I just finished listening to Brian Tracy’s Success Mastery Academy. (Which I got from Audible.) While I didn’t agree with everything he said, he had a lot of very good points. Here are the main ones that stuck with me. (I listened to it in the car so I couldn’t take notes and I can’t flip back through it.) Some may seem obvious to you, others may be an "ah-hah," and some you may not agree with at all.
- You have to work hard to succeed. And once you’ve done that, everyone will say "how lucky you are!" So once you’ve worked 80 hour weeks for 10 years, become CEO of your own company, own a nice home and take nice vacations, people will say "you’re so lucky!" So that was really two points:
- You have to work hard to succeed.
- People are unlikely to notice how hard you’ve worked. Most people just want to "get lucky."
- You have to be happy to make others happy. None of this "I’m sacrificing so my family, friends, etc. can be happy." You can’t make them happy if you aren’t happy yourself.
- Write your goals down. Not just your career goals, but all your goals for the year. Start now. Write down all your goals for 2007. Think big but be somewhat realistic. Put them in present tense. "I got a 5% raise this year," "I run 3 miles a day," "I weigh 125 pounds," … whatever you want. The more detailed the better. Even if you don’t do anything with them, writing them down will help. (If you make them unbelievable like "I won the lottery," "I lost 200 pounds," … they are much less likely to happen than if they are realistic.)
- Lists are good. Lots of lists are even better.
- Listen. Listen to people. Listen to people more than you talk. Ask lots of questions.
- Treat money like it’s important and you like it. Dad actually taught me this one. Don’t play with your money. Keep it in a safe place. Value it. It will "attract" more and you’ll lose less. Dad even got upset when I got checks with pictures on them. Checks are money and money is serious. (And the day before I heard this on the tape I was telling our six year old that he needed to keep his money in his wallet in a safe place in his room and not play with it. I’m not sure I want Frank to learn this one – I make a significant amount of money from wadded up bills in the laundry!)
The book was geared towards people in sales but it had a lot to do with life in general. If you are in the mood for a self-improvement book, I highly recommend it.