Your Ideal Self and Life

Your self-concept is made up of three parts, each of which affects each of the others. Understanding these three parts enables you to put your hands on the keyboard of your own mental computer. When you learn to take charge of the development of a new and positive self-concept of selling, you can then control your sales destiny for the rest of your career.

Determine Your Direction
The first part of the self-concept is the "self-ideal." Your self-ideal largely determines the direction in which you are going with your life. It guides the growth and evolution of your character and personality. Your self-ideal is a combination of all of the qualities and attributes of other people that you most admire. Your self-ideal is a description of the person you would very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.

Strive Toward Excellence
Throughout your life, you have seen and read about the qualities of courage, confidence, compassion, love, fortitude, perseverance, patience, forgiveness and integrity. Over time, these qualities have distilled in you an ideal to which you aspire. You might not always live up to the very best that you know, but you are constantly striving to be a better person in light of those qualities that you value so highly. In fact, everything that you do on a day-to-day basis is affected by your comparing your activities with these ideal qualities and your striving to behave consistent with them.

Clarity Is Essential
Successful salespeople have very clear ideals for themselves and their careers. Unsuccessful salespeople have fuzzy ideals. Successful salespeople are very clear about being excellent in every part of their work and their personal lives. Unsuccessful salespeople don't give the subject very much thought. One of the primary characteristics of successful men and women in every walk of life is that they have very clearly defined ideals and they are very aware of whether or not their current behaviors are consistent with their idealized behaviors.

Set Challenging Goals
Part of your ideals are your goals. As you set higher and more challenging goals, your self-ideal improves and crystallizes. When you set goals for the kind of person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.

Your Future Is Unlimited
Perhaps the most important thing for you to realize is that whatever anyone else has done or become, you can do or become as well. Improvements in your self-ideal begin in your imagination, and in your imagination, there are no limits except the ones that you accept.

What is your ideal vision of the very best person you could possibly become? How would you behave each day if you were already that person? Asking yourself these questions and then living your life consistent with the answers is the first step to creating yourself in your ideal image.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.
First, dream big dreams. Set big, exciting, challenging goals and ideals for yourself in every part of your life. Allow yourself to imagine a wonderful life ahead.
Second, think about how you would act if you were an outstanding person in every way. Then, practice being this person, as though you were acting a role in a play.
You’ll immediately notice a difference in your behavior.

By: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on Unlocking Your Creativity

You Deserve To Be Happy

Achieving your own happiness is the best measure of how well you are living your life and enjoying your relationships. You can learn how to be happier and more fulfilled in everything you do.

Everyone Is Different
Happiness in life is like a smorgasbord. If 100 people went to a smorgasbord and each put food on their plate in the quantity and mix that each felt would be most pleasing to him, every plate would be different. Even a husband and wife would go up to the smorgasbord and come back with plates that looked completely different. Happiness is the same way. Each person requires a particular combination of those ingredients to feel the very best about himself or herself.

Listen To Your Heart
And your mix is changing continually. If you went to the same smorgasbord every day for a year, you probably would come back with a different plateful of food each time. Each day-sometimes each hour-only you can tell what it takes to make you happy. Therefore, the only way to judge whether a job, a relationship, an investment, or any decision, is right for you is to get in touch with your feelings and listen to your heart.

Be True To Yourself
You’re true to yourself only when you follow your inner light, when you listen to what Ralph Waldo Emerson called the “still, small voice within.” You’re being the very best person you can be only when you have the courage and the fortitude to allow your definition of happiness, whatever it may be, to be the guiding light of every part of your life.
There Are No Limits
A very important point on the subject of happiness is whether or not you feel that you “deserve” to be happy.

Accept the notion that you deserve all the happiness you can honestly attain through the application of your talents and abilities. The more you like and respect yourself, the more deserving you will feel of the good things in life. And the more deserving you feel, the more likely you will attain and hold on to the happiness you are working toward.

Make Happiness Your Key Measure
You should make happiness the organizing principle of your life. Compare every possible action and decision you make against your standard of happiness to see whether that action would make you happier or unhappier. Soon, you will discover that almost all of the problems in your life come from choices that you have made - or are currently making - that do not contribute to your happiness.

Pay The Price
Of course, there are countless times when you will have to do little things that don’t make you happy along the way toward those larger things that make you very happy indeed. We call this paying the price of success in advance. You must pay your dues.
Sometimes these interim steps don’t make you happy directly, but the happiness you achieve from attaining your goal will be so great that it totally overwhelms the temporary inconveniences and dissatisfactions you have to endure in order to get there.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, accept that you deserve all the joy and happiness you can possibly achieve through your own efforts.

Second, make your own happiness the chief organizing principle of your life and judge everything against that standard.

Third, be willing to work hard and pay the price for the satisfaction and rewards you desire. Always go the extra mile and your success will be assured.

By: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on Two Personality Powers

Using Your Inner Guidance System

We know that the body has a natural bias toward health and energy. It’s designed to last for 100 years with proper care and maintenance. When something goes wrong with any part of our body, we experience it in the form of pain or discomfort of some kind.

We know that when our body is not functioning smoothly and painlessly, something is wrong, and we take action to correct it. We go to a doctor; we take pills; we undergo physical therapy, massage or chiropractic. We know that if we ignore pain or discomfort for any period of time, it could lead to something more serious.

How To Tell Right From Wrong
In the same sense, nature also gives us a way to tell emotionally what’s right for us and what’s wrong for us in life. Just as nature gives us physical pain to guide us to doing or not doing things in the physical realm, nature gives us emotional pain to guide us toward doing or not doing things in the emotional or mental realm. The wonderful thing is that you’re constructed so that if you simply listen carefully to yourself—to your mind, your body and your emotions—and follow the guidance you’re given, you can dramatically enhance the quality of your life.

Just as the natural physical state of your body is health and vitality, your natural emotional state is peace and happiness. Whenever you experience a deviation from peace and happiness, it’s an indication that something is amiss. Something is wrong with what you’re thinking, doing or saying. Your feeling of inner happiness is the best indicator you could ever have to tell you what you should be doing more of and what you should be doing less of.

The Messenger
Unhappiness is to your life as pain is to your body. It is sent as a messenger to tell you that what you’re doing is wrong for you.

Very often, you’ll suffer from what has been called “divine discontent.” You’ll feel fidgety and uneasy for a reason or reasons that are unclear to you. You’ll be dissatisfied with the status quo. Sometimes, you’ll be unable to sleep. Sometimes, you’ll be angry or irritable. Very often, you’ll get upset with things that have nothing to do with the real issue. You’ll have a deep inner sense that something isn’t as it should be, and you’ll often feel like a fish on a hook, wriggling and squirming emotionally to get free.

Divine Discontent
And that is a good thing. Divine discontent always comes before a positive life change. If you were perfectly satisfied, you would never take any action to improve or change your circumstances. Only when you’re dissatisfied for some reason do you have the inner motivation to engage in the outer behaviors that lead you onward and upward.

Listen to yourself. Trust your inner voice. Go with the flow of your own personality. Do the things that make you feel happy inside and you’ll probably never make another mistake.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, listen to yourself and trust your own feelings. If there is a part of your life that causes you stress and happiness, resolve to deal with it.

Second, identify those areas of your life where you are dissatisfied or frustrated for any reason. What changes should you , could you make?

Third, remember that nature wants you to be happy, healthy, popular and prosperous. Any deviation from those conditions is a signal to you that action is necessary.

by: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on Three Skills To Improve Conversation

Unlocking Your Creativity

Creative thinking can be stimulated by two things; intensely desired goals and pressing problems. Your creative capacities need something to home in on and your job is to provide it.

A Continual Stimulus For Ideas
Intensely desired goals, clearly defined with detailed plans for their accomplishment act as a continual stimulus for ideas to achieve them.

Visualize Your Goals
To trigger your imagination, write out a clear description of your ideal end result or goal. Be clear about the goal, be flexible about the process. Think about it, visualize it as realized over and over. Project your mind forward to the picture of the realized goal and then look back to the present.

Define Your Goals Clearly
Think on paper. Make a plan and then work on the plan, updating it, changing it, adding to it as you think of new ways to work toward the goal. The more clearly defined and keenly desired your goals, the more of your natural creativity will be released for goal attainment.

The Proper Approach To Problems
The second stimulant to creativity is pressing problems. The key to idea generation when you face a problem is to approach the problem confidently, expectantly, with the attitude that there exists a logical, practical solution just waiting to be found.

The most creative people have a relaxed attitude of confident expectancy that causes their minds to function in original and imaginative ways.

Diagnose Your Problems Accurately
Define your problems clearly in writing. Accurate diagnosis is half the cure. Sometimes you will find that you are dealing with a "cluster problem," one that is made up of several smaller problems. Your job is to sort them out and then go to work on each one separately.

Break Up The Clusters
In many cluster problems, there is a core issue surrounded by a lot of symptoms. Creative thinking requires that you separate the core issue, and then focus on resolving that before worrying about the smaller problems.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do to stimulate your creativity.

First, be absolutely clear about your goal. Write it down and make a plan to achieve it. Think of different ways you could accomplish it.

Second, define your problems clearly and then make a list of all the possible solutions to your problem. Take action on at least one idea immediately.

By: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on Three Questions For Lifelong Happiness

Two Personality Powers For Motivating Others

There are two powers of personality you can develop that will increase your charisma and your ability to influence others.

Decide Exactly What You Want
The first of these powers is the power of purpose. Men and women with charisma and personal magnetism almost invariably have a clear vision of who they are, of where they’re going and of what they’re trying to achieve. Leaders in sales and management have a vision of what they’re trying to create and why they’re doing what they’re doing. They’re focused on accomplishing some great purpose. They’re decisive about every aspect of their lives. They know exactly what they want and what they have to do to get it. They plan their work and work their plan.

Set Clear Goals For Yourself
You can increase your charisma and the magnetism of your personality by setting clear goals for yourself, making plans to achieve them, and working on your plans with discipline and determination every day. The whole world seems to move aside for the person who knows exactly where he is going. In fact, the clearer you are about your purposes and goals, the more likely people will be to attribute other positive qualities to you. They will see you, or perceive you, as being a better and more admirable human being. And when you have clear goals, you begin attracting to yourself the people and opportunities necessary to make those goals a reality.

Believe In Yourself
The second personality power is self-confidence. Men and women with charisma have an intense belief in themselves and in what they are doing. They are usually calm, cool and composed about themselves and their work. Your level of self-confidence is often demonstrated in your courage, your willingness to do whatever is necessary to achieve a purpose that you believe in.

The Secret of Attraction
People are naturally attracted to those who exude a sense of self-confidence, those who have an unshakable belief in their ability to rise above circumstances to attain their goals.

Assume The Result In Advance
One of the ways you demonstrate self-confidence is by assuming that people naturally like you and accept you and want to do business with you. For example, one of the most powerful ways to close a sale is simply to assume that the prospect has decided to purchase the product or service, and then go on to wrap up the details. One of the best ways to achieve success in your relationships is to assume that people naturally enjoy your company and want to be around you, and then proceed on that basis. The very act of behaving in a self-confident manner will generate personal charisma in the eyes of others.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, think on paper. Write out your goals and plans in detail and then review them regularly. Discuss them with others. Upgrade your goals and plans and revise them when you get new information. Be clear about them.

Second, express your level of self-confidence to others all the time, even if you have doubts inside. Always walk, talk, act and move like a winner, like a person who is absolutely confident of success and ultimate victory.

By: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on The Principle Of Objective

Three Skills To Improve Conversation

One key to becoming a great conversationalist is to pause before replying. A short pause, of three to five seconds, is a very classy thing to do in a conversation. When you pause, you accomplish three goals simultaneously.

The Benefits of Pausing
First, you avoid running the risk of interrupting if the other person is just catching his or her breath before continuing. Second, you show the other person that you are giving careful consideration to his or her words by not jumping in with your own comments at the earliest opportunity. The third benefit of pausing is that you will actually hear the other person better. His or her words will soak into a deeper level of your mind and you will understand what he or she is saying with greater clarity. By pausing, you mark yourself as a brilliant conversationalist.

Ask Questions
Another way to become a great conversationalist is to question for clarification. Never assume that you understand what the person is saying or trying to say. Instead, ask, “How do you mean, exactly?”
This is the most powerful question I’ve ever learned for controlling a conversation. It is almost impossible not to answer. When you ask, “How do you mean?” the other person cannot stop himself or herself from answering more extensively. You can then follow up with other open-ended questions and keep the conversation rolling along.

Paraphrase the Speaker's Words
The third way to become a great conversationalist is to paraphrase the speaker’s words in your own words. After you’ve nodded and smiled, you can then say, “Let me see if I’ve got this right. What you’re saying is . . .”

Demonstrate Attentiveness
By paraphrasing the speaker’s words, you demonstrate in no uncertain terms that you are genuinely paying attention and making every effort to understand his or her thoughts or feelings. And the wonderful thing is, when you practice effective listening, other people will begin to find you fascinating. They will want to be around you. They will feel relaxed and happy in your presence.

Listening Builds Trust
The reason why listening is such a powerful tool in developing the art and skill of conversation is because listening builds trust. The more you listen to another person, the more he or she trusts you and believes in you.

Listening also builds self-esteem. When you listen attentively to another person, his or her self-esteem will naturally increase.

Listening Develops Discipline
Finally, listening builds self-discipline in the listener. Because your mind can process words at 500-600 words per minute, and we can only talk at about 150 words per minute, it takes a real effort to keep your attention focused on another person’s words. If you do not practice self-discipline in conversation, your mind will wander in a hundred different directions. The more you work at paying close attention to what the other person is saying, the more self-disciplined you will become. In other words, by learning to listen well, you actually develop your own character and your own personality.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, make a habit of pausing before replying in any conversation or discussion. You will be amazed at how powerful this technique really is.

Second, continually ask, “How do you mean?” in response to anything that is not perfectly clear. This gives you even more time to listen well.

By: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on The Magic Of Solitude

Three Questions For Lifelong Happiness

You already have everything you need to create a wonderful life for yourself. You know everything you need to know to be your own best friend, a gentle guide, a teacher and a helper to yourself so you can be truly happy and fulfilled.

You can learn how to become your own psychotherapist for life, and how to resolve the difficulties that stand between you and personal joy.

Be Honest With Yourself
The starting point of becoming your own best friend is for you to be perfectly honest with yourself and your relationships. Refuse to practice self-delusion or hope for the best. For example, when something is making you unhappy, for any reason, the situation will tend to get worse rather than better. So avoid the temptation to engage in denial, to pretend that nothing is wrong, to wish and hope and pray that, whatever it is, it will go away and you won’t have to do anything. The fact is that it probably will get worse before it gets better and that ultimately you will need to face the situation and do something about it.

Deal With Your Problem At A Higher Level
There’s an old saying that you can’t solve a problem on the level that you meet it. This means that wrestling with a persistent problem is often fruitless and frustrating. For example, if two people who are in a relationship together are constantly fighting and negotiating and looking for some way to resolve their difficulties, they may be attempting to solve the problem on the wrong level. Dealing with the problem on a higher level, those people would ask the question, “In terms of being happy, is this the right relationship for us in the first place.

Find The Right Job For You
Many people work very hard and experience considerable frustration trying to do a particular job. However, in terms of their own happiness, the right answer might be to do something else, or to do what they’re doing in a different place, or to do it with different people-or all three. Here are a few questions for you to answer in this arena of happiness. Write them down at the top of a sheet of paper, and then write as many answers to each one as you possibly can.

What Would It Take?
The first question is: “What would it take for me to be perfectly happy?” Write down every single thing that you can imagine would be in your life if you were perfectly happy at this very moment. Write down things such as health, happiness, prosperity, loving relationships, inner peace, travel, car, clothes, homes, money, and so on. Let your mind run freely. Imagine that you have no limitations at all.

What Is Holding You Back?
The second question is a little tougher. Write down at the top of a page this question: “In what situations in my life, and with whom, am I not perfectly happy?” Force yourself to think about every part of your day, from morning to night, and write down every element that makes you unhappy or dissatisfied in any way. Remember, proper diagnosis is half the cure. Identifying the unsatisfactory situations is the first step to resolving them.

Determine Your Happiest Moment
The third question will give you some important guidelines. Write down at the top of a sheet of paper these words: “In looking over my life, where and when have I been the happiest? Where was I, with whom was I, and what was I doing?”

Decide What To Do
Once you have the answers to those questions, think about what you can do, starting immediately, to begin creating the kind of life that you dream of. It may take you a week, a month, or a year, but that doesn’t matter. Every single thing you do that moves you closer to your ideal vision will be rewarding in itself. You’ll become a more positive and optimistic person. You’ll feel more confident and more in charge of your life, and you’ll achieve true peace of mind.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, examine your business and personal relationships carefully. Is there any situation you wouldn’t get into again if you had it to do over?

Second, make a list of every single thing in your life that would make you happy and then think about what you could do to begin achieving them.

Third, allow yourself to dream and fantasize about your ideal life, what it would look like and feel like, and then do something every day to make it a reality.

By: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on The Law Of Forced Efficiency

The Principle of Objective

Learn From the Lessons of History
The concepts of military strategy have been studied and written about for more than 4,000 years, going back to the early works of General Sun-Tzu in China more than 2,000 years BC. These principles of strategy that have been developed and perfected over the centuries have direct applications and implications for strategic thinking, both personally and corporately.

Decide In Advance What You Want
The most important military principle is the Principle of the Objective. This principle requires that you decide in advance exactly what it is that you are trying to accomplish. What exactly is your objective? In my experience, fully 80% of all problems in personal and corporate life come from a lack of clarity with regard to objectives and goals.

Clarity Is Critical
Clarity of objective precedes all other elements in strategic thinking. Here are some questions that you can use over and over again to focus and clarify your objectives. The first question is, “What am I trying to do?” The second question is, “How am I trying to do it?” The third question is, “What are my assumptions?” And the fourth question is, “What if my assumptions were wrong?”

Question Your Assumptions
Having the courage to ask these questions, and to question your assumptions, both spoken and unspoken, is a key mark of the superior person. Sometimes individuals avoid questioning their assumptions for fear that they will have to change their minds or do something other than what they started out to do. However, false assumptions lie at the root of almost every failure. The only way that you can root out these wrong assumptions is by carefully analyzing them and discussing them, and then by demanding proof or evidence that these assumptions are still valid.

Project Forward In Your Mind
Another method for clarifying your objectives is for you to project forward and look backward. In other words, imagine that you have already achieved the objective that you are working toward. Project yourself forward in your mind and then look back to the present day, to the present moment. What do you see? What changes could you make looking back from this imaginary perspective of hindsight? This is a key peak performance thinking technique.

Determine Why You Want It
The final part of clarifying your objectives revolves around your identifying the reasons why you want to achieve this objective in the first place. Why is it important? Is it still as important as when you started off? Is this objective more important than any other objective that you could be working on? It is essential that you be clear about the answers to these questions.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to apply the principle of the objective to your personal and business life:

First, take out a piece of paper and answer the question: “What am I trying to do?” What are your goals? What are your objectives? Why are you doing what you are doing in the first place? Is this the very best use of your time and energy?

Second, question your assumptions. What things are you assuming are true about yourself, the people around you and the situation? What if one of these assumptions turned out to be false? What changes would you have to make if you found that your most cherished assumptions were not based on reality, or were contradicted by facts?

By: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on The Law Of Clarity

The Magic of Solitude

The Magic of Solitude

The greatest men and women of all ages have practiced solitude regularly. They learned how to use silence to still their minds and tap into their superconscious powers for answers to their questions.

In this newsletter, you learn how you can apply this wonderful technique immediately to improve the quality of your inner and outer life.

The Magic of Solitude
Your feelings, your emotions, are the access point to your inner powers of mind. The most important part in the process of getting in touch with your feelings is to begin to practice solitude on a regular basis. Solitude is the most powerful activity in which you can engage. Men and women who practice it correctly and on a regular basis never fail to be amazed at the difference it makes in their lives.

Most people have never practiced solitude. Most people have never sat down quietly by themselves for any period of time in their entire lives. Most people are so busy being busy, doing something—even watching television—that it’s highly unusual for them to simply sit, deliberately, and do nothing. But as Catherine Ponder points out, “Men and women begin to become great when they begin to take time quietly by themselves, when they begin to practice solitude.” And here’s the method you can use.
To get the full benefit of your periods of solitude, you must sit quietly for at least 30 to 60 minutes at a time. If you haven’t done it before, it will take the first 25 minutes or so for you to stop fidgeting and moving around. You’ll almost have to hold yourself physically in your seat. You’ll have an almost irresistible desire to get up and do something. But you must persist.

Solitude requires that you sit quietly, perfectly still, back and head erect, eyes open, without cigarettes, candy, writing materials, music or any interruptions whatsoever for at least 30 minutes. An hour is better.

Become completely relaxed, and breathe deeply. Just let your mind flow. Don’t deliberately try to think about anything. The harder you “don’t try,” the more powerfully it works. After 20 or 25 minutes, you’ll begin to feel deeply relaxed. You’ll begin to experience a flow of energy coming into your mind and body.

You’ll have a tremendous sense of well-being. At this point, you’ll be ready to get the full benefit of these moments of contemplation.

The River of Ideas
The incredible thing about solitude is that if it is done correctly, it works just about 100 percent of the time. While you’re sitting there, a stream, a river, of ideas will flow through your mind. You’ll think about countless subjects in an uncontrolled stream of consciousness. Your job is just to relax and listen to your inner voice.

At a certain stage during your period of solitude, the answers to the most pressing difficulties facing you will emerge quietly and clearly, like a boat putting gently to the side of a lake. The answer that you seek will come to you so clearly and it will feel so perfect that you’ll experience a deep sense of gratitude and contentment.

Trusting Yourself
When you emerge from this period of quiet, you must do exactly what has come to you. It may involve dealing with a human situation. It may involve starting something or quitting something. Whatever it is, when you follow the guidance that you received in solitude, it will turn out to be exactly the right thing to do. Everything will be OK. And it will usually work out far better than you could have imagined. Just try it and see.

You must learn to trust yourself. You must develop the habit of listening to yourself and then acting on the guidance you receive.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, select a specific time and place to sit quietly and practice one full hour of solitude. Don’t put it off.

Second, take small periods of silence and solitude during the day, especially when you feel overwhelmed with problems or responsibilities.

Third, take action immediately on the ideas and insights you receive while in solitude. One good idea can save you months and years of hard work. The key is trust.

By: Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on The Key To Happiness

The Law of Forced Efficiency

The Law of Forced Efficiency

“This law says that, "There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing."

You Always Find The Time
When you run out of time and the consequences for non-completion of a key task or project can be really serious, you always seem to find the time to get it done, often at the very last minute. You start early, you stay late and you drive yourself to complete the job rather than to face the negative consequences that would follow if you didn't get it completed within the time limit. Rule: "There will never be enough time to do everything you have to do."

You Are Already Overwhelmed
The fact is that the average person today is working at 110% to 130% of capacity. And the jobs and responsibilities just keep piling up. Everyone has stacks of reading material they still have to go through. One study concluded recently that the average executive has 300-400 hours of reading and projects backlogged at home and at the office. What this means is that you will never be caught up. Get that out of your mind. All you can hope for is to be on top of your most important responsibilities. The others will just have to wait.

Deadlines Can Be Counterproductive
The key question you can ask is "What is the most valuable use of my time, right now?" This is the core question of time management. This is the key to overcoming procrastination and becoming a highly productive person. Every hour of every day, there is an answer to this question. Your job is to ask yourself the question, over and over again, and to always be working on the answer to it, whatever it is. Do first things first and second things not at all. As Goethe said, "The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least." The more accurate your answers to this question, the easier it will be for you to set clear priorities, to overcome procrastination and to get started on that one activity that represents the most valuable use of your time.

Action Exercises
Take a few minutes each day and sit quietly where you cannot be disturbed. During this time, let your mind relax and just think about your work and activities, without stress or pressure. In almost every case, during this time of solitude, you will receive wonderful insights and ideas that will save you enormous amounts of time when you apply them back on the job. Often you will experience breakthroughs that will change the direction of your life and work.

By Brian Tracy

Check out my other guide on The Key To Charisma

The Law of Clarity

The Law of Clarity
by: Brian Tracy

Clarity accounts for probably 80% of success and happiness. Lack of clarity is probably more responsible for frustration and underachievement than any other single factor. That’s why we say that “Success is goals, and all else is commentary.” People with clear, written goals, accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine. This is true everywhere and under all circumstances.

The Three Keys to High Achievement
You could even say that the three keys to high achievement are, “Clarity, Clarity, Clarity,” with regard to your goals. Your success in life will be largely determined by how clear you are about what it is you really, really want.

Write and Rewrite Your Goals
The more you write and rewrite your goals and the more you think about them, the clearer you will become about them. The clearer you are about what you want, the more likely you are to do more and more of the things that are consistent with achieving them. Meanwhile, you will do fewer and fewer of the things that don’t help to get the things you really want.

The Seven Step Process for Achieving Goals
Here, once more, is the simple, seven-step process that you can use to achieve your goals faster and easier than ever before.

First, decide exactly what you want in each area of your life. Be specific!

Second, write it down, clearly and in detail;

Third, set a specific deadline. If it is a large goal, break it down into subdeadlines and write them down in order;

Fourth, make a list of everything you can think of that you are going to have to do to achieve your goal. As you think of new items, add them to your list;

Fifth, organize the items on your list into a plan by placing them in the proper sequence and priority;

Sixth, take action immediately on the most important thing you can do on your plan. This is very important!

Seventh, do something every day that moves you toward the attainment of one or more of your important goals. Maintain the momentum!
Join the Top 3%

Fewer than three percent of adults have written goals and plans that they work on every single day. When you sit down and write out your goals, you move yourself into the top 3% of people in our society. And you will soon start to get the same results that they do.
Review Your Goals Daily
Study and review your goals every day to be sure they are still your most important goals. You will find yourself adding goals to your list as time passes. You will also find yourself deleting goals that are no longer as important as you once thought. Whatever your goals are, plan them out thoroughly, on paper, and work on them every single day. This is the key to peak performance and maximum achievement.

Action Exercises
Here is how you can apply this law immediately:

1. Make a list of ten goals that you would like to achieve in the coming year. Write them down in the present tense, as though a year has passed and you have already accomplished them.

2. From your list of ten goals, ask yourself, “What one goal, if I were to accomplish it, would have the greatest positive impact on my life?” Whatever it is, put a circle around this goal and move it to a separate sheet of paper.

3. Now, practice the seven-step method described above on this goal. Set a deadline, make a plan, and put it into action and work on it every day. Make this goal your major definite purpose for the weeks and months ahead.

Get ready for some amazing changes in your life.

Check out my other guide on The Golden Hour

The Key To Happiness

The Key To Happiness
By: Brian Tracy

Your ability to achieve your own happiness is the key measure of your success, of how well you are doing as a person.

You learn the key to happiness that has been the same through all of history. You learn how to dispel the two myths that may be holding you back and how to achieve more happiness in everything you do.

Dedicate Yourself To Your Best Talents
The key to happiness is this: dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do, and doing it better and better in the service of a cause that is greater than yourself.

This is a big statement and a big commitment. Being happy requires that you define your life in your own terms and then throw your whole heart into living your life to the fullest. In a way, happiness requires that you be perfectly selfish in order to develop yourself to a point where you can be unselfish for the rest of your life.

Please Yourself First
In Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrano is asked why he is so intensely individualistic and unconcerned with the opinions and judgments of others. He replies with these wonderful words: “I am what I am because early in life I decided that I would please at least myself in all things.”

Your happiness likewise depends upon your ability to please at least yourself in all things. You can be happy only when you are living your life in the very best way possible. No one can define happiness for you. Only you know what makes you happy. Happiness is an inside job.

Your Happiness Is Up To You
The biggest myth about happiness is when people say that it is not legitimate or correct for you to put your happiness ahead of everyone else’s. Throughout my life, I’ve met people who have said that it is more important to make other people happy than it is to make yourself happy. This is nonsense.

The fact is that you can’t give away to anyone else what you don’t have for yourself. Just as you can’t give money to the poor if you don’t have any, you can’t make someone else happy if you yourself are miserable.

The very best way to assure the happiness of others is to be happy yourself and then to share your happiness with them. Suffering and self-sacrifice merely depress and discourage other people. If you want to make others happy, start by living the kind of life and doing the kind of things that make you happy.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, define for yourself the activities that you really love and enjoy, at home and work, and then organize your life so you do more of them.

Second, believe in yourself and trust your own feelings. Then, please at least yourself in all things.

Third, determine what it is that you do that brings the most happiness to others and then organize your life so that you can do more of it.

Check out my other guide on The Friendship Factor

The Key To Charisma

The Key To Charisma
by: Brian Tracy

There is a close association between personal charisma and success in life. Probably 85 percent of your success and happiness will come from your relationships and interactions with others. The more positively others respond to you, the easier it will be for you to get the things you want.

The Law of Attraction
In essence, when we discuss charisma, we are talking about the law of attraction. This law has been stated in many different ways down through the centuries, but it basically says that you inevitably attract into your life the people and circumstances that harmonize with your dominant thoughts.

You Are A Living Magnet
In a sense, you are a living magnet, and you are constantly radiating thought waves, like a radio station radiates sound waves, that are picked up by other people. Your thoughts, intensified by your emotions, as radio waves are intensified by electric impulses, go out from you and are picked up by anyone who is tuned in to a similar wavelength. You then attract into your life people, ideas, opportunities, resources, circumstances and anything else that is consistent with your dominant frame of mind.
The law of attraction also explains how you can build up your levels of charisma so that you can have a greater and more positive impact on the people whose cooperation, support and affection you desire.

Perception is Everything
The critical thing to remember about charisma is that it is largely based on perception. It is based on what people think about you. It is not so much reality as it is what people perceive you to be. For example, one person can create charisma in another person by speaking in glowing terms about that person to a third party. If you believe that you are about to meet an outstanding and important person, that person will tend to have charisma for you.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta
One of the most charismatic people in the world was Mother Teresa of Calcutta. In a physical sense, she was a quiet, elderly, frail woman in poor health, and she wore a modest nun’s habit. She might have been ignored by a person passing her on the street, were it not for the tremendous charisma she developed and for the fact that her appearance was so well-known to so many people as a result.

How Would You Feel?
If someone told you that he was going to introduce you to a brilliant, self-made millionaire who was very quiet and unassuming about his success, you would almost naturally imbue that person with charisma, and in his presence, you would not act the same as you would if you had been told nothing at all. Charisma begins largely in the mind of the beholder.

Lasting charisma depends more upon the person you really are than upon just the things you do.

Continually look for ways to improve other’s perceptions of you so that you can be more influential with them. Be a living magnet.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, be clear about the messages you are sending and the perceptions you are creating in others. Are these perceptions consistent with the impressions you want to make?

Second, see yourself and imagine yourself every day as an important powerful and charming person. Treat others as you would if you were already strong, famous and influential.

Check out my other guide on The Four Steps To a Super Attitude

The Golden Hour

The Golden Hour
By Brian Tracy

Flex Your Mental Muscles
When you develop the skill of learning from your mistakes, you become the kind of person who welcomes obstacles and setbacks as opportunities to flex your mental muscles and move ahead. You look at problems as rungs on the ladder of success that you grab onto as you pull your way higher.
Two of the most common ways to deal with mistakes are invariably fatal to high achievement. The first common but misguided way to handle a mistake is the failure to accept it when it occurs. According to statistics, 70 percent of all decisions we make will be wrong. That’s an average. This means that some people will fail more than 70 percent of the time, and some people will fail less. It is hard to believe that most of the decisions we make could turn out to be wrong in some way. In fact, if this is the case, how can our society continue to function at all?

Cut Your Losses
You become what you think about most of the time. And the most important part of each day is what you think about at the beginning of that day.

Start Your Day Right
Take 30 minutes each morning to sit quietly and to reflect on your goals. You'll find when you read the biographies and autobiographies of successful men and women that almost everyone of them began their upward trajectory to success when they begin getting up early in the morning and spending time with themselves.

Feed Your Mind With Positive Ideas
This is called the Golden Hour. The first hour sets the tone for the day. The things that you do in the first hour prepare your mind and set you up for the entire day. During the first thirty to sixty minutes, take time to think and review your plans for the future.

Use Your Quiet Time Effectively
Here are four things that you can do during that quiet time in the morning.
Number one is to review your plans for accomplishing your goals and change your plans if necessary.
Number two is think of better ways to accomplish your goals. As an exercise, assume that the way you're going about it is totally wrong and imagine going about it totally differently. What would you do different from what you're doing right now? Number three, reflect on the valuable lessons that you have learned and are learning as you move toward your goals.

Practice Daily Visualization
Number four, calmly visualize your goal as a reality. Close your eyes, relax, smile, and see your goal as though it were already a reality. Rewrite your major goals everyday in the present tense. Rewrite them as though they already existed. Write “I earn X dollars.” “I have a net worth of X.” “I weigh a certain number of pounds.” This exercise of writing and rewriting your goals everyday is one of the most powerful you will ever learn.

Do Up Your Seatbelt
Your life will start to take off at such a speed that you'll have to put on your seatbelt. Remember, the starting point for achieving financial success is the development of an attitude of unshakable confidence in yourself and in your ability to reach your goals. Everything we've talked about is a way of building up and developing your belief system until you finally reach the point where you are absolutely convinced that nothing can stop you from achieving what you set out to achieve.

Everything Counts!
No one starts out with this kind of an attitude, but you can develop it using the law of accumulation. Everything counts. No efforts are ever lost. Every extraordinary accomplishment in the result of thousands of ordinary accomplishments that no one recognizes or appreciates. The greatest challenge of all is for you to concentrate your thinking single-mindedly on your goal and by the law of attraction, you will, you must inevitably draw into your life the people, circumstances and opportunities you need to achieve your goals.

Become a Living Magnet
Once you've mastered yourself and your thinking, you will become a living magnet for ideas and opportunities to become wealthy. It's worked for me and for every successful person I know. It will work for you if you'll begin today, now, this very minute, to think and talk about your dreams and goals as though they were already a reality. When you change your thinking, you will change your life. You will put yourself firmly on the road to financial independence.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do every single day to keep your mind focused on your financial goals:
First, get up every morning a little bit earlier and plan your day in advance. Take some time to think about your goals and how you can best achieve them. This sets the tone for the whole day.
Second, reflect on the valuable lessons you are learning each day as you work toward your goals. Be prepared to correct your course and adjust your actions. Be absolutely convinced that you are moving rapidly toward your goals, no matter what happens temporarily on the outside. Just hang in there!

Check out my other guide on The Efficiency Curve

The Friendship Factor

The Friendship Factor
By: Brian Tracy

The Communication Process
The ancient Greeks taught that all conversation involved three ingredients: Ethos, or the character of the speaker; Pathos, connecting with the emotions; and Logos. The logos discussed by the Greeks refers to the factual content of a message, the words used. It refers to the argument that you present on behalf of your point of view. (However, we know that the facts themselves, although they are important, are not as powerful or as influential as the emotions are.)

The Selling Process
In selling, we know that there are three parts to the process. These are, first, establishing rapport with the prospective customer, second, identifying the problem or need that the prospective customer has and, third, presenting the solution. These are the ethos, the pathos and the logos of selling to someone.

Build Good Relationships
Your success in every area of life will be based largely on the quality and quantity of relationships that you can initiate and develop over time. In the world of business and sales today, relationships are everything. We often call this the “friendship factor.” We have discovered that a person will not do business with you until he or she is convinced that you are his or her friend and are acting in his or her best interest. In other words, you cannot influence someone unless he or she likes you in some way. Of course, it’s often possible for you to influence a person if he fears you, but that type of influence lasts only until the person can rearrange his situation and escape from the circumstances that enable you to have control over him.

How To Influence and Persuade Others
The way to influence people, then, is to earn their liking and respect, to appeal to the friendship factor. This requires spending time with him, caring for him and respecting him. The more time that you are willing to spend with the person, the greater will be his tendency to trust you and to feel that you are acting in his best interest. The more obvious it is that you care about the person, about what he really needs, the more likely it is that he will be open to your influence. This is even more important in your personal relationships, with your family and friends. The more that people feel you care about them, the more open they will be to your influence.

Action Exercises
First, slow down when you first meet a person in a business or sales situation. Take some time to build a relationship with him or her before you proceed to business matters.

Second, appeal to the friendship factor that underlies all good business and personal relationships. Ask questions about the person and his or her life and concerns. Listen attentively to the answers. Focus on the relationship first.

Check out my other guide on The Continuous Improvement Formula

The Four Steps to a Super Attitude

The Four Steps to a Super Attitude
By: Brian Tracy

Decide How to React
It is not what happens to you that counts. It is how you react to what happens to you, especially when you have unexpected problems of any kind.

In this newsletter, you learn powerful strategies you can use to keep yourself thinking and acting positively and creatively.

Here are four things you can do to assure that your attitude is the very best it can be, under all circumstances.

Focus On the Future
First, whatever challenges you face, focus on the future rather than on the past. Instead of worrying about who did what and who is to blame, focus on where you want to be and what you want to do. Get a clear mental image of your ideal successful future, and then take whatever action you can to begin moving in that direction. Get your mind, your thoughts, and your mental images on the future.

Think About the Solution
Second, whenever you’re faced with a difficulty, focus on the solution rather than on the problem. Think and talk about the ideal solution to the obstacle or setback, rather than wasting time rehashing and reflecting on the problem. Solutions are inherently positive, whereas problems are inherently negative. The instant that you begin thinking in terms of solutions, you become a positive and constructive human being.

Look For the Good
Third, assume that something good is hidden within each difficulty or challenge. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a major proponent of positive thinking, once said, “Whenever God wants to give us a gift, he wraps it up in a problem.” The bigger the gift you have coming, the bigger the problem you will receive. But the wonderful thing is that if you look for the gift, you will always find it.

Seek the Valuable Lesson
Fourth, assume that whatever situation you are facing at the moment is exactly the right situation you need to ultimately be successful. This situation has been sent to you to help you learn something, to help you become better, to help you expand and grow.

Decide to Be Positive
A Positive Mental Attitude is indispensable to your success. You can be as positive as you want to be if you will simply think about the future, focus on the solution and look for the good. If you do what other successful people do, if you use your mind to exert mental control over the situation, you will be positive and cheerful most of the time. And you will reap the benefits enjoyed by all successful people.

Action Exercises
Here are three steps you can take immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, become solution-oriented with every difficulty you face. Make a habit of looking for the answers to your questions, the solutions to your problems.

Second, seek for the valuable lesson in every adversity. Make a list of every idea or insight you can gain from every setback or difficulty.

Third, think on paper. Take some time to write out every detail of the problem, and then take the most logical next step to solve it.

Check out my other guide on The Central Skill