrass embarrassment how could you confront these fears and overcome them six what one great goal would you set for yourself if you knew you could not fail and seven what would you do differently in life if you had $20 million in the bank but only 10 years left to live chapter 7 self-discipline and persistence Benjamin Disraeli wrote beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry one such attempt in 10,000 May succeed these are fearful odds persistence is self-discipline in action your ability to persist in the face of all setbacks and temporary failures is essential to success in life Napoleon Hill said persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steal the primary reason for success is persistence and likewise the primary reason for failure is lack of persistence or quitting too soon there's a direct link between self-discipline and self-esteem each time you discipline yourself to do what you should do when you should do it whether you feel like it or not your self-esteem increases this is why there is a direct relationship between self-esteem and persistence each time you persist and force yourself to continue on even when you feel like quitting your self-esteem goes up each Act of self-discipline strengthens every other Act of self-discipline Every Act of persistence strengthens every other Act of persistence when you discipline yourself to persist over and over you like and respect yourself more and more you become stronger and more confident eventually you become Unstoppable the reward of persistence persistence is its own reward every time you force yourself to persist on a task whether it is large or small you feel happier and better about yourself when you go the extra mile and do more than you are paid for or more than is expected your self-esteem goes up you feel more powerful and in greater control of your life in your career when you go the extra mile you put yourself on the side of the Angels the primary difference between winners and losers in life is simple winners never quit and quitters never win you can increase your ability to persist by talking to yourself positively say these words I am Unstoppable before you begin any major undertaking pre-program Yourself by telling yourself I never give up before you can achieve anything worthwhile in life you have to pass the persistence test this is usually a snap quiz sprung on you unexpectedly with no warning you suddenly face a major setback problem temporary failure or even a complete disaster when this happens remind yourself that this is the testing time this is when you demonstrate what you are really made of this is when you show yourself and others the strength of your character and your true determination to succeed your ability to respond your ability to respond is effectively to setbacks your level of response ability is the measure of your Readiness to succeed when you experience a major setback or problem you will feel temporarily stunned this feeling is very much like a punch in the emotional solar plexus you'll be stopped for a few seconds or a few minutes during this period you'll often feel discouraged or experience self-pity you will say why me however it is not how far you fall that counts but rather how high you bounce your aim is to bounce back as quickly as possible resilience in the face of unexpected reversals is vital to long-term success remember the Warrior's Creed I will lay me down to bleed a while and then rise and fight again don't be surprised shocked or set back when things go wrong your best-laid plans will often fall apart instead expect disappointments and setbacks as a part of life take a deep breath pick up the pieces and continue onward optimism gives you resilience the most important quality you need for success and persistence is optimism this is a boundless confidence in yourself and your ability to ultimately succeed to remain optimistic you must control and discipline your thinking when things go wrong refuse to feel sorry for yourself remember you are not a victim you are an adult and you are in charge of your own life you are doing what you have freely chosen to do setbacks come with the territory they are merely speed bumps on the road to success refuse to blame others or make excuses when you complain or blame other people it just makes you feel and sound Petty and small and what's worse it takes away your personal power whenever you criticize or complain it makes you feel weaker and reduces your ability to deal effectively with with the situation instead greet every setback by repeating I am responsible look for the reasons why you are responsible for what happened rather than trying to pass on the blame to other people no excuses be proactive versus reactive resolve to focus on the solution and what can be done now rather than on what happened and who's to blame think in terms of the actions you can take to resolve the situation rather than what went wrong and who is to blame to remain optimistic look for the good in every situation when you look for something good you will always find something good furthermore while you're looking for something good because your conscious mind can only hold one thought at a time you'll automatically become positive optimistic and back in full control seek the valuable lesson in every problem or difficulty every setback you face contains one or more lessons that have been sent to you to help you to be more successful in the future the difference between success and failures is simple failures feel sorry for themselves when things go wrong whereas successful people look for the valuable lesson they can learn that will help them in the future look for the gift Norman Vincent Peele used to say when God wants to send you a gift he wraps it up in a problem the bigger the gift that God wants to send you the bigger the problem he wraps it up in instead of concentrating on the problem look for the gift wonderfully enough you'll always find it what's more sometimes the gift or valuable lesson can be of far greater value than the cost of the problem itself sometimes one lesson that you learn in dealing with a problem can be the key to your long-term success as Napoleon Hill wrote within every problem or obstacle lies the seed of an equal or greater opportunity or benefit your job is to find it continually think of yourself as a strong powerful Resolute person in the face of adversity in World War I a British general was described by his superiors there he stands like an iron Peg driven into The Frozen Ground immovable let this be an accurate description of you whenever you face difficulties or problems of any kind resolve to stand like an iron Peg driven into the front frozen ground resolve in advance when you resolve in advance that you will never give up your success is virtually guaranteed in the final analysis nothing can really stop you but yourself in life it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down all that matters is how many times you get back up if you continue to get back up and press onward you must eventually reach your goal each time you exert your self discipline to persist in the face of adversity Unity you also increase your self-esteem and self-confidence then as your self-esteem increases you feel stronger more powerful and more Unstoppable when you feel better and stronger you become more capable of persisting the next time and then the time after that by disciplining yourself to persist in the face of all adversity you put your life onto an upward spiral of self-esteem self-discipline and persistence until you eventually become like a force of nature nature persistence is self-discipline in action in part two you will learn the specific things you can do to apply these principles to the Practical areas of life to achieve greater success in your work and career and to fulfill your potential in the months and years ahead now here are some action exercises for you number one identify one area in your life where you need to persist even harder to achieve your your goal and then take action in that area two identify a goal in your life that you did not accomplished because you failed to persist through to completion what steps could you take today to succeed in that area three identify one big goal that you achieved because you persisted and refused to give up no matter how difficult it became four decide on your major definite purpose in life the one goal that if you achieved it would have the greatest positive impact on your life five write down your goal clearly make a detailed plan of action to accomplish it and then tell yourself that failure is not an option six make a decision today that you will persist until you succeed no matter what happens because I am Unstoppable seven resolve to set and Achieve one important goal overcoming the inevitable difficulties problems and setbacks you will experience and to work on it until you succeed repeat this process over and over until persistence becomes a habit part two self-discipline in business sales and finances in this part you will learn how to develop the discipline necessary to join the top 10% of people in your field you'll learn how to increase your productivity performance output and results you'll learn how to become one of the most respected and esteemed people in your organization and your industry chapter 8 self-discipline and work Vince Lombardi said leaders aren't born they are made and they're made just like any anything else through hard work and that's the price we'll have to pay to achieve that goal or any goal there is perhaps no area of your life where self-discipline has a greater impact on your future than in your work yet if you're like most people from the time you start in the morning and then continuing throughout the day you are surrounded by people and events that draw you away from doing the things that are most important however it is through doing your most important task that you move onward Ward and upward quickly and dependably in your career a group of senior Executives was asked what are the most important qualities that a person would need to be promoted in your company of these Executives 85% agree that the most important qualities are one the ability to set priorities and work on high value tasks and two the discipline to get the job done quickly and well it seems that these two qualities are more helpful for Career Success than anything else a person could do diligent disciplined focused work will enable you to get consistently and predictably more done get paid more and get promoted faster throughout your career than the average person separate the relevant from the irrelevant I've mentioned the Paro principle the 8020 rule several times in this book and it applies again here fully 80% of the value of what you accomplish will come from 20% of the things you do your job then is to identify those top 20% of your tasks and then concentrate single-mindedly undoing them quickly and well chapter 13 discusses time management in detail but for now let's take a look at the flip side of good time management poor time management according to Robert Half International the average employee wastes about 50% of his or her time on nonwork related activity 37% of work time is wasted on idle conversation on personal subjects with co-workers conversations that have nothing whatever to do with the job at hand the other 133% of wasted time is consumed by coming in late or leaving early by long lunches and coffee Breaks by surfing the internet reading the newspaper or conducting personal business during the day even worse when people who waste a lot of time actually settle down and get to work they spend tooo much time on low value tasks and activities as a result they get very little done which then causes them to feel that they are under continual pressure to get caught up unfortunately when you waste time at work your work does not go away it continually builds like an avalanche overhang deadlines come closer and closer stress mounts up until you finally force yourself to do the job usually at the last minute and then you often make expensive mistakes develop an excellent reputation there is nothing that will bring you to the attention of people who can help you faster than for you to develop a reputation for hard disciplined work every hour of every day average employees increase their income at only about 3% per year which is just about the rate of inflation or cost of living increases in other words if you're an average employee you're not really making any more money from year to year rather you're just keeping up with your expenses but the top 20% in most Fields increase their income anywhere from 10 to 25% per year which is also compounded year after year the top 20% of people at work earn 80% of the money the bottom 80% of employees have no choice but to share the 20% of the money that is left over they must Scramble for the crumbs that fall off the tables of the highly productive people in their fields you can double your income when I say to people in my seminars that you should set a goal to double your income in the months and years ahead people react in different ways often at the break someone will come up to me and say you don't understand my company there's no way that I could double my income at my current company they simply would not pay me that amount of money having heard this before I then asked them the critical question is there anyone at your company who earns twice as much as you do the person that I'm talking to will always agree that yes there are people in my company who earn two or three times as much as I do I then make the key point so your company is quite willing to pay some people twice as much as they pay you they're just not willing to pay you twice as much why is that then suddenly the life goes on the individual realizes that it is not the company that is not willing to pay the money it is the individual who is not contributing enough to be worth that additional money the responsibility is his not the companies the law of three helps you to prioritize when we coach entrepreneurs Executives and business owners we take them through an exercise that is designed to help them double their productivity performance and output within 12 months sometimes even within 30 days it's simple here's how it works first make a list of all the things that you do in a week or a month from the time you start work on Monday morning through to the end of the week write down everything both small and large including checking your email and returning phone calls then review this list and ask this key question if I could only do one thing on this list all day long which one task or activity contributes the most value to my company as you go over your list the correct answer will probably jump out at you whatever it is put a circle around it then ask the second question if I could only do two things on this list all day long which would be the second task or activity review your list again and identify your second most important task in terms of contribution to your company finally ask the question once more if I could only do three things on this list all day long what would be the third item we call this the law of three the law of three says that there are three primary things that you do that contribute 90% or more of your value to your company or organization your job is to identify those three critical tasks and then discipline yourself to do them all day long all of your other minor tasks will be support tasks complimentary tasks enjoyable tasks or useless tasks they will be little things that you've gotten into the habit of doing as a way of unconsciously avoiding the big difficult important tasks that can make a tremendous difference in your work and career calculate your hourly rate another way for you to double your income is for you to use the hourly rate method of calculating your personal value and your time allocation first determine the amount that you earn each hour you do this by dividing your annual income by the number 2,000 which is roughly the number of hours that an entrepreneur executive Works each year in our society 40 hours a week times 50 weeks a year for example if you earn $50,000 a year divided by 2,000 your hourly rate would be $25 if you earn $100,000 per year divided by 2,000 your hourly rate would be $50 whatever it is from that moment onward resolve to do only those things that pay you your hourly rate or better refuse to do do those things that someone else can do at a lower hourly rate than you do not waste your time doing things of low value or no value while your other important tasks are building up get on the same page about what work is most important once you have made a list of all the results you feel you have been hired to accomplish and you have determined your three most important things that you do to justify your hourly rate take your list of Key activities to your boss and have your boss organize your job based on his or her priorities you need to do this because you must be sure benjam Trigo co-founder of the Kepner Trigo consulting firm and author of the rational manager once said the very worst use of time is to do very well what need not be done at all yet it is amazing how many people are working hard on tasks that are of little or no value to their bosses no matter how well you do an unimportant task it doesn't help you even worse working on low value tasks keep you from working on the most important things you could be doing hard work on the wrong job can actually sabotage your career the happiest days you will have at work will be when you are working on those tasks that your boss considers to be the most important the unhappiest days at work will be when you and your boss are at Cross purposes and not getting along primarily because you are not completing the jobs that are most important to him and to his career your goal is to be paid more and promoted faster your goal is to become one of the most valuable and highest paid people in your field your job is first to make yourself valuable and then to make yourself indispensable to your company this requires first and foremost that you are always working on those tasks your boss considers most important work all the time you work the key to doubling your productivity and output and eventually your income is to really work all the time you're at work simply put when you work work don't waste time don't delay don't chat with co-workers or sit around drinking coffee don't read the newspaper or surf the Internet when you come into work in the morning put your head down and then work all day long the biggest time wasters in the world of work are other people who want to talk with you distract you delay you and take up the time that you should be spending on high value tasks when a Time waster approaches you and says do you have a minute to talk you reply by saying yes but not now why don't we talk at lunchtime or after work in the meantime I have to get this job finished I have to get back to work when you tell people that you are under the gun that you have to get a task finished for your boss they will usually leave you alone if you do this often enough they will develop the habit of leaving you alone and instead find someone else with whom to waste time keep yourself motivated and focused by talking to yourself in a positive way your manter from now on should be back to work back to work back to work whenever you find yourself slowing down on a major task begin repeating to yourself those magic words back to work who works hardest the secret survey imagine that an outside company is going to do a study of all the people who work in your organization they're going to give each person a list of all the employees and ask them to rate their fellow employees in terms of who works the hardest the second hardest and so on they're then going to give this list of people organized from the hardest worker down to the laziest to your superiors this list is going to be used to determine who gets paid more and promoted faster than others now imagine that this survey is already being taken but in secret the the fact is in any organization everyone knows who works harder than anyone else everyone knows who works less and who does not pull their weight everyone knows it's not a secret at all resolve today that if a survey like this were to be taken one year from today you would win the contest resolve today that you are going to develop the reputation for being the hardest working person in your business this will do more to help you than almost anything else when you are surrounded by time wasting people in situations it takes tremendous self-discipline to work all the time you're at work you must constantly fight against distractions and interruptions so that you can get back to work the success formula when I began my career working for a large company I was the low man on the totem pole everyone had been there longer than me and was ahead of me in the company pecking order even though I was in my early 30s I still still had no idea how to play the game or what to do to get ahead in the Cutthroat corporate competition that existed somewhat by accident I stumbled onto the formula that made me successful it was very simple whenever my boss gave me something to do I did it immediately like a dog chasing after a throwing stick I would immediately throw myself at the task completed and hurry back to my boss with a finished job initially he would smile and say something like I didn't really need it done that quickly but thank you for getting it done when I was caught up with my work instead of relaxing I would go to my boss and say I'm all caught up I want more work to do I want more responsibility these words became my Mantra I want more responsibility again my boss who was preoccupied with an enormous number of projects would say something like okay leave it with me I'll think about what else I can give you to do every day like a broken record I would go to my boss at the end of the day and say I'm all caught up I would like more responsibility bit by bit he began to toss me sticks he would give me a little task to do to keep me busy whatever it was I would go out immediately complete the task and bring in the results I would then say I'm all caught up I want more responsibility within 6 months he began to see me as the goto guy whenever he had something he needed done quickly he passed by everyone else and gave it to me he knew that whatever he asked me to do I would do it quickly once my boss asked me to fly to Reno to begin development work on a property that the company was purchasing he told me I could go sometime in the next couple of weeks instead I left the next morning I went straight to the lawyer who was handling the transaction and then to the engineer who was in charge of the development work I immediately sensed that something was seriously wrong with this land purchase I didn't know what it was but as I went from person to person asking asking questions and gathering information by the end of the day just a few hours before this $2 million transaction was set to close and the money would change hands forever I found that we were about to be sold a piece of land that had no water and was therefore undevelopable because of complex laws and limited reparan rights water rights the property was a worthless piece of ground that could not be developed within the next 100 years if we had proceeded with the purchase we would have cost $2 million I immediately stopped the transaction demanded that the lawyer cut me a certified check for the $250,000 deposit that was in his trust account and flew home to my boss to tell him the story as you can imagine my boss was very happy with what I had done from that day forward I received more and more responsibilities within another year I was running three divisions of the company and had a staff of 42 people in three cities I later learned that my boss paid me more money than anyone else who ever worked for him and he did so all on the basis of results and profitability this is why whenever people ask me How to Succeed in Business by really trying I give them the same advice whatever your boss gives you to do do it quickly and well then go and ask for more responsibility and when you get it do the job quickly and well until you get a reputation for being the person who does things fast this will help you advance in your career more than any other reputation you could develop pay the price here's a simple three-part formula for Success at work come in a little earlier work a little harder and stay a little later this will move you so far ahead of your competitors that they will never catch up come in to work 1 hour earlier before anyone else arrives use that time to plan and organize your day and get started on your most important tasks make sure that whatever time your boss comes to work you are always there working before he arrives second work a little harder don't waste time don't chat with co-workers work through lunchtime so that you can get on top and stay on top of your main tasks and responsibilities third work 1 hour later than your co-workers if they leave at 5:00 you leave at 6:00 use that extra time to complete complete your important task and get yourself organized for the following day when you come in 1 hour earlier work through lunch and work 1 hour later you add three full productive hours to your day because there are no interruptions when you work during these time periods you'll actually accomplish two or three times as much as you would during your other work hours when you're constantly interrupted by other people and telephone calls in fact you can double or even triple your productivity performance and output by simply adding these 3 hours to your workday the good news is that by coming in earlier and leaving later you don't lose anything you merely avoid the traffic tie-ups and slowdowns and most people suffer through on their ways to and from work the 40 plus formula to succeed faster at work use the 40 plus formula this formula says that you can tell where you're going to be 5 years from now by looking at the number of hours that you put in today in excess of 40 hours per week if all you do is put in the regular 40 hours that everyone else puts in all you will do is survive your annual increases will be 3 or 4% you will have a job but your income increases will go up at the same rate as everyone else it is when you begin to put in more than 40 hours that you give yourself an advantage over most of the other people in your company and your business make it a habit to do more than what you are paid for discipline yourself to put in more than you take out every hour that you work over 40 hours a week is an investment in your future success the highest paid people in America in every field work 50 to 60 hours per week the average self-made millionaire Works 59 hours per week this is equal to 5 12h hour days or 6 10hour days most successful people at the beginning of their careers work six days a week sometimes seven moreover they worked all the time they were at work they didn't waste time they realized that in order to reap a great harvest later in their career they had to sew a lot of seeds in the springtime of their career look at the part dress for success finally to succeed at work you need to discipline yourself to look the part remember birds of a feather flock together when it comes to presentation this means that people like to promote others who look like them your bosses are very sensitive to the appearance of their staff they like to promote people who they are proud to introduced to their friends and colleagues be sure that you dress and groom in such a way that your boss would be proud to take you out for lunch and introduce you to others as a representative of his or her company each morning before you go to work look in the mirror and ask yourself do I look like one of the top people in my field if you don't go back and change and keep changing until you look like one of the top people in your business learn how to dress for success read books and articles or ask others for advice look at the most successful people in your business and dress the way they do dress for the job two levels above your current job remember that fully 95% of the first impression you make on other people will be determined by your dress and grooming make sure that that first impression and then the second and third impressions are consistent with the message you want to send many people work their entire lives without realizing that by putting forward a little extra effort working a little harder and focusing on higher value tasks they could become one of the most valuable people in their organizations when you discipline yourself to continually increase the value of your contribution to your company you'll put your career on The Fast Track and virtually guarantee yourself a wonderful future in the next chapter you will learn that your work behaviors naturally determine your Ascension to leadership and you will see how self-discipline is essential to fulfilling your potential as a leader now here are some action exercises for you number one make a decision today that you're going to become one of the top 20% of people in your company and your industry what should you or could you do differently to achieve that goal two make a list of everything you do in your job and then identify the three things that contribute the greatest value to your work and your company three set a new work schedule for yourself and begin to start earlier work harder and stay later until it becomes a habit four identify the most important results you expected to achieve in your job and then work on those results all day long five determine the person who is the best dressed and groomed in your company and then resolve to use him or her as a role model for your own appearance six decide today that from now on you are going to actually work all the time you're at work and that you are going to develop the reputation for being the hardest working person in your company and seven develop a sense of urgency resolve to move fast when you're given a job or opportunity this can change your life chapter n self-discipline and Leadership nothing is more harmful to the service than the neglect of discipline for it is discipline more than numbers that gives one Army superiority over another George Washington leadership and self-discipline go hand in hand it is not possible to imagine an effective leader who lacks self-discipline willpower self-control and self-mastery the overarching characteristic of a leader is that he is in complete control of himself and every situation there is seldom bit a time in history when leaders were so needed and so much in demand as today we need leaders at every level of society both in the profit and nonprofit sectors we need leaders in our families businesses places of worship Community organ organizations and especially politics we need men and women who take their responsibilities seriously and are willing to step forward to take command of the situation fortunately leadership is learnable leaders are developed usually self-developed over time through hard work experience and training as Peter duer once said there may be natural born leaders but there are so few of them that they make no difference in the great scheme of things four stages of development in your career in business you progress through four levels of activity and attainment first you start off as an employee with limited knowledge and experience then as you grow learn and develop the ability to get results you evolve upward and become a supervisor with responsibility for the performance and results of other people as you continue to move up the scale of supervision improving your ability to get things done through others from directly overseeing the work of employees you become a manager someone who assigns work to people with demonstrated competence in certain areas managers have a larger View and this comes with greater responsibilities as you move up the scale of management becoming more knowledgeable and effective in getting more and better results from more and different people you reach the highest level that of a leader at this stage you are responsible for Det determine what is to be done rather than how it is to be done it is said that some leaders are made some are born and some people have leadership thrust upon them leaders emerge or are promoted to deal with a situation requiring leadership ability in its simplest terms the role of the leader is to take responsibility for results the primary reason that people are promoted into increasingly higher levels of leadership is because they demonstrate the ability to get the required results at each level the ongoing question of the leader is always what results are expected of me Clarity is essential the main reason that some people are not promoted into greater leadership positions or perhaps they're even fired is because of failure to execute they do not do the most important jobs expected of them nor do they get the results demanded of them leaders have Vision the first quality of leadership based on 3,300 studies of leaders reviewed by James mcferson is the quality of vision leaders have Vision they have the ability to project forward into the future and develop a clear picture of where they want their organizations to go they then have the ability to share this Vision with others and gain others commitment to make this Vision a reality you become a leader when you accept responsibility for results you become a leader when you begin to think act and talk like a leader you become a leader when you develop a vision for yourself and for your company your life or your area of responsibility there are hundreds of books written about leadership and the importance of vision yet they can be boiled down to a single principle a military leader has a vision of Victory from which he never deviates a business leader has a vision of success for the business based on excellent performance to which here she is completely committed a leader is a standard Bearer The Leader sets the standard for the organization or the department it is not possible for anyone in the organization to have a clearer vision or to Aspire to a higher standard of Excellence than the leader for this reason the leader is the role model the one who sets the tone and the morale for everyone in the organization the personality and influence of the leader affects everyone below him in the company or organization or Department you cannot raise morale in a business it filters down from the top from the leader the behavior of the leader influences and affects the behavior of everyone else if the leader is positive confident and upbeat everyone in the organization will be influenced by his behavior and will be more confident positive and upbeat as well walk the talk when you become a leader you must discipline yourself to be leader likee you must walk talk and act the part of a leader you become a different person with different responsibilities than a manager when you are working your way up you are a part of the staff or the sales team when you become a manager you are part of management this means that when you are part of the staff your orientation is upward and sideways but when you become a leader your orientation is downward toward all the people for whom you are responsible perhaps perhaps the most important behavior of a leader is for you to discipline yourself to be a role model imagine that everyone is watching you and patterning everything they do and say based on your behavior when you become a leader you no longer have the luxury to let it all hang out from the time you are promoted into leadership you have a special responsibility to discipline and control your words and behaviors in such a way so that you bring about the very best possible results for your organization and for other people set the standards the leader sets the standards for the organizations's behavior quality of work personal organization time management and appearance in excellent organizations the leader is the person who everyone looks up to and wants to emulate in most cases the leader Works harder than others in the company the leader appears to be more committed more determined more courageous more Visionary and more persistent than anyone else the leader sets a tone that everyone wants to emulate the leader also sets the standard for how people are treated in the organization when the leader treats people with courtesy consideration and concern it quickly becomes known that these are the standards to which others must adhere set values and principles in addition to a Clear Vision for the organization the leader must have a set of values and organ izing principles that guide behavior in decision-making everyone must know what the leader and the company stands for and believes in the job of the leader then is to articulate this vision of excellent performance within the constraints of high ethical standards at all times he or she must walk the talk and live the values and behaviors he or she teaches the very best standard for a leader is the Golden Rule do unto others as you would have them do unto you for example when Jack Welch was the President of General Electric he encouraged managers to treat each employee as if that employee might be promoted over his head sometime in the future and he might find himself working under the person who is now working below him this way of thinking assured that managers treated their staff with a high degree of respect and courtesy seven principles of leadership to Be an Effective leader there are seven principles you must incorporate into your leadership behavior and activities one Clarity this is perhaps your most important responsibility you must be absolutely clear about who you are and what you stand for you must be absolutely clear about your vision and where you want to lead your people you must be absolutely clear about the goals and objectives of the organization and how they are to be achieved especially you must be absolutely clear about the values Mission and purpose of the organization and what it stands for everyone around you and Below you must know exactly why they are doing what they do and what their company has been formed to accomplish two competence as the leader you must set a standard of excellent performance for the organization as well as for every person and function in the company your goal must be for your company to be as good or better than your very best competitor you must be continually seeking ways to improve the quality of your product and services to your customers three commitment the leader is absolutely committed to the success of the organization and believes completely that this organization is the best in the business or will be the best in the future this passionate commitment to the organization and to success and achievement motivates and inspires people to do their best work and put their whole hearts into their jobs four constraints the job of the leader is to identify the constraints or limiting factors that set the speed at which the company achieves its most important goals of Revenue and profitability the leader then allocates people and resources to alleviate those constraints and remove the obstacles so it can perform as one of the best in the business five creativity the leader is open to new ideas of all kinds and from all sources the leader is continually encouraging people to find faster better cheaper and easier ways to produce excellent products and services and to take better care of customers number five continuous learning the leader is personally committed to reading listening and upgrading his or her personal Knowledge and Skills as an executive the leader should attend additional seminars and courses to improve his or her skills and abilities at the same time the leader encourages everyone in the organization to learn and grow as a normal and natural part of business life the leader provides time and resources for training and development the leader knows that the best companies have the best trained people the second best companies have the second best trained people and the third best companies have the least trained people and are on their way out of business number seven is consistency the leader has the self-discipline to be cons consistent Dependable reliable calm and predictable in all situations one of the great Comforts of business life is for an employee to know that the leader is completely consistent and reliable an effective leader does not change from day-to- day the leader is not blown in the Wind by each new situation or problem or emergency that arises instead the leader is calm positive and confident especially under pressure the inevitable crisis the only thing that is inevitable in the life of the leader is the crisis when you rise to a position of leadership you will experience crisis repeatedly crisis that are unpredictable unbidden and often capable of seriously damaging the organization it is in the crisis that the leader demonstrates his competence in times of Crisis the leader becomes calm cool objective and completely in control the leader asks questions gathers information the leader assesses the situation accurately and makes whatever decisions are necessary to minimize the damage or cut the losses great leaders discipline themselves to keep their fears and misgivings private they do not share their concerns with their staffs knowing that this can cause confusion and loss of morale instead the leader asks a lot of questions probes deeply into situations so that he or she understands them thoroughly and keep keeps his or her feelings private as far as the members of the organization are concerned the leader is always calm positive relaxed and Inc complete control no matter what is happening self-control and Leadership there's a direct relationship between your ability to discipline yourself and your behaviors and your Readiness to lead it is only when you prove to others that you are in complete control of yourself that they develop the confidence to put you in a leadership position and keep you there the leader realizes that everything he says to or about another person is magnified the leader therefore appraises and encourages people both in their presence and when they are not around he never says anything negative that could be misinterpreted or that could demotivate or offend another person if he has problems with someone he addresses them privately out of sight and earshot of anyone else leadership qualities leaders discipline themselves to plan prepare organize and check every detail they take nothing for granted they ask questions to ensure that they have a complete understanding of a situation problem or difficulty great leaders act as if they own the entire company they accept a high level of personal responsibility the leader never complains makes excuses or blames others for problems leaders are intensely action-oriented they gather information carefully and they make the decisions that are necessary they set measures and standards and hold others to them they insist that the job be done quickly and well leaders rise to the top leaders rise to the top of an organization as cream rises in milk when you accept complete responsibility for getting results concentrate single-mindedly on completing your most important tasks continually upgrade your Knowledge and Skills as well as your ability to contribute value to your company and treat other people with kindness and consideration you will emerge as a natural leader as you demonstrate your ability to make an increasingly valuable contribution to your organization people above below and on both sides of you will want you to be promoted into leadership and will support you when you reach that position one of your primary AIMS in life is to walk talk act speak and treat others as a leader would eventually Your Position will be equal to your performance in the next chapter you will learn how to develop and practice the disciplines necessary to be more successful in your business life and activities now here are seven action exercises that come from this chapter one ask yourself what results are expected of me and then concentrate single-mindedly on getting those results every day two see yourself as the leader of your organization and ask yourself what kind of a company would this company be if everyone in it were just like me number three create a clear exciting vision for yourself and your organization based on success and excellent performance number four identify the most important people in your business world and determine how you will have to behave toward them to get them to perform at their best number five resolve in advance that when the inevitable crisis occurs you will respond in a calm controlled and intelligent manner number six clarify the exact values and principles you believe in and stand for and then share them with the people around you and number seven treat each person around you as if they are competent valuable and important this is the key to gaining the loyalty and commitment that you require as a leader chapter 10 self-discipline and business John viney wrote the quality of self-denial in the pursuit of a longer term goal and indeed The Willpower to maintain that level of self-denial is an excellent training for the boardroom most people will work in or for a business or own a business in the course of their lifetimes the achievement of business success demands high levels of discipline from you in every area of business activity both large or small without self-discipline and self-control in business no success is possible there's no area of activity that demands more self-discipline than starting and operating a successful business in our current economy the first first law of Economics is scarcity as a rule There Is Never Enough of anything for everyone who wants it specifically there are never enough customers for you to sell everything you want to sell there are Never Enough sales revenues to help you achieve all your financial goals there are never sufficient profits to enable you to expand as much as you want especially there are Never Enough good people to work with and for you to help you achieve your business goals the law of competition if the first law of Economics is scarcity then the first law of business is competition it requires tremendous focus and discipline to do the things necessary to attract the scarce money of customers toward purchasing your product or service to not only survive but also Thrive you must compete continually against all other uses of the same amount of money that you want to charge for what you sell the first discipline of business success is that that you offer a product or service that people want need and will pay for at a price they will accept a price that is competitive with every other business that wants the same customer dollar you must be completely honest with your product service mix to ensure that it is well suited to the current market this is an area where false assumptions or incorrect conclusions can lead to business failure this answer is continually changing as competition and customer tastes also change the C customer is always right every week I speak to business people who are unhappy with their levels of sales and profitability they insist that their product or service is excellent and that people should be buying from them in a much larger quantity in each case I have to gently point out to them that the only proof that their product or service is truly attractive or valuable is that people buy it willingly and then buy it again and tell their friends to buy it as well according to the experts fully 70% of your business decisions will turn out to be wrong in the fullness of time this is the average when you're a new business person or starting a new business you'll be wrong even more often than this it's not unusual for an entrepreneur to be wrong 90% of the time in the beginning of his or her career it requires tremendous self-discipline and character to face the possibility that you could be wrong in your most cherished assumptions and beliefs nonetheless this discipline is essential if you're going to minim minimize your mistakes cut your losses and redirect your resources toward offering customers more of the things that they really want need and are willing to pay for all business investment and business startups require a high level of optimism You Must Believe in the future possibilities of your business along with your new products and services you must have so much confidence in their marketability that you're willing to undertake Financial Risk and invest many hours weeks and even years to achieve your business goals and you must do all of this with no real guarantee of success at the same time you need discipline to curb your confidence to remain objective and realistic overconfidence in business can lead to business mistakes Financial losses and even bankruptcy you must be better because of the aggressive and determined nature of your competition in order to simply survive you must discipline yourself to be equal to or better than your competitors after all your competitors get out of bed every morning thinking about how they can put you out of business they want to take away your customers and your sales they want to get your profits they want as much of your business as they can possibly get to increase your probabilities of success against such competition you must make every effort to outthink them when you start a business or a new Venture within a business you require the discipline to do your your homework thoroughly in advance you create a complete business plan before you start operations and you continue to update it and revise it every year thereafter the discipline of advanced planning can spell the difference between success and failure challenge your assumptions most business ideas do not work at least in their original form as Peter Ducker said errant assumptions lie at the root of every failure a major reason for business failure is that the business owner or executive relies on assumptions that are not tested they assume that the product or service is excellent in comparison with others they assume they can sell a sufficient number of those products or services and do so at a profit they further assume that those profits will be substantial enough to make this investment of time and money more attractive than any other use of the same amount of time or funds all of these assumptions must be tested carefully before before any irrevocable commitment is made according to the Kaufman foundation on entrepreneurship 95% of entrepreneurs and small business owners in America earn less than $50,000 per year why is this it's not because they lack the energy intelligence or ability to earn more the very fact that a person has the courage and resourcefulness to start a new business means that he or she has above average levels of natural Talent the reason why so many entrepreneurs underachieve and fail is because they lack discipline they lack the discipline to carefully study every aspect of the business before committing to it they lack the discipline to test their assumptions rather than jumping to conclusions and hoping for the best don't let this happen to you identify your ideal customer you need discipline to identify and determine your ideal customer the exact person who can and will buy your product or service in sufficient quantities and at the price you need to charge in order to justify going into this area of business in the first place you need the discipline based on trial error and persistence to develop a marketing plan that generates a steady and predictable stream of new leads for your business to Market effectively you must be clear about your competitive advantage and your unique selling proposition what is it about your product or service that makes it Superior and more valuable for a customer than any other similar product or service being offered today you need the discipline to develop a complete sales system from beginning to end that converts qualified leads into solid customers it's amazing how many businesses just assume that the product or service will sell itself whether they have a superior sales system or not know your true costs you need the discipline to determine accurate costs and the proper pricing of your products and services Walmart has become the biggest retailer in history largely because of its expertise in this area it's amazing how many businesses are selling products and services at a loss because they've never accurately total all the costs of bringing that product or service to Market in the first place you've heard the old saying we lose money on every item we sell but we try to make it up on the volume obviously that's not possible possible you need a quality control system in order to ensure that every product or service that you sell is of such high quality that your customers are So Satisfied that they happily buy from you again and tell their friends you need the discipline to develop a customer service policy one in which you treat your customers so well that they become loyal to you and choose you over any of your competitors the purpose of a business is to please your customers what is the purpose of a business the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer in a costeffective manner profits are not the purpose of a business profits are the result of creating and keeping a sufficient number of customers who yield a sufficient number of profits after all costs what is the key measure of business success the answer is customer satisfaction every effort and activity of your business must be aimed at satisfying customers in a manner that is better than any other competitor what is the measure of customer satisfaction the answer is repeat business it is only when customers buy from you again that you demonstrate that you have fulfilled the promise you made to them when you got them to purchase the first time a resale to a satisfied customer requires one/ tenth of the time and expense as a sale to a brand new customer all successful businesses rely on repeat business which is only possible with high levels of customer satisfaction this is a real discipline what is the key to long-term profitability the answer is recommendations and referrals the ultimate question that determines the long-term success or failure of your business is based on your experience with us would you recommend us to others you can only survive and thrive when the majority of your customers are so happy with your products and services that they will encourage their friends and Associates to buy from you as well since a referral from a satisfied customer 15 times easier to sell to than a cold call which means it only costs 115th as much referral business is the key to your future you require tremendous focus and discipline to develop and maintain customer service policies that cause people to buy from you then buy again and recommend you to their friends set high standards you require the discipline to set standards of excellent performance in every area of your business and then to continually strive to get even better you need to practice the kai formula which stands for continuous and NeverEnding Improvement no matter how high your level of quality is today you can never be satisfied you must be continually raising the bar on yourself and on everyone within your area of responsibility you require the self-discipline to work work long hard hours for many months and even years to get to the top of your business the average entrepreneur business owner or self-made millionaire in America Works 59 hours per week some entrepreneurs even work 70 to 80 hours per week in the first few years of building their businesses you must be prepared to discipline yourself to put in this amount of time and level of hard work if you want to be the best and get to the top of your field think about the solution to Succeed in Business you need the self-discipline to be proactive rather than reactive you need to focus on Solutions rather than problems you need to concentrate on the most important thing you could possibly be doing every hour of every day rather than getting sidetracked by low value or no value tasks and activities above all you need the self-discipline to settle in for the long term to develop a longtime perspective in your business life because of the intensity of competition it takes many years of disciplined effort for you to become a business success whether this is in your own business or working for someone else there are no shortcuts there are no easy ways to get to the top there is only one way and that is through hard work discipline and willpower on average it takes about 2 years to break even in a new business venture it takes another 2 years of positive cash flow to pay back the money you borrowed in the first 2 years it then takes another 3 years before you become truly successful in addition everything costs twice as much and takes three times as long based on these statistics why should you start your own business or embark on a new business venture because the time is going to pass anyway after all 5 years from now you will be 5 years older and 10 years from now you will be 10 years older at the end of that time you will either be at the top of your field or still down among the 80% struggling for every dollar and worrying about money every day the choice is yours discipline is the key in the next chapter you learn the discipline that controls the lifeblood of your business sales in the final analysis as Peter drer said the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer now here are some action exercises for you number number one stand back and look at every area of your business as if you were an outside consultant what changes would you recommend two imagine you were starting your business over again today are there any products or services that you would not bring to the current market three identify the 20% of your products and services that account for 80% of your sales and profits how could you sell more of them for four project forward 1 2 and 5 years in your business what are the trends what will your customers be buying in the future five list three ways you can improve your customer service to ensure that customers buy from you again and tell their friends six list three ways that you could attract more and better qualified leads from your marketing and advertising activities and seven list three ways that you could make more sales to the prospects you attract or that you could attract more and better prospects chapter 11 self discipline and sales nothing happens until a sale takes place red Motley the most important element in business success is selling nothing happens until a sale takes place place all the factories businesses offices and producers of goods and services only leap into action when someone somewhere makes a sale to someone selling is one of the hardest professions in America it is also the only profession in which a person can start with limited skills to achieve one of the highest incomes in our economy moving onward and upward in sales is like driving on the Autobon in Germany there are no speed limits you can go as as far and as fast as you want by stepping on the accelerator of your own ambition and determination to excel in the profession of sales business success or failure thousands of bankrupt or insolvent companies have been analyzed over the years to determine why they failed after all the data was sorted and studied virtually every business failure came down to one reason low sales in contrast whenever a business was succeeding grow growing yielding profitability increasing its share prices and offering opportunity for more and more people the reason boiled down to one factor High sales everything else was secondary almost everything you do in a business either increases or decreases sales everything either helps or hurts everything either attracts or keeps more customers or drives them away everything counts when it comes to sales the discipline of of generating sales whether you are a salesperson or a business owner you require the self-discipline to focus and concentrate on generating sales every hour of every business day a group of researchers interviewed several hundred senior Executives and business owners and ask them how important is sales and marketing to your business without exception they all rep sales and marketing is absolutely essential to our survival and growth the researchers then conducted a time and motion study of these same business owners and Executives following them around and tracking their time usage over the course of a month at the end of that time they completed their calculations and determined that the average business owner or executive who professed that sales were absolutely essential to survival and growth was spending only 11% of his time on sales and marketing the remaining time was spent on meetings discussions paperwork administrative work lunch ions and a variety of other activities that contributed nothing to sales generation if you're a sales manager or business owner you must discipline yourself to focus most of your time and attention on getting your salespeople to generate the sales on which your company depends you must spend 75% of your time working with your salespeople accompanying them when they visit your customers and make presentations and sales do your paperwork before or after work but during working hours when customers are available to be seen you should dedicate yourself entirely to sales generation how to go broke some years ago I started a new business I developed the product and then began advertising via Direct Mail radio television and newspaper I allowed myself to be completely overwhelmed with planning paperwork and advertising activities by the end of the year I was out of money and my business was almost broke at that time I realized that I had taken my eye off the ball of sales I then sat down over Christmas and designed a complete sales process on January 2nd I picked up the telephone and began making appointments over the next two months of aggressive and focus sales activity I did more business than I had done over the entire previous year I saved my business and my home and I never lost sight of that Focus again one of the most important questions you can ask as a salesperson entrepreneur or business owner is whether what I'm doing right now is leading to a sale ask this question of yourself repeatedly throughout the day every time the answer comes up no you must immediately stop whatever you are doing of lower value and turn your attention to sales generation in addition make sure that all the people who are responsible for sales in your company ask and answer this question in the affirmative all day long overcome your fear of rejection assuming that you have an attractive product or service one that is reasonably priced and suited to the current market the biggest problem that telephone salespeople and outside salespeople face is rejection the fear of rejection does more to sabotage a sales career and undermine sales activities than any other single Factor it is the major obstacle to sales success it takes tremendous discipline for salespeople to get up every morning and go out and face the inevitable rejection that they know they're going to receive all day long most people cannot handle this continuous rejection therefore to avoid the emotional pain that comes with rejection many salespeople engage in a series of displacement activities to avoid being rejected first of all they make fewer calls according to Columbia University the average salesperson Works about 90 minutes per day in other words only about 1 and a half hour hours out of an 8- hour day they spend the rest of the time warming up and getting ready shuffling paperwork checking the internet reading the newspaper chatting with co-workers coming in late leaving early and taking extended lunches and coffee breaks as a result by the end of the day on average the salesperson has worked only 90 minutes increase face time with customers and Prospects when is a salesperson actually working the salesperson is only working when he or she is earto ear on the phone or face to face with someone who can and will buy within a reasonable period of time the rule for sales success can be contained in six words spend more time with better prospects there's no other way to generate a high consistent and predictable level of sales results because of the fear of rejection however salespeople procrastinate and delay throughout the sales day doing everything possible to avoid getting face to face with people who can say no the key to sales success as I learned as a young salesman is to realize that rejection is not personal prospective customers always say things like no I'm not interested or variations of I don't want it I don't need it I can't use it I can't afford it I'm not in the market right now or I'm happy with my existing supplier The Professional salesperson realizes that these are simply normal and natural responses to any commercial offer in a competitive Marketplace again they are not personal so don't take them personally remain positive and optimistic the key to sales success is to eliminate the fear of rejection to become so confident and optimistic that you can call continually all day long and still remain positive and cheerful as Winston Churchill said success is the ability to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm there's a direct relationship between the number of new customer contacts you make and your level of sales if you want to increase the number of sales simply discipline yourself to call on more prospects when you increase your levels of sales activity you also activate the law of probabilities to work on your behalf you tap into the law of averages you work the numbers to ensure success how to double your sales income practice the minutes principle in your sales work this principle says that if you are earning all the money that you are earning today with only the number of minutes you are spending face to face with customers today by increasing that number of minutes you can also increase your sales with outside salespeople we encourage them to double the number of minutes they spend face Toof face with customers we teach teach them to use every bit of intelligence and creativity they have to increase the amount of time they spend talking in person with prospects rather than following the path of least resistance and allowing themselves to procrastinate in getting out into the marketplace in almost every case when a salesperson doubles the number of minutes that he or she spends face to face or ear to ear with customers that salesperson sails double as well this is not an accident it is based on law the law of probabilities control your sales activities you can seldom tell where your next sale is going to come from therefore you have to cast a wide net and speak to as many prospective customers as possible the actual sale itself is not under your Direct Control it's controlled by a variety of factors about which you can do very little but the activities that lead to sales are completely under your your control the rule is do what you can with what you have right where you are to achieve high levels of sales success you must discipline yourself to plan your days and weeks in advance you must discipline yourself to plan your sales activities especially your prospecting activities every single day and then you have to discipline yourself to follow through on your plans and resolutions improve your ratios there are certain ratios in selling that largely determine how many sales you make these ratios vary depending on your level of experience and ability the competition the prices of your products or services and the General market nonetheless these ratios always exist there is a direct ratio between the number of cold calls you make and the number of prospective customers that you will be able to talk to or visit there's a direct ratio between the number of prospective customers that you see or talk to and the number of prospects that you can follow up on there's a direct ratio between the number of people you follow up on with proposals and presentations and the number of sales that you close you can also think of this as a sales funnel into the top of the funnel I.E the broad end go your prospects the second part of your funnel is your presentations the third part of the funnel is where you follow up and close the sale keys to sale success you have two responsibilities when it comes to achieving success in sales first keep your funnel full always have more prospects to call on than you have time during the day never let your funnel become empty never run out of prospects second get better at each stage of selling study read listen to audio programs and upgrade your skills in prospecting presenting and closing sales the better you get the fewer prospects you require in the top of the funnel to generate sales out of the bottom of the funnel start early discipline yourself to make your first call Early in the Morning by 7 or 8:00 a.m. when you start your day with a face-to-face sales call you'll be more energized and motivated to continue selling all day long discipline yourself to Cluster your calls in a small geographical area so that you can get face Toof face with more people in a shorter period of time many salespeople because of their fear of rejection spread their calls out over large geographical area and then convince themselves that they're actually working when they're really simply driving from call to call remember you are only working when you are ear to ear or face to face with someone who can and will buy within a reasonable period of time at all other times you are unemployed set higher standards for yourself discipline yourself to act every minute of the day as if everyone were watching you outside salespeople require a higher level of discipline than people who work in the office where everyone can see them because salespeople are on their own like gorilla fighters in the sales jungle the Temptation is never ending to slack off to take it easy or to go for coffee or lunch rather than to make sales calls to perform at your best you must discipline yourself to work throughout the day as though your sales manager was doing a ride along imagine that your sales manager is sitting next to you all day long how would you work differently if someone were accompanying you and observing everything you did throughout the day whatever your answer that is how you should work even when no one else is around all sales skills are learnable to become one of the highest paid salespeople in your industry you must discipline yourself to practice continuous personal and professional development read in your field every day listen to educational audio programs in your car as you drive along attend every sales seminar you can whether sponsored by your company or not dedicate yourself to continuous learning as if your future depends on it because it does the turning point in my life when I was a young salesman frustrated and unhappy going in circles and barely making a living was when I learned the law of cause and effect I learned that if you do what the most successful salespeople do over and over there's nothing that can stop you from eventually achieving the same results and rewards that they do I learned that every salesperson in the top 10% started in the bottom 10% everyone who is doing well today was at one time doing poorly every person at the top of your field was at one time not even in your field at all and did not even know that it existed I learned that all sales skills are learnable you can learn any sales skill you need to learn to achieve any sales goal you can set for yourself there are no limits except the limits you place on yourself with your own thinking when you discipline yourself to become one of the top salespeople in your field you will find that you will have turned an important Corner in your career most salespeople only do what they have to do to keep their jobs but those people who resolve to become the very best in their fields accomplish far more than anyone else your job is to become one of them in the next chapter we'll talk about money and how the practice of self-discipline in this area can dramatically increase your likelihood of achieving all your financial goals now here are some exercises for you number one see yourself as the president of your own personal Sales Corporation complete completely responsible for sales results this is the attitude of the highest paid salespeople in every field two set clear written income goals for yourself for the next 12 months as well as goals for each month of the year three determine exactly how much of your product or service you will have to sell in order to earn that desired income four determine how many individual sales you will have to make based on your average size of sale and amount of commission earned five determine how many prospects you'll have to call on based on your current experience to make this number of sales six dedicate yourself to continuous Improvement in sales by reading each day listening to Audios in your car and attending sales seminars and number seven spend every minute of every sales day getting face face to face with people who can and will buy from you in the near future chapter 12 self-discipline and money in reading the lives of Great Men Harry Truman said I found that the first Victory they won was over themselves self-discipline with all of them came first according to insurance industry statistics of 100 people who start work at age 21 by age 65 one will be rich four will be financially independent 15 will have some money put aside and the other 80 will be still working broke dependent on pensions or dead most baby boomers today are planning to work into their 70s why is this it is because they don't have enough money put aside so they can stop working the primary AR reason for financial problems in life is lack of self-discipline self-mastery and self-control it is the inability to delay gratification in the short term it is the tendency for people to spend everything they earn and a little more besides usually supplemented by loans and credit card debt today the savings rate in America is too low to Achieve Financial Independence after a lifetime of work the average American family has a net worth of only about $88,000 people continue to spend and borrow as if there is no tomorrow the good news is that we are living in the most affluent time in all of human history there are more opportunities to achieve wealth and prosperity today for more people and in more different ways that have ever existed in the history of man it has never been more possible for you to Achieve Financial Independence than right now but you must make a resolution to do it and then you must follow through on your resolution the reasons for financial failure the primary reason why most adults have financial problems is not because of low earnings in their book The Millionaire Next Door Thomas Stanley and William Dano show that two families living on the same street in the same size of house and working at the same job can have completely different Financial situations by the age of 45 or 50 the couple in one house will be financi independent while the couple next door is deeply in debt and having trouble making the minimum payments on their credit cards the reason for this is not the amount of money that they earn the reason is lack of self-discipline and the inability to delay gratification why is this weakness of character so prevalent among the majority of adults in society today it goes back to Early Childhood when you were a child and you received money whether it was your allowance or a gift from a friend or relative the first thing you thought of doing was to spend that money on candy candy is sweet candy is delicious candy fills your mouth with a wonderful sugary flavor you liked candy when you were a child and you probably could seldom get enough of it many children will eat candy until they become physically ill because it tastes so good as you Grew Older you develop what psychologists call a conditioned response to receiving money from any source like pavo's dog when you receive money you mentally salivate at the thought of spending this money on something that makes you happy at least temporarily spending makes you happy when you become an adult and you earn or receive money this automatic reaction continues your first thought is how can I spend this money to achieve immediate pleasure when you get your first job the very first thing you think about is how you can spend not only the money you earn but also every penny you can borrow on a credit card on clothes cars Cosmetics socializing entertainment travel and everything else your mental equation is money equals enjoyment when you go on vacation to a resort of any kind you find that the hotels and streets are lined with shops selling useless Trinkets bobles and trash plus clothes artwork and other items you'd never think of buying at home why is this simple when you're on vacation you feel happy you have a conditioned response to associate happiness with spending money the happier you are the more unconsciously compelled you are to go out and spend money on something or rather on anything it's quite common for many people when they're unhappy or frustrated for any reason to go shopping they unconsciously associate buying something with being happy when it doesn't work as they expect expected they buy something else sometimes unhappy people go on shopping spree they buy lots of things that they don't particularly need because they unconsciously associate spending with happiness as an adult whenever you receive your paycheck a bonus a commission an IRS refund a prize or an inheritance the very first thing you think about is how you can spend this money as quickly as possible and on as many Pleasures as possible rewire your responses about money the starting point of achieving Financial Independence is to discipline yourself to rewire your attitude toward money you need to reach into your subconscious mind and disconnect the wire linking spending and happiness you then need to reconnect that happiness wire to the saving and investing wire from that moment on instead of saying I feel happy when I spend money you will say I feel happy when I save money to reinforce this shift in thinking open up a Financial Freedom account at your local bank this is the account in which you deposit money for the long term once your money goes into this account you resolve that you will never spend it on anything except the achievement of Financial Freedom if you want to save money to buy a boat or a car you open up a separate account solely for that purpose but your Financial Freedom account is inviable you never touch it except to invest those funds so that they can yield a higher rate of return associate happiness with saving when you begin saving in this way something miraculous happens within you you start to feel happy about the idea of having money in the bank even if you only open your account with $10 this action gives you a feeling of Greater self-control and personal power you feel happier about yourself the very Act of disciplining yourself to save money makes you feel stronger and More in control of your destiny each time you get some extra money you put it into your Financial Freedom account eventually your Financial Freedom account will begin to grow then as it grows you activate two laws The Law of Attraction and the law of accumulation because the money in your account is emotionalized by your own thoughts and feelings it sets up a force field of energy that begins to attract more money into it if you save $10 a month for a year you'll be astonished to find that with the extra bits of money that you have put into that account you'll probably have more than $200 rather than just $120 if you save $100 per month you'll probably have more than $2,000 the law of accumulation says that every every great achievement is an accumulation of many small achievements The Law of Attraction says that you attract into your life those things that are in harmony with your dominant thoughts because of these laws your Financial Freedom account begins to grow with the miracle of compound interest the more money you have in your bank account the more energy it generates and the more money is attracted into your life you've heard it said that it takes money to make money the this is true as you begin to save and accumulate money the universe begins to direct more and more money toward you that you can save and accumulate everyone who has ever practiced this principle of regular saving is absolutely astonished at how quickly their financial fortunes change for the better the rule for financial Independence once you have rewired your attitude toward money is simple it is to pay yourself first most people will save whatever is left over after their monthly expenses if there is anything left over at all the key however is to pay your sell first off the top from every amount of money you receive save throughout your lifetime it used to be that if you saved 10% of your income from your first paycheck until you retired you'd be financially independent if not rich today however financial advisers suggest that you need to save 15 to 20% of your income in order to achieve all your financial goals any less than this opens you up to the risk of running out of money later in life when we suggest to people that they need to begin saving 10% of their incomes they shake their heads most people are spending everything they earn today they have nothing left over most people are deeply in debt as well the idea of saving 10% of their income right off the top appears impossible but there is a solution practice the 1% formula begin today to save 1% of your income and learn to live on the other 99% this is a manageable amount this is a number that you can get your mind around it requires only a small amount of self-discipline and delayed gratification for you to save 1% each month if you are earning $3,000 per month 1% is $30 per month or only $1 per day at the end of each day come home and put your daily amount into a box or jar once per month take your accumulated savings down to the bank and put it into your Financial Freedom account this sounds like a small beginning but remember that a journey of a th000 leagues begins with a single step in no time at all you will become comfortable living on 99% of your income at that point you raise your savings level to 2% of your income per month you then adjust your lifestyle to live on 98% in no time this will become a habit you will find it automatic and easy to live on 98% of what you earn month by month you then increase your savings level by 1% at the end of the year you will be saving probably 10% of your income then something else remarkable will start to happen your debts will start to decline as you become conscious ly aware saving your money and moving toward Financial Independence you will become more intelligent and thoughtful about each expenditure you will find yourself spending less and gradually paying off your debts month by month the payoff is tremendous the reward for saving and investing is substantial it is said that happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal so every time you save a dollar or pay off a dollar of indebtedness you feel happy inside you feel more positive and in control of your life your brain releases endorphins which in turn give you a feeling of calmness and well-being within 2 years of beginning this process you will have worked your way out of debt and will have begun to accumulate a growing amount of money in your Financial Freedom account as this amount increases you will begin to attract into your life more money and more opportunity ities to deploy those funds intelligently so that they yield a higher rate of return at the same time your attitude toward money and spending will gradually change you'll become more disciplined and conscientious you will investigate carefully before you invest you will study every aspect of a potential business or opportunity you'll be reluctant to part with money that you have worked so hard to accumulate you'll actually begin to reshape your attitude and personality toward money and do so in a very positive way income increases don't help sometimes I ask my audiences who here would like to be financially independent everybody raises their hand so I then say if I could wave a magic wand and double the income of every person in this room would that help you to become financially independent everybody cheers and laughs and nods their head agreeing that if they could miraculously double their incomes they could become financially independent I then ask them how many people in this room from the time you took your first job to today have already doubled your income without hesitation every hand in the room goes up I then ask how many people here from the time you took your first job to today have increased your income three times five times 10 times hands go up all over the room everyone in the room has doubled or tripled or increased their income five or 10 times from the time they took their first job I then make my point everybody here has already increased their incomes dramatically but it has done no good simply increasing your income does not ensure that you will Achieve Financial Independence this is because of Parkinson's law which says expenditures rise to meet income no matter how much you earn you end up spending it all and more besides practice the wedge principle the way to Achieve Financial Independence is for you to break Parkinson's law you do this by practicing the wedge principle for the rest of your life here is how you do it as your income increases in the months and years ahead drive a wedge between your increasing income and your increasing expenses instead of spending it all resolve that you will save 50% of your increase if your income increases by $100 per month resolve to save $50 per month off the top and put it into your Financial Freedom account you can spend the other $50 on your family and on improving your lifestyle but you must resolve to save half of your increase for the rest of your financial life when you pay yourself first saving 10 or 15% of your income off the top and then saving 50% of your increase for the rest of your career you will soon Achieve Financial Independence you will join the top 5% of wealthy people in our society you will never have to worry about money again the miracle of compound interest Albert Einstein said that compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe if from the age of 21 until you are 65 you are to save only $100 per month and invest that amount in a mutual fund or index fund that increased an average of 7 to 10% per year you would be worth more than a million doar if you were to set up your payroll account so that $100 were automatically deducted and invested for you you could be sure of becoming one of the wealthiest people in America this means that if you are serious about achieving Financial Independence the most important single requirement is self-discipline combined with the ability to delay gratification your ability to practice self-mastery self-control and self-denial throughout your life will not only enable you to achieve all your financial goals but it will also make you successful and happy in everything else you do in the next chapter we'll talk about the key to making almost everything in your life work for you the use of your time we all start off in life with lots of time and little money how you spend your time throughout your adult years largely determines the quality of your life now here are seven action exercises for you first make a decision today to take complete control of your financial life get out of debt and Achieve Financial Independence second determine your net worth today add up all your assets subtract all your debts and liabilities and calculate the exact number three set up a separate bank account and begin saving at least 1% of your income as you receive it every month or paycheck four make a list of all your debts and begin paying them off starting with those carrying the highest interest rates five calculate the exact amount that you will need to be financially independent at the end of your career and then set this as a goal six set specific Financial accumulation goals for yourself for each month quarter and year for the rest of your life and seven practice frugality in spending by putting off and delaying every expenditure you possibly can until you achieve your long-term financial goals chapter 13 self-discipline and time management if you do not conquer self you will be conquered by self wrote Napoleon Hill there is perhap perhaps no area of your life in which self-discipline is more important than in the way you manage your time time management is a core discipline that largely determines the quality of your life as Peter Ducker said you cannot manage time you can only manage yourself time management is really life management personal management management of yourself rather than of time or circumstances time is perishable it cannot be saved time time is irreplaceable nothing else will do time is irretrievable Once it is gone or wasted you can never get it back finally time is indispensable especially for accomplishments of any kind all achievement all results all success requires time you can't save time the fact is that you cannot save time you can only spend it differently you can only reallocate your time usage from areas of low value to areas of high value here in lies the key to success and the requirement for self-discipline time management is the ability to choose the sequence of events by exerting your self discipline with regard to time you can choose what to do first what to do second and what to do not at all and you are always free to choose you require tremendous self-discipline to overcome the procrastination And Delay that holds most people back from great success a native Indian once told me that procrastination is the thief of Dreams the par principle the 8020 rule says that 20% of the things you do account for 80% of the value of what you accomplish this means that 80% of what you do is worth 20% or less of the value of what you accomplish assess the True Value of everything you do some things you do are five times and even 10 times more valuable than other things even though they take the same number of minutes and hours the most important things you do the top 20% are usually big difficult and daunting in contrast the 80% of things that you do that make little or no difference to your life are usually fun easy and enjoyable you can tell the value that something has to you by the amount of of your time you invest in it you always pay attention to and spend time on what you most value whether it is your family your health your social or sports activities or your money and career it is only by looking at how you spend your time that you and everyone else knows what is really important to you some people say that Career Success is most important to them and then they go home and watch television several hours per day some people say they're family are important to them and then they go on socializing or playing golf only your actions tell you and others what you truly value the essence of time management is for you to discipline yourself to set clear priorities and then stick to those priorities you must consciously and deliberately select the most valuable and important thing that you could be doing at any given time and then discipline yourself to work solely on that task personal strategic planning in corporate strategic planning the main focus is on increasing the return on Equity Roe equity in a business is defined as the amount of money actually invested in the business by the owners aside from debt and money borrowed the purpose of strategic planning is to find ways to organize and reorganize the business in such a way that the company is achieving a higher rate of return on this Equity than it would be in the absence of the planning process companies invest Financial Capital but individuals invest human capital companies deploy Financial assets but your most vital assets are your mental emotional and physical energies how you invest them determines your entire quality of life in personal strategic planning your goal is to get the highest return on energy from your activities Ken Blanchard refer refers to this as getting the highest return on life just as you would be careful about investing your money so to ensure that you get the highest rate of return you must be equally careful when you invest your time you must be sure that you earn the highest level of results rewards and satisfaction from the limited amount of time you have think before you act before you commit to any timec consuming activity you must always ask is this the very best use of my time lack of self-discipline in time management leads people to procrastination on their top tasks continually causing them to spend more and more time on tasks of low or no value and whatever you do repeatedly eventually becomes a habit many people have developed the habit of procrastination of putting off their major tasks and instead spending most of their time on activities that make very little difference in the long run priorities versus posteriori setting priorities requires setting posteriori as well a priority is something that you do more of and sooner whereas a posteriority is something that you do less of or later you are probably already overwhelmed with too much to do and too little time because of this for you to embark on a new task you must discontinue an old task getting into something new requires getting out of another activity before you commit to a new undertaking ask yourself what am I going to stop doing so that I have enough time to work on this new task go through your life regularly and practice creative abandonment consciously determine the activities that you are going to discontinue so that you have more time to spend on those tasks that can really make a difference to your future identify the consequences one of the most important words in developing the discipline of time management is consequences something is important to the degree that it has serious potential consequences for completion or non-completion a task or activity is unimportant to the degree that it does not matter if it is done or not for example completing a course of study at the University can have enormous consequences that can impact your life for the next 50 years completing a major task or project at work or making an important sale can have significant consequences for your job and your income on the other hand drinking coffee chatting with co-workers reading the newspaper surfing the internet or checking emails may be enjoyable but these activities have few or no consequences in other words whether you do them or not makes little or no difference to your work or to your life however it is precisely on these activities that most people spend most of their time managing your time there is a simple time management system that you can use to overcome procrastination it requires self-discipline willpower and personal organization but the payoff is huge when you use this system you can double or even triple your productivity performance out output and income before you begin each day start by making a list of everything you have to do that day the best time to make this list is the evening before at the end of the workday so that your subconscious mind can work on your list of activities while you sleep you'll often wake up with ideas and insights for how to more effectively complete the tasks of the day then apply the ab CDE method to your list a is something that you must do there are serious consequences for non-completion a b is something that you should do do there are mild consequences for doing it or not doing it a c is something that would be nice to do but there are no consequences whether you do it or not a d is something that you delegate and you delegate everything you possibly can to free up more time for those things that only you can do an E is something you eliminate you discontinue all tasks and activities that are no longer essential to your work and to achieving your goals review your list of activities for the coming day and then write an A B C D or E next to each task before you start if you have several a tasks rank them by importance by writing A1 A2 A3 and so on do this with your B and C tasks as well the rule is that you should never do a b task when you have an a task left undone you should never do a lower value task when you have a higher value task before you once You' organize your list using this system discipline yourself to start on your A1 task first thing in the morning before you do anything else practice single handling once you've begun work on your most important task you must discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly with 100% of your time and attention until that task is complete it takes tremendous self-discipline to select your most important task and then to start on that task rather than doing anything else but once you begin to work on it you'll start to feel a flow of energy that motivates and propels you into the task you'll feel more positive and confident you'll feel happier and more determined the very Act of starting on an important task raises your self-esteem and motivates you to continue deep within each person is an intense desire to feel strong effective powerful and in control of his or her life you automatically trigger these feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem when you discipline yourself to start work on the task that is most important to you at the moment 1,000% return on investment this ABCDE method seldom takes more than about 10 minutes to organize your entire day but you'll save 10 minutes in execution for every minute that you invest in this way of planning before before you begin this means that you will get a 1,000% return on energy from the act of planning thoroughly and setting clear priorities before you start on your first task as you feel yourself moving forward making progress on your most important task your brain releases a steady flow of endorphins Nature's happy drug these endorphins will make you feel more positive more focused more alert aware and in control when you discipline yourself to push against your natural resistance to get started on your most important task you get an endorphin rush you experience this as a sense of elation exhilaration happiness and high self-esteem by completing a major task you feel exactly like an athlete who has crossed the Finish Line first you feel like a winner your payoff from excellent time management is never ending as soon as you begin to plan and organize your time set priorities and begin on your A1 task you'll feel happy and More in control of yourself and your life the better you plan and execute the better you feel keep yourself focused the law of forced efficiency says there is never enough time to do everything but there is always enough time to do the most important things here are some questions that you should ask yourself to help keep you focused and working on your top tasks activities and responsibilities number one why am I on the payroll exactly what have I been hired to do what results are expected of me you must be clear about your answer to this question discuss it with others ask your boss number two what are my key result areas of all the things I do what are the most important results that I am expected to achieve in my position there are seldom more than 5 to seven key result areas in any job it's essential that you identify yours and then work in those areas all day long three what are my highest value activities of all the things I do which activities contribute the greatest value to my company and to myself you have core competencies that enable you to make a valuable contribution what are they number four what can I and only I do that have done well will make a real difference there's only one answer to this question at any given time this is something that you and only you can do if you don't do it no one else will do it instead but if you do do it and you do it well it can make a tremendous difference in your life at work and finally question number five what is the most valuable use of my time right right now this is the most important of all questions for setting priorities and overcoming procrastination at every minute of every day there is an answer to this question your ability to organize your life and to select your highest priority is a key measure of your intelligence and your Effectiveness start today starting today you should apply these key time management principles to every area of your life apply them to your work your family your health your exercise routine and to financial decisions and activities no excuses you require tremendous discipline to set priorities and then stick to those priorities you require the continuous exertion of discipline and willower to overcome the procrastination that holds most people back however the more you discipline yourself to use your time well the happier you will feel and the better will be the quality of your life in every area what stands between you and your goals are almost always problems and difficulties of some kind your ability to effectively solve the problems of daily life can have an enormous impact on your results and rewards we'll talk about this in the next chapter now here are seven action exercises for you one make a decision today to become absolutely excellent at time management work at it until it becomes a habit two before you begin each day make a list of everything you have to do that day as new tasks arise write them down before you act on them three organize your work list by priority by using the a b CDE e method over and over until it becomes a habit four identify your a one task each day and resolve to work single-mindedly on that task until it is totally complete five identify the one task that only you can do and that if you do it well can make a real difference six determine the 20% of your tasks that can account for 80% of your results and then discipline yourself to work on them most of the time and number seven every minute of every day ask yourself what is the most valuable use of my time right now and and then discipline yourself to work on only that task until it's complete chapter 14 self-discipline and problem solving experience is not what happens to a man it is what a man does with what happens to him Alis Huxley thoughts are causes and conditions are effects therefore the quality of your thinking largely determines the quality of your life the greatest mental principle is that you become what you think about most of the time top people in every field are intensely solution oriented they think about Solutions most of the time instead of getting bogged down in who did or didn't do something or other the most successful people in every field concentrate on the solutions and what can be done to solve the problem the Sufi philosopher is ISR KH once wrote Life is a continuous succession of problems like waves from the ocean they never stop this means that your ability to practice self-discipline self-mastery and self-control when faced with the never-ending flow of problems difficulties setbacks and temporary failures you will experience is essential to your success in business and in life the inevitable and unavoidable crisis throughout your life you will face a river of problems physical Financial family business and political the only break in this never-ending chain of problems will be the occasional crisis if you're living a normal life you'll probably experience a crisis every 2 or 3 months and it is in these crisis that you truly demonstrate the quality of your personality and the strength of your character it's only when you face unexpected reversals and setbacks that you show the world what you are truly made of all of life is a test the only question for you is do you pass or fail by its very nature crises come unbidden you have no warning or ability to anticipate them in advance if you did it wouldn't be a crisis in the first place obviously or you would already be prepared when the inevitable crisis occurs more than at any other time self-discipline is required so that you can remain calm and clearheaded Ed in order to deal with the crisis effectively perform at your best when something goes wrong the natural tendency of most people is to become angry and look around for someone to blame but this is a waste of energy it solves nothing instead you must discipline yourself to remain calm objective and unemotional when You Face an unexpected problem or crisis discipline yourself to stay calm to focus on the solution rather than the problem think in terms of what can be done now rather than thinking about how it occurred or who is to blame like an accident where someone is hurt you focus on caring for the injured person stopping the bleeding and minimizing the damage before you start analyzing what and how it happened practice self-discipline when dealing with a problem or crisis by immediately saying I am responsible even if at that moment you are only responsible for controlling your responses keep your mind clear top people have developed the ability to respond effectively to a crisis to remain calm relaxed and clear eyed they discipline themselves to stay cool and unemotional this enables them to think more clearly to analyze the situation objectively and to make better decisions but the moment you become angry and upset your neocortex your thinking brain shuts down all you have left then is is your paleo cortex your emotional brain which thinks in terms of fight or flight when your emotional brain is in charge you think in terms of black and white yes or no doing something or doing nothing you lose the ability to think in Shades of Gray and to look at all the different possible ways to deal with this particular situation top people realize that every problem is an opportunity to grow in self-control and personal confidence in fact you will rise in life to the height of the problems that you are capable of solving Stepping Stones to success some years ago Dr Lawrence Peter wrote a book called The Peter principal it was an amusing book with a central thesis that cut too close to home he wrote that in every organization people continue to be promoted until they reach a level where they are no longer competent to solve the problems at that level this is where they stop and stay for the rest of their career careers furthermore he pointed out that for this reason every organization is eventually staffed by people who have reached their level of incompetence this is especially true in government and it is the primary reason why government is so time and cost inefficient making it difficult to get anything done at all this is usually true in any large bureaucracy in your own personal life you continue to rise in your company and your profession in direct proportion to to your ability to solve the problems and make the necessary decisions at each level of your career the good news is that when you think about Solutions most of the time you train your brain to be intensely solution oriented no matter what problems or difficulties arise around you your brain will be continually seeking creative ways to solve the problem as a result you actually become smarter and quicker with more of your thinking brain available to you faster faster if you want to learn a physical sport You Begin by learning the basic moves and then the more advanced moves you practice these skills over and over again until you can perform them and go through the motions naturally and easily every time to master the discipline of problem solving you need to develop a formula or method that enables you to deal effectively with almost any problem you face in the course of your career or personal life fortunately there's a proven form formula for problem solving and decision making that you can use in almost any situation let's take a look a nine-step method for solving problems effectively step one take the time to define the problem clearly in medicine they say that accurate diagnosis is half the Cure therefore you need to ask what exactly is the problem it is absolutely amazing how several people can become upset about a problem in an organization ation but every one of them has a different idea or definition of the exact nature of the problem they're facing your job is to achieve Clarity and to get everyone to agree on the definition of the problem before you move on to the business of solving it step two ask is it really a problem remember there are some things that you can do nothing about they're not problems they are merely Facts of Life if interest rates rise or the subprime mortgage Market collapses this is not a problem this is not something that is amable to a solution instead it is something that must be worked around and dealt with also very often what appears to be a problem or a setback is actually an opportunity in Disguise sometimes the problem does not need to be solved at all instead you are now free to do something completely different which might be even better for you and your organization step three ask what else is the problem beware of any problem for which there is only one definition the more ways you can define a problem the more likely it is that you will find the best solution when we work with corporations in which sales are below a desired level we force them to ask 21 Questions all of which are different ways of restating the problem each restatement of the problem if accepted as the correct definition leads to a different solution and often to a completely different direction for the organization for example we will ask what is the problem and the first answer is our sales are too low the next question is what else is the problem answer our competitor's sales are too high notice the difference if the problem is that your sales are too low the solution may be to increase your advertising and promotion and beef up your sales activities if the definition is that your competitor sales are too high the answer may be to improve your products change your product line lower your prices or go into a completely different business altogether by asking and answering a series of questions like this we eventually find the correct definition the one that is amable to a workable solution step four ask how did this problem occur seek to understand the causes of the problem so that you can ensure that it doesn't happen again in your life or business if a problem recurs repeatedly it is a sign that your business is poorly organized or out of control in that area there is a defect built into your systems that is causing the same problem to recur your job is to find out why this happens repeatedly so that you can solve the problem at its root step five ask what are all the possible solutions the more possible solutions you develop the more likely you will come up with the right one the quality of the solution seems to be in direct proportion to the quantity of solutions considered in problem solving beware a problem for which there is only one solution step six ask what is the best solution at this time sometimes any solution is better than no solution an average solution vigorously executed is often Superior to an excellent solution that cannot be implemented because of its complexity or because no one has the ability to execute it the rule is that fully 80% of all problems should be dealt with immediately only 20% of problems need to be put off to a later time if you must put off a problem set a specific deadline for making a decision on that problem and then make your decision at that deadline with whatever information you have at that time there's a a rule that says that every large problem was once a small problem that could have been solved easily and inexpensively at that time sometimes the best strategy is to nip it in the bud when it is clear that there's a problem and a solution do what has to be done and do it quickly step number seven make a decision select a solution any solution and then decide on a course of action always ask what is our next action what are we going to to do now step eight assign responsibility who exactly is going to carry out the solution or the different elements of the solution it's quite common for a group to meet to solve a problem and to agree on a solution but when the group meets again two weeks later it turns out that nothing has happened why because no one was made specifically responsible for carrying out the decision step nine set a measure for the decision what are you trying to accomplish with this decision and how will you measure results how will you know that it worked the more accurately you can determine the result that you want to achieve by the solution the more likely it is that you will achieve it the big reward the main reward you get for solving problems is the opportunity to solve bigger and more important problems your rate of pay and speed of promotion and therefore your forward movement in your career is largely determined by your problem solving ability the more you focus on Solutions the more solutions you will come up with and the more valuable your contribution will be to your organization the flip side of self-esteem is called self-efficacy your level of self-efficacy is defined as how competent you feel you are to solve your problems and achieve your goals the more confident you feel you are to solve the problems and difficulties of daily life the more you like yourself the more you like yourself the more confident and competent you become in solving even larger problems and getting even more important results the determinant of your success in your work your problem solving ability largely determines everything you accomplish people who are good at solving problems are some of the most valuable and respected people in every area for this reason success has been defined as the ability to solve problems this also means that happiness is the ability to solve problems leadership is the ability to solve problems when you practice self-discipline and self-control in face of the inevitable and unavoidable problems and crises of day-to-day life you become more competent and effective in everything you do you'll be respected and esteemed by everyone around you you'll experience a tremendous feeling of personal power and confidence in no time at all you will will become one of the most valuable people in your organization now here are seven action exercises for you first solving problems is like solving mathematical equations it is learnable with practice and repetition start by determining the biggest problems facing you today write them down two accept complete responsibility for solving the problems you encounter in your daily work and then think about the solutions three Define your biggest business or personal problem clearly write it down then ask what exactly is the problem four why is this a problem could it be an opportunity in Disguise if so what opportunity or lesson could this problem contain five what else is the problem perhaps the real problem is something else something you might not want to face six what are all the possible solutions and what else could be a solution and number seven select the best solution that is available to you right now and take action immediately part three a self-discipline and happiness your ultimate goal in life is to achieve your own happiness no one else can do this for you this personal desire is the motivation behind almost every Behavior moreover happiness is more emotional and spiritual then it is a matter of acquiring material things in this part you will learn how they practice of discipline in the most important areas of your life can bring you more joy and satisfaction than perhaps any other quality chapter 15 self-discipline and happiness Harry Emerson fosik wrote no horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed no stream or gas drives anything until it is confined no Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled no life ever grows great until it is focused dedicated disciplined your ability to achieve your own happiness is the true measure of your success in life nothing is more important nothing can replace it if you accomplish everything of a material nature but you are not happy you've actually failed at fulfilling your potential as a human being in chapter 4 I described how human beings are purposeful striving toward achieving goals and end results however behind each goal lies another goal and then still another goal until you finally arrive at the primum mum or first moving force in human life this always turns out to be the desire to be Happ happy you can only truly be happy when you practice self-discipline self-mastery and self-control it's only when you feel that you are in complete control of your life that you are truly content the law of control in my book maximum achievement I teach the importance of the law of control which states that you feel happy to the degree to which you feel your in control of your own life you feel unhappy to the degree to which you feel you are not inol control or controlled by other factors or people psychologists call this your locus of control there are 50 years of research and hundreds of books and articles on the subject they all conclude that stress and unhappiness arise when you feel controlled by outside circumstances this is explained as the difference between an internal locus of control happy and an external locus of control unhappy you have an internal locus of control when you feel that you are in charge you make your own decisions and what happens to you in life is largely determined by yourself when you have an internal locus of control you feel that you are behind the wheel of your own life and that you are in the driver's seat you feel that you determine most of what happens to you as a result you feel strong purposeful and happy on the other hand you have an external locus of control to the degree to which you feel that you are not in control or that you have little ability to direct your own life for example if you feel that you are controlled by an arbitrary or critical boss but you cannot afford to lose your job because you have no savings put aside you experience high levels of Stress and Anxiety this causes you to do a poor job which makes it even more likely that your difficult boss will fire you and this often brings about exactly the circumstances you fear another example is that you may feel you are controlled by a bad marriage or relationship from which you cannot Escape you may feel controlled by your bills by the money you owe and your obligations to maintain your standard of living you may feel that you are controlled by your physical condition or lack of Education many people feel they're controlled by their past because of a difficult childhood or upbringing and that there is nothing they can do to change their situation many people feel that they are controlled by their own personality and that they are not able to change for the better they say that's just the way I am by saying this they absolve themselves of all responsibility for exerting the necessary discipline and willpower to make the changes they know they need to make in order to live the kind of Life they want to live and to be happy the key to replacing an external locus of control with an internal locus of control is for you to decide today to take complete charge of your life realize and accept that you make your own decisions and you are where you are and what you are because of yourself if there's some area in your life with which you're not happy discipline yourself to do whatever it takes to change the situation the reason for happiness it is often the size of the gap between your present situation and the conditions and circumstances that you feel that you need to be happy that determines whether you are happy or unhappy this is very very much a matter of your own evaluation and decision there's an old saying that success is getting what you want happiness is wanting what you get when your income and your life are consistent with your goals and expectations and you are content with your situation you feel happy if on the other hand for any reason your current situation is different from what you really want and expect you will be discontented and unhappy this state of content can be constantly changing when you start off in your career an income of $50,000 per year can seem like a huge achievement but once you reach this goal you start to be unhappy because you are not earning 100,000 or more some people are unhappy earning a million dollars a year happiness is a byproduct the interesting thing about happiness is that it is not a goal that you can aim at and achieve in and of itself happiness is a byproduct that comes to you when you are engaged in doing something that you really enjoy while in the company of people who you like and respect Earl Nale perhaps the most famous and respected radio commentator on success in history said that happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal whenever you feel that you are moving step by step toward something that is important to you toward your most important goals you automatically feel happy you feel satisfied and content you feel a tremendous sense of personal growth and well-being five ingredients of Happiness self-discipline is essential to happiness self-discipline requires both that you determine clearly What happiness means to you and also that you work progressively each day toward the achievement of that ideal condition in my experience and teachings I found that there are five ingredients to happiness a shortfall in any one of these areas can cause stress un un happiness and a feeling of being out of control five ingredients of Happiness one Health and energy this is perhaps the most important element of a good life we strive for it all our lives it is only when you enjoy high levels of painfree health and a continuous flow of energy that you feel truly happy in many cases health is a deficiency need this means that you do not think about your health very much until you are deprived of it for example you do not think about your teeth until you have a toothache you do not think about your body until you have aches and pains of some kind you must use discipline and willpower throughout your life to achieve and maintain high levels of health and fitness chapters 16 and 17 cover these in more detail the second ingredient of happiness is Happy relationships fully 85% of your happiness or unhappiness will come from your relationships with other people as Aristotle said man is a social animal we are designed to function in society working and living with other people at every stage of Our Lives your ability to enter into and maintain high quality relationships with your spouse children friends colleagues and others is the true measure of the quality of your personality and your level of mental health people with high levels of self-esteem and self-respect respect get along better with others and have much happier lives one of our biggest mistakes is to take our relationships for granted especially our most important ones we often don't think about them until there's a problem and then we think of nothing else the third ingredient of happiness is Meaningful work to be truly happy you must be fully engaged with life you must be doing things that keep you active and give you a sense of fulfillment if you're making a living you must be doing work that you enjoy do well and for which you are well paid people are only truly happy when they feel they are making a contribution of some kind that they are putting in more than they're taking out you need to feel that what you do really makes a difference in the lives and work of other people in studies of employee motivation employers think that people are primarily motivated by money and benefits but when employees are surveyed the three factors that motivate them the most turn out to be challenging and interesting work opportunities for growth and advancement and pleasant co-workers one of your most important responsibilities to yourself is to find the right job for you and then once you have it throw your whole heart into it if for any reason you don't feel like putting your whole heart into your work it may be lacking one or more of the three Essentials to a positive workplace it may be a sign that this is not the right place for you the fourth key to happiness is financial Independence some of the greatest fears we experience are those of loss failure and poverty We Fear being destitute without funds and dependent on others one of your Chief responsibilities to yourself is to work toward Financial Independence and Financial Freedom throughout your life the happiest of all people are those who have reached the point at which they no longer worry about money this is not something you can leave to chance but rather something that requires deliberate purposeful action and tremendous self-discipline to achieve whenever you feel that there is a big gap between where you are today financially and where you would ideally like to be you experience stress worry and unhappiness the fifth ingredient of happiness is self-actualization this is the feeling that you are becoming everything you are capable of becoming this occurs when you feel you are realizing more and more of your true potential Abraham maslo is best known for his hierarchy of needs he determined that people have both deficiency needs and being needs people strive either to compensate for their deficiencies or to realize their potentials he concluded that you only begin to evolve and develop to the highest levels possible for you when you're deficiency needs are first satisfied deficiency needs your first deficiency need is for safety and survival satisfying this need requires that you have sufficient food water clothing and accommodation to preserve your life and well-being if for any reason your safety or survival is threatened you'll become totally preoccupied with satisfying this need you will experience tremendous stress and you will be completely unhappy happy until you are safe once more for example think about being in a life-threatening situation the second deficiency need that maslo identified is the need for security this need Embraces Financial emotional and physical security you need to have enough money to provide for yourself Security in your relationships at work and at home and physical security to assure that you are not in danger of any kind if your security needs are threatened you become completely preoccupied with them for example think about losing your job suddenly how would you feel the third deficiency need that maslo identified is belongingness each person has a need to be in Social relationships with others both at home and at work you need to be recognized and accepted by other people in your world each person needs to be comfortable in his or her relationships with others and seen and accepted as part of a team or group self-esteem needs once you have achieved a sufficient level of each of these basic needs safety security and belongingness you then turn to satisfy the higher needs for self-esteem and self-worth your being needs your self-esteem is the core of your personality and largely determines how you feel about everything that happens to you everything you do in life is either to increase your self-esteem or to protected from being diminished your self-esteem how you feel about yourself and how much you like and value yourself determines your happiness more than any other single Factor your self-esteem comes from many factors when you are liked and accepted by others living consistently with your highest values doing a good job and being recognized for it and moving progressively toward the achievement of your goals and ideals then you naturally feel happy and satisfied you feel valuable and very much in control the highest human need the highest need that maslo identified was for self-actualization he concluded that less than 2% of the population ever reaches this height of personal fulfillment most people remain so preoccupied with their deficiency needs and protecting or enhancing their self-esteem and their ego needs that they give little thought or effort to self-actualization but it is only when you realize that you have tremendous personal potential and begin striving to do be and have more than ever before in some area that you begin to experience self-actualization and true happiness the happiest of all people are those who feel that they are doing something worthwhile and important with their lives they feel they are stretching and moving beyond anything they've ever done before people devoted to self-actualization may be writing books or creating works of art they may be climbing mountains or competing in sports they may be building businesses or scaling the heights of their professions the wonderful thing about self-actualization needs is that they can never be completely satisfied as you continually strive throughout your life to be and have and do more than ever before you experience a steady flow of happiness and contentment you feel that you are becoming more and more of what you you are truly meant to become never be satisfied in each of these areas whenever you exert self-discipline and willpower to overcome the tendency to take the easy way you feel happier about yourself when you take a leap of faith in the direction of your dreams and then discipline yourself to keep going in spite of all obstacles and hardships you feel powerful your self-esteem and self-confidence increases and then as you move step by step step toward your ideals you feel genuinely happy in the next chapter you will learn how to incorporate self-discipline into your daily health habits to assure that you live a long happy healthy life now here are some action exercises for you one identify the areas of your life in which you feel the happiest and the most in control how could you expand them number two identify the areas of your life in which you feel controlled by other people or factors what could you do to resolve these situations number three identify those areas in your life where there is a gap between your current levels of accomplishment and what you would really like to achieve what could you do to bridge these gaps number four identify the most pressing needs you have today that are not being fulfilled how could you begin to satisfy these deficiency needs number five identify those activities that give you the greatest feeling of personal happiness your Peak experiences in life what could you do to increase these moments of Happiness number six identify those areas in life where you feel the most discontented what steps could you take immediately to resolve these feelings of discontent and number seven define happiness for yourself what does it mean what would have to happen for you to feel truly happy what could you do immediately to create this situation chapter 16 self discipline and personal health Abraham Joshua hesel said self-respect is the root of discipline the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself more people are living longer and better today than ever before in human history and your goal should be to be one of those people there's no area in which self-discipline is more important than in your practices regarding your health your number one goal for yourself should be to live as long and as well as you possibly can this requires lifelong self-discipline with your health habits and as mentioned in chapter 15 good health is one of the ingredients of overall Hab happiness the average life expectancy for males today 2009 is 76.8 years for females 79.8 years or approximately 80 years and this number is increasing each year this means that about 50% of the population will die below the age of 80 and about 50% will die above the age of 80 your goal should be to defy the averages and live to age 90 95 or even longer living a long life today most causes of early death that had shortened life in the past have been eliminated in The industrialized World diseases such as tuberculosis polio malaria Cher typhus and others have been wiped out through sanitation and modern medicine the predominant causes of early deaths today are heart disease cancer of all kinds diabetes and traffic deaths all of which are subject to your control to a certain extent you cannot predict or protect against the unpredictable like random accidents but you can use your self-discipline to control the controllable in your life seven key health habits the Alam study covering many thousands of people for more than 20 years concluded there were seven key health habits that contributed the most to long life number one eat regularly rather than fasting starving or gorging eat normal healthy meals preferably five or six times per day with your last meal fully 3 hours before you go to sleep number two eat lightly overeating makes you tired and sluggish whereas eating lightly makes you feel healthy and alert as Thomas Jefferson wrote no one ever regretted eating too little after a meal number three don't snack between meals when you eat your body has to break down and digest the foods in your stomach so that they can move into your small intestine this requires 4 to 5 hours if you put food in on top of food that you have already eaten the digestive process must start over again with part of your food at one stage of digestion and another part of your food at another stage this leads to upset stomach heartburn drowsiness especially in the afternoon and constipation number four exercise regularly the ideal is about 30 minut a day or 200 minutes per week you can achieve this by walking running swimming and or using exercise equipment you should fully articulate every joint every day number five wear a seat belt right up to age 35 the most common cause of premature death is traffic accidents number six don't smoke smoking is correlated with 32 different illnesses including lung cancer esophagal cancer throat cancer stomach cancer heart disease and a variety of other ailments and the seventh key to long life is to drink alcohol in moderation studies show that one to two glasses of wine per day Aid digestion and seem to be beneficial to your overall health anything in excess of that can lead to all kinds of problems including overeating traffic accidents personality problems and heti social behavior each of these seven factors s that contribute to long life are completely a matter of self-discipline these seven factors are a matter of choice they are actions that you can choose to take or not take deliberately they are completely under your control the five PS of excellent Health in my personal development seminars we teach the five PS of excellent Health number one proper weight this requires the regular exercise of discipline and willpower in order to achieve your proper weight than then to maintain it throughout your life but the payoff is tremendous you look good feel good and generally feel more positive and in control of your life number two proper diet as Benjamin Franklin said Eat to Live rather than live to eat according to studies of Olympic athletes from more than 120 countries the three factors their diets have in common are first lean source protein second a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and third lots of water about eight glasses per day when you begin this Olympic diet you will feel more alert awake and aware all day long number three of the five piece is proper exercise the most important exercise for long life is aerobic exercise this requires that you get your heart rate up to a high level for 30 to 60 Minutes three times per week you can achieve this through brisk walking running cycling swimming or CrossCountry skiing exercise physiologists have determined that the exercise effect Clicks in at about 25 minutes of vigorous exercise at this point your brain releases endorphins that give you a feeling of elation or what is called a runner's high this natural drug produced by your body can become addictive in a very positive way people who develop the habit of regular vigorous exercise find that it becomes easier and easier to do they begin to look forward to the feeling of Happiness they enjoy as the result of exercising aerobically four is proper rest this is very important more than 60% of adults do not get enough sleep they are suffering from what is called a sleep deficit they go to bed a little bit too late sleep poorly arise a little bit too early and go through the day in a form of fog this phenomenon of not being sufficiently rested leads to poor performance more mistakes industrial accidents car crashes short tempers personality problems and many other difficulties if you're living and working a normal life you require about 8 hours of sleep each night if you get only six or seven hours of sleep when you actually require eight you begin to build up this sleep deficit by Thursday or Friday when you get up in the morning the first thing you think of is how soon you can go back to sleep again that night when you start thinking about going to sleep again at the moment that you arise you know that you are not getting enough sleep in addition to 8 hours of sleep per night you need regular breaks from work both weekends and vacations when you take time off from work you allow your mental and emotional batteries to recharge after a 2 or 3-day weekend when you go back to work you will feel fully rested and ready to perform at your best the fifth p is proper attitude this is perhaps the most important of all the quality that is most predictive of health happiness and long life is optimism as you become more optimistic about yourself and your life your health will also be better in every area people who are positive and optimistic usually have stronger immune systems and as a result they are seldom sick they seldom get colds or flu they bounce back quickly from hard work or fatigue an optimistic person has a built-in Teflon Shield against many of the diseases and ailments that affect the average person get your weight under control the biggest single problem with self-discipline that people have today is overeating and becoming overweight more than 60% of Americans are officially overweight and more than 30% % are obese which is defined as being more than 30% above their normal weight there's no area in which self-discipline is more necessary than in getting your weight under control and then keeping it under control for the rest of your life you've heard it said that diets don't work what this really means is that when you starve yourself to lose weight you'll tend to put the weight back on almost as quickly as you lost it there are many reasons for this each person has a certain metabolic rate this is the rate at which you burn energy this metabolic rate is set over the course of your lifetime by the amount of food you eat relative to the amount of exercise you do to work it off in addition to your metabolic rate you have what is called a set point this is where your weight is set like a thermostat and to which it returns no matter how much you take off as the result of crashed dieting change your set point to lose weight permanently you must change your set point point to a lower number to achieve this the first thing you do is create a clear mental image of how you will look when you are at your ideal weight get a picture out of a magazine of someone who has the body you want to have and then paste your photo where their face appears you then begin a gradual process of changing the quality and quantity of what you eat permanently with no intention of ever going back be prepared to work on this permanent change for at least a year remember if you are overweight it has taken you many years to get to where you are today be prepared to invest a lot of time in getting back the Fatal flaw in dieting many people diet and lose weight with the idea that as soon as they have dropped a certain number of pounds they can reward themselves by going out and having a fabulous meal or consuming unlimited desserts in other words they use the idea a of filling up on Foods as the reward for losing weight in the first place this approach is doomed to failure instead set up a reward system for yourself that does not include food decide instead to buy yourself new clothes that will only fit you at your ideal weight take yourself and your family on a vacation where you engage in fun activities make a bet with someone that you will take off the weight and keep it off for one year the formula for permanent weight loss the key to perfect health can be summarized in five words eat less and exercise more the only way that you can lose weight permanently is to burn off more calories than you consume there's no other way moreover you can only do this over an extended period of time especially if you've allowed yourself to put on a lot of excess weight in my program thinking big we teach the importance of avoiding the three white poisons sugar salt and flour get rid of sugar to lose weight permanently and to enjoy high levels of health and energy you should eliminate all simple sugars from your diet simple sugars are contained in candy cake pastries desserts soft drinks canned fruits sugar in your coffee and all other forms of sugar that people consume in large quantities every day the fact is that you require no addition addal sugar to enjoy superb levels of physical health simply by eliminating all sugar and sugar products from your life by going cold turkey on sugar you'll begin to lose as much as one pound per day pass on the salt in addition you should eliminate all additional salt from your diet although the average American gets sufficient salt in all the different foods he eats he consumes an extra 20 lounds of salt each year by eating foods with high salt content and by then adding additional salt to meals when you consume excess salt your body retains water in order to hold that salt in suspension when you stop consuming excess salt and simultaneously drink eight glasses of water per day your body releases all the excess fluid and you can actually experience weight drops of as much as four or 5 lbs in the first day avoid white flour products finally eliminate all white flour products from your diet this means all breads pastries pastas rice buns rolls and anything else made with white flour white flour is actually an inert substance from which all nutrients have been removed and then bleached out when you see the words enriched white bread they mean that the white flour which is essentially a dead food material has been fortified with artificial chemical vitamins almost all of which are then destroyed in the baking process there is no food value in a white flour product a simple change of diet not long ago I got a letter from a 32-year-old man in Florida he told me that he had read my books and listened to my programs for years he had achieved a higher level of Financial and Career Success than he ever imagined possible but he was still carrying an extra 20 lbs of weight that he could not get rid of no matter what he did then then one day he listened to thinking big and he heard my comments on the three white poisons fortunately he was both disciplined and determined he used his willpower to slam the brakes on these three foods and discontinu them completely he said that what happened next was nothing short of miraculous within 6 months he had dropped 22 lbs when he wrote to me he had kept them off for 2 years he said that he looked different felt different was more attractive to women and had higher levels of self-confidence and self-esteem his whole life had improved since he dropped the excess weight live to be 100 your goal in life should be to enjoy the highest levels of health and energy possible this requires that you eat the right foods and fewer of them it requires that you get regular exercise and move every joint of your body every single day to enjoy superb physical health you must get lots of rest and Recreation now here are seven action exercises for you one idealize with regard to your health if you could wave a magic wand and make your health perfect in every way how would it be different from today two resolve to make the rest of your life the best of your life what is the first thing you should change or do three get a complete medical examination ask your doctor for advice on how to enjoy superb levels of physical health then follow that advice number four determine your ideal weight and set it as a goal use the goal setting process you learned in chapter four to make a plan to achieve it and keep it there for Life number five use mind storming described in chapter 4 as well and write out a list of at least 20 answers to the question what what can I do every day to enjoy superb levels of health and energy number six review the health habits and research discussed in this chapter and give yourself a grade ranging from 1 to 10 on how well you are practicing them and number seven decide on one specific action that you're going to take immediately to ensure that you live to be age 80 90 and Beyond chapter 17 self-discipline and physical fitness Vince Lombardi said mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial also and most importantly it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in it is a state of mind that you could call character in action for you to achieve and maintain high levels of physical fitness requires a lifetime of self-discipline and willpower the good news is that physical fitness is its own reward not only do you feel good while you're exercising but you feel wonderful about yourself the rest of the time if your goal is to live a long healthy happy life and be fit and trim physically there's no substitute for regular exercise fortunately you do not have to train for the Olympics or a triathlon to enjoy superb levels of physical well-being by building exercise and physical training into your daily routine you can achieve physical fitness just by making a few small modifications to your lifestyle listen to The Experts physical fitness Specialists generally agree that you need to exercise 200 to 300 minutes per week to enjoy the maximum levels of physical well-being that are possible for you this means that you need to exercise between 30 and 60 Minutes 5 to seven times each week at the low end if you simply went for a 30-minute walk each morning before you started off for work or each evening when you got home from work as well as each weekend day you'd be one of the healthiest people in our society if you increase your exercise level to 60 minutes each time 5 days per week you'll be in the top 1 or 2% of physically fit people in the world today get started first thing the best time to exercise is first thing in the morning people who get up each morning and exercise for 30 to 60 Minutes are much more likely to make exercise a permanent part of their daily routine on the other hand people who put off exercising until later in the day until after work almost invariably find that they are too tired or have too many other things to do they procrastinate on exercising until another another day which often never comes it takes tremendous discipline to get into and follow a regular exercise routine but it's much easier if you can discipline yourself to get up in the morning and start exercising immediately trick yourself many people including myself trick themselves into exercising in the morning by putting their exercise clothes right next to the bed so that they trip over them when they get up before they are even awake they find themselves pulling on their exercise clothes and running shoes and starting off around the block before they even know what has happened they are halfway into their exercise routine their heart rate is up their lungs are puffing away and they're feeling good about themselves whenever people come back from a morning run or any other form of morning exercise they're always happy and smiling this is because of the exercise effect that kicks in after 25 or 30 minutes their brains release endorphins and they feel Exhilarate it increase your intelligence people who engage in aerobic exercise first thing in the morning have been shown to be brighter more creative and more intelligent throughout the day they actually score higher on intelligence tests and they seem to come up with more ideas to help them do their work better during the course of the day the reason for this is obvious when you engage in arobic exercise first thing in the morning you drive hyper oxygenated blood into your cerebral cortex Tex the part of your brain that you use for thinking analyzing and decision making this makes you wide awake and alert from first thing in the morning and then for several hours afterward when you exercise as soon as you get up you kick your metabolic rate into a higher gear as a result your body continues to burn calories all day long you continue to lose weight for several hours after exercising when you exercise first thing in the morning or any time during the day you become hungry however because you are working out your body in such a healthy way you will have a natural appetite for healthy foods you'll have little or no desire for sweet Foods or desserts make exercise a part of your lifestyle one of the best things you can do to achieve and maintain high levels of physical fitness is to join a gym or a health club and attend regular exercise classes you can even pay a little more and get yourself a person trainer who puts you through an exercise regimen two or more times per week you're much more likely to discipline yourself to start and maintain a fitness routine if you have someone who is expecting you to be at class or monitoring you on a regular basis to make sure that you follow the exercise program to which you committed many people today are hiring personal trainers a personal trainer can either come to your home or place of work or you can go to a gym that has personal trainers on staff who will work with you on the specific equipment you want to use people who use personal trainers are almost universally delighted with the results they find that being accountable to a trainer exerts a positive influence on them causing them to eat less so they have less weight to burn off and to work harder when they exercise so that they can earn the approval of the trainer join an organized sport organized sports are a wonderful way to achieve and maintain high levels of physical Fitness they're far more demanding in terms of time and schedule but the payoff is often extraordinary if you're a member of a sports League whether that be baseball tennis football soccer racketball or anything else and you have a coach or a trainer that you work with on a regular basis you tend to be more focused and disciplined you will exercise more often and more vigorously and you'll be fitter and trimmer than most other people develop new and better habits unfortunately physical fitness and sports training require high levels of discipline and few people are capable of starting and continuing this kind of exercise regimen for better or worse whatever you do repeatedly becomes a habit and many people get out of the habit of regular exercise and never go back fortunately it's never too late at any time you can decide that you are going to enjoy high levels of physical fitness you can make a decision right now to start a physical fitness routine of some kind and then set it as a personal test or challenge to see if you have the willpower and discipline to follow through on your resolution you can start today some years ago there was a 68-year-old woman living in a senior citizen's home who had never given much thought to physical exercise she had worked hard raised her family become a grandmother and was now living comfortably in a a senior citizen's residence one day she saw a television special on jogging during this special they interviewed a couple of people in their 50s and 60s who were running marathons some of them had started running later in life this 68-year-old woman decided that she wanted to run a marathon as well she drove down to a nearby store and brought the proper shoes for walking and running that day she began her exercise regimen by walking around the neighborhood where she lived over the next few weeks she walked ever greater distances she bought books and sought advice on how to exercise and train her legs for running after 2 months she began jogging a little as part of her walking routine after 6 months she began running as part of her walking and jogging routine by the end of the first year she had run in a mini marathon in her local community by the time she was 75 she had completed 10 26.4m marathons and two 50 50 m cross country marathons and the most remarkable thing was that she had never run before the age of 68 so what's your excuse if this 68-year-old woman could start exercising so late in life why can't you one of the greatest guarantors that you will live a long happy life being bright alert and full of energy is that you begin a regular physical training program four or five days per week and continue it for the rest of your life when you exert your self-discipline and willpower to achieve a high level of physical fitness and then maintain it year after year you'll feel terrific about yourself in the next chapter you learn how self-discipline in marriage can have a wonderful effect in assuring a long life of happiness and fulfillment with another person now here are seven action exercises for you first today is the day make a decision that you're going going to achieve the best physical condition of your life in the months ahead and then take action immediately number two get a complete medical examination so that you know your condition and limits before you begin number three start walking 30 minutes each day preferably first thing in the morning or if not in the morning right after work four join a gym or health club pay for a year and make an appointment with yourself to work out five times a week 60 minutes each time five hire a personal trainer and have him or her guide you through an exercise program that includes aerobics strength and flexibility exercises each week number six invest in a treadmill a life cycle or an elliptical machine and put it in front of your television so that you can exercise as a part of your home and family life and number seven start gradually and work up slowly resolving to exercise for several weeks before you notice a major difference be patient persistent and determined chapter 18 self-discipline and marriage it is better to control yourself than to win a thousand battles then the victory is yours it cannot be taken from you not by Angels or demons Heaven or Hell Buddha your ability to enter into a long-term loving relationship is an important measure of your character and personality men and women are born to be two halves that make up one whole they have different qualities and characteristics that when properly combined achieve completion and the balance and Harmony that nature demands the foundational qualities for marriage and loving relationships are trust and respect men and women can have many disagreements over the course of their married life together but as long as the trust and respect between them endures the marriage can go on indefinitely if ever one or the other party can no longer trust the other or no longer respects the other the relationship is finished many marriages end in divorce and many divorce people have multiple marriages Each of which ends in Failure yet some people get married once and stay married contentedly for the rest of their lives why is this the key to a happy marriage perhaps the most important reason for a happy marriage is compatibility the two people are ideally balanced with each other with each one possessing complimentary qualities and characteristics that combine comfortably to form a perfect balance people often say that Opposites Attract this is a misunderstanding Opposites Attract in only one area and that is temperament you'll always be most compatible with a person who has an opposite or counterbalancing temperament to your own for example if you are outgoing and extroverted you'll be most comfortable with a person who is more reserved and self-contained if you are valuable and expressive you'll be most compatible with a person who is relaxed and a good listener nature Demands a balance in temperament for two people to be compatible and happy together birds of a feather in all other areas especially in the area of values it is similarities that attract birds of a feather do flock together you will always be attracted to people and most compatible with those who have the greatest number of fundamental values in common with yourself all of Love of any kind is a response to Value we love what we most value both in ourselves and others when a couple is truly happy together they seem to have very much the same value regarding family money ethics work children politics religion and other people people will often point out that there are happy couples who vote for different parties or come from different religious backgrounds but the critical issue in balance and Harmony revolves around the intensity with which a person values something this intensity determines if a person is absolute and unbending or relaxed and flexible in his or her adherence to a particular belief about a particular part of life people can love and live together happily for many years even though they support different political parties as long as political belief is not so important to either of them that it takes precedent over more important elements of their relationship such as children family and values love is our greatest need in life it is said that everything we do in life is either to get love or to compensate for a lack of Love psychologists generally agree that the root cause of personality problems in adult life can be traced back to love withheld in infancy and childhood people need love like roses need rain without sufficient love and acceptance individuals exhibit all kinds of personality and physical problems it is only possible to be happy when your needs for love are completely fulfilled a happy marriage requires tremendous self-discipline and self-control love requires self-denial and sacrifice when you're truly in love with another person that person's happiness and well-being becomes more important than your own you are willing to pay whatever price and make whatever sacrifice in order to ensure the well-being of the person you love in the Christian Bible in a letter to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul says love suffereth long and is kind love envieth not love avengethem seeketh not his own is not easily provoked and thinketh no evil love rejoices not in iniquity but rejoices in the truth love beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things love never fails Different Strokes require tolerance and understanding each person is an individual with unique and special characteristics that make him or her different from all other people each person has different ideas tastes desires hopes dreams and expectations each person has had different experiences and developed different ways of seeing and dealing with the world around him or her when you come together with another person in a loving relationship no matter how close you feel to each other and no matter how compatible you may be in many ways you will still have areas of disagreement dissatisfaction and discontent this is normal and natural and something to be worked through by practicing self-discipline and self-control whenever these differences occur self-discipline in a relationship requires that you be completely honest and open that you be yourself and never try to be someone or something else self-discipline and honesty require that you state clearly what you are thinking and feeling Without Anger or irritation and that you listen calmly and patiently to the feelings thoughts and opinions of the other person male female communication styles men and women are different in many ways according to MRI scans when men communicate they use only two centers of their brains when women communicate they use seven centers of their brains it as though men have two headlights with which to communicate where whereas a woman's brain is like a fully lit Christmas tree man can only process one sensory input at a time whereas women can process multiple sensory inputs when a man is watching television he does not see or hear anything else including words spoken to him from the side or behind he becomes totally fixated on the visual images and words on the screen when a man is driving a car he has to turn down the radio to read the map he has to turn down the television or radio to answer the telephone he cannot read and listen or watch at the same time men can do many things extremely well but they can only do one thing at a time men tend to be very focused women on the other hand can talk make dinner watch television read the day's mail and talk to her children or husband all at once they are multi-dimensional and can process several inputs simultaneously they can talk and listen at the same same time and be aware of what other people around them are doing and saying women are relationship experts they are very sensitive to other people when a man and a woman attend a social Gathering within 10 minutes the woman will have done an analysis and assessment of the situation of each of the other people in the room especially couples in contrast the man accompanying the woman will have notice little or nothing this is because men are simple and straightforward in their thinking whereas women are complex aware of small details and extremely sensitive to the Dynamics and nuances of the relationships of the people around them a man can call his wife on the phone and say hello although she has only heard one word she will immediately ask what's wrong she can pick up a wealth of meaning and emotion from a single word on the phone or a single glance or look when he walks in the door relationship building takes effort because of the many differ between men and women it takes tremendous discipline to build and maintain a long-term loving and happy relationship perhaps the most important area of mutual compatibility has to do with the discipline of listening it's only when two people take the time to listen closely and carefully to each other when they speak that the lines of communication stay open and this is when love and harmony continue in the relationship there are four simple disciplines of effective listening they are mostly of importance to men who are notoriously poor listeners especially with the women in their lives this is not because they're not interested it's simply because their minds are focused on something else and they are easily distracted the disciplines of listening first listen attentively the first discipline is to listen attentively without interrupting listen as though the other person is about to reveal a great secret or the winning lottery number and you will hear it only once when she wants to talk to you if you're a man put aside all possible distractions turn off the television or radio put down the newspaper or mail face her directly lean slightly forward and concentrate single-mindedly on what she is saying the book His Needs Her Needs points out that the most important need that a woman has from a man is affection affection is expressed by paying total attention to her when she speaks since you always pay attention to what you most value when you pay close attention to another person while she speaks you tell that person that she is of Great Value to you this satisfies the deepest subconscious needs of a woman to feel valuable important and respected pause before replying the second discipline of listening is to pause before replying take a few seconds to carefully consider consider what he or she has said when you pause you avoid the risk of interrupting the other person if she is just reformulating her thoughts you tell her that you value what she said and that you're giving her words careful consideration another advantage of pausing of allowing a silence in the conversation is that it enables you to hear not only what was said but also what was not said or what was said between the lines the actual message soaks into a deeper level of your mind enabling you to understand better and to therefore respond with greater awareness and sensitivity ask for clarification the third discipline of effective listening is to question for clarification never assume that you automatically know what the other person is thinking or feeling instead if you're at all unclear simply ask how do you mean or how do you mean exactly it is when you ask questions questions and seek Clarity and meaning that you demonstrate to the other person that you really care about what he or she is saying and that you are genuinely interested in understanding how he or she thinks and feels feed it back the fourth discipline of effective listening is for you to feedback what the other person has said and paraphrase it in your own words this is the acid test of listening this is where you demonstrate to the other person that you were genu genuinely paying attention it is only when you can repeat back what the other person has just said in your own words that you Pro to him or her that you were really listening most problems in relationships arise because of poor communication the couple does not talk together often enough or one or the other does not listen attentively when the other wants to speak each person has an emotional need to talk a certain amount with his or her spouse each person also has an emotional need to listen a certain amount the most compatible couples are those in whom the desire to talk and listen are in balance with each other there is an easy ab and flow of conversation punctuated with comfortable silences each person gets a chance to fulfill his or her need for both talking and listening and both parties are content total commitment is essential love and marriage require total commitment on the part of both people it takes tremendous discipline to go Allin in a relationship what's more this is also tremendously liberating it is only when you are totally committed to a relationship with a single person that you are completely free to turn your attention toward fulfilling your potential in the other aspects of your life one of the most important disciplines in a marriage or relationship is that of faithfulness because we live in a highly sexualized Society there are Temptations and provocations around us all the time and virtually everywhere we go it often takes considerable self-discipline and self-control to be completely loyal to your spouse throughout your married life there are two ways to help you avoid the regular temptations that can damage or even destroy the most loving of relationships first make a decision in advance that you will never never be un faithful to your spouse like drawing a line in the sand make the decision in advance that no matter what happens you will not stray for any reason second discipline yourself to stay out of Harm's Way refuse to go anywhere or do anything where Temptation may exist except when essential for business purposes avoid having lunch drinks or dinner alone with a member of the opposite sex remember there is safety in crowds continually imagine everywhere you go and in everything you do that your spouse is standing right next to you watching and listening to what you say and do imagine that anything and everything you do no matter where you are is going to be reported back to your spouse within 24 hours use your discipline and willpower to build and maintain a reputation for being a completely honest and faithful spouse be willing to change every marriage is a work in progress as time passes the nature of your marriage will change usually in positive and constructive ways to keep your relationship happy harmonious and growing you must be willing to change in response to changing circumstances especially having children and watching them grow up you need to be prepared to change with age new jobs and careers physical moves from one part of the country to another changes in financial circumstances and changes in health flexibility is absolutely essential to a long happy marriage there are only four ways that you can change your life first you can do more of some things second you can do less of other things third you can start something that you have never done before and fourth you can stop doing certain things altogether whenever you are experiencing resistance or frustration or you are confronted with the Need For Change ask yourself is there anything that I need to do more of less of start or stop doing the four questions you should ask on a regular basis you should sit down with your spouse and later with your children and have the courage to ask them these four questions one is there anything that I'm doing that you would like me to do more of two is there anything that I am doing that you would like me to do less of three is there anything that you would like me to start doing that I'm not doing today and four is there anything that I'm doing that you would like me to stop doing altogether when you have the courage and discipline to ask these questions of your spouse and your children on a regular basis you'll be amazed at the Quality and depth of the answers you receive you will get continual guidance on how you can modify and adjust your behaviors to maintain Ain higher levels of Harmony happiness and love with your spouse and the other members of your family your spouse should be your best friend love and marriage are perhaps the most important elements of a happy fulfilling life they require a lifelong exercise of self-discipline and willpower to create and maintain Harmony they require that you be open honest and candid at all times most of all a Happy loving marri marriage requires that you see your spouse as your best friend there should be no one in the world who you would rather spend time with more than him or her there should be no one with whom you are more open and honest than with him or her when you see your spouse as your best friend and treat him or her as such you can create a loving relationship that lasts all the days of your lives as EMT Fox a spiritual writer and teacher once wrote love is by far the most important thing of all it casts out fear it is the fulfilling of the law it covers a multitude of sins love is absolutely Invincible there is no difficulty that enough love will not cure no disease that enough love will not heal no door that enough love will not open no Gulf that enough love will not Bridge no wall that enough love will not throw down and no sin that enough love will not redeem it makes no difference How Deeply seated may be the trouble how hopeless the Outlook how muddled the tangle how great the mistake a sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all if only you could love enough you would be the happiest and most powerful being in the world in the next chapter you will learn specifically why self-discipline is so important when raising happy healthy and self-confident children now here are seven action exercises one what is the most important single action you could take right now to increase the love and harmony in your marriage or relationship two what disciplines or practices could you develop that would improve the quality of your marriage for the other person three identify one Behavior you could engage in that would improve your Communications in your marriage four sit down with your spouse and ask him or her for ideas on things that you should do more of less of start or stop doing five identify the two qualities that you most admire in your partner six identify the areas in which you and your partner are the most compatible and seven identify the most important values that you and your partner share chapter 19 self-discipline and children Bertrand Russell wrote right discipline exists not in external compulsion but in habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities you can calculate the value or importance of something you do do by measuring the possible consequences of doing it or not doing it something that is important is something that has significant potential consequences like jumping out of the path of a speeding car bringing children into the world has consequences that can go on for 80 years which Le the average life expectancy of a person today and Beyond into the lives of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren this is why becoming a parent is one of the most important things you will ever do as an adult you are still affected today by things that your grandparents did or didn't do to or for your parents the way you treat your children is strongly influenced by the way your parents treated you it has consequences that Cascade down the generations and it has an enormous influence on their lifelong happiness and well-being your greatest responsibility when you have a child a high level of self-discipline discipline is essential in order to fulfill your commitment and deliver on your responsibility the day your first child is born you have taken on a minimum 20-year commitment to do everything possible to raise your child as a happy healthy and self-confident adult at every stage of your child's life your words actions non-actions and behaviors are shaping and influencing that child and determining how he or she will turn out as an adult the greatest need that a child has is for an unbroken flow of unconditional love and acceptance from his or her parents children need love almost as much as they need oxygen the amount of love that a child receives especially in his or her formative years is the critical determinant of how healthy and happy he or she becomes as an adult how children spell love how does a child spell love t i m e children determine how valuable and important they are and develop their self-esteem and selfworth by measuring the amount of time that the most important people in their lives spend with them when they are young there's no substitute for time and once gone you cannot make it up perhaps the greatest regret reported by parents is that I didn't spend enough time with my child when he or she was young when you become a parent you must discipline yourself and organize your life so that you can spend ample time with your child throughout his or her growing years you must discipline yourself to cut back reduce downsize and eliminate other activities that prevent you from being an excellent parent a wakeup call some years ago a good friend of mine got married he was an avid golfer and he regularly played golf five times a week often flying south in the winter for golf vacations when his local golf courses were covered with snow within four years of marrying he and his wife had four children nonetheless he still tried to play golf several times a week taking time off from his business during the week and playing on weekends finally his wife confed him and told him that he was not spending enough time with his young children his golf was taking up too many hours that would be better spent at home with her and with the children especially during their most vulnerable and sensitive years he suddenly realized that his life had changed the things that he could do when he was single were no longer possible when he had young children being highly responsible and self-disciplined he immediately cut back his golf to once per week and rechanneled his time and energy into his family he told me later that it made an extraordinary difference to his marriage and to his relationships with his young children setting new priorities when you get married your life goes through a a major shift your lifestyle changes and many of your common activities lose their importance and urgency when your first child is born your life shifts again it often feels as if the first stage of your life your youth has dropped off like the first stage of a rocket and you are now on a different trajectory in life in fact it's not uncommon for couples to change their lives completely when their first child is born they cut back or discontinue many of their previous social activities they stop dining and drinking with friends and they stop going out socially on the weekends they begin to build a different life together around their home and children the children become the focus of their time and attention the children become the primary subject of their conversations responsible parents approach child rearing as the most important part of their lives they plan and organize their time and activities so they can fulfill this responsibility at a high level long-term thinking children force you to think longterm when you realize that everything that you do or fail to do with your children in their formative years will have a lasting impact for generations to come you become far more thoughtful and sensitive to the things you say and the way you treat them when you are young and single you can let it all hang out you can blow up get angry express your feelings freely and be your own person but when you have a child you need to impose a higher level of discipline and self-control on yourself children are hyp sensitive to the influence of their parents during their formative years they see and experience each word and reaction of their parents and they incorporate those words and actions into their worldview and self-image in almost every case when you see a dysfunctional adult you can trace it back to dysfunctional parenting when that dysfunctional adult was a child their parents did or said that things to them that hurt them confused them scared them and created within them feelings of insecurity anger and inferiority the greatest gift is love the greatest gift you can give children is to let them know that you love them 100% of the time and that your love for them never changes no matter what happens there is no greater blessing for children than to know with complete confidence that the most important people in their life their parents love them completely and accept them totally no matter what they do or what mistakes they make children are not little adults they do not have the ability to make good judgments about the right or wrong things to do it takes them many years of trial and error and sometimes bitter experience to develop the wisdom and judgment that enables them to make good decisions for themselves in their Futures the kindest way to treat your children when they make mistakes is to behave with with calmness and compassion and to help them learn the lessons contained in the problem or difficulty discipline versus development many parents think that their job is to discipline their children by punishing them when they make a mistake back in the 1930s when my parents were growing up it was generally taught that the job of the parent was to break the will of the child this philosophy led to a generation of broken children whose parents felt that it was their duty to mold them and shape them into little people that their parents found to be acceptable but the fact is that each child is unique and different from all other people in the world each child comes into this world with his or her unique temperament personality and natural leanings toward different interests and activities parents are often amazed to see that each of their children is very different from each other child even though they come from the same parents and grow up in the same household in my experience each child marches to the beat of A Different Drummer no matter what you do to or for them they have their own special Destiny they're going to grow up with a particular personality and they'll be attracted to particular people and activities your main job is to create an environment in which they feel safe and confident enough to follow their inner promptings and personal inclinations question your belief Bel a philosopher once said before I had children I had four philosophies about raising children now I have four children and no philosophies each child is different from any other child and from any other person when raising your children be prepared to question your most cherished beliefs about what they should or should not do say or be above all be prepared to admit that you could be wrong because you are going to make more mistakes than you can possi possibly imagine perhaps the most important responsibility you have as a parent is to instill values in your children especially the value of self-discipline one of the most common desires that parents have for their children is to raise them with a sense of self- responsibility and self-control parents want their children to be self-disciplined and to practice self-mastery and self-denial or the ability to delay gratification set a good example Albert schweer once wrote that you must teach men at the school of example for they will learn at no other the most powerful influence you have on your children is the example that you set for them all the time they are growing up your children are always watching you out of the corners of their eyes or from another room they take everything in they measure and analyze your behaviors especially when you are under stress by watching the way you behave especially when you're angry or upset or when they have made a mistake they develop a clear picture for themselves of how adults are supposed to behave in the world your example sets the standard that they consider to be the normal way that adults act in various circumstances especially when under stress your children if they admire and respect your example will strive to emulate you while they are growing up and then continuing on for the rest of their lives perhaps the best question you can ask yourself over and over is what kind of a family would my family be if everyone in it were just like me be a role model when you practice self-discipline and self-control especially when you feel angry or upset your children absorb the lesson later when they are angry or upset they will practice self-discipline and self-control as well in a recent study researchers concluded that children form their idea of the World by watching how their mother deals with the ups and downs of daily life if their mother seems calm relaxed and in control children assume that this is a logical and rational world so they are much more likely to practice calmness and self-control themselves if their mother seems to be frustrated angry or overwhelmed by too much to do in too little time children absorb the worldview that life is confused and stressful building character the most important job you have as a parent is to instill values and to build character in your children you do this by teaching them what values are important especially those of integrity and truth-telling you set yourself up as a role model and demonstrate the values you want your children to have in every situation where those values are called for because the core value of character is integrity the most important value value that you instill in your children is truthfulness much to the shock of most parents children lie when they're growing up they don't tell the truth they tell both little and big lies often this comes as a surprise to parents who feel that somehow they must have failed their children in some way but don't worry lying is a normal and natural part of childhood it's a form of communication that children are trying out on you to see if it works if children find that telling lies is an effective way to get the things they want quickly and easily they will lie on a regular basis for example I once asked my son Michael a question and he gave me an answer that I knew was completely untrue I asked him Michael why did you say that you know that's a bareface lie Michael who was 10 years old at the time answered candidly well I just thought I'd give it a try children will give lion a try to see if it works if it doesn't they'll try something else and that something else is usually telling the truth always tell the truth one day my wife and I read a question in a book on child raising in which it said that if your children lie to you who has made them afraid to tell the truth that was a real eye opener for us we immediately sat down with our children and told them from now on always tell the truth we promise you that you will never get into trouble for telling the truth if you tell a lie we will be upset and you'll be punished but if you tell the truth you'll always be okay with us from that day onward with few exceptions our children tried us out with the truth over time they got into a habit of telling the truth no matter what it was and we kept our promise we never punished our children for telling the truth one day as we were sitting around the family dinner table one of our children was talking about his friend who had told him to lie to us about something he was planning to do my son said I told him that I never lie to my parents his friend said everyone lies to their parents my son repeated I never lie to my parents because I don't have to I can always tell them the truth and everything will be okay our three children listened to this and they all agreed they told us that this was a great family because they never had to lie to their parents the foundation of self-confidence when children tell the truth they grow up straight and strong with high self-esteem and high levels of self-confidence they have higher levels of self-respect and personal Pride they look you straight in the eye and tell you exactly what they are thinking and feeling they're very different from children who must continually lie or shade the truth in order to get things past their parents in raising your children there will be countless times when they will do or say something of which you disapprove or which makes you angry during these times you must discipline yourself to to think before you act or react controlling yourself and your temper you must remind yourself that what you do in a moment of stress is registered and recorded by your child and can have an effect on him or her for an indefinite period into the future children learn values by teaching and example given to them repeatedly while they're growing up when you teach them values and personally practice the values of Love especially for your spouse compassion for those who are less fortunate generosity with those who need it patience when it is required tolerance for different viewpoints courage in the face of difficulties and perseverance in the face of setbacks your children will adopt these behaviors as Norms they will see them as the appropriate way to respond to these kinds of situations as they grow up the power of forgiveness one of the most important of all values that you teach your children is forgiveness the inability to forgive lies at the root of most negative emotions when you practice forgiveness when you freely let things go your children grow up with the ability to forgive as well this saves them from years of unhappiness as a result of someone hurting them in some way which will always happen my parents were adamant and inflexible they had low self-esteem as a result of difficult depression ER childhoods as a result once they had taken a position on any subject however wrong they could never back down and admit that they were wrong I resolved that when I had children I would do exactly the opposite from the time my daughter Christina was a little girl if I shouted at her for any reason I would always go to her and apologize I would say I should not have shouted at you I was wrong will you forgive me when you raise children they will make countless mistakes mes while they're growing up sometimes you will overreact unless you are a saint this is almost impossible for you not to do however whenever you make a mistake with your child you should have the courage and compassion to realize that destructive criticism from a parent is extremely painful to a child go and take it back apologize and ask your child for forgiveness even if the child has misbehaved this does not justify reacting in a negative and hurtful way way toward your child just say I apologize will you forgive me and they always will the minute you apologize and ask your children to forgive you for anything that you may have done to hurt them you liberate them from feelings of negativity or inferiority by taking it back you allow them to be happy and confident once more teaching your children is never ending developing proper values and teaching prop proper conduct to your children is a lifelong job you cannot give a single lecture on truthfulness and compassion and then forget about it you must repeat the lesson by discussion and example over and over year after year all the time while your children are with you in a letter to Miss Manners a parent asked how long does it take to teach my children table manners no matter what I say it seems that my children still eat in an unmannered and disorganized way Miss manners responded by saying be patient it takes about 15 years of continual repetition to teach your children table manners and even then there are no guarantees that your instruction will be successful be their role model of course if you want your children to behave in a certain way you must model that method of behavior continually here after year if you want your children to dress properly you must dress properly if you want your children to groom themselves properly you must groom yourself properly as well if you want your children to be organized and efficient you must show them the way by being organized and efficient yourself remember each day that your children are going to behave the way that you behave for the rest of their lives when you think like this it forces you to practice higher levels of self-discipline and self- control knowing that the consequences of your behaviors are going to affect your children's channel es in life many years from now the discipline of raising children so that they grow up with high self-esteem being positive and confident in themselves and their own value is one of the most important things you ever do the results of your child rearing will last you all the years of your life now here are seven action exercises one what two qualities would you like your children to identify with you by observing your behavior two what two qualities would you like most to instill in your children and how could you achieve this three if you were an excellent role model for your children how would your behaviors be different starting today four what mistakes have your children made that you should forgive and forget about starting immediately five what AC are you going to take immediately to spend more time with your children six what actions should you take to instill the quality of truthfulness in your children and seven how could you encourage and reward your children so that they practice greater self-discipline self-control and self-mastery chapter 20 self-discipline and friendship everything you want in life has a price connected to it there's a price to pay if you want to make things better a price to pay for leaving things as they are a price for everything Harry Brown fully 85% of your happiness will come from Happy relationships with other people unfortunately fully 85% of your problems and unhappiness will be associated with other people as well chapters 18 and 19 offered some ideas on how to have a happier marriage and raise happier children but in addition to your family of course your friendships are also important to your well-being it therefore behooves you to become absolutely excellent at human relations fortunately this is a learnable skill you can become one of the most popular people in your work and Social Circle by simply engaging in the behaviors that other popular people practice on a regular basis Aristotle wrote that man is is a social animal this means that we Define ourselves in terms of our relationships with other people our Destinies are determined by our interactions with others and theirs with us we only learn who we are and know about ourselves through interacting with other people the core of Personality psychologists tell us that everything we do is either to build our self-esteem or to protect it from being torn down by other people each person is hyp sensitive about their own sense of personal value and importance your self-esteem how you feel about yourself how much you like yourself is largely determined by your self-image or the way you see and think about yourself your self-image is made up of three parts like the three wedges of a pie each touching the others first your self-image is made up of the way you see yourself this largely determines the way you walk talk behave and interact act with others the second part of your self-image is the way you think others see you if you think other people like respect and admire you you see yourself in a positive way and you enjoy higher feelings of self-esteem and self-importance the third part of your self-image is the way people actually do see you and treat you if you think you are well-liked and popular and someone treats you in a rude or disrespectful way it can be a shock to your self-image and lower your self-esteem on the other hand if you see yourself as an average person and the people you meet treat you as though you were a valuable and important person you can experience a positive shock to your self-image that causes you to like and value yourself even more the key to happiness you are only truly happy when you feel that all three parts of your self-image coinside you're happy only when you feel that the way you see yourself the way you think others see you and the way they actually see you all seem to be consistent in a particular situation in life you seek out friendships and relationships with people who make you feel comfortable with the way you see yourself and think about yourself when you are with people who treat you as if you are valuable and important you enjoy higher levels of self-esteem you like and respect yourself more you feel happy in their presence for example in school you want always did better and got better grades when you felt that the teacher liked you and cared about you at work perhaps the greatest motivator is an attitude of consideration on the part of the boss toward the employee whenever an employee feels that the boss cares about him as a person rather than just as an employee he feels more valuable and performs his job better the law of indirect effort the secret to building and maintaining wonderful ful friendships and relationships is simple it is for you to practice the law of indirect effort in every interaction with other people you must get out of yourself and your own preoccupations in order to get into other people and how they might be thinking and feeling therefore if you want to have a friend you must first be a friend if you want people to like you you must first like them if you want people to respect you you should first respect them if you want to impress others you should first be impressed by them in this way by approaching people indirectly you appeal to their deepest subconscious needs raise other people's self-esteem the deepest subconscious need that people have is the need to feel important since you have this need as well whenever you practice the law of indirect effort and focus on making other people feel important you reinforce their self-image increase their self-esteem and make them feel happy about themselves and by extension about yourself whenever you say or do anything to raise the self-esteem of another person you trigger a boomerang effect that causes your own self-esteem to go up at the same time and in the same measure you can never do or say anything to make another person feel better about himself without simultaneously feeling better about yourself it takes tremendous self-discipline and self-control for you to rise above yourself instead of trying to get other people to like you and be impressed by you focus first on liking them and being impressed by them seven ways to make people feel important the key to excellent relationships with others is quite simple make them feel important to the degree to which you can make other people feel important starting with the members of your family and then extending outward to your friends and co-workers you you'll become one of the most popular people in your world there are seven ways to make other people feel important these are simple practices that you can learn through repetition number one accept people the way they are one of the deepest Cravings of human nature is to be accepted by other people without judgment evaluation or criticism psychologists call this Behavior unconditional positive regard this is when you accept accept the other person completely without reservation for exactly the way he or she is because most people are judgmental and critical to be unconditionally accepted by another person raises that person's self-esteem reinforces his or her self-image and makes that person feel happy about him or herself in the movie Bridget Jones Diary the entire Focus was on the Discovery by Bridget that she had found a man who who likes me just the way I am this was considered to be such an amazing thing to happen all her friends were astonished that anyone could ever have a relationship based on unconditional acceptance by another person when you look at other people and give them a genuine smile they feel happier about themselves their self-esteem goes up they feel more valuable and important when you stop thinking about yourself and the impression you're making on others and instead start thinking about us others and the impression they are making on you you can relax you take a deep breath and just smile at people when you meet them and greet them both at home and at work it's one of the most powerful self-esteem and relationship building behaviors you can do smiling at people make them feel important and valuable number two show your appreciation for others whenever you appreciate another person for anything that he or she has done or said head you raise that person's self-esteem and make him or her feel more important expressions of appreciation from small nods and smiles all the way through to cards letters and Gifts raises people's self-esteem and causes them to like themselves more as a result by the law of indirect effort they will like you more as well the simplest way to express appreciation is to Simply say thank you the words thank you are deeply appreciated in any language anywhere in the world I have traveled in 90 countries and the very first thing I learn is the words for please and thank you each time you use those words people brighten up smile and feel happy to be in your presence every time you say thank you it has an almost magical effect on the other person it makes them feel important and far happier about being in your presence and helping you with anything you need number three be agreeable the most welcome people in every situation are those who are generally agreeable and positive with others on the other hand argumentative people who question complain and disagree are seldom welcome anywhere when you nod smile and agree with another person when he or she is talking or expressing an opinion you make that person feel intelligent respected valuable and important when you are agreeable with another person even if they say something with which you may not be in complete Accord you make that person feel happy to be in your presence in my work as a professional speaker I meet thousands of people each year they come up to me and often express opinions on subjects of which I am very well informed and they obviously are not sometimes they say ridiculous things that are either not true or that make no sense in every case however I smile and agree nodding and asking them questions and listening to them Express their ideas and opinions they go away feeling that they've had a good conversation with the speaker and that I probably agree with them it cost me nothing and it makes them happy it makes them feel important number four show your admiration people usually invest a lot of personal emotion in their possessions traits and accomplishments when you admire something belonging to another person it makes them feel happy about themselves as Abraham Lincoln said everybody likes a compliment express your admiration for a person's appearance and specific items of their clothing or dress men are especially complimented when you say something nice about their ties or their shoes women enjoy being complimented about their hair or any other item of their appearance people spend a lot of time putting themselves together before they go out you can also complement a person's traits or characteristics saying things such as you are certainly persistent people invest their entire lives developing traits and qualities especially positive qualities and they feel flattered when you notice and compliment them on those qualities compliment a person's accomplishments tell people how much you admire their home or office or the business they have built or the position they've achieved in that business number five pay attention to others perhaps the most powerful way to raise a person's self-esteem is to listen to them attentively when they speak in my book The Power of charm my co-author Ron Arden and I explain how listening to a person while they talk on any subject in a way that is focused is perceived as Charming Behavior the key to Great listening is for you to ask questions and then hang on every word of the answers when the person slows down or comes to the end of a statement ask another question Lean Forward attentively listen without interrupting listen as though what the person is saying is the smartest and most interesting thing you've ever heard when a person is attentively listened to their brain releases endorphins as a result they feel happy about themselves their self-esteem goes up what's more they associate this Happy Feeling with being in your presence from this that person will like you more and find you to be a more interesting and intelligent person number six never criticize condemn or complain about anything whether it be directly or indirectly never do or say anything that lowers a person's self-esteem or makes them feel less important or valuable refuse to gossip or discuss other people in a negative way never say anything about a person that you would not say to their face the most harmful force in all of Human Relationships is destructive criticism it lowers a person's self-esteem makes them feel angry and defensive and causes them to dislike the source so never complain about people or situations that you don't like the most common word to describe the most popular people in every field is the word nice when you think of a business that you like to patronize or a restaurant you like to visit you always think of the people there as being nice whenever you recommend or refer someone to someone else you always mention that he or she is a nice person in sales and business the nice people are always the most successful people like to buy from them buy again and then recommend them to their friends people enjoy seeing nice people and they look forward to seeing them again when asked what they mean by the word nice people say that here she is cheerful the more positive you are the more cheerful you are likely to be the more cheerful you are the nicer personality you will have the nicer personality you have the more people will look forward to seeing you and being around you you number seven be courteous concerned and considerate of everyone you meet think of these as the three C's courtesy concern and consideration and practice them with everyone you meet when you treat a person with courtesy and respect he or she feels more valuable and important as a result of making a person feel more valuable and respected that person will in turn value and respect you even more as well when you express concern about things that are happening in a person's life they warm up to you and like you more when a person has a difficult situation when you express your concern or compassion you touch their heart you connect with their emotions through this you make yourself a more likable person consideration is the third of the three C's when you practice consideration you discipline yourself to do and say things to people that make them feel more valuable and important be concerned about other people when you meet a person for the first time or again after a period of time ask them how they are and then listen closely to the answers people will often share with you a concern or problem in their lives when they do practice consideration and sensitivity treat the problem or difficulty as though it were extremely important to you amazingly enough when you act as if you are really interested and concerned with a problem or situation in another person's life you very soon start to feel genuinely affected emotionally by the other person the rule for building lifelong friendships and wonderful relationships is simple resolve that from now on when people leave your presence they will feel much better than they did when they entered your presence practice all the ideas above to make people feel important look for ways to raise people's self-esteem and reinforce their self-image AG make them feel as though they are valuable and worthwhile furthermore everything that you do or say to make another person feel important makes you feel important as well now here are seven action exercises one make a list of the most important friends in your work and personal life what could you do to make them feel better about themselves number two identify the first thing you could do in every meeting or encounter to make the other person feel important number three resolve to make each person feel more valuable and worthwhile because he or she spoke to you number four practice nonjudgmentalism in all your relationships always assume the best of intentions on the part of others number five imagine that each person you meet has only a short time to live and you are the only person who knows number six find something about each person that is impressive to you and then tell the other person how impressed you are and seven imagine that there is a hidden camera and microphone recording every interaction you have with other people how would you behave differently chapter 21 self-discipline and peace of mind James Alin wrote men are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves they therefore remain bound the man who does not shrink from self- crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set this is true of Earthly as of heavenly things even the man whose object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personal sacrifices before he can accomplish his objective and how much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life you require high levels of self-discipline if you truly desire to develop all your inner resources and fulfill your true potential throughout the ages in all religions and philosophies the highest human good or idea has been peace of mind your ability to achieve your own peace of mind is the true measure of your success and the key determinant of your happiness to develop spiritually and to become a fully functioning person you must regularly apply self-discipline and self-control to your thoughts feelings and actions Spiritual Development inner peace and the experience of Joy all require self-mastery and self-control to succeed in the outer world you must discipline yourself to focus and concentrate work hard at your job take continuous action toward your goal and become better and more capable As you move onward and upward in life to succeed in the inner World however requires almost the opposite abilities to achieve inner peace you must discipline yourself to let go of everything that can disrupt your sense of inner peace and contentment Zen Buddhism teaches that the main cause of human suffering and unhappiness is attachment people become attached to ideas opinions and material things and then they are reluctant to let go of them sometimes people become so preoccupied with these external factors that it affects their mental and physical health even keeping them awake at night when you practice Detachment separating yourself emotionally from things or outcomes the negative emotions involve stop as well like unplugging a light from the socket The Need to Be Right most people have a deep down need to be right however when you stop caring if you are right or wrong all the emotions surrounding this need for rightness disappear Dr Gerald jampolsky asked the great question do you want to be right or do you want to be happy some people become passionate about their political or religious beliefs all of which have been learned from someone else in some way but when you put these beliefs aside for a while they lose their ability to stir your emotions or inflame your anger I have friends and meet people with ideas and opinions that range all over the political and religious spectrums in most cases we get along well together because we simply put aside the discussion of opinions on which we differ we consciously and deliberately discipline ourselves to detach from these ideas and we focus instead on subjects that we agree on and in which we share common interests refuse to blame anyone for anything the chief cause of negative emotions and the primary destroyer of inner peace is blame as I mentioned earlier in the book it's not possible to have a negative emotion without having someone or something to blame in some way or for something blame requires one or both of two factors to exist the first is identification this occurs when you take something personally you identify with it as soon as you decide to feel that someone has done or said something negative that affects your personal interest in some way you immediately become angry and blame that person even if someone who is hurrying to work completely preoccupied and who may have just had a fight with his or her spouse accidentally cut you off in traffic you can immediately become angry at that person a complete stranger because you took their driving behavior personally but when you discipline yourself to detach and stop taking things personally the negative emotional charge connected with the person or incident stops almost immediately for example when someone cuts you off in traffic you can detach from the situation emoly by saying to yourself oh well he's probably in a hurry to get to work maybe he's late the minute you say that to yourself all negativity associated with the event vanishes and you become calm relaxed and positive once more the second root cause of blaming is justification this occurs when you tell yourself and others why it is that you are entitled to be angry or upset in this situation many people fall in love with their suffering their past problems become a primary focus of their lives they think about what happened all the time they go through the day and even the night carrying on Angry conversations with people who are not present people who they feel have hurt them in the past whenever they get into a conversation for any period of time they bring out their suffering like a traitor in a bizaar and display it to the other person they then recycle through the unhappy events of their lives telling what happened and how they were badly treated and how awful the other person was to have behaved in this way however when you discipline yourself to stop justifying your negative emotions by continually rehashing what happened and what the other person did or didn't do and when you instead calmly accept that stuff happens in life your negativity accompan the other person or situation dies away practice forgiveness the height of self-discipline in Spiritual Development is the practice of forgiveness the law of forgiveness says you are mentally and emotionally healthy to the degree to which you can freely forgive anyone who has hurt you in any way every person including you has experienced destructive criticism negative treatment unkindness rudeness unfairness betrayal and dishonesty from others over the years these events are unfortunate but they are an inevitable and unavoidable part of being a member of the human race the only way you can avoid the problems and difficulties of living in a busy Society with many different kinds of people is to live in a cave the only question you need to ask and answer after you've had a negative experience is how long does it take you to get over this event and get on with your life this this is a decision only you can make it is one of the most important types of decisions that you make in your own life if you truly want to be happy what's more it is a true test of your mental and spiritual discipline the forgetting curve each person has a forgetting curve or what is often called a forgiveness curve this curve measures how quickly you forgive and forget a negative experience and it determines how mentally and emotionally healthy you really are imagine a rectangle with a scale from 0 to 100 ascending the left side of the rectangle this is the scale of the intensity of the negative emotion you experience when you are hurt or offended in some way across the bottom of this graph are the months and years of your life you can have either a flat forgiveness curve or a steep downward sloping forgiveness curve if your forgiveness curve is flat this means that you continue to be angry at the same level as when the event occurs for a long time sometimes for years or even decades there are countless people who are still angry about something one of their parents did or said to them decades ago furthermore they will tell you about it at the drop of a hat they will reach into their gck of Unforgiven events and pull out their childhood experiences and share them with you every psychologist and psychiatrist who deals with unhappy people is employed because their patients have flat forgiveness curves their Prim primary conversation in therapy is talking about what someone did or didn't do to them or for them at some point in the past and how unhappy that person still feels about it today get over it and get on with it truly healthy people on the other hand have downward sloping forgiveness curves they have had just as many difficulties and problems in life as anyone else but they have disciplined themselves by resolving to forgive and forget quickly so that they can get on with their lives they refuse to gunnysack their problems and carry them forward they simply let them go and turn their attention to the things that make them happy the discipline of forgiveness is the key to the spiritual Kingdom it is only possible for you to enjoy high levels of peace of mind when you develop the habit and discipline of freely forgiving other people for everything and anything that they have done to hurt you forgiveness is selfish some people are confused about the concept of forgiveness they think that forgiving someone else for having hurt them is the same as condoning that behavior or even approving of it quite the contrary forgiveness is a purely selfish act forgiveness has nothing whatever to do with the other person you forgive others so that you yourself can be emotionally free so that you no longer carry that baggage around with you you have a wonderful mind you are incredibly intelligent and insightful you can use your mind on your behalf in order to help you to be joyous and happy or you can use it against yourself the way you use your mind at the highest level is to find reasons to forgive others instead of rehashing and dissecting a past event looking for rationalizations justifications and reasons to take something personally instead use your intelligence to find reasons to accept responsibility and then let go of the negative situation accept responsibility and forgive the instant you accept responsibility and forgive everyone for anything that they ever did to hurt you in any way you liberate yourself completely all your negative emotions disappear in place of your negative emotions you experience a sense of inner peace love happiness and joy the the payoff for using your self-discipline to practice forgiveness on an ongoing basis is extraordinary when you use your incredible abilities of self-control self-mastery and Detachment to separate yourself emotionally from situations that would otherwise make you unhappy the entire quality of your life improves in a wonderful way now here are seven action exercises number one take the Forgiveness test do you want to be right or do you want to be happy two identify the people from your past who you feel have hurt you in any way and then make a decision today to forgive them and let go of those negative feelings three find reasons not to justify your negative emotions of blame or anger and instead use your intelligence to accept responsibility four set peace of mind as your highest goal go and then resolve to let go of any thoughts or emotions that disturb you in any way five begin today to read something spiritual and uplifting each morning before you begin your day this habit will change your life six from now on refuse to take things personally ask yourself how much it will matter 5 years from today and number seven practice the Buddhist method of detach Detachment from money and material things and refuse to become upset or worried about anything