BE THE BEST | 1 Hour To Change your next 10 years | One Of The Most Motivational Speech 2024

you are your most valuable asset your life your potential and your possibilities are the most precious things you have thus your great goal in life should be to fulfill that potential and become everything you are capable of becoming your ability to learn grow and fulfill your potential is unlimited today people are graduating from high school and college in their 70s learning new subjects and developing new capabilities your ability to learn and remember can continue throughout your life if you keep your brain alive alert and functioning at its best your most precious financial asset is your

earning ability your ability to work is your primary source of cash throughout your life you could lose your home your car your bank account or everything you own but as long as you have your earning ability you can earn it all back and more in the months and years ahead your biggest investment most people don't realize this they take their earning ability for granted but it has taken you your entire life to develop your earning ability every bit of Education experience and hard work that you have invested in learning your craft and developing your skills

has gone into building this asset your earning ability is very much like a muscle it can increase and strengthen in power Year bye as a result of regular exercise likewise the opposite is true too if left alone or ignored your earning ability like your muscles can become weaker or even decline because you have simply failed to upgrade it continually in other words your earning ability can be either an appreciating or a depreciating ass asset an appreciating asset is something that grows in value and cash flow every year as a result of continual investment and Improvement

a depreciating asset on the other hand is something that loses value over time and finally reaches the point at which it is written off being of little or no further value the choice is yours as to whether your earning ability is increasing or decreasing month by month and yearby year see yourself as the president of your own personal services Corporation imagine that you're going to take your company public on the stock market would you recommend your company as a growth stock continually increasing its value and earning ability each year or would you describe your company

as one that has leveled off in the marketplace that is not really going anywhere in terms of increased value and income would you recommend stock in uink as an excellent investment why or why not what got you here won't get you any further some people are actually losing value each year declining in earning ability because they are are not continually upgrading their Knowledge and Skills they don't realize that whatever knowledge and skill they have today is rapidly becoming obsolete it's being replaced by new Knowledge and Skills that if you don't have them and someone else

does you'll be in danger of being overtaken by your competition join the top 20% in chapter 1 I mentioned that the 8020 rule applies to income the top 20% of people in our society earn and control 80% of the assets according to four orbs Fortune Business Week The Wall Street Journal and the IRS by many estimates the top 1% of Americans control as much as 33% of the assets the most interesting Discovery in income inequality is that most millionaires multi-millionaires and billionaires in America are first generation they started with little or nothing and earned all

their money by themselves in one lifetime in America there's a high level of income Mobility which means that you are able to move from the lower levels of income to the upper levels almost everyone who is in the top 20% today started in the bottom 20% from that point they began to do something different with their time and their lives and as a result they put themselves squarely onto the upward escalator of financial success no limits on your potential the average income increase in America is about 3% a year just about the same as the

rate of inflation and cost of living increases people whose income is increasing at 3% a year seldom get ahead they have a job which can also be thought of as an acronym for just over broke but the fact is that no one is better than you and no one is smarter than you if someone is doing better than you are today it is simply proof that they have learned how the law of cause and effect applies to their work and they have begun doing the things that other successful people have also done the application of

the law of cause and effect in your personal life is to learn and do the achievement of personal Excellence is a decision you make or that you fail to make but in the absence of a commitment to Excellence in your chosen field you automatically default to average performance or even mediocrity no one becomes excellent accidentally or by just going to work each day Excellence requires a definite decision and a lifelong commitment the keys to the 21st century knowledge and skill are the keys to the 21st century becoming the best person you can possibly be and

moving to the top of your field requires the application of self-discipline throughout your life mental Fitness is like physical fitness if you want to achieve either you must work at it all the time you can never let up you must be continually learning and growing everyday week and month throughout your career and in other areas of your life if you're going to join the top 20% and stay there to earn more you must learn more Abraham Lincoln once wrote the fact that some have become wealthy is proof that others may do it as well what

others have done you can do as well if you learn how everyone who was at the top was once at the bottom many people who come from from average or poor families with average incomes or who grow up in ordinary circumstances have gone on to become some of the most prominent people in their fields and what hundreds of thousands and even millions of other people have done you can do as well the philosopher bertran Russell once wrote the very best proof that something can be done is that someone else has already done it ordinary into

extraordinary very often you see people who don't seem to be as intelligent or as talented as you are who are nonetheless accomplishing remarkable things with their lives there's nothing that will make you angrier than to see someone who seems to be dumber than you who is doing better than you how can this be the answer is simple at a certain point in their lives they realize that the key to success was personal and professional growth it was a dedication to lifelong learning that made them successful the good news is that almost every important skill is

learnable every business skill is learnable everyone who is proficient in any area of business was at one time completely ignorant in that area every sales skill is learnable every top salesperson was once a beginning salesp person and unable to make a call or close a sale all money-making skills are learnable as well almost every wealthy person was once poor you can learn anything you need to learn to achieve any goal you set for yourself make a decision the starting point of your moving upward and onward toward becoming one of the most competent most respected and

highest paid people in your field is is simple make a decision it's said that every major change in your life comes about when your mind collides with a new idea and then you make a decision to do something different you make a decision to complete your education upgrade your skills or get into a good college you make a decision to start a new business you make a decision to take a particular job or start a particular career you make a decision to invest your money in a particular way and especially you make a decision to

be the best in your field many people say that that they would like to be happy healthy thin and Rich but as discussed in chapter 4 wishing and hoping is not enough you have to make a firm unequivocal decision that you are going to pay any price and go any distance in order to achieve the goals you have set for yourself you have to make that decision and then burn your mental Bridges behind you from that moment on you resolve to continue working on yourself and your craft until you reach the top 20% or Beyond

follow the leaders not the followers when you decide to be one of the best people in your field look around you and identify the people who are already at the top what characteristics do they have in common how do they plan and organize their days how do they dress how do they walk talk and behave with other people what books do they read how do they spend their spare time who do they associate with what courses have they taken What audio programs do they listen to in their cars and these are just a few of

the questions you should ask in order to find out what successful people are doing that you might also need to do after all you can't hit a Target that you can't see your selection of the right Role Models can have an enormous impact on your future Dr David mcleland of Harvard an author of The achieving Society concluded that your choice of a reference group can determine as much as 95% of your success at achievement in life your reference group is made up of the people who you feel are just like me your natural tendency is

to adopt the attitudes styles of dress opinions and lifestyles of the people with whom you identify and Associate most of the time fly with the Eagles some years ago one of my seminar participants told me his story Bob Barton said he had started off in his 20s in a large company with about 32 salespeople in his Branch it was his first real job and he was starting at the bottom because he was new he hung around with the other Junior salespeople as they say birds of a feather flock together after a month or two Bob

noticed that the top salespeople in the office also associated with each other they did not spend time with the junior salespeople they also spent their time differently when Bob got into work in the morning the top salespeople were already there planning their days and working on the telephone and making appointments Bob also noticed that the junior salespeople would come in later drink coffee read the newspaper and make excuses for not making sales calls Bob decided that he was going to pattern himself after the top salespeople in the office he looked at the way they dressed

and groomed and he resolved to dress and groom the way they did each morning he would stand in front of his mirror and ask himself do I look like one of the top salespeople in my office if the answer was no he would go back and change his clothes until he felt that he looked as good as the best people he began to come into the office and organize his day before 8:30 a.m. so that he was ready to make calls as soon as his customers were available to see him one day Bob asked one

of the top sales people if he could recommend a book or audio program that would help him it turns out that top people are always willing willing to help other people improve when he got the recommendation Bob immediately went out and got the book and sent away for the audio program he read the book and listened to the program and then reported back to the top salesman the top salesman gave him some more advice on things to read and listen to All of which Bob followed Bob asked another salesperson how he planned his day and

that salesperson showed him his time management system so Bob began to plan and organize his day the way the top salespeople did it by using these top salespeople as his role models and emulating them whenever possible Bob started to make more appointments see more prospects and make more sales within 6 months he was one of the top salese people in the office as well by that time the top salese had invited him for coffee and lunch and he became one of them rather than one of the junior people the next year Bob went to the

national sales conference where he met a lot of the top people from around the country he deliberately sought them out and asked for their advice what books would they suggest What audio programs would they recommend what seminars had they attend Ed what strategies did they find that were the most effective in building their sales business Bob did something that very few people do when he received advice he followed it he immediately took action on the advice and then reported back to the people who had given it to him within 4 years Bob became one of

the top salespeople in the country his friends and Associates were the other top salespeople in his branch and in the other branches his income had increased several times he wore beautiful clothes drove a new car lived in a lovely home and had a wonderful wife and he said that it all came about as a result of asking top salespeople for their input and then following that input and applying it to his sales activities but here's the kicker over and over the top people the ones who had been winning the sales Awards year after year told

Bob the same thing he was the first person who had ever come up to them and asked them for advice no one else had ever sought them out and asked them why they were so successful the answers have all been found here is a great discovery all the answers have been found all the routes to success have been discovered everything you need to learn to move to the top of your field has already been learned by hundreds and even thousands of other people and if you ask them for advice they will give it to you

successful people will have their phone calls held cancel other appointments and put their work aside to help other people to be successful but you must ask and then you must follow their advice once they give it to you if you can't ask them directly read their books and attend their talks and seminars listen Len to audio programs created by successful people sometimes you can send them emails and ask for advice learn from the best set High income as a goal if your goal is to be in the top 20% of money makers in your field

the first thing you need to do is to find out what the people in the top 20% are earning today this information is available just ask around check industry statistics or go on Google you can find this information if you look for it once you know the income Target at which you are aiming write it down as your goal make a plan plan to achieve this level of income and work on it every day never stop until you reach it the secret to high income in business and sales is quite simple learn and do like

jacking up a car you improve one notch at a time each time you learn and practice a new skill you ratchet up your earning ability and it locks in as long as you keep increasing your earning ability you keep ratcheting up to a higher level from which you seldom decline use the 3% formula to invest in yourself to guarantee your lifelong success make a decision today to invest 3% of your income back into yourself this seems to be the magic number for lifelong learning according to the American Society for training and development this is the

percentage that the most profitable 20% of companies in every industry invest in the training and development of their staff decide today to invest 3% of your income into yourself in order to make yourself an appreciating asset to continually increase your earning ability if your annual income goal is50 ,000 resolve to invest 3% of that amount or $1,500 back into yourself each year to maintain and upgrade your Knowledge and Skills if your income goal is $100,000 resolve to invest $3,000 per year back into yourself to assure that you reach that level of income the payoff is

extraordinary I was giving a seminar in Detroit a couple of years ago when a young man about 30 years old came up to me at the break he told me that he had first come to my seminar and heard my 3% rule about 10 years ago at that time he had dropped out of college was living at home driving an old car and earning about $20,000 a year as an office Toof salesman he decided after the seminar that he was going to apply the 3% rule to himself and he did so immediately he calculated that

3% of his income of $20,000 would be $600 he began to buy sales books and read them every day he invested in two audio learning programs on sales and time management he took one sales seminar he invested the entire $600 in himself in learning to become better that year his income went from 20,000 to 30,000 an increase of 50% he said he could trace the increase with great accuracy to the things he had learned and applied from the books he had read and the audio programs he had listened to so the following year he invested

3% of $30,000 a total of $900 back into himself that year his income jumped from $3,000 to $50,000 he began to think if my income goes up at 50% per year by investing 3% back into myself what would happen if I invested 5% the next year he invested 5% of his income $2,500 into his learning program he took more seminars traveled cross country to a conference bought more audio and video learning programs and even hired a part-time coach and that year his income doubled to $100,000 after that like playing Texas holdom he decided to go

all in and raise his investment into himself to 10% per year he told me that he'd been doing this ever since I asked him how has investing 10% of your income back into yourself affected your income he smiled and said I passed a million dollars in personal income last year and I still invest 10% of my income in myself every single year and I said wow that's a lot of money how do you manag to spend that much money on personal development he said it's hard I have to start spending money on myself in January

in order to invest it all by the end of the year I have an image coach a sales coach and a speaking coach I have a large library in my home with every book audio program and video program on sales and personal success I can find I attend conferences both nationally and internationally in my field and my income keeps going up every year there are three simple steps to becoming the best becoming one of the top people in your field requires discipline and application more than anything else there are three simple steps that you can

follow to become the very best in your field read 60 Minutes in your field each day turn off the television and the radio put aside the newspaper and read material about your field for one hour each day before you start working listen to educational audio programs in your car start them and stop them as you listen so that you can reflect on what you have just heard and think about how you can apply the ideas to your work attend courses and seminars in your field regularly seek them out take on online courses in the convenience

of your own home courses that enable you to upgrade your skills and give you important ideas that you can use to be even more successful the power of compound learning like compound interest is quite amazing the more you learn the more you can learn the more you learn the better your brain functions and the smarter you get your memory and retention rate improve the more you learn the more relationships you find between something you learned at one time and something you learn at another time never stop learning and growing the achievement of Mastery how long

does it take to achieve Mastery in your field according to the experts the acquisition of Mastery requires about 7 years or 10,000 hours of hard work it takes s years to become a master salesperson it takes seven years to become a successful business person it takes seven years to become an excellent diesel mechanic it takes seven years to become an excellent brain surgeon it seems to take s years or 10,000 hours of hard work to get to the top of any field so you might as well get started the time is going to pass anyway

the starting point of your achieving Mastery is for you to commit to Excellence I've never met a person who made a decision to get into the top 20% in their field who did not eventually achieve it and I never met a person who got there without having made that decision making the decision and then following up with continuous purposeful disciplined action is essential Talent is not enough as I mentioned earlier according to Jeffrey Coven in his bestselling book Talent is overrated most people learn how to do their job in the first year and then they

never get any better they just Coast in their jobs but the only Direction you can Coast is downhill many people will work away at a job for many years and never rise above the average they will do their job from 8 to 5 but they never lift a finger to upgrade their skills they will not invest any time learning their craft unless their company pays for the extra training and gives them the time off to take it the average person does only an average job and as a result he earns an average income and worries

about money all his life he never realizes that often there is only a thin veil that separates the average person from the excellent person the fact is that if you're not getting better you're getting worse no one stays in the same place for long two hours each day will get you to the top it's been calculated that all you need to invest is about two extra hours per day to move from the average to the superior only two extra hours each day will move you from worrying about money all your life to being one of

the highest paid people in your field people immediately ask where am I going to get an extra 2 hours each day it's simple take a piece of paper and do the following simple calculation calculate the number of hours in a week 7 Days * 24 hours equals 168 hours if you deduct 40 hours for work and 56 hours for sleep you have 72 hours left over if you deduct 3 hours per day 21 hours for getting ready for and traveling to and from work that leaves you 51 hours of spare time to do with as

you please if you invest 2 hours per day back into your yourself 14 hours per week you still have 37 hours left over that's an average of more than 5 hours per day of free time all you need to do is devote two hours each day to move you from average performance to Superior performance at whatever you choose to do form the habit of continuous learning the best news is that when you begin reading personal or professional development literature listening to audio programs in your car taking additional courses and upgrading your skills in the evenings

and on the week rather than watching television you soon get into the habit of continuous learning in no time at all it will become automatic and easy for you to learn grow and upgrade your skills every day and every week the average adult watches about 5 hours of Television each day for some people it is seven or eight hours they turn on the television first thing in the morning and watch it until they leave for work they turn it back on as soon as they get home from work then watch television until 11: or 12:00

at night going to bed without enough time to get a good night's sleep they then get up in the morning drink coffee and watch television for as long as they can before they go off to work once more you can be rich or poor it's your decision your television set can make you rich or poor if you watch it all the time it will make you poor psychologists have shown that the more television you watch the lower your levels of energy and self-esteem at an unconscious level you don't like or respect yourself as much if

you sit there hour after hour watching television people who watch too much television also gain weight and become physically unfit from sitting around too much your television can also make you rich but only if you turn it off when you turn off your television you free up time you can then use to invest in becoming a better smarter or more competent person when you leave your television off while you are with your family you'll find yourself Talking sharing communicating and laughing more often when you leave your television off for extended periods of time you break

the habit of watching television and you'll hardly miss it at all your television can be an excellent servant but it's a terrible master the choice is yours increase your income 1,000% there is a simple seven-step formula you can use in order to increase your productivity performance output and income by 1,000% over the next 10 years it works for everyone who tries it it is simple first answer this question is it possible for you to increase your overall productivity performance and output by onet of 1% which is 1 1,000th in an entire working day your answer

will probably be yes if you were to manage your time a little better and work on more valuable tasks you would quite easily increase your output by 1 1,000th in a day having done this for the first day could you increase your output by 1/10th of 1% the second day and the answer of course is yes having increased your performance by 1/10th of 1% on Monday and Tuesday could you continue to do this for Wednesday Thursday and Friday and again the answer is yes 1/ half of 1% per week 1/1 of 1% Time 5 days

per week equals 1/2 of 1% per week is it possible for a normal intelligent hardworking individual to increase his or her output by 1 half of 1% or 1/ 1200th in a single week of course it is having done this for the first week could you keep up the same pace of personal development the second week of course you could could you get one 1,000th of 1% better 5 days a week for an entire month if you could this means that you would be 1 half of 1% better per week multiplied by four or 2%

more productive in an entire month there are 13 four- we months in a year 4 * 13 equals 52 having become 2% better in a month could you repeat that in the second month the third month the fourth month and so on of course you could by working on yourself a little bit each day learning new skills getting better at your key tasks setting priorities and focusing on higher value activities you can become 26% more productive over the course of an entire year having achieved this goal for the first year could you do it for

the second year and then the third could you keep it up for 10 years and the answer of course is yes the best news is that when you continue to work on yourself it becomes easier and easier for you to get better and better as the weeks and months go by by the law of accumulation or the law of incremental Improvement by the end of 12 months you would be 26% better if you continue to improve at 26% per year by the end of 10 years with compounding you could be 1,000 and 4% more productive

your income would increase at the same rate this formula works if you do there are seven steps in the 1,000% formula step one arise 2 hours before your first appointment or before you have to be at work invest the first hour in yourself by reading something educational motivational or spiritual as Henry Ward beer once said the first hour is the rudder of the day when you get up and invest the first hour in yourself you set yourself up mentally to have an excellent day you'll be more positive alert creative and productive all day long when

you start your day by investing the first hour in yourself if you read in your field one hour per day that will translate into about one book per week one book per week will translate into about 50 books per year the average adult reads less than one non-fiction book per year if you were to Read 50 books in your field each year do you think that would give you an edge in your profession do you think that it would move you ahead of virtually everyone else in your business of course it would if you read

50 books per year for 10 years this would be 500 books that would help you to improve your productivity performance and income at the very least you would need a bigger house just to hold your books and you'd be able to afford it reading one hour per day in your field will make you a National Authority in 3 to 5 years this alone can give you your th% increase over the course of your career step two rewrite your goals every day get a spiral notebook and rewrite your major goals in the present tense every morning

before you start out without looking back at what you wrote the previous day this writing and rewriting is the process of programming instructions into the guidance mechanism of your mind when you rewrite your 10 goals each morning you will continually see and think of opportunities to achieve those goals all day long you'll become more focused channeled and directed you'll be more purposeful and determined and you will achieve your goals much faster than if they were merely wishes floating around in the back of your mind writing and rewriting your goals each day can give you your

1,000% increase in income over 10 years step three plan every day in advance make a list and set priorities on your work before you start your ability to set priorities and to choose the most important thing that you could be doing at every moment is the key to organizing your life and doubling your productivity we'll talk in detail about time management techniques in chapter 12 working on your top priorities can increase your income by 1,000% over 10 years and it is probably impossible to achieve without it step four discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one

thing choose the most important thing that you can do each day then start on it first thing and work on it until it's 100% complete your ability to focus and concentrate when you develop and hone it into a habit all by itself will enable you to double your productivity performance and output in the next month and it will give you your 1,000% increase over 10 years step five listen to educational audio programs in your car the average business person who drives spends 5 00 to 1,000 hours per year behind the wheel of their car when

you turn your car into a university on Wheels a mobile classroom you get the educational equivalent of one to two full-time University semesters as you drive around many people have gone from Rags to Riches by simply listening to educational audio programs in their cars as they drive from place to place you could do the same this alone could give you your 1,000% increase step number six ask two magic questions after every call or event first ask yourself what did I do right then ask yourself what would I do differently the first question what did I

do right forces you to think through and recall all the correct things that you did in that last meeting presentation or event even if it was not successful write them down the second question what would I do differently forces you to think through all the different ways you can improve your performance in a similar situation write these ideas down as well in both cases by revie your performance and thinking about what you did right and what you would do differently you program yourself to perform even better the next time this is one of the fastest

and most powerful exercises in personal growth and development I have ever discovered this process dramatically speeds up the rate at which you move into the top 20% step seven treat every person you meet like a million-dollar customer treat each person you meet and work with both at home and in the office as though he or she is the most important person in the world when you treat people as if they are valuable and important they will return the favor by treating you as if you are valuable and important as well they will want to be

associated with you work for you buy from you and introduce you to their friends you begin treating people like million-dollar customers by starting at home with the members of your family remember they are the most important people in your life so when you start your day first thing in the morning by making the members of your family feel important and telling them that you love them you'll be more positive relaxed and happier for the rest of the day fully 85% of your success will be determined by how much people like and respect you especially in

business and sales never miss an opportunity to treat people well when you practice these seven steps each day for a month you will see changes and improvements in your life work and income that will astonish you after a month of regular practice you'll have formed a new habit of continuous personal Improvement that can carry you onward and upward for the rest of your life the best lifelong personal development and the commitment to personal Excellence requires tremendous dedication discipline and willpower the greatest payoff is that every time you learn and apply something new your brain releases

endorphins which make you feel happier and more excited about your future every time you learn and apply something new you'll have a greater sense of personal power your self-esteem self-respect and personal Pride will increase you'll feel very much in control of your earning ability which is one of the most important parts of your life I discovered that Success is Not an Accident failure is Not an Accident either I also discovered that people who are successful in any area are usually those who have learned the cause and effect relationships between what they wanted and how to

get it they then did repeatedly what other successful people did in a particular area until they got the same results this Insight changed my life no one is really better than you and no one is really smarter than you they just may be better or smarter in different ways at least for the present if someone is doing better than you are today it's probably because he or she has discovered the cause and effect relationships before you have anything that anyone else has done within limits you can do as well the fact that someone else has

achieved a worthy goal is the very best proof that you can achieve that goal as well personal and professional development is the most powerful tool that you can use to achieve any goal you can set for yourself you can move yourself from wherever you are to wherever you want to go by simply learning how others have done it before you and then by following the paths that they have already blazed you've heard it said that the average person uses only 10% of his or her potential according to the Stanford brain Institute however it is actually

closer to 2% the average person has enormous reserves of potential that he or she habitually fails to use nature is exceedingly generous she provides each person with an abundance of abilities and possibilities most of which go untapped throughout life if you were to use only a small additional percentage of your inborn capabilities you could probably double and triple your results you could accomplish things far beyond anything that you have ever done up to now you could be healthier happier and more prosperous than you've ever imagined I believe that each person has the potential to do

something wonderful with his or her life I believe that within each person there is a giant waiting to come out I believe that each person can do vastly more than he or she has ever done before if he or she only learns how that's my fun FAL value what is yours create a long-term vision for yourself in the area of personal growth project forward 5 or 10 years and imagine that you have developed fully in every important part of your life idealize and see yourself as outstanding in every respect refuse to compromise on your personal

dreams what level of skill or ability would you have in your field what level of status and Prestige would you have attained as a result of your superb performance at what you do what kind of work would you be doing and at what level would you be doing this work how would you think and feel about yourself as a result of being one of the very best at what you do if you had no limitations at all what would be your vision for how you would develop yourself in the months and years ahead now take

your vision and crystallize it into specific goals here's a good way to start take out a piece of paper and write down 10 goals that you would like to achieve in the area of personal and professional development in the months and years ahead write in the present tense exactly as if you were already the person you intend to be determine exactly what you want to be a able to do decide the person you want to become describe exactly what you will look like when you become truly excellent in your field and your personal life then

review this list of 10 goals and select the one goal that if you achieved it would have the greatest positive impact on your life and on your career put a circle around that goal and move that goal to a clean sheet of paper create a schedule for achieving this goal set deadlines for achieving certain benchmarks set sub deadlines as well make a list of everything that you can think of that you'll have to do to achieve personal excellence in that area organize your list into a plan by setting priorities on each of the items gather

the books materials equipment and other resources you will need to begin working on yourself and your goal then take immediate action on at least one item in your plan to get the process started resolve to do something every day until you are successful in that area never stop working on yourself until you become the kind of person you would ideally most like to be set specific measures on each of your goals if your goal is to excel in your field determine how you'll be able to know when you've achieved it decide how you could measure

your progress and evaluate your success perhaps you can use as a measure the number of hours that you study in your field each week perhaps you can measure the number of books you read or the number of audio programs that you listen to perhaps you can measure your progress by the number of appointments you get or the number of sales you make as the result of your growing skills compare yourself against these measures on a regular basis the more precise your measures and the more you pay attention to them the better you will become in

that area and the greater progress you will make you first determine your values your vision your goals and the knowledge and skill you require to achieve them you decide upon the ways that you will measure your progress toward each of them you then do something every day that makes you better in some way you read take courses listen to audio programs and practice your new skills never stop improving select the specific habits and behaviors that will need to practice every day to become the person you want to become these could be the habits of clarity

planning thoroughness studiousness hard work determination and persistence perhaps the most important single quality for success is self-discipline Albert hubard the writer define self-discipline as the ability to make yourself do what you should do when you should do it whether you feel like it or not Napoleon Hill call self-discipline the master key to riches every day and every hour of every day you have to practice selfis discipline there are seven disciplines that you must develop if you want to achieve all that is possible for you you can learn each of these disciplines through practice and repetition

until they become automatic here they are first the discipline of daily goal setting the second habit is the discipline of daily planning and organizing the third is the discipline of daily priority setting fourth is the discipline of daily concentration on your highest value activities fifth is the discipline of daily exercise and proper nutrition sixth is the discipline of daily learning and growth seventh is the discipline of taking time daily for the most important people in your life these seven disciplines will virtually assure that you perform at the very highest level and get the greatest satisfaction

and results from everything you do there's a simple practical proven self-development formula that you can use to double your income in the years ahead most people who practice this formula each day report extraordinary improvements in their lives try it and see for yourself I call it the th% formula this th% formula is based on the law of incremental Improvement no matter how excited or determined you are change and progress take place slowly it takes you your entire life to become the person you are today it takes a period of hard work and determination to become

someone different we do not usually make significant and Lasting changes in Quantum leaps all permanent change is Progressive over a long period of time this type of change requires patience and discipline it is only this type of change that is truly worthwhile and enduring if you continually learn study and upgrade your skills clarifying and reifying your goals setting better and clearer priorities and focusing on progressively more valuable tasks you could increase your overall productivity performance and output by on10th of 1% each day day after day indefinitely because of the law of increasing returns every effort

you make to be more productive in one area will tend to improve your performance in every other area at the same time you will get better and better results in less time the more you practice if you become 1/10th of 1% more productive each day 5 days per week at the end of one week you will be 1/ half of 1% more productive as 1/10th of a percent Time 5 equal 0.5 or half a percent at the end of four weeks you will be 2% more productive that's four * half a percent equals 2% at

the end of 52 weeks you'll be 26% more productive than you were at the beginning of the year which is 13 4-we months time 2% per month equals 26% this is where the compounding effect of new knowledge and skill begins to work an improvement of 26% per year compounded over 10 years will result in an increase of 1,4% in your overall productivity in one decade now since we live in a merit-based society as you increase your ability to contribute value the amount you will be paid will increase as well by improving your overall performance by

1,4% your income will eventually rise to match the value of your contribution well here are the seven steps in the th% formula that will guarantee that you become at least one tenth of 1% better daily 1 12% better each week 2% better each month and 26% better each year first arise 2 hours before your first appointment and read for one hour in your field this is called the Golden hour and it sets the tone for the rest of the day leave the television off put the newspaper aside and invest the first 60 Minutes in yourself

and in your mind this first hour is the rudder of the day second rewrite and review your major goals each each day before you start off take a few minutes to write out your goals in a spiral notebook in the present tense as though you had already achieved them this programs them into your subconscious mind to be alert to opportunities to achieve your goals all day long third plan every day in advance make a list of everything that you have to do the night before before you end your workday and before you go to bed

this enables your subconscious mind to work on your list while you sleep often when you awake in the morning you'll have ideas and insights that will enable you to achieve your daily goals faster and more effectively fourth always concentrate on the most valuable use of your time select the one task that can have the greatest positive impact on your work life and begin on that task first thing in the morning fifth listen to educational audio programs in your car turn your car into a mobile classroom a university on Wheels never allow your car to be

moving without educational audio programs playing this activity is so powerful that it alone can give you your th% increase over the years ahead sixth ask two questions after every experience these are really magic questions in that they enable you to learn and grow more rapidly from everything that happens to you the two questions are one what did I do right and two what would I do differently according to the law of concentration whatever you dwell upon grows in your experience whatever you pay attention to increases in your life whatever you focus on you tend to

do do better the seventh and final ingredient in the th% formula is for you to treat everyone you meet like a million-- dooll customer treat the people you work with the same way you would treat a valuable customer of your firm treat each Prospect or customer as if they had already purchased a million dollars worth of what your company sells and we're thinking of doing it again especially treat the people at home as though they were the most valuable people in the world to you because they are remember you are your most valuable resource your

earning ability is your most valuable asset and invest every day in improving yourself as a person and in increasing your ability to earn even more decide today to develop yourself to the point where you can achieve uh every financial and personal goal you can ever set and become everything you are capable of becoming one and one half% of the population starts work for the first time they take their first job as adults it's like a big marathon it's a big race and everyone lines up then the gun goes off Bang everybody starts to run just

like a marathon some people get way ahead in this case in the earnings race the great majority stay in the middle and some people fall well behind so they just finished a 25-year study which I think is one of the great studies on success that's ever been done they asked how is it that these people can be earning so much money in paychecks they're receiving a pay of almost a million dollars a month for going to work and if they lost their job for any reason another company would hire them immediately and pay them $10

million a year how can this happen these researchers at a major university went back and said well these people must be very intelligent they must have special gifts they must have special qualities or talents that could enable them to be so successful in life so they went back and looked at their school records and the records at their first job and their second job you know what they found these people were just average even when they started off their work life they didn't look any different from anyone else they were just average but then they

all started to practice a single strategy and this is the strategy that will change your life and your career forever it's so simple you can't believe it when these people took their first job the first thing they would do is go to their boss and say boss I want to make a valuable contribution in this work and I want to be successful in this company what one skill would help me the most to be more successful and to make a more valuable contribution um the boss would say guo s say I well if you were

very good at negotiating team building selling or reading financial statements if you were really good at this then you would be much more valuable than an average person so they would say okay and they would write down the development of that skill as a goal just like a lesson plan for a subject in school they would go to work and work on this one skill like a sniper rather than a machine gunner they would focus on a single skill and it might take them a month it might take some three months and it might take

them a year but they would work every day on that skill here's the magic number the magic number was 2 hours per day 5 days per week 10 hours in all 2 hours per day day of personal study on a single skill 5 days per week knowledge and skill today are vital to your success knowledge and skill equal earning ability your knowledge and your ability to apply that vital knowledge to accomplishing a result for which customers are willing to pay it's critical people who get laid off don't understand that they have not kept their Knowledge

and Skills high enough to justify their earnings they are becoming obsolete faster than ever before that means that a job today can become obsolete in a week a month or a year new technology can obs lead an entire industry in a couple of years so one of the questions you need to ask yourself all the time is this what is your next career going to be here's the key question what do you have to do now to bring your skills up to the point where you can earn the kind of living and have the kind

of lifestyle that you want in your next career the key to your next career is personal Excellence get to the top of the field where you are now get to the top of your field and then to stay at the top of the field to maintain and improve impr your lifestyle what do you have to do what do you have to be here's a good question it's one of my favorites ask yourself what one skill or set of skills could you give up that if you became absolutely excellent at would have the greatest positive impact

on your future what one skill or what one set of skills if you could develop them and become absolutely excellent at them they would have the greatest positive impact on your future your job is to Define that ask your boss what it might be if necessary do everything possible possible to find out and then develop those skills now if you do not become a master of change then you have no choice but to become a victim of change if you become a master of circumstances you become a creature of circumstances you simply are buffeted about

on the Seas of Life throughout everything that we've talked about with regard to earning ability with regard to fast-tracking your career with regard to you fulfilling your potential and becoming everything you're capable of becoming the critical point is continuous learning I cannot tell you how important this is I meet people all over the world who come to America with nothing and as a result of continuous learning they're able to accomplish wonderful things and make great lives for themselves so take charge of your life see yourself as the president of your own company see yourself as

a leader set the standard in your world set the standard for your children if you want your children to have a great life you create a great life by dedicating yourself to continuous learning as well see yourself as a role model as all leaders do set high standards for yourself and work every single day to maintain increase and improve your earning ability there are 168 hours in a week now what we're saying is that if you want to go to the top of your field and be one of the highest paid and most successful people

in life take 10 of those hours and invest them in yourself that's all this turned out to be the strategy practiced by all the top people I have worked with including the presidents of some of the biggest companies in the world they spend 2 to three hours each week reading and upgrading their skills you know who the third richest man in the world is it's a man named Warren Buffett last year his total Investments were worth $350 billion making him the third or fourth largest single company in the United States one of the biggest companies

in the world last year his profits were $25 billion by the way $25 billion is good that's a good amount for one person to grow a company that generates $25 billion in profits Warren Buffett has the same schedule almost every day what he does is he comes to work and spends 80% of his time studying and reading in subjects relevant to his business only 20% is spent in meetings phone calls or anything else he spends 80% of his time learning new things so he can make better decisions and get better results so a question I

sometimes ask adults is how many hours a week do you spend studying new subjects to help increase your productivity and your value they found that these experts these highly paid people looked upon earning ability like a ladder a ladder has steps and each step is a skill when you learn a new skill you increase your earning ability you also increase your ability to use your other skills each time you learn a new skill your earning ability goes up when you learn a new skill your earning ability goes up and each new skill you learn causes

you to become more and more valuable people will pay you more and more money for the results that you can get for them now if at any given time you decide to stop climbing the ladder of success you will level off like most people do but then you will begin to decline because whatever skills you have are becoming obsolete at a rapid rate and they're becoming obsolete faster today than ever before so if you are not constantly moving up the ladder you're actually moving down the ladder people don't understand why their income is not going

up it's because they are not becoming more productive they are not learning new skills they're not working on themselves to become more successful so increasing your earning ability is the strategy used by the highest paid people in the world today every week they spend 10 hours or more studying a new skill the one skill that can help them the most they keep climbing that ladder and it just becomes a habit a part of their life learning is just like a part of your life maybe watching television playing sports or something else a part of their

life is learning all the time it's your ability to focus single-mindedly on one thing at a time and to work on that one task until it's complete you must discipline yourself not to do anything else or to become distracted by emails bells and noises and things like that it's just the ability to focus like a laser beam on a single task Napoleon did a subsequent book to his book Think and Grow Rich it was called the master key to riches after 260 Pages it gives you the answer the master key to riches in the first

paragraph he explains in this book you will learn the master key to riches so it's a whole book on motivational ideas and principles and the last line of the last chapter of the last page is now you know the master key to riches is self-discipline what we have found is that the most successful people have come to that conclusion as well self-discipline is the master key to success a friend of mine wrote a best-selling book A couple of years ago and basically what it said is whatever got you to where you are today is not

enough to keep you there today to go any further you must develop new skills and new skills how long does this go on all your life for the rest of your life when you're surrounded by rapid changes in Information Technology competition and and government policies as long as there is rapid change going on outside of you there must be rapid change and even faster change going on inside of you if you want to be successful so the top people are the ones who keep learning new skills all the time everything is hard before it's easy

and everything at the beginning is difficult but later it becomes easy and automatic you have to force yourself to discipline yourself in the beginning but after that it becomes easier and easier and you actually feel happy now here's the most wonderful thing when you discipline yourself to start and complete a task or a part of a task you feel like an athlete so here's my question if an athlete runs in a race and comes in first what do they call this person the winner exactly I studied this for hundreds thousands of hours what it says

is that when you win when you come in as the winner your body releases endorphins which are called Nature's happy drug they make you happy and dopamine which is is a form of energy that you get from a positive experience so when you complete the task your body releases these chemicals and you feel happy psychologists call it Nature's happy drug if you want to be happy just start and complete a task and you will feel that Rush of happiness in fact in some of my seminars I say here's a question for you what are you

learning today in other words what is the subject that you are working on today you should ask people at the break what is your subject today what are you working on what are you learning about today everybody should have an answer well today I'm working on strategy today I'm working on sales today I'm working on presentations today I'm working on team building everybody should be working on developing a new skill well this brings us to what I call the basics we cannot change the world but we can constantly go back to our touchstones where we

can hold on and grab on I think there are three Basics I call them the basics and I take it from the old story about Vince Lombardi when he took over the Green Bay Packers he was asked are you going to change the running plays blocking plays are you going to bring in a new game book he said no we're not going to do anything different we're going to become the best running blocking passing kicking team and football we're going to become brilliant on the basics [Music] [Music] [Music]