HOW TO MASTER THE ART OF SELF DISCIPLINE | BRIAN TRACY

all I'm offering is the truth nothing more people who are going to be really successful in the future are willing to make sacrifices in the present in order to guarantee that future and by sacrifices we mean they're willing to put in the long hours they're willing to get up earlier they're willing to work harder they're willing to stay later they're willing to invest and save their money even though they don't have a lot knowing that with compound interest it will grow and grow over time they're willing to spend an enormous amount of time investing in

their children knowing that this investment in their children in time and love and affection and support will pay off for decades and generations even into the lives of their children and grandchildren so sacrifices the critical word and sacrifice means that you have the ability to discipline yourself you have the ability to delay gratification in the short term so that you can enjoy far greater rewards in the long term we say that self-discipline is self-control it's self-mastery now the payoff for practicing self-discipline is immediate people think well geez you know I get these rewards way down

in the future no no there is an immediate reward there's a wonderful line in Spiritual Development that said you are not punished for your sins but by them in other words there are things that you do that are harmful to you that cause immediate detriment but you're also rewarded for the good things that you do and you're rewarded immediately so what we know is when you practice self-discipline you actually like and respect yourself more and you know and I know that how you feel about yourself on a minute-to-minute basis do you feel that you're a

good person do you feel that you're a likable person a successful person the more you like yourself and respect yourself and value yourself on a minute to minute basis the better is your attitude the better is your reaction to other people you just feel happy inside and wonderfully enough when you practice self-discipline when you exert yourself to do what you know you should do even though this endless tempt rotations to do something fun and easy when you discipline yourself to do it your self-esteem goes up you actually like yourself more your self-image improves you actually

see yourself as a better person and of course as you know your self-image determines your performance the person you see in your mind will be the person that you will be on the outside and the wonderful thing is when you practice self-discipline especially in exercise for example but even in hard work your brain releases endorphins and endorphins are called Nature's happy drug and it actually makes you happy to practice self-discipline to take control of yourself and make yourself do the right thing and complete it you feel good about yourself in the moment and of course

the effect that it has on your future can be tremendous now fortunately self-discipline is a habit that you can learn with practice and repetition if you do something over and over again you eventually develop a habit the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people to successful people have success habits and the most important success habit they have is the ability to make themselves do what they know they should do at this time and wonderfully enough if you practice it over and over again it finally locks in now many people get into the habit of taking

the easy way out looking for shortcuts and so on so they actually get into a comfort zone of doing things that are harmful to their long-term future and they actually feel uncomfortable completing tasks or starting on their most important jobs however when you get into a new comfort zone it will be easier for you to practice the habit of self-discipline than it would be in the past for you to take the shortcut Gutta the German philosopher said that everything is hard before it's easy everything is hard before it's easy so developing the habit of self-discipline

is hard and be patient with yourself because you slip back all the time all your life you'll be slipping back all your life you have to fight this battle you never get it to the point where it's locked in Forever every morning you get up and that alarm goes off and you say do I sleep a little longer or do I get up you know every time you look at a list of things to do you say do I start with the most important thing as they say do the worst first or do I do

something that's fun and talk to a friend or make a phone call you've got to fight this battle every single day but every time you fight in when you feel better about yourself it only takes about 21 days they say to develop a new habit so you can lock in the foundation of the Habit simply by practicing self-discipline every single day without exception for 21 days now some years ago a businessman named Herbert gray did a long time study it was kind of his project to find out what he called the common denominator of success

what would be the common denominator of success and he spent 11 years studying the literature interviewing people reflecting on it and he finally wrote a little pamphlet and the pamphlet has been handed around for years and years and you don't need to get it because I'll tell you what's in it he said the common denominator of success was quite simple he said successful people he found make a habit of doing what unsuccessful people don't like to do and of course the logical question is well what is it that unsuccessful people don't like to do well

it turned out to be the same thing that successful people don't like to do either but they do it anyway because they recognize that that's the price of success a simple thing like exercising going for a run or a walk at the end of the day well do people like to do this do we look forward to exertion and perspiration and sweating and strain and everything else no we don't look forward to it but we do it because we recognize that this is the price of looking and feeling fit trim living a long life taking

good care of our bodies and so on so remember the same things that unsuccessful people don't like to do are things you don't like to do either many years ago I met Rich DeVos personally You Know Rich DeVos is the founder of Amway started off selling soap from door to door and now he's worth about 5.3 billion dollars according to Forbes and he was asked a question he said well you know how do you get over the fact that it's hard to prospect it's hard to recruit it's hard to build a business it's hard to

come home after work and work on building your business he said you just have to understand this there's lots of things in life that you don't like to do and you'll never like to do them there's lots of hard things that contain stress and they contain rejection and potential failure and hard work and so on he said but you do them because you want to do the other things and it is only by doing the things that you don't want to do that you can finally create the opportunity to do all the things that you

want to do for yourself and your family and again it comes back to our favorite word sacrifice being willing to pay the price in the present to enjoy the great rewards in the future now there are nine disciplines that you can develop that we'll talk about today there are nine disciplines that you can develop that will improve every area of your life and here's a rule every exercise of discipline in any area strengthens disciplines in every other area just as if you work out with your full body that strengthens all your muscles your heart your

lungs and so on every weakness in discipline also weakens your other disciplines as well so every time you exert yourself to discipline yourself to make yourself do something to control and master your natural tendency to seek the line of least resistance every time you master that tendency you feel stronger and better and you strengthen your ability to discipline yourself in other areas as well so the first discipline of all is the discipline of clear thinking versus fuzzy thinking you know sometimes you've heard me ask what is the highest paid work in America what's the most

important work in any job or any company and the answer is thinking and you know the old saying that some people think some people think they think and the great majority would rather die than think but the discipline of clear thinking is the most important because the way you think the quality of your thinking determines the quality your decisions and choices your decisions and choices determine the actions you take the actions you take determine your results your results determine the quality of your life and it all starts with your thinking clearly Thomas Edison once said

that thinking is the hardest discipline of all it requires real effort to think because especially today we are so surrounded with distractions I'm always amazed when I go down the street or fly or drive as people seem totally immersed in listening to things they've got devices in their ears and stuff on their cell phone they're listening to music in their car and they're watching television they simply cannot stop bombarding their mind with sensory input and of course when you're doing that it is impossible for you to think well to think well requires that you practice

a couple of techniques now first of all as Peter Drucker said you need to take time to think you need to create long unbroken chunks of time the rule is that fast decisions are usually wrong decisions especially fast decisions involving people or money are usually wrong decisions so if you're going to make a decision that has long-term consequences then you have to give it a lot of thought you have to sort of look at it like a beautiful piece of porcelain you look at it from every single side and think about it carefully and the

more carefully you think about a decision the better the quality of that decision will be when you finally make it how many times have you said you know if I just thought about that a little bit more I wouldn't have done it or if I just thought a bit better or I just taken time to think well Superior people through experience and through painful experience learn to take their time in making important decisions so one of the very best ways that you can develop the discipline of clear thinking is to sit in solitude for 30

to 60 minutes when you have a major problem or a major issue in your life Solitude has been discovered and rediscovered throughout all the history of man as the most powerful of all Thinking Tools you see if you could imagine a bucket of water with silt in it and it's all churned up and you can't see anything but if you leave the bucket of water to sit for a while all the silt will drop to the bottom and the water will become perfectly clear this is what happens for you in solitude you sit calmly by

yourself with no noise no distractions nothing to read just sit quietly which takes tremendous discipline the first few times you do it at about 25 or 26 minutes your mind goes clear and any problem that you've been working on the solution just pops into your mind any issue that you've been dealing with the answer just comes to you it's almost like a miracle when you practice Solitude you actually activate your super conscious mind and your intuition and something that you've been having trouble with or wrestling with suddenly becomes clear and you know exactly what to

do now here's the wonderful thing about Solitude everybody who practices it will tell you it's incredible and if you've never done it before just practice it once sometime today take 25 30 minutes take an hour if you can and just sit quietly by yourself and allow your mind to calm sometimes it's called Mind calming and just allow yourself to calm down and think and the most amazing things will happen you'll start to make better decisions you'll start to hear what is called the still Small Voice Within and this still Small Voice or sometimes Will shout

at you so loudly you will be amazed now here's another way to think better when you're dealing with any kind of a situation write down every detail of the problem or situation take a sheet of paper and the rule is think on paper think on paper and write down every detail how it happened what's going on the problems the concerns the cost Who's involved just write it down write it down write it down and the most amazing thing happens between the head and the hand as you're writing out all the details sometimes exactly the right

choice pops out at you it becomes clear but you would not have triggered that super conscious solution if you hadn't taken the time to think on paper you know Aristotle once said that wisdom which is the greatest of all human desires wisdom is the ability to make good decisions is a combination of experience plus reflection experience plus reflection in other words you haven't experience and then you reflect on the experience and you think about what's that experience mean to me how can I use that what can I learn from it so reflecting on your experiences

and the best way to do that is to go for a walk just going for a walk where you can't listen to anything don't take an iPod or anything just go for a walk 30 or 60 minutes and just walk and while you're talking and reflecting upon something that's going on at work or at home you'll be amazed at the quality of ideas that will come into your mind to improve your thinking talk it over with someone else who you like and trust and give them the details and ask them to give you their feedback

give you their perspective sometimes especially if you're in a great relationship the other person can give you a perspective that completely changes your ideas a good way to think better is to ask especially if you're frustrated or having difficulties to ask what are my assumptions what am I assuming about the situation that may not be correct what if my basic assumptions about this relationship about this job about this product or service or this investment what if my assumptions were wrong then what would I do and here's the key to good thinking be open to doing

something completely different be open to admitting the possibility that you could be wrong and doing something completely different and what that does is it opens up your mind and your perspective so you can see all kinds of possibilities that you may not have seen before so clear thinking is the first discipline it is the discipline practiced by the most successful happiest and wealthiest people in our society [Music] now the second major discipline my old friend is the discipline of daily goal setting the discipline of daily goal setting will change your life why is what we

know that focus and concentration are essential to success there are some skills that are helpful to success that focus and concentration are indispensable if you cannot focus and you cannot concentrate then you have to work for someone else who will make you focus and concentrate it will supervise you the ability to focus to be clear about what you want and then to concentrate single-mindedly on achieving it are both habits or disciplines that you can learn through practice so you start off in the discipline of daily goal setting you start off and you ask this question

this is the big question what do I really want to do with my life what do I really really really want to do with my life why am I here if I could do anything at all what would I want to do with my life and there's a great question that you can use to clarify this most people think in a very fuzzy way about what they want to do with their life because they're preoccupied with all of their problems in life so what you do is is you remove all your problems by asking yourself

this question imagine that I received 10 million dollars cash today tax free in the bank but at the same time I got a diagnosis from the doctor that said that you're going to die in 10 years you'll have superb physical health for 10 years but you're going to die in 10 years so if you had 10 million dollars in the bank which means you had no Financial worries and you had 10 years to live what would you really want to do with your life what would you do more of or less of what would you

start up or what would you stop completely what would you get into or get out of if you had 10 million dollars and 10 years to live imagine that for the moment because most people again as I said become preoccupied with their limitations with what they don't have and it holds them back from deciding what they really really want now the next thing you do is take a spiral notebook and I carry a spiral notebook around with me all the time take a spiral notebook and write down 10 goals that you'd like to accomplish in

the next 12 months or so write your goals in the present tense as though they already existed don't say I will earn X number of dollars in the next 12 months write them down as though you are already earning it say I earn X number of dollars in this year I always write the words by at the end of every goal I earn X number of dollars by December 31st 2007. I achieved this goal by June 30th 2008 and so so when you give your subconscious mind a deadline it works on it 24 hours a

day when you write down a goal make sure it's positive don't say I will quit smoking say I am a non-smoker don't say I will lose weight say I weigh X number of pounds and when you give your subconscious mind a command in the present tense that is contrary to your current situation your subconscious mind goes to work to resolve this Dynamic tension and make your external reality consistent with your new orders your new commands your new goals and finally always write your goals in the personal tense use the word I because only you in

the whole universe can use the word I relative to yourself you use the word out you say I earn I drive I achieve I acquire I accumulate I live in in other words always follow the word I plus an action verb then you take a spiral notebook and you write down at least 10 goals you can work on 10 to 15 goals at a time but never less than 10. your subconscious and super conscious minds of incredible power so give them lots of stuff to work on and then what you do is every single day

you write down and rewrite your goals every single day you take out your spiral notebook and write down your goals once more and I get out every morning before I start off I plan my day and then I write out my 10 goals every morning before you start out you reprogram your subconscious mind and then start your day I promise to you is this if you will do this for one month actually 21 days is good enough your whole life will change you'll see changes that are astonishing people come up to me at every single

seminar and say it was incredible I started to write my goals every day I accomplished eight of them in six months I accomplished five in a week I accomplished most of them within 12 months it's transformed my life so all I ask you to do if you're not already doing it is give it a try now the third discipline is the discipline of daily time management and of course we know that the rule is that every minute spent in planning saves 10 minutes in execution so disciplining yourself to plan your days thoroughly before you begin

will save you at least 10 minutes for every minute you spend in planning and according to the research it will increase your productivity by 25 to 50 percent maybe even double your productivity for every day that you plan you see if you're not working from a plan then you just respond and react to whatever's going on somebody comes in phone rings is an interruption or a problem and you're off and running but if you have a plan you just keep working the plan it gives you a track to run on so you just keep working

your plan begin the discipline of daily time management by making a list start off with a sheet of paper again click on paper and write down everything you have to do in the course of the day the very best time to make this list is the night before if you do this then your subconscious mind works on your plan all night long and you often wake up in the morning with great ideas to implement your plan then you organize your list by priority before you begin you don't just jump into it use the 80 20

rule that says that twenty percent of the items on your list will account for eighty percent of the value which are the most valuable this is the hardest of all disciplines to learn it's the essence of my teaching worldwide it is the key to supercharging the quality of your life and your results if you can start every morning with a list organized by priority and start on your number one task and stay with it till it's done you will supercharge your life you will release endorphins in your brain that causes you to feel great you

will motivate yourself and energize yourself and Propel yourself into all your other tasks you'll get twice as much done on any day where you start and complete your major task first thing than any other day the discipline of time management was then spread to all your other disciplines when you can demonstrate each morning that you have the self-control self-mastery self-discipline to start and complete your most important you just feel fabulous about yourself now the fourth discipline is the discipline of courage and it goes back to what we said earlier force yourself to do what you

know you should do especially in the area of Courage the biggest obstacle to success in my estimation the estimation of the psychologist is the fear of failure it's the fear that it won't work out it's the fear of loss of time or money or emotion it's fear that goes back to early childhood and the only way we can succeed is by overcoming this fear and this fear is captured in the words I can't I can't what about this what about that what about this fully eighty percent of the population is paralyzed by the fear of

making a mistake and why because in growing up you make lots of mistakes and dim like the feel of it so eventually you become conditioned to avoid taking any risk at all so you have to overcome this in order to realize your potential but what we know is that Courage the courage to face fears is a habit and it's development practice just like typing with a typewrite or riding a bicycle you can actually develop the habit of Courage by practicing courage whenever courage is required Aristotle wrote about this in his nickomack in ethics in 350

BC he said if you desire to have equality that you don't have act in every instance where the quality is called for as though you already had it and you will have it so as Ralph Waldo Emerson said do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain what he said was to confront your fears the natural human tendency is to avoid a fear-causing or fear-inducing situation most of our fear problems seem to be bundled up with other people by the way it's confronting a boss it's confronting a bad relationship sometimes it's confronting

a prospect cold calling going out and calling on customers and facing rejection and failure and embarrassment and so on but confronting that fear instead of avoiding it just do it so the reason you want to confront your fears is not because of the incident specifically it's because of what it does for your character you want to demonstrate to yourself that you can face down a fear and look at Square in the eye and suddenly surprise surprise it goes away and you realize that the fear was in your own mind now here's the most wonderful thing

about overcoming fears if the fear of failure is summarized with the feeling I can't I I can't psychologists have found you can actually short circuit or override the fear by saying to yourself very strongly I can do it and do it and do it I can do it so whenever you're afraid of anything talking to somebody confronting someone dealing with something say to yourself over and over again I can do it I can do it I can do it and then just do it and you'll be amazed the fear disappears it's almost like poof it's

gone so the key is you're looking at that telephone to pick up the phone to cold call to prospect just say to yourself I could do it I could do it I can do it and pick it up and dial and suddenly the fear disappears and you do this repeatedly and eventually you develop the habit of courage so here's an exercise for you identify one fear situation in your life today and use that as your challenge use that as your test case you say you know what I'm going to do I'm going to face this

fear down I'm going to hammer it I'm going to smash it I'm going to look at right in the eye I'm going to deal with it direct head-on like a car hitting a wall until the fear is gone and once you've done that you'll look up and you'll be a different person for the rest of your life you'll know that nothing that you're afraid of can stop you foreign discipline is the discipline of excellent health habits your goal should be to live to be a hundred in sound physical health today the average lifespan in America

is approaching 80 which means 50 percent of people will die above that and 50 percent of people will die below since you are smarter than the average or more knowledgeable you're better informed you're probably going to smash that average and live to be 90 9 500 years old so set 100 is your goal and say to yourself okay I want to live to be a hundred in great shape what would I have to do what kind of shape would I have to be and what kind of life would I have to live physically in order

to get there so first of all design your ideal body if your ideal body was perfect in other words weight Fitness tone stretch flexibility and everything if your body was perfect what would it look like and make a list of all the things remember when you're a child your body was perfect and if your body's not perfect now it just means that maybe you've forgotten to do a few things or you've done a few things you shouldn't have done so start off with a clear picture of your perfect body and recognize that that is possible

for you now the key to physical health has always been contained in the five-word formula eat less and exercise more eat less and exercise more every single person who studies the subject and now more and more people realize that the key to success is to eat less and exercise more and exercise every day so discipline yourself to exercise daily the very best time of course is in the morning if you get up in the morning and exercise immediately even if it's just stretching or going for a walk or riding a life cycle or walking on

a treadmill doesn't matter what it is if you get up in the morning and exercise immediately not only will your body continue to burn calories all day not only will you be more alert because you'll have highly oxygenated blood flooding your brain first thing in the morning but you'll develop the discipline of starting on something that you would normally not want to do and getting it done getting it out of the way the more times I read about wealthy people successful people top business people it's amazing how many of them get up at five o'clock

and work out for an hour it's absolutely astonishing over and over again you see their daily routine as they get up at five or five thirty and they work out for an hour before they start planning and organizing their day if you can discipline yourself to do that to have an enormous impact on your life also when you exercise first thing in the morning for 30 to 60 Minutes your brain releases endorphins which as I said make you happy they make you feel exhilarated make you feel more creative more positive you'll feel more personable you're

more eager to get to work and so on so morning exercise just starts you off in fantastic mental and physical condition now to get rid of any extra weight that you might have just eliminate the three white poisons the three white poisons are anything that has flour in it white flour wheat flour any kind of flour makes you overweight it sticks to your gut to your hips and to your thighs eliminate sugar and any sugar products eliminate desserts eliminate Donuts eliminate soft drinks don't eat things with sugar and eliminate salt don't put any salt on

your food there's plenty of salt in everything you do I ran into a friend of mine recently who lost 20 pounds I looked at him he was just swaying I mean this is his suit jacket was swaying back and forth like a tent on a tent pig in the wind I said geez I said you've lost a lot of weight I said how did you do it he said I tried everything I exercised he said I walked I tried everything he said I finally stopped eating anything white I stopped eating flour Foods sugar and salt

I should drop 22 pounds in 60 days never came back and I've had people tell me that all over the world so if you can discipline yourself to only eat fruits vegetables and proteins no pasta no bread no rolls no cakes no desserts no Cokes no colas and no salt if you can just do that you'll see yourself losing weight from the first day some people will lose three or four pounds in the first week that they stop adding salt to anything and then of course drink lots of water drink eight glasses of water a

day and what that does it washes all the impurities out of your system very simple process eat more salads and here's a real kicker each before 6 pm at night eat salad eat light and eat before 6 PM everything you eat after 6 PM you accumulate everything you eat before 6 PM burns up before you go to bed don't eat within three hours of going to bed to eat a light or medium light head dinner salad with a little bit of protein before 6 PM or at 6 pm and you'll be astonished the next morning

you'll be thinner it's absolute remarkable two more things by the way with regard to Health First of all get regular medical and dental checkups people often don't go to the dentist or the doctor until they need to I find that it's false economy especially if you're over 40 you should have a complete medical every single year and you should have regular Dental checkups at least twice a year if you're in business of any kind you should have four visits to the orthodontist to clean your teeth every single year so that your teeth are really clean

they found there's a direct relationship between gum health and the health of your whole body so with regard to self-discipline just remember the Michael Jordan motto just do it if you think it's a good idea do it get on with it don't waste time don't make excuses now the sixth discipline is the discipline of regular saving and investing one of the greatest goals that we have in life is to be financially independent one of the greatest worries we have in life is our bills and our debts the greatest fear we have in life is poverty

or ending up our life with no money so the very Act of starting to provide for yourself financially transforms your thinking about yourself and your life it makes you a happy person so set a goal of financial Independence decide that bygom I'm going to become financially independent and resolve to get out of debt and stay out of debt I've worked with countless people who have become financially independent started from nothing and one of the things that they had was an aversion to debt they hated debt they avoided debt the only debt they would accept would

maybe be debt on a mortgage on the house that they live in maybe dad on a car but even then they don't like debt and other than that they avoid debt like the plague so to get out of debt and stay out of debt you have to discipline yourself now here's an interesting point and I learned this from one of the smartest money managers I ever met he said when we're young we associate money with pleasure we get our first allowance and we go and we spend it on candy and we think that when we

have money we go and we spend it on candy or things that make us feel good now when we become adults whenever we think of getting a lot of money our first thought is spending it on something that makes us happy if you go to a tourist Resort where people are on vacation and having a good time but just lying Street after Street after Street of knickknacks and gadgets and junk because people when they're happy associate going out and buying stuff however what this does is it keeps you broke all your life so what you

do this is what he told me is you rewire yourself you kind of pull out one wire and replug it in and you say instead of saying I like spending money you say I like saving money and you begin to think of how much you enjoy having money in the bank how much you enjoy saving how much you enjoy delayed gratification how much you enjoy the idea of moving toward Financial Independence and when you develop the habit of being happy about saving money you start to find yourself more and more careful with your expenditures now

you know the rule for financial Independence is to save 10 15 20 percent of your income throughout your life and as your income grows keep saving more and more and investing it putting it away as Albert Einstein said compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe so putting your money away in well-chosen mutual funds money market funds index funds and just letting it grow over time and don't worry about the stock market going going up and down average increase in the U.S stock market for the last 100 years has been eight to ten

percent each year taking good years and bad years into consideration so your job is to save 10 15 20 of your income now for most people because they're in debt they just discard that completely their mind shuts down so here's what I say is develop the habit of saving one percent of your income if you make two thousand dollars a month that means you save twenty dollars you go down to the bank and you open up a Financial Freedom account and you put in twenty dollars from the first paycheck you get that month and then

you discipline yourself to live on the other 99 percent once you're comfortable living on 99 then you increase it to two percent and three percent and four percent within a year you'll have developed the habit of living on 85 to 90 percent of your income and automatically saving the balance you can even have the amount deducted from your paycheck so it disappears and you never see it your paycheck goes into the bank and the amount is automatically deducted into your savings account or into an investment account soon you develop the habit of living on less

than you earn and you've changed your thinking from I enjoy spending to I enjoy saving a key way to save your money is to delay and to defer major purchase decisions you'll find that if you think about buying a car or a washing machine or a stereo set or a new computer if you think about it for 30 days in many cases you won't do it at all or if you do do it you'll make a better decision one of the smartest things of all is to buy things that are used rather than things that

are new you know that millionaires never buy new cars millionaires never buy new cars according to the studies by Stanley and Danko in The Millionaire Next Door is they wait and they buy a car that's two years old it's coming off lease or that's been driven for two years and somebody's trading it in and it's still under warranty for three years and you can even get extended warranties on many cars where they'll go back and clean it all up and give you another five years on a two-year-old car but what have you done you say

ten or twenty thousand dollars on a car and what do you do with that money you put it away and let it grow with compound interest if all you did was buy a used car every five to eight years drive it until it falls apart and then buy another one the money you'd save from buying new cars can make you rich it can accumulate with compound interest into hundreds of thousands of dollars by the end of your working lifetime if you're going to invest the rule is investigate before you invest my friend Ken Fisher of

Fisher investment says that two-thirds of all investing is avoiding making mistakes let me repeat that two-thirds of all success in investing or business is avoiding making mistakes by making the wrong decisions or by making decisions too quickly so if you're going to invest in anything the rule is spend as much time investigating the investment as you spent making the money you'll find that quick investment decisions are invariably poor investment decisions only invest in things that you know and understand don't invest in somebody else's idea or scheme or business only invest in things that you know

number one rule is don't lose money whatever you do don't lose money if there's a possibility of losing a little bit of money and you do it you're probably going to lose a lot so be very careful once you earn the money hold on to it there's a Japanese proverb that says making money is like digging in the sand with a pin losing money is like pouring water on the sand it's easy to lose money but it's hard to make it and keep it and it's the most important discipline of all another discipline is to

pay cash as often as possible and for as much as possible get rid of all your credit cards except for one and only use that one when you have to the very Act of paying cash really hypersensitizes you to how much it's costing and causes you to spend less money W Clement Stone once said if you cannot save money the seeds of greatness are not in you the primary reason why you save your money and accumulate it carefully is because it gives you two things first of all it gives you Freedom you know you've got

money in the bank if you don't like your job you can walk away from it because you've got money in the bank but the second thing it gives you is opportunity if an opportunity comes along you're prepared to take advantage of it you don't have to say I'm sorry I don't have any money I can't afford it I'm broke and people just shake their head and pity and walk away as an adult you should always have opportunity money put aside and when you have it you feel great about yourself the difference between a person with

a little money and a person with no money is night and day a person with a little money feels great a person with no money always feels inferior anxious worried concerned irritable short-tempered you know exactly what I'm talking about now the seventh discipline is the discipline of hard work there's nothing that will help you more than for you to develop a reputation as a hard worker in the studies of self-made millionaires again they said I didn't have better education better Talent better knowledge but I was willing to work harder than anyone else most self-made millionaires

work 60 and 70 hours per week for 5 10 15 years before they break through most other people are trying to get by on five days a week and then during those five days a week they don't work very hard at all the interesting thing Thomas Jefferson once said do you believe in luck he was asked he said yes he said I believe in luck he said and the harder I work the more that I have so the harder you work the luckier you get the harder you work the more opportunities you have the more

doors open up to you the more opportunities you see so in America the average work week is 32 hours as you know in France legally the average work week is 35 hours but then most people waste about half their time at work according to Robert Half International the average person wastes 50 percent of their time in idle chit chat with co-workers coffee breaks lunches reading the paper surfing the internet doing all kinds of things that don't contribute anything to the work so here here's the rule that will make you successful happy and Rich and it's

this work all the time you work all the time you work when you go to work work when you go to work put your head down and go to work don't waste a single minute put your head down and work all day long if somebody comes up to you and says hi how you doing you say fine but right now I've got to get back to work back to work back to work if you got a minute to chat yes but not now let's talk after work right now I've got to get my job done

and nobody will ever stop you when you say I've got to get back to work I've got a job I've got to get out I've got something I have to get done they'll go away and they'll ruin someone else's career remember the greatest time wasters in the world of work are other people who take up your time with idle Chit Chat and worthless gossip you've got to avoid the time wasters in every single company these people go around and they're like a virus they go around and they infect everybody they talk to stay away from

time wasters now here's a way to double your productivity performance output and income here's a way to put yourself on the fast track increase your income and become one of the most valuable people in your industry it's very simple start one hour earlier and when you start get to work if the starting time in your company is 8 30 start at 7 30 or 7. now you say where are you going to get the time get up a little earlier and get going remember all you do is Beat the Traffic if you get in there

early and get in there plan your day get going get organized get started what other people come in you are already running you're already on your way work through lunch there's no law that says you have to go out and kill an hour an hour and a half at lunch eat at your desk eat quickly eat on the go use that time to work don't use that time to hang around there's a thing sweeping America today about having fun at work no work is not fun time work is not the playpen or the sandbox work

is not school work is work what you do is you go to work and you work all the time don't worry about fun have your fun later knowing that you've done a fantastic job and you've gotten a lot done and finally work one hour later be the last one to leave be the person who turns off the lights interesting if you look at an entrepreneurial startup a business that's being run by somebody who's really driving it Forward you'll find that business owners usually the first one there Works through the whole day usually the last one

to leave business owner usually works on Saturday and Sunday at the end of the day the business owner's got a beautiful home house on the hill beautiful cars Beautiful Life vacations a boat in the yacht Basin and everybody says boy she is sure lucky no they're not lucky they just worked all the time they work if you work three extra hours start earlier work harder stay later you'll add six hours of productive work to your day every hour of uninterrupted work when nobody's there translates into three hours of productivity when there's people around interrupting you

so keep asking at work what is the most valuable use of my time right now what is the most valuable use of my time right now and then do only that and keep saying back to work back to work whenever you get distracted or you start to follow the path of least resistance and major in my minor say wait a minute I've got to get back to work back to work back to work now the eighth discipline is the discipline of continuous learning the rule is to earn more you must learn more if you want

to earn more than you're earning today you've got to learn new Knowledge and Skills that make it possible Jim Rohn once said very famously said work at least as hard on yourself as you do on your work work at least as hard on yourself as you do on your work so how do you do this well you read in your field daily if you reach 60 minutes a day in your field a little in the morning little in the evening it'll translate into one book a week one book A Week will translate into 50 books

a year the average adult reads less than one book a year and most non-fiction books are never read past the first chapter if you read 50 books a year it's the equivalent of getting a PhD in your field every single year just reading every day will make you one of the most proficient most skilled and ultimately highest paid people in your field listen to CDs in your car like this the average person drives 500 to a thousand hours a year that's the equivalent of three to six months a 40-hour week that's the equivalent of one

to two full-time University semesters just listening to educational CDs in your car will make you one of the best informed people in your field and finally in continuous learning attend seminars take courses take structured courses given by experts given by authorities you can learn more and a half day or a day from an expert then you might learn on your own in years I've had many people walk out of my courses with one new idea and increase their income five times within 30 days one new technique for getting new clients prospecting one new technique for

presenting or overcoming objections one new technique for closing sales you're getting referrals and their income is exploded they'd have never learned it they call me they come to me they say it was incredible it changed my life that one idea now the average income in America increases about three percent a year with additional knowledge and skill you increase the rate at which your income goes up if you get new knowledge and skill you learn more your income goes up ten percent per annum you'll double your income in 7.2 years if your income goes up 25

percent per year you'll double your income in two years in eight months in other words the more you learn the more you earn the benefits of continuous learning are life-changing and here's the final discipline number nine the discipline of persistence now the discipline of persistence says that the greatest test of self-discipline is when you persist in the face of adversity and you drive yourself forward to complete your tasks 100 percent test of self-discipline is when you can drive yourself to keep on keeping on even when everyone around you feels like quitting and you feel like

quitting as well you know we say that courage has two parts the first part of Courage is the courage to begin it's the courage to start it's the courage to launch in the face of failure with no guarantees of success but the second part of Courage is the courage to endure the courage to persist and to keep on going when you're tired and you're disappointed and nothing's working and there's no guarantee of success and maybe even a very large likelihood of failure so it's really important we say that your persistence is your measure of your

belief in yourself and what you are doing if you truly believe in the goodness and rightness and value of what you're doing you will persist regardless of what's happening on the outside and the more you believe in the goodness and rightness of what you're doing the more you will persist and wonderfully enough the more you persist the more you believe in yourself the more you believe in the value of your work persistence seems to change your character in reality persistence is self-discipline inaction in the final analysis your persistence is your measure of self-discipline self-discipline leads

to self-esteem every time you practice self-esteem you feel better about yourself which leads to Greater persistence which leads to even greater self-discipline and you get onto an upward spiral in life that's why Napoleon Hill said that persistence is to the character of a man or woman as carbon is to steal you actually make yourself you shape yourself you form yourself you build yourself into a superior human being a better and stronger person by persisting when you feel like quitting well every time you have the tendency to quit every time you feel like giving up or

cutting corners or stopping before you finished your test say wait a minute this is a test this is a test of my character this is the test to see what I'm made of and it's not what I'm working on that counts it's the person I am becoming by either persisting or quitting so always persist until you have completed the task and as you do you burst through and your brain floods with endorphins and you feel wonderful about yourself eventually you develop that habit of persistence and you become Unstoppable well here are the seven benefits of

practicing self-discipline in every area of your life number one the habit of self-discipline guarantees your success every single successful person has that fundamental quality of persistence and tenacity that fundamental quality of self-discipline to make themselves do what they should do whether they feel like it or not number two is when you practice self-discipline you'll get more done faster and better than other people you'll get more results you'll be more productive you'll have higher levels of performance you'll bring yourself to the attention of people who can help you and support you and move you forward number

three you'll be paid more and promoted faster at any job in any situation the people with high levels of self-discipline who get the results are the ones who are immediately moved to the front of the line of life number four you'll have a greater sense of self-control self-reliance and personal power you'll feel that you could do anything that you put your mind to because you have the ability to make yourself to discipline yourself to do it anyway number five self-discipline is the key to self-esteem self-respect and personal Pride every time you discipline yourself you'll like

yourself more every time you discipline yourself you see yourself as a better person every time you discipline yourself you feel great about yourself you feel personally proud of yourself it affects your personality in a very positive way number six the greater your self-discipline the greater your self-confidence and the lower your fears of failure and rejection eventually you develop self-confidence so that you'll walk through walls and number seven with self-discipline you'll have the strength of character to persist over all obstacles until you succeed with self-discipline you Achieve Personal greatness foreign [Music] [Music]