During Spring Break we used the travel time to our private South Florida Hideaway, to re-listen to a great CD series by the famous Brian Tracy. Mr. Tracy’s wisdom and knowledge definitely can stand the test of time and I wanted to review some of his principles in attaining the easy lifestyle.
In one part of the recorded seminar, “Success Master Academy” Mr Tracy discusses the 21 Qualities of Self- Made Millionaires. (all of these, by the way, are learnable by almost anyone)
Here is a summary:
1. Dream Big Dreams: an exercise that helps with this that is done by the most successful people is to develop “back from the future” thinking. See yourself as living your easy lifestyle with all of the details. Then from that point look back to your present situation and determine what it took to get you there.
Create a Dream List: Write a list of the details of your Easy Lifestyle and fantasize as if there were no limitations – anything is possible. Then decide which ones are the closest to being accomplished, which ones are the most exciting and motivate you and which ones can wait.
2. Do what you love to do. This can be harder than it looks at first glance. Decide what you love to do; then find a way to make money doing it.
3. Commit to Excellence in what you do: determine that you will be in the top 10% of what you do. Take steps every day to improve - do more, learn more.
4. Develop Your Unique Talents & Abilities, we all have them. Examine the things that you have had the most success at and figure out what they have in common. What would you choose to do if you didn’t need the money?
5. Accept 100% Responsibility for your future. Develop a high sense of self reliance; an attitude of “if it’s to be, it’s up to me” Use the reality test method: has anyone ever had it tougher than you and succeeded? It takes away all of your excuses. 80% of the reasons we don’t succeed are within ourselves.
6. Develop a clear sense of direction. Determine your major definite purpose in life. Then determine what it will take to do it and be willing to do them. Good news, once you determine you will do whatever it takes, you usually don’t have to do them all.
7. Refuse to Consider the possibility of failure. There is no chance of success without failure. “Failure is just another way to intelligently begin again. Success lies on the far side of failure” ~ Henry Ford “If you want success faster; you must double your rate of failure” ~ Thos. J. Watson, Jr. (founder of IBM)
8. Dedicate yourself to Lifelong Learning; in a time where skills are constantly becoming obsolete; the essence of success will be the ability to learn new skills.
9. Develop a Workaholic Mentality. 40+ hour work week habits!
10. Get around the right people. Avoid negative people, they will drain your energy and enthusiasm faster than anything. Develop a mastermind group of like minded people.
11. Be Prepared to Climb from Peak to Peak. Life is full of peaks and valleys, be prepared for the valleys, knowing there is a peak coming. Remember, it’s the long haul that counts.
12. Develop Resilience, a Bounce-Back attitude. Resolve in advance that you will bounce back and not break in the face of adversity. Know it’s okay to feel stunned after strong adversity, rebound quickly and NEVER give up. Use these times to make course adjustments.
13. Unlock your inborn Creativity. What stops us from being the creative geniuses that we are capable of is our own self limiting beliefs. Practice Mindstorming, that means write a goal in the form of a question on the top of a piece of paper. Then, quickly, write 20 answers to that question. Here’s the key – put it into action immediately!
14. Become an Unshakable optimist! This is done through positive self talk, affirmations & creating a habit of positive self explanations of life and things around you.
15. Dedicate yourself to a life of serving others. Develop a reputation for going the extra mile and doing more than expected.
16. Develop a reputation for speed and dependability. Use a do it now, give me more work style.
17. Be impeccably honest with yourself and others
18. Concentrate singlemindedly on 1 thing at a time. Get in the habit of considering the consequences for doing or not doing something. Then do it single handedly – stay with it until the task is complete.
19. Be decisive. Most often in life, any decision is better than no decision. Take time to think, plan and then decide on the really big things. Once you have made a decision, be willing to accept feedback, re-evaluate and self correct. Flexibility is key
20. Do everything with Courage (the ability to launch w/no guarantee of success) and Persistence (the ability to endevour in the face of adversity)
21. Resolve to practice self- discipline.
I know that most of us have heard these principles many times. The difference between those that are achieving their goals and living the easy lifestyle and those not is practicing all of these principles regularly.
Here’s a challenge, write each of these down and put them into practice daily for the next 21 days. Then assess the results. I have a feeling you’ll be on the fast track to your Easy Lifestyle!
Next up, a review of the ground breaking series, Success Leaves Clues! By Brad Hager.
