Goal Setting and Achieving: Brian Tracy

Goal Setting
and Achieving
How to achieve all your
goals faster than you
ever thought possible!
Brian Tracy
Goal Setting
and
Achieving
E
by Brian Tracy
GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING
Instructions
How the get the most out of this program:
1
First, take the complete Personal Goal Setting exercise at the

beginning of this workbook.
2 Reread the chapter notes and complete the exercises after each
chapter.
3 Complete Chapter 4 Personal Strategic Planning, for your
business.
4 Complete Personal Financial Planning at the end of the
program.
5 Take action immediately on your goals.
6 Do something everyday to achieve your most important goal.
7
Resolve in advance that you will never give up until you are
successful.
Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
Table of Contents
1
Personal Goal Setting........................................................................ 1
2 Your Unlimited Potential................................................................ 13

3 Your Special Talents and Abilities................................................. 29
4
Personal Strategic Planning............................................................ 37
5 Your Meaning and Purpose in Life................................................ 55

6 Programming Your Mind for Success........................................... 71
7
Advanced Programming Techniques............................................ 75
8 Unlocking Your Superconscious Mind......................................... 79

9 Becoming Unstoppable................................................................... 83
10 Bouncing Back from Adversity...................................................... 93
11 Marriage and Children.................................................................. 103
12 The Most Important Quality of Success...................................... 115
13 Discipline and Personal Power.................................................... 125
14 Personal Financial Planning......................................................... 135
Chapter 1
Personal
Goal Setting
Brian
Tracy
Personal Goal Setting
oal setting is the Master Skill of success. The more you set goals and work
toward them, the happier and more successful you will be.
Only 3% of adults have written goals. This small minority earns ten times as
much as those people without goals.
Success in life begins with your deciding exactly who you are, what you want
and then writing it down. Then, make a plan for its accomplishment and take
action on your plan.
Finally, do something every day to move you toward your major goal whatever it is.
By setting clear goals and then thinking about them all the time, you trigger all
kinds of ideas and insights that will help you achieve your goals.
By thinking about your goals all the time, you become more positive, optimistic
and confident.
And as you achieve your goals, you increase in self-esteem, self-respect and
personal pride. You feel like a winner and you eventually become unstoppable.
Complete each of these exercises in detail. They are cumulative. At the end of
this section you will have a clear plan for your life. You will feel terrific!
Personal Goal Setting

Personal success is a result of two factors:
1)
You must know exactly what you want.
2)
You must determine the price you will have to pay to achieve it.
Absolute clarity regarding your goals is essential to high performance.

1.
Begin with your values; what are the three most important values,
qualities, factors in your life today?
health and fitness
1)_______________________________________________________________
Happiness
2)_______________________________________________________________
Reliability
3)_______________________________________________________________
2.
What would you do, how would you change your life, if you received
$1,000,000 cash today?
I would leave the US and go to a different crountry for a couple of months
1)_______________________________________________________________
Invest some money into real estate and selling physical goods
2)_______________________________________________________________
Start investing more into myself. Better food, gym, coaches, trainers, knowledge.
3)_______________________________________________________________
3.
What would you do, how would you change your life if you learned
today that you only had six months to live?
Only spend time with people I like.
1)_______________________________________________________________
Travel and go meet people from different cultures.
2)_______________________________________________________________
No waste a single second on BS
3)_______________________________________________________________
4.
What sort of work or activity gives you your greatest feeling of

importance and personal satisfaction?
Health and fitness
1)_______________________________________________________________
Learning languages and skills
2)_______________________________________________________________
Traveling and meeting people from different background
3)_______________________________________________________________
5.
What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?

Speak in front of group
1)_______________________________________________________________
Go to meeting and meet people
2)_______________________________________________________________
Put myself in a place where I could potentially be judged and critized by strangers
3)_______________________________________________________________
6.
If you could make any significant changes in your life today, what
would they be?
Take more actions and not be afraid of rejection
1)_______________________________________________________________
Be more assertive
2)_______________________________________________________________
Not give up so easily
3)_______________________________________________________________
7.
What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could
not fail?
________________________________________________________________
to stage in front of 10,000 people and still being able to deliver the speech.
Become someone who is able to talk to anybody without the fear of rejection. Walk
Doing what I want without caring about what others would think of me.
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
To achieve greatly in life, you need to be clear about your goals in the
seven main areas of life:
1) Personal 4) Financial 7) Social
2) Family 5) Education
3)
Business & Career
6)
Health
When you set your goals, imagine you have no limitations.

1.
List your three most intensely desired personal goals:

Learn several languages including japanese, spanish and portugese
1)_______________________________________________________________
Travel extensively
2)_______________________________________________________________
Master the art of happiness and share with others
3)_______________________________________________________________
2.
What are your three most important family and relationship goals?
Find a woman who is pushing me to become a better person and who is working hard on her goals. Someone
is at the same level of me or higher.

1)__who
_____________________________________________________________
Have reliable friends who make me a better person and radiates positive energy
2)_______________________________________________________________
Find mentors who can help me to get where I want to be.
3)_______________________________________________________________
3.
List your three most important business and career goals:

Build a multi million business that is location independent.
1)_______________________________________________________________
Be my own boss and build a team of great individuals.
2)_______________________________________________________________
Become a great internet marketer
3)_______________________________________________________________
4.
What are your three most important financial goals?

Make a million dollar a year before age of 30.
1)_______________________________________________________________
Live with $10,000 a month even when I make 100k a month and save or invest the rest
2)_______________________________________________________________
Be frugal but not cheap
3)_______________________________________________________________
5.
What are your three most important goals in regards to education,

personal, and professional development?
Become a super learner and never stop learning
1)_______________________________________________________________
Become a leader who has fear but does it anyway
2)_______________________________________________________________
Become a serial entrepreneur
3)_______________________________________________________________
6.
What are your three most important health goals physical fitness,
sports, weight?
Look like fitness model. 165-170 pounds and only 6% body fat
1)_______________________________________________________________
Yoga expert and calistenics
2)_______________________________________________________________
Do a combat sport
3)_______________________________________________________________
7.
What are your three most important social goals? What contributions do
you want to make to your community?
Become charismatic and connect with anyone
1)_______________________________________________________________
Have a great large social circle and be the center of it. The one who connects people together.
2)_______________________________________________________________
Give back to the black community by helping to change their life for the better.
3)_______________________________________________________________
8.
Without referring to your answers in the previous goal-setting

questions, make a list of 10 goals you would like to accomplish in
the next 12 months:
Make $10,000 a month
1)
_____________________________________________________________
Have a growing location independant online business
2)
_____________________________________________________________
Become very organize and write daily in my journal
3)
_____________________________________________________________
Have master self discipline
4)
_____________________________________________________________
Be able to speed read and read one book every 3 days.
5)
_____________________________________________________________
Be conversational in Japanese
6)
_____________________________________________________________
Become an assertive person while remaining nice
7)
_____________________________________________________________
Excercice every day
8)
_____________________________________________________________
No longer have anger issues.
9)
_____________________________________________________________
Accept myself 100% and let go of negative self talk.
10)
_____________________________________________________________
9.
Imagine you could be absolutely guaranteed of success in any of your

goals, which one goal would you choose?
________________________________________________________________
the person i will have to become in order to make that much money. When you
make a million dollar a year and your are location independant, you can do
whatever
you want and where you want. People treat your differently and you carry
________________________________________________________________
yourself differently as well because you know your worth.
________________________________________________________________
Make a $1,000,0000 a year. The money is sure nice but what really attracts me is
10.
Take this one major goal and follow the twelve steps below:
1)
Write out your goal in detail make it clear, specific and

measurable:
I am going to build a one million dollar online business that is location
___________________________________________________________
independant. But before that I am going to learn sales and local marketing by
selling websites to businesses and people to start learning about being an
entrepreneur and business owner. By the end of 2015, I make $10,000 a
___________________________________________________________
month. A combination of the money I make by selling websites and my
online business I have created.
___________________________________________________________
2)
December 31, 2015

Set a deadline for completion:_________________________________
3)
List the main obstacles and limitations that stand between you
and your goal:
Lack of proper planning
1)
_________________________________________________________
Fear of rejection
2)
_________________________________________________________
Lack of skills
3)
_________________________________________________________
4)
List the additional information, knowledge and skills you will

require to achieve your goal:
Learn how to sell and dealing with clients
1)
_________________________________________________________
Learn more about programming and design
2)
_________________________________________________________
Establish a name so clients come to me
3)
_________________________________________________________
5)
List the people whose help, support and cooperation you will
require to achieve your goal:
1)
_________________________________________________________
2)
_________________________________________________________
3)
_________________________________________________________
6)
Make a list of everything you can think of that you will have to do
to achieve your goal.
Priority Sequence
Find someone to create website for free in order to

build portfolio
1)
________________________________________________________
High
2
High
2)
________________________________________________________
Build my website
3
H
3)
________________________________________________________
Get first paying client
4
H
4)
________________________________________________________
Learn from experience and repeat
Charge more for the service as I get better
5
H
5)
________________________________________________________
Reinvest the money into other business ventures
such as facebook marketing and online business
6)
________________________________________________________
H
7)
________________________________________________________
$1500 in the month of april
$5000 in the month of July
8)
________________________________________________________
$10,000 in the month of December
9)
________________________________________________________
Go over wordpress with genesis framework
0
H
10)
_programm
_______________________________________________________
7)
Organize your list by:
a) Priority: What is most important?
b) Sequence: What must you do before something else?
8)
A list organized by priority and sequence is a PLAN.
9)
Assign responsibility for carrying out your plan. What exactly is

going to be done by who? (Yourself? Others?)
What?
Who?
buy genesis framework
me
do genesis program
me
get first client
me
1)
_________________________________________________________
2)
_________________________________________________________
3)
_________________________________________________________
10) Set deadlines on the actions you are going to take:
Actions
Deadlines
4/12/15
1)
_________________________________________________________
Go over wordpress guide with genesis
4/15/15
2)
_________________________________________________________
Get a first client to do website for free
4/20/15
3)
_________________________________________________________
Finish client website
Updates my website and portfolio
4/21/15
4)
_________________________________________________________

Get first paying client
4/23/15
5)
_________________________________________________________
6)
_________________________________________________________
7)
_________________________________________________________
10
11)
Take action: What one task are you going to complete

immediately?
___________________________________________________________
week end.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Ask Qua if I can buy the genesis framework so I can start working on it this
12) Resolve to do something every day toward the achievement of

your major goal. What one thing should you do each day?
Every day I should spend time improving my skills as a web developper and
___________________________________________________________
becoming a better seller.
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Action-orientation is the most important single quality of high performing men

and women.
Your willingness and ability to take immediate and continuous action toward
your goals is the key determinant of your success.
Begin now!
Do something every day to achieve your goals,
and never give up.
11
Notes
12
Chapter 2
Your Unlimited
Potential
Brian
Tracy
13
Your Unlimited Potential
ome of the most important questions that you ever ask yourself on your
journey through life are questions such as, Why am I here? What do I
really, really want in life? Where am I going? If I achieve all my goals, what
would it look like?
You have heard of the 80/20 Rule. It says that 80% of the value of what you do
will be contained in 20% of the actual activities that you engage in. Well, there
is a 20/80 Rule as well. This Rule says that the first 20% of the time that you
spend thinking and planning about yourself and your life will contribute more
than 80% of the value and results that you eventually accomplish.
The most successful people are invariably those people who spend the most
time thinking about who they are and where they are going, and then constantly
evaluating and re-evaluating their progress in light of who they are and what
they really want. In this session, I am going to give you a series of ideas and
questions that you can use to determine your true meaning and purpose in life.
Your willingness and ability to think through and answer these questions can
have more of an impact on your long-term happiness and success than anything
else you ever do.
The starting point of great success is for you to realize that you are truly extraordinary! There has never been anyone in the entire universe just like you. You
have remarkable abilities, skills, aptitudes, insights and ideas that make you
different, and in some way, superior to all other people who have ever lived.
You have the capacity within you, right now, to accomplish more than you have
ever dreamed of in the past. You are engineered and designed as success organism, endlessly attracted to doing more and more of the things that will bring
you more and more of the success and happiness that you desire.
14
The great tragedy is that most people go through life and die with their music
still in them. They react and respond to pressures and events, to parents and
to bosses, to bills and responsibilities, and never take the time to sit down and
think about what it is that they really want for themselves.
One of the qualities of leaders is that they know who they are. Leaders are
men and women who have taken the time to become completely clear about
what they stand for and believe in, and where they are going, and how they are
going to get there. And virtually everyone else follows along or hitch hikes on
the dreams and goals of the leaders in every area of life.
The good news is that leaders are made, not born. You become a leader by thinking the thoughts that leaders think and then by doing the things that leaders
do. Leadership is not position; it is action. Leadership is not a title on a card. It
is determined by the things that you do and say, day by day. When you think,
walk, talk and act like a leader, you become one. You take your life and your
future into your own hands. You become the master of your own destiny and
the architect of your own future.
You were put on this earth to do something wonderful with your life. Your job is
to find out what that wonderful thing is and then to throw your whole heart into
doing it extremely well. Your life may have a single purpose, like that of Mother
Theresa of Calcutta, or your life may have multiple, sequential purposes, one after
the other as you evolve and grow and develop into a higher and better person.
In any case, the one common characteristic of the most successful men and women
is clarity. They are absolutely clear about what they stand for and believe in, and
where they are going. And you must achieve this clarity as well.
What is your hearts desire? Your hearts desire is defined as the one thing
that you and you alone were put on this earth to do. It is that something special
15
that you are uniquely suited to do in an excellent fashion. Your job throughout
your life is to discover your hearts desire. It is only then that you will be truly
happy, completely successful and totally fulfilled. What is yours?
You begin discovering your hearts desire by setting off on a quest, like the
Knights of the Round Table searching for the Holy Grail. Your job is to find
your Holy Grail as well. Begin by answering this question: What one great
thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail?
Allow yourself to dream. And dream big dreams. Imagine for a moment that
you have no limitations at all. Imagine that you could be, have or do anything
that you could possibly decide upon in the whole world.
Imagine for a moment that you have all the time and all the money that you
need. You have all the education and all the experience. You have all the friends
and all the contacts. You have all the opportunities and resources. You have everything that you could possibly want or dream of to achieve any goal that you
could set for yourself. You have no limitations whatever.
In this situation, what goals would you set for yourself? If you could receive an
absolute guarantee of success in anything that you chose, short- or long-term,
what one thing would you choose for yourself?
The problem with most people is that they allow themselves to get bogged down
in the narrow and restrictive thinking of day to day life. When the average person
looks up toward the stars and gets a glimpse of what he or she would really like
to do, he or she immediately starts thinking about all the reasons why its not
possible. We rain on our own parades. And if we have friends or family members
who have dreams or goals, we rain on their parades as well.
16
Your job is to use some of these questions to loosen up your thinking and open
up your eyes to far vaster possibilities than you may have ever imagined before.
For example, what changes would you make in your life if you won one million
dollars cash, tax free, as a prize in a contest?
Imagine that you receive a phone call to announce that you have won the million dollar prize. There is only one qualifying question that you must answer
to get the money. You must tell the caller exactly what changes you will make
in your life as a result of having one million dollars cash in your bank account.
What would you answer?
This can be a very liberating question. The primary reason that people do not allow themselves to dream freely is because they feel saddled and trapped by their
bills and limitations. But if you imagine for a moment that you have a million
dollars cash, you can also imagine that you are now free to choose anything
that you might want to be, have or do.
Sometimes when we ask this question, the very first thing a person thinks of is
that they would quit their current job immediately and do something else. Even
people who say that they are happy with their current jobs would think of quitting if they got a lot of money suddenly.
Heres the rule. If you would quit your current job if you received a large sum
of money, it simply means that your current job is not the right job for you. You
have probably backed into your current job and you are now doing it because
you need the employment and the income that it represents. People who are in
the right job would never think of quitting it if they won a lot of money. They
would only think of doing their job differently and better, and perhaps in a different place or with a different company. But they wouldnt quit their jobs.
17
If you had a million dollars cash, and you were thinking of quitting your job and
doing something else, what would you choose to do? If you could choose to do
any job at all, what job would it be?
Put aside for a moment the fact that you may not have the necessary skills or
experience in a particular field. For the moment, just think about what you would
like most to do if you had no limitations.
You will always be paid the most and be the happiest at doing something that
you really enjoy doing. One of the great three part formulas for success in your
career is to believe in what you are doing, know what you are doing, and love
what you are doing.
Truly successful people love their work. They throw their whole hearts into their
work every single day. They can hardly wait to get there and they hate to leave.
They lose sight of the line between their work and their play. When they are not
working, they are thinking and talking about their work and thinking of ways
to do it differently and better. If you do not have this feeling about your current
job, it simply means that there is another job or area of endeavor out there for
you and it is your responsibility to find it.
There are three parts of your personality that determine the kind of person you
are and the kind of person you become. These are your self-ideal, your self-image
and your self-esteem.
Your self-ideal is a combination or mixture of all the qualities, values, attributes
and abilities that you most admire in yourself and in others. It is your vision of
the kind of person that you would be if you were ideal in every respect.
What we know about highly successful people is that they have very clear selfideals. They know what they stand for and believe in. They have very clear ideals
18
and benchmarks against which they compare their behavior on an action-byaction, day-by-day basis. Unsuccessful people on the other hand are very fuzzy
about their ideals, and in many cases, they have no ideals at all.
Your self-ideal largely determines the direction in which you are going with your
life. It guides the growth and evolution of your character and personality. Your
self-ideal is a combination of all of the qualities and attributes of other people
that you most admire. Your self-ideal is a description of the person you would
very much like to be if you could embody the qualities that you most aspire to.
Throughout your life, you have seen and read about the qualities of courage,
confidence, compassion, love, fortitude, perseverance, patience, forgiveness and
integrity. Over time, these qualities have instilled in you an ideal to which you
aspire. You might not always live up to the very best that you know, but you are
constantly striving to be a better person in light of those qualities that you value
so highly. In fact, everything that you do on a day-to-day basis is affected by
you comparing your activities with these ideal qualities and striving to behave
consistently with them.
Part of your ideals are your goals. As you set higher and more challenging goals,
your self-ideal improves and crystallizes. When you set goals for the kind of
person you want to be and the kind of life you want to live, your self-ideal rises
and becomes a greater guiding and motivating force in your life.
Perhaps the most important thing for you to realize is that whatever anyone
else has done or become, you can do or become as well. Improvements in your
self-ideal begin in your imagination, and in your imagination, there are no limits
except the ones that you accept.
What is your ideal vision of the very best person you could possibly become?
19
How would you behave each day if you were already that person?
Asking yourself these questions and then living your life consistent with the
answers is the first step to creating yourself in your ideal image.
Ive created an exercise in order to help you find complete clarity and identify
your ideal-self:

First, imagine that you have the inborn ability to achieve any goal you could
ever set for yourself. What do you really want to be, have, and do?
_want
_________________________________________________________________
and stay at the nicest place. I would wake up everyday at 5:30 am and then workout for
I want to have a million dollar online busines(es) and be able to travel anywhere I want when I
about an hour and then meditate. By 7:30 I would start working on my business till 1pm. After I
would take the day a little bit lighter by learning some news stuffs, languages or going to
_places
_________________________________________________________________
and trying new food or meeting up people. I would read about 100 pages a day and
finish a book every 2-3 days. Evening would be free of work and a time to meet people and
till bed time.
_relax
_________________________________________________________________
Second, identify the activities that give you your greatest sense of meaning
and purpose in life. How could you do more of them?
physique and be great at any sport. I can see myself developing a business around health
__great
________________________________________________________________
I really enjoy health and fitness. I was lucky to win the genetic lottery which enables me to enjoy a
and fitness. May be a fitness program for digital nomad.

I have also a very high likeability factor and great listening skills which allows me to leave a
__positive
________________________________________________________________
long lasting impression after I meet someone. I really feel happy when I meet people from
all around the world and am able to connect with them. Lastly, I am someone who is constantly
asking questions and curious about a lot of things I constantly want to learn more skills.
__________________________________________________________________
Third, look at your personal and work life today, and identify how your own
thinking has created your world. What should you or could you change?
As a result i never tried to improve my skills as a communicator or do anything that has to do

__intellelect.
________________________________________________________________
I always thought that I wasnt attractive enough and that I was a poor communicator and had average
with communicating with people. My lack of self esteem caused me to have a boring and uneventful
childhood and even at santa barbara i missed so much opportunities including track because of my self
beliefs. I now know that none of the crap I was feeding myself is true and that I
__limiting
________________________________________________________________
have more potential that could use in 100 lifetime. I need to remember that on a daily basis and that the
only thing that has prevented me from being succesful is me and nothing or anyone else. If I fail my life I
be the only one to blame. Aim high, plan and then take massive actions.
__will________________________________________________________________
20
Fourth, resolve today to think and talk only about the things you want in
life and refuse to talk about the things you dont want.
__refuse
________________________________________________________________
to talk about the things I dont want. I want the good life, I want to travel, I want
From today to infinity I,Beidi Beer, will only talk about the things that I want in life and
to be healthy and in great shape. I want to become a person of substance who

love to gravitate around. I want to learn languages and have a great social life.
__people
________________________________________________________________
I want to read and never stop learning because growing is what makes me happy in
life.
__________________________________________________________________
Fifth, determine the price you will have to pay to achieve the goals that are
most important to you, and then resolve to pay that price, starting today.
_price
_________________________________________________________________
of sweat and blood and will not stop or give up untill I have accomplished my
goal. I dont procrastinate on my life. I dont fear rejections how others perceive me. I
succeed or DIE.
_will
_________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Sixth, imagine that you were absolutely guaranteed of success in achieving

your goals and that you had no fears at all. What goals would you set for
yourself?
__best
________________________________________________________________
to offer.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
And finally, seventh, what one action should you take immediately as the
result of your answers to the above questions?
I will become financially independent and travel to any country I want. I will pay the
Become a man who earns a million dollar a year and have access to what life has
Think 24/7 about my goals and nothing else. Act , think, talk like the person I want to
________________________________________________________________
become.
I am going to buy the genesis framework so I can start building my web
development freelancing company.
________________________________________________________________
21
One of the most important components of your ideal image is your core values.
Your personality is largely determined by the clarity and intensity of your values. Your values determine your motivations, your beliefs, your attitudes and
your feelings. Your innermost convictions about people, politics, religion and
the world around you determine the kind of person you are, the kind of work
you do, and the kind of people you associate with.
If a research firm were to do a study among your friends and associates, and ask
them what they thought your primary values were, what would the people who
know you the best say about you? Based on their experiences with you and their
observations of your behaviors, how would other people define your primary
values and ideals?
Do you know how you can tell what a persons true values and beliefs are? Is
it by what they say? Is it by what they wish? Is it by what they intend to do?
Are peoples true values and beliefs expressed in what they write or what they
promise when they are running for public office? No, the answer is that your
values are only and always expressed in your actions and in your behaviors. It
is not what you say but what you do that counts. And especially, it is what you
do under pressure.
Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher once wrote that, Circumstances do make the
man. They merely reveal him to himself.
When a person is put under pressure and is forced to choose to act on one value
or another, he will always act on his predominant value at that time, on what is
most important to him, no matter he says.
And here is another thing about values and ideals. Higher order values always
take precedence over lower order values. You may have a whole series of values
that you act upon from time to time. But when you are put under pressure, your
most important value will always determine your decision and your action at
that time.
22
What are your values?
What do you stand for?
What are the organizing principles of your life?
What are your core beliefs?
What virtues do you aspire to, and hold in high regard when you see them
demonstrated by others?
What will you not stand for?
What would you sacrifice for, suffer for, and even die for?
Here is a good question to help you clarify your true values and beliefs in life.
Imagine that you went to a doctor for a complete check-up and he sat you down
with the results. He said that the good news is that you are going to enjoy superb
all around physical health for the next six months. The bad news is that, at the
end of six months, you are going to drop stone dead from an incurable illness.
What would you do, how would you spend your time, if you learned today
that you only had six months left to live? Who would you spend the time with?
Where would you go? What would you do? How would you live every day?
Whatever your answers to this question will be very revealing in terms of what
you truly value and what is really important to you. When you only have six
months to live, many things that you thought were important become irrelevant
and many things that you were ignoring become more important than anything
else. How would you spend your time if you only had six months left?
Every choice or decision you make is based on your values. Whenever you decide between alternatives, you invariably choose the alternative that you value
23
the most. Because you can only do one thing at a time, everything you do is a
demonstration of what you consider to be the most important at that moment.
Therefore, organizing your values in an order of priority is the starting point of
personal strategic planning. It is only when you are clear about what you value,
and in what order, that you are capable of planning and organizing the other
activities of your life.
Ive created an exercise for you in order to help you identify and clarify your
core values.

First, make a list of your three to five most important values in life today.
What do you really believe in and stand for?
I believe in respect of others. Treat other people the way you'd like to be treated
1)________________________________________________________________
I believe in being a man of my words. If I say something I am going to do it.
2)________________________________________________________________
I believe in perseverance and going for for your dreams
3)________________________________________________________________
I believe in being as healthy and physically fit as I can possibly be.
4)________________________________________________________________
I believe in being generous with the people I care for
5)________________________________________________________________

Second, what qualities and values are you best known for today among the
people who know you?
Listen to others with your full attention
1)________________________________________________________________
Be a reliable friend
2)________________________________________________________________
Be generous
3)________________________________________________________________
4)________________________________________________________________
5)________________________________________________________________
24
Third, what do you consider to be the most important values guiding your
relationships with others in your life?
Being reliable and there for your friends
1)________________________________________________________________
A great listener when they need a hear to listen
2)________________________________________________________________
Be generous
3)________________________________________________________________
4)________________________________________________________________
5)________________________________________________________________

Fourth, what are your values regarding money and financial success? Are
you practicing these values daily?
Do not blow your money on silly things. Buy things only if it will increase you really want it.
1)________________________________________________________________
Do not be a consumer but adopt the investor mentality
2)________________________________________________________________
Reinvest most of your earn money. People who adopt investor mentality will get rich in the long run.
3)________________________________________________________________
Become a minimalist and get rid of stuffs.
4)________________________________________________________________
The rule of investing is to never lose money.
5)________________________________________________________________

Fifth, describe your picture of an ideal person, the person you would most
want to be if you had no limitations.
The person I want to become is a leader and not a follower.
1)________________________________________________________________
The person I want to become is nice but not weak
2)________________________________________________________________
He is assertive but still kind
3)________________________________________________________________
Knows what he wants and go for it with all his might.
4)________________________________________________________________
Always keep his cool in any situation.
5)________________________________________________________________
25
Sixth, write your own obituary to be read to your friends and family at your
funeral, exactly as you would like to be remembered.
He was always optimistic about the future
1)________________________________________________________________
He was working harder than everybody on what he believed
2)________________________________________________________________
He was reliable and someone we could count on no matter what.
3)________________________________________________________________
He was such a gentleman and sophisticated
4)________________________________________________________________
He would always laugh and make other laugh
5)________________________________________________________________

Lastly, what changes could you make in your behavior today that would
help you to live in greater harmony with your values?
Stay cool no matter the situation
1)________________________________________________________________
Think less do more
2)________________________________________________________________
Take massive action every day like you have no fear
3)________________________________________________________________
Plan and work everyday on your dreams
4)________________________________________________________________
Look at what succesful people do right and do the same
5)________________________________________________________________
After you identify and write down your core values, you must then do the same
for your core beliefs.
You need to develop your beliefs about yourself to the point where they serve
you every day in every way. Men and women who accomplish extraordinary
things are just ordinary people who developed themselves mentally to the point
where they were able to overcome the obstacles that stood in their way, and they
kept on keeping on until the goal was attained.
26
The most harmful beliefs that you can have are what we call self-limiting beliefs.
These are beliefs about yourself, most of which are not true; but they hold you
back nonetheless. Sometimes you, or others, will say that you cannot achieve
certain goals because you did not get enough education.
The humorist Josh Billings once said, It aint what a man knows what hurts him.
Its what a man knows what aint true. It isnt the actual truth about yourself
and your abilities that hurts you; its the things that you consider to be true and
that have no basis in truth.
The starting point of changing your beliefs is to get up the courage to question
them seriously. Question your basic premises. Check your assumptions. Ask
yourself, What assumptions am I making about myself or my situation that
might not be true?
Its a fact that we fall in love with our excuses and our negative assumptions.
We fall in love with our reasons for not moving ahead.
Whatever they are, resolve to challenge them. Then, act as if it were impossible
to fail.
To identify and analyze your core beliefs, follow this 7-step method:

Number one, Act as if! If you were one of the most competent and highly
respected people in your field, how would you think, act, and feel differently from the way you do today?
Number two, imagine that you have a golden touch with money. If you
were an extremely competent money manager, how would you handle your
finances?
27
Number three, identify the self-limiting beliefs that could be holding you
back. How would you act if they were completely untrue?
Number four, select a belief that you would most like to have about yourself
at a deep inner level. Pretend as if you already believe this to be true about
yourself.
Number five, look into the most difficult situation you are dealing with right
now. What valuable lessons does it contain that can help you to be better in
the future?
Number six, what would you do differently if you believed that you were
destined to be a big success in life?
Number seven, who else in your life could you influence by telling them
how good they are and how successful you think they are going to be?
The clearer you are about your highest values and beliefs, and the more consistent you live with those values and beliefs, the more powerful and effective a
person you become.
28
Chapter 3
Your Special
Talents and Abilities
Brian
Tracy
29
Your Special Talents and Abilities
ow that you have determined your values, beliefs and ideals, you have to
decide what it is you are uniquely meant to do with your life. What should
your vocation, occupation or profession be? What kind of work should you
dedicate yourself toward to fulfill your goals and achieve your ambitions?
There are four different types of work that you can choose to do. These can be
defined based on work that is easy to do versus work that is hard to do, and
by work that is easy to learn versus work that is hard to learn.
The first type of work, work that is hard to learn and hard to do could be some-
thing like bookkeeping, accounting, computer programming or engineering for

a person who is more personality or idea oriented. It would be hard for you to
learn to work all day long with numbers and it would always be hard for you to
do it. You would never look forward to it with any enthusiasm. Even if you did
it reasonably well, you would get no joy out of your work. This is the situation
that many people find themselves in today.
The second type of work is work that is hard to learn but easy to do, once youve
learned it. For example, typing is hard to learn but easy to do. Speaking and
writing is hard to learn but easy to do once you have mastered it. Many of the
basic skills that you need for success in your day to day life fall into this category.
The third type of work consists of those things that are easy to learn but hard to
do. Ditch digging and chopping wood are easy to learn but are always hard to
do. They never get any easier. Work that is easy to learn and hard to do offers a
very limited future.
30
The fourth category of work, and the most important, are those jobs that are easy
to learn and easy to do. In fact, they are so easy for you to learn that you forgot
how you learned them in the first place. They just came naturally to you.
This category contains the types of work where you can excel and have a wonderful life. You have a natural facility in these areas. Your work is almost effortless
and you continually get better and better almost without thinking about it. This
is where your future lies.
How can you determine what sort of work is ideal for you? Well, there are four
words that seem to go along with your ideal job or occupation.
These words are:

Interest
Attention
Absorption
Fascination
You will always be the most interested in the kind of work that is the most ideal
for you. You will naturally enjoy the subject and be drawn to learning more about
it. You will like to read about it, hear about it and talk about it. Like iron filings
are attracted to a magnet, you will be attracted to the type of jobs that you are
ideally suited to do.
In fact, one of the tests for your ideal occupation is to look back and think about
what you most enjoyed doing between the ages of seven and 14 years. The activities that you most enjoyed at that time are often indicators of the exact things that
you should be doing as an adult. If you dont remember what you spent most
of your time doing, you can ask your mother or father. Ask your older brothers
31
or sisters. Look at some of your mementos and activities from your childhood.
Often you will find signs and indications that point directly toward your hearts
desire.
The second word is Attention. Your ideal field will catch your eye when you
are reading a newspaper or watching television. It holds you easily and naturally. You hear snippets of conversation about your ideal work area when you
are moving around. You are naturally drawn toward people and organizations
who are engaged in that area of activity.
The third word, Absorption, is a wonderful word to describe what happens
to you when you are doing what you are truly mean to do. Time stands still for
you. Sometimes you forget to eat, drink, rest or take breaks. You often hear about
the work lives of scientists, researchers, writers, artists and business people who
work 15-20 hour days, week after week and month after month, when they are
totally absorbed by what they are doing.
The fourth word, Fascination, is a wonderful way of describing your attitude
toward the people and work that you are ideally suited to do. It fascinates you.
It grips you. It holds you. You can hardly wait to get there and you hate to leave.
You can talk about it, do it, and learn about it without getting bored or distracted.
Your work is a form of play that gives you a tremendous feeling of happiness
and fulfillment when you are engaged in it.
You can always tell if you are in the right field for you because you have an irresistible and unquenchable desire to learn more and more about it. The people
that you admire the most in the world around you are often people who are at
the top of the field that you are most ideally suited to be in.
Who are your heros? Who do you admire the most in life? Of the people that
you admire, respect and look up to the most, what qualities or characteristics do
32
they have that you would most like to emulate? The more clear you can be about
this part of your self-ideal, your role models, the more rapidly you will evolve
and grow in the direction of becoming the kind of person that other people look
up to and respect.
In determining your ideal mission and purpose in life, look back over your life
and evaluate your previous successes and failures. What qualities, skills, or attributes have been most responsible for your successes in life to date? What have
been your peak experiences or moments of highest achievement and pride, and
what do these moments have in common?
If you make a list of all the things that you have done that you are particularly
proud of, you will find that there is a common thread running through each of
those activities. In every case you were with a particular kind of person and you
were accomplishing a particular kind of task. You were receiving a particular
type of recognition from a particular kind of person, as well.
For example, you may find that your greatest sources of satisfaction have been
in setting long-term goals, making plans and then working toward them for
many months and even many years before finally winning through. The thrill
of achievement, of success, gives you an adrenaline rush as well as a flood of
endorphins that make you feel terrific about yourself. When you have had a
series of successes earlier in life, you develop an unconscious conditioning that
drives you and motivates you to engage in the same behaviors again that will
give you the same feelings of self-respect, self-esteem and personal pride.
What are the things that you have done in life that have given you your greatest
feelings of self-esteem and personal pride? If you could accomplish anything in
your life in the future, what one thing would give you the greatest amount of
personal pride and satisfaction? How could you organize your life to do more
33
and more of those things that give you the highest possible pay-off in true satisfaction?
What qualities do you admire the most in others? These will invariably be the
qualities that you aspire to the most yourself. Give yourself a score of 1-10 in
each of the key qualities that you most admire and then make a plan to improve
yourself in each area.
What skills or abilities do you most admire in other people? Whatever they are,
these are probably the same skills and abilities that you would most like to have
yourself. Give yourself a score of 1-10 in each of the most important skills and
then make a plan to go to work on yourself to develop these abilities through
learning and practice.
What one skill, if you developed it and did it in an excellent fashion, would have
the greatest positive impact on your life and your career? If you could be absolutely outstanding in any one area, which one area would help you the most? If
you can be perfectly clear about this one skill area, you can then set it as a goal,
make a plan and go to work to bring yourself up into the excellent range in this
skill. Sometimes, the development or improvement of a single skill can change
your entire life and career.
There are two additional areas that you need to explore in order to fulfill your
full potential and find your true mission and purpose in life. The first has to do
with your area of excellence, and the second has to do with your acres of
diamonds.
In business terms, every company must have an area of excellence or an area of
competitive advantage if it wishes to survive and thrive in a difficult marketplace.
An area of excellence is something that a company does in an outstanding fashion,
34
better than most, if not all, of its competitors. Sometimes an area of excellence
is referred to as a core competency. Sometimes it is called a differential advantage. In any case, the area of excellence is what differentiates one company
from another, one product or service from another.
As an individual, completely responsible for your own economic life, you have
to see yourself as a company in this same sense. What is your area of excellence?
What is your competitive advantage? What is your unique selling proposition

the one thing that you bring to the equation that no one else can offer?
One of the primary reasons for under achievement in life is that a person fails to
develop a special competence or skill that enables them to stand out from all the
others around them. Too many people are content with being average or maybe
just a little bit above average. But this is not for you. Your goal is to determine
the one or two skills that are most important to your succeeding in your work
and then to dedicate yourself totally to becoming very, very good in those key
areas. This has always been the high road to success and the greatest guarantor
of high achievement.
Once you have determined your area of excellence today, ask yourself, What
will my area of excellence be tomorrow and next year, the way things are going?
Do you have a specific personal and professional development plan that you are
working on every single day? If not, it is time for you to put one together and
then to work on it every single day.
What should your area of excellence be if you want to move to the top of your
field? What could it be if you were to dream big dreams and set extraordinarily
high standards for yourself?
35
You know that the market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance.
It pays average rewards for average performance and it pays below average
rewards and unemployment for below average performance. Your job must be
to get into the top 10% of performers and money earners in your field and then
to do everything necessary to stay there for the rest of your career.
There is nothing that will bring you to the attention of others faster or get you
promoted more rapidly than for you to develop a reputation as being one of the
very best people in what you do.
36
Chapter 4
Personal Strategic
Planning
Brian
Tracy
37
Personal Strategic Planning
our ability to think, plan and act strategically can have an extraordinary effect
on your business. Strategic thinking is the key to increased sales, reduced
costs and improved profitability.
To achieve your full potential for sales and profits, you must engage in regular
strategic planning for yourself and your career.
Questions stimulate thought and ideas. Well worded questions that bring out
ideas and insights can change your thinking and change your life.
In this session on Strategic Planning, you are asked to answer 52 of the most important questions ever developed to help you to be more focused and effective.
Just one question that changes what you think and do can change your future.
Please read through and answer every question in writing. Review these questions and answers with your colleagues or spouse. Turn them over in your mind
and be as honest and thoughtful as you can.
When you can ask and answer these questions correctly for you you can
improve the quality of your entire life and career.
Good luck!
38
Personal Strategic Planning

1.
What business are you in? Define your business in terms of what you
actually do for your customer:
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
2.
What is your mission or purpose for being in your business or career?

Why do you do what you do?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
3.
How do you want your customers to talk about you, think about you,
describe you to others? What words do you want them to use?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
39
4.
What are the three biggest worries or concerns you have about your
business today?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
5.

Who is your ideal customer? Describe him/her in terms of age,

income, education, occupation, location:
1) Age?________________________________________________________

2) Occupation?__________________________________________________

3) Education?___________________________________________________

4) Income?_____________________________________________________

5) Location?____________________________________________________

6.

What does your customer consider value? What benefits does your
customer seek or expect in dealing with you?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
40
7.
What are your core competencies? What skills or abilities do you have
that are essential to your business?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
8.
What do you do extremely well? Where do you perform in an

exceptional fashion?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
9.
Who are your competitors?
1) Primary Competitors?_________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

2) Secondary Competitors?_______________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________
41
10.
Why do your customers buy from your competitors? What benefits do

they receive from your competitors that they dont receive from you?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
11.
What products/services give you your highest profits? Where do you

get your highest payoff? Your highest return on effort, investment?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
12.
What activities should you abandon, eliminate, get out of to free up

more time for higher value activities?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
13. What could you do to attract your competitors customers to your
offerings?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
42
14.
How could you change your methods of sales and marketing to increase
your sales?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
15.
What is your area of specialization? What are your products uniquely

suited to do, and for whom?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
16.
What is your area of differentiation or excellence? In what ways are you

superior to your competitors?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
17.
What is your specific competitive advantage? What will it be in the

future? What should it be? What could it be?
1) Today?______________________________________________________

2) Will be?______________________________________________________

3) Should be?___________________________________________________

4) Could be?____________________________________________________
43
18.
What type of customers can benefit the most from the special, unique,
superior benefits of your product or service?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
19.
In what areas should you concentrate your energy and resources to get
the very highest pay-off from your efforts?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
20.
How could you attract more customers who can most benefit and pay
for what you sell?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
21.
What customers should you phase out, abandon because they no longer
represent the best use of your time and energy?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
44
22.
What is your current positioning in your marketplace? How are you

perceived by, described by your customers and prospects? What words
do they use to describe you?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
23.
What is your brand? What value does your name mean to your
customers?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
24.
What should your brand be? What words or description would you like
to own in your customers mind?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
25.
What could you change or improve in your products or services to

create and keep greater customer loyalty?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
45
26.
What are your greatest personal strengths your special talents and
abilities?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
27.
What are your greatest business strengths those that cause your
customers to want to do business with you?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
28.
What are your greatest weaknesses as an individual?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________

What are the main weaknesses in your business the ones that limit
your sales, growth or profitability?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
46
What are the constraints that hold you back from achieving more of
your business goals?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
29.
What are the greatest potential threats to your business today?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
30.

Looking into the future, what are the three worst things that could
happen to hurt your business or career?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
31.
What steps could you take immediately to guard against these possible
dangers?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
47
32.
What are your areas of greatest opportunity for the future, based on the
trends in your business?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
33. How could you begin positioning yourself to take advantage of these
opportunities?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
34.

What core competencies or skills will you need to be ready for the
opportunities of tomorrow?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
35.
How is technology affecting your business? Especially, what changes

will the Internet make in the way you do business?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
48
36.
What are you doing today that you wouldnt get into again if you had to
do it over knowing what you now know?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
37.

Reorganization What changes should you make in your business,

with regard to people and expenses, to improve both effectiveness
and efficiency?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
38.
Restructuring How can you shift more of your time and resources
into more profitable activities?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
39.

Reinventing Imagine your business burned to the ground. What

activities would you start up again immediately?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
49
What activities would you not start up again?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
40.
Reengineering Simplify every step of your business activities.

What could you outsource, eliminate or discontinue altogether?
1) Down size?___________________________________________________

2) Outsource?___________________________________________________

3) Eliminate?___________________________________________________

4) Discontinue?_________________________________________________

41.

Are there any people in your business life a customer, employee,

associate who, knowing what you now know, you wouldnt get
involved with today?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
42.
If you could start your business or career over again today, what would
you do differently?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
50
43.
What skills, abilities, talents do you have that have been most
responsible for your successes to date?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
44.
If you could be absolutely excellent in any area, which areas would be

most helpful to you in achieving your goals?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
45.
What is the driving force of your business career? What determines the
products, services and markets you offer or work in?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
46.
What are the critical constraints on your business today? What sets the
speed at which you achieve your main goals?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
51
47.
What are the biggest business mistakes you have made recently?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
48.
What are the most valuable business lessons you have learned recently?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
49.
If you could do just one thing all day long, what would you choose
to do?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
50.
If you could only sell one product or service, which one would it be?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
52
51.
If you could only deal with one type of customer, who would it be?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
52.

What specific actions should you take immediately based on your

answers to the above questions?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________

What one action are you going to take immediately?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
53
Notes
54
Chapter 5
Your Meaning and
Purpose in Life
Brian
Tracy
55
Your Meaning and Purpose in Life
ne of the most important steps in achieving all of your goals and becoming
the best person you can be is first to understand that we live in a Meritocracy.
A Meritocracy is a society where you are rewarded on the basis of the value of
your contribution to others. We live in a service economy where every one of
us makes our living by serving other people in some way. The better you get at
serving people effectively and efficiently, the happier and secure you will be in
your career.
Interestingly enough, your deepest sense of meaning and purpose in life only
comes to you when you know that you are making a difference in the lives of
others. You are designed psychologically in such a way that you can only be
happy when you know that you are doing something that is somehow enriching
and enhancing the lives or work of other people. The reason that America is so
successful economically is because almost everyone earns their living by serving someone else in some way. And every single act of service that every person
engages in enriches and improves the overall quality of life in our society. What
is your area of service? What should it be? What could it be?
The second part of finding true mission and purpose in life is explained in the
acres of diamonds philosophy. This philosophy is based on a talk by Russell
Conwell that told about an African farmer who sold his farm to go off into the
African continent looking for diamonds. Some years later, the new farmer found
that the farm that he had purchased was covered literally with acres of diamonds.
The old farmer had gone off seeking for wealth elsewhere without ever looking
under his own feet. The problem was that diamonds do not look like diamonds
in their rough form. They look like chunks of rock that have to be cut and shaped
and polished to bring out their beauty and value.
56
In the same way, your diamonds probably lie under your own feet but they come
disguised as hard work. Diamonds never look like diamonds in the rough. Opportunities always seem to look like a long extended process of hard, hard work.
But they are there nonetheless.
Your acres of diamonds may lie right within your current company or industry.
Perhaps your acres of diamonds lie within your own interests and abilities. Perhaps they lie within your education and experience. Perhaps they lie within the
friends, associates and contacts that you have. The one thing we know is that,
when you make a decision to accomplish far more with your life, you will begin
to attract into your life all kinds of opportunities, people and ideas that will help
make your dreams a reality.
Sometimes people ask me if they need to go back to school for several years to
get a degree, or move to another city or change jobs into a different industry.
Invariably, I tell them that the key to success is to determine what it is that you
really love to do and then to throw your whole heart into doing it the very best
way you possibly can. If you combine these two practices, all the doors of opportunity will open up in front of you.
The one common quality of highly successful people is that they are action
oriented. They take the time to think, to plan, and then they take action. They
do something. They move forward continuously. They try one thing, and then
another, and then another and another. They never stop. They are always in constant motion. And because the more things you try the more likely it is you will
triumph, when you get into continuous forward motion, you will be astonished
at how much ground you cover and how many different opportunities and possibilities open up for you.
Finding your true mission and purpose in life is central to everything you do
and become. The very worst use of life is to spend your years scrambling up
57
the ladder of success only to find that it is leaning against the wrong building.
Leaders are those who take the time to sit down quietly by themselves and to
think through who they really are and what they really want. They look upon
themselves as an ongoing do-it-to-yourself project. They look upon themselves
as works in progress, continually evolving and improving in the direction of
becoming better and better human beings.
As I said earlier, you are extraordinary. There has never been anyone like you
in all of history, and there will never be anyone else again. You were put on this
earth to do something wonderful with your life. You have within you, right now,
the most marvelous capacities and abilities that you could ever imagine. If you
were to work your whole life long, you would never even use a small fraction
of the potential that is programmed into you at this very moment.
Your job is to find your hearts desire. Your job is to think through and decide
what you believe in and what you stand for and then to select an area of endeavor
or activity that is completely congruent with the very best that is within you.
Your job in life is to establish a mission and purpose that enables you to become
everything you are capable of becoming, to fulfill your full potential and to make
a wonderful contribution to the world around you.
Here are 7 steps you can take immediately to move in the direction of your goals
and dreams:

First, what one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could
not fail? Write it down.
Second, make a list of ten goals you would like to achieve in the months
and years ahead, in the present tense. Select the one goal from that list that
would have the greatest positive impact on your life.
58
Third, determine how you will measure progress and success in the achieving of this goal. Write it down.
Fourth, make a list of everything you can do that will move you toward
your goal. Take action on at least one thing immediately.
Fifth, determine the price you will have to pay in additional work, time, and
commitment to achieve your goal, and then get busy paying that price.
Sixth, do something every day that moves you at least one step closer to
your most important goal.
Seventh, resolve in advance that you will never give up until you are successful.
In personal strategic planning, you should begin with a long- term view of your
life. You should begin by practicing idealization in everything you do.
We call this a Five year fantasy. Project yourself forward five years and imagine
that your life was perfect in every respect. Imagine that, over the five year period,
every single problem in your life has been solved and every single goal has been
achieved. If your life were perfect in every respect, what would it look like?
By projecting forward and allowing yourself to dream about your ideal life and
lifestyle, you begin to create a future vision that acts like a magnet on your current activities and begins to draw you toward it as you draw it towards you. You
activate the Law of Attraction which says Like attracts like.
If you can be crystal clear about what you want to have in your future, your
chances of accomplishing it go up by about 1000%! It is one of the most remark Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
59
able facts of success psychology that you become and get what you think about
most of the time.
You decide what you really want before you come back to the present moment
and deal with what is possible for you within your current situation.
Imagine no limitations and start at the beginning.

First, determine the reality of your current situation relative to your major
goals. Where are you now, and how far do you have to go?
Second, apply the zero-based-thinking principle to every area of your life.

What are you doing today that you wouldnt get involved with again if you
had it to do over, knowing what you now know?
Third, do a complete financial analysis of your life. How much are you
earning today, and how much are you worth? What are your goals in these
areas?
Fourth, do complete skills analysis of yourself and your work. Where are
you strong? Where do you need to improve?
Fifth, determine exactly how much you earn each hour and what it is you
do to earn that amount. What do you have to do to increase your hourly
rate in the months ahead?
Sixth, determine your most important goal and then ask, Why arent I already at this goal? What is it in me that is holding me back?
Seventh, If your current line of work disappeared, what else are you capable
of doing and where and for whom?
60
Start with your business and career. Imagine that your work life was perfect
5 years from now. Answer these questions:
1. What would my work situation look like?
I will be a millionaire traveling the world making my money with several online income

_streams
________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
2. What would I be doing?
I will be a very succesful internet marketer selling physical products on Amazon.

_________________________________________________________________
Selling
digital product in the fitness and health niche. Talking at events about fitness
even in Japanese or spanish.

_________________________________________________________________
3. Where would I be doing it?
I will be doing from anywhere I want. Thats the beauty of having an online business.

_In________________________________________________________________
valencia, TOkyo, Paris, Los angeles, from a paradisiac island. Anywhere I want.

_________________________________________________________________
4.
Whom would I be working with? What level of responsibility would I have?

I will be the Ceo of the company. Working with virtual team I handpicked and who get

_stuffs
________________________________________________________________
done.

_________________________________________________________________
5. What kinds of skills and abilities would I have?
The ability to get stuff done. THe ability to make decisons on the spot following my gut

_________________________________________________________________
feeling.
Hire slow but fire fast if you have too. I will be a master at planning and self
discipline. Waking up everyday at 5am and working till 2pm. After which I will read
meet
people and travel.

_________________________________________________________________
61
6. What kind of goals would I be accomplishing?

Build a multi million dollars Online businesses. Master self discipline. Become great at

_________________________________________________________________
organizing
my life. Fluent in Japanese and Spanish and Portuguese. Got rid of fear of
rejections. Accpet myself and love me 100%. Become a professional fitness guru. Be
a_________________________________________________________________
master at meditation and zen attitude.

7. What position or status would I have in my field?

The most sussesful Belgian internet Marketer. Someone who is know in the fitness

_world
________________________________________________________________
for free weight and hiit workout.

_________________________________________________________________
Now, idealize your perfect financial life 5 years from today. Answer these
questions:
1. How much would I be earning?
1 million dollar a year. Since I have the investor mentality I will only live off 10% of my

_income.
________________________________________________________________
THe rest wil go towards saving and investing.

_________________________________________________________________
2. What sort of lifestyle would I have?
I will be traveling in Business class everywhere with the miles I have accumulated through credit cards. I will stay at the
nicest hotels and enjoy the best restaurants. I will have friends throughout the world who invite me to their houses and
events all the time. I work very hard because I love it but I also know how to enjoy what life has best to offer. I want to go to
Rio for 3 weeks. No problem, i Just booked my ticket right now and I am leaving tomorrow morning. As long as I have my
laptop and my health I can work form anywhere. SInce I am naturally great at languages. I will speak Japanese, french,
english, portugese and spanish.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
3. What kind of home would I live in?
I wont owe a home because I like to be free. I might buy a condo as a headquarters

_but
________________________________________________________________
I am not sure where yet. However I know that I willl be leaving in nice apartments
or hotels anywhere I go.

_________________________________________________________________
62
4. What kind of car would I drive?

I will owe a lexus is 250.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
5. What kind of material luxuries would I be providing for myself and my
family?
Beautiful apartments. Unlimited travels and a life only a few will dare to dream

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
6. How much would I have in the bank?
1.2 millions

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
7. How much would I be saving and investing each month and each year?
I make $100k a month. I will be leaving off $10k a year because I am minimalist and I

_________________________________________________________________
invest
the rest.

_________________________________________________________________
8. How much would I want to be worth when I retire?
I will be worth $50 million when I retire.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
63
Next, imagine your perfect family life and relationships 5 years in the future.
Answer these questions:
1. What would your family life look like?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
2. Whom would you be with? Whom would you no longer be with?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
3. Where and how would you be living?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
4. What kind of home would you have?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
5. What kind of relationships would you have with the most important people
in your life 5 years from now if everything were perfect in every respect?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
64
Now, imagine your ideal health and fitness.

If you were a perfect physical specimen 5 years from now, what would be your
answers to the following questions?
1. How would you look and feel?
I will look like a fintess model and look and feel better than when I was 20.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
2. What would be your ideal weight?
170 pounds and 6% bodyfat.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
3. How much would you exercise each week?
6 days a week

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
4. What would be your overall level of health?
I will be in ridiculous health. A stallion. A race car.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
65
5. What changes would you have to start making today in your diet, exercise
routines, and health habits to enjoy superb physical health sometime in the
future?
Say no to junk food and cookies and alcohol. Eat fresh veggies and fruits daily.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
Now, imagine your social and community involvement.
Imagine that 5 years from now you are an important and influential person, a
player in your community. You are making a significant contribution to the
world around you. You are making a difference with your life and in the lives of
other people. If your social and community status and involvement were ideal,
how would you answer these questions?
1. What would you be doing?
I will go to Mali and build an non profit organization to help people to attain their true

_________________________________________________________________
potential.
I am lucky I was born in belgium and that I am someone who asks a lot of
question. I want to help people who didnt have my chance in life to reach their full
potential

_________________________________________________________________
2. What organizations would you be working with or contributing to?

I will be building my own. Just like Bill gates did.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
3. What would be the causes you strongly believed in and supported, and how
would you become more involved in those areas?
Everybody deserves a chance to get the good life.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
66
Now its time to determine your true goals and write them down.
The act of writing is a psychoneuromotor activity. This means that when you
write down a goal of any kind, you activate your emotions, your intelligence,
and your physical body. Writing a goal down with a pen and paper activates
your visual, auditory, and kinesthetic senses.
Writing the goal down on paper programs the goal into your subconscious mind,
where it takes on a life of its own, working away twenty-four hours per day.

Decide what it is that you really desire in life. What is it that others have
that you wish you could have as well?
I want the good life. I want it all health, wealth, realtionship and growth.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

What one belief, if you had it, would help you the most to attain the goals
that are most important to you?
That I am the most couragious person of earth. Fear excites me and I live for the

_________________________________________________________________
challenges.

_________________________________________________________________

What is the one goal that, if you attained it, would have the greatest positive
impact on your life?
Accepts myself 100% and love all of me. I have ridiculous amount of potential and all I

_________________________________________________________________
need
is just to believe it and then I will be unstoppable.

_________________________________________________________________
67
What one skill, if you were absolutely excellent at, would help you the most
to achieve your most important goal?
The ability to take massive actions even when I am scared shitless.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Who is the most important person whose cooperation you will require to
achieve your most important goal?
A mentor who has done it and can kick my ass.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

What is the largest single obstacle or difficulty that stands between you and
your goal?
Myself and growing some balls of steel.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Make a list, right now, of 10 goals you would like to achieve in the next year.
Select one, circle it, and then work on it every single day.
Make $10k online passively,
1)________________________________________________________________
Become a master at self discipline
2)________________________________________________________________
Read at 700 words per minute
3)________________________________________________________________
Write a journal daily
4)________________________________________________________________
Meditate daily and do yoga
5)________________________________________________________________
68
Workout 6 days a week.

6)________________________________________________________________
Pass JLPT n3/n2 and be conversational in Japanese
7)________________________________________________________________
Read one book every 3 days

8)________________________________________________________________
Get rid of my fear of rejection
9)________________________________________________________________
Love myself
10)_______________________________________________________________
When you fantasize and imagine your perfect future, the only question you ask
is, How? his is the most powerful question of all. Asking the how question
stimulates your creativity and triggers ideas to help you accomplish your goals.
Unsuccessful people always wonder whether or not a particular goal is possible.
High achievers, on the other hand, ask only the question, How? They then
work to find ways to turn their visions and goals into realities.
By combining idealization and future orientation, you cancel or neutralize the
process of self-limitation. When you practice idealization and future orientation,
you make no compromises with your dreams and visions for yourself and your
future. You dont settle for smaller goals or half successes. Instead, you dream
big dreams and project forward mentally as though you are one of the most
powerful people in the universe. You create your perfect future.
69
Notes
70
Chapter 6
Programming Your
Mind for Success
Brian
Tracy
71
Programming Your Mind for Success

Mental Programming Basics
1. Your conscious mind is very different from your subconscious mind. The
two minds work together but perform completely different functions.
2. The job of your conscious mind is to take in information from various sources
and then to analyze, compare and decide.

Your conscious mind takes in information from the six senses touch, taste,
smell, sound, visual, and intuitive.
Your conscious mind then analyzes this information, compares it against

other pre-recorded information, and then decides what to do.
3. Your conscious mind decided; your subconscious mind obeys. The job of
your subconscious mind is to accept your conscious commands and take
action on them 24 a day.
4. Your subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between the things you
say, think, visualize, and feel, and your external reality. It merely accepts
your messages as facts and goes to work on them.
5. To maximize the effectiveness of your subconscious mind, you need to put
your goals in writing. This is called a psychoneuromotor activity that activates your whole brain, especially your subconscious mind, to bring your
goal into reality.
72
When you write your goals by hand, you visually see them, you sub-vocalize
and hear them auditorily, and you activate your kinesthetic sense with the
motion of your hand during the writing.
6. When you write your goals, you always use the three Ps:

1) Present tense always write your goals as if they have already occurred.
This creates a dynamic tension within your subconscious mind that your
subconscious attempts to relieve by giving you ideas, inspiration, and
motivation that moves you toward the realization of the new goal.
2) Positive your subconscious mind can only work on a goal that is

framed in the positive, rather than the negative;
3) Personal you always use the word I followed by an action verb when
you create a goal. Your subconscious mind can only act on a goal if it
is you personally who has declared that this goal already exists in your
life.
7. There are 5 steps to activating your subconscious mind in the process of

setting and achieving your goals.

1) Verbalize say or write the goal in the present tense, positive, and
personal tense.
2) Visualize: see your goal as if it were already achieved.
Or you can see yourself actually doing the things that you would be
doing if you were achieving your goal.
73
You can create or acquire a picture of your exact goal and look at it carefully, allowing your subconscious mind to photograph it as instructions
for what you want to enjoy in the future.
In visualization you use the four keys:
(1)
Vividness
(2)
Duration
(3)
Frequency
(4)
Intensity

3) Get the feeling! recall an event where you felt wonderful about
yourself, and then combine this feeling with your new goal.
4) Release: let the goal go, drop it into your subconscious mind, and then
relax and get busy with the rest of your life.
5) Realize and actualize: once your goal is programmed into your subconscious mind, and you get busy doing something else, your goal will
appear at exactly the right time for you, and in exactly the right way.
Using these techniques of programming your goal into your subconscious mind
will increase the speed at which you achieve your goal by five or ten times.
74
Chapter 7
Advanced
Programming Techniques
Brian
Tracy
75
Advanced Programming Techniques

Mental Programming Techniques to accelerate goal attainment:
1. Write your goals daily in the present tense, as if they were already a reality.

Use the ten goal method:
Write down ten goals that you would like to achieve in the next 12
months
Use a spiral notebook
Re-write your goals every day in the present tense, without referring
to the previous page.
2. Written Affirmation Technique: Write your goals on 3 X 5 index cards, in

large letters.

Each day, take a few minutes to sit quietly and review your written goals;
Read the goal on the card slowly as you stare at the words. This photographs
the words and transmits them to your subconscious mind.
Close your eyes and visualize yourself enjoying the achievement of the goal.
Take a deep breath and just relax and release.
3. Quick Programming Technique: immediately before an important event or

meeting, a sales call or a date, take seven deep breathes, close your eyes,
and create a clear mental picture of the event as a big success.
76
If you are making a sales call, take seven deep breathes, relax, and visualize the sales call working out successfully and the prospect actually buying
your product or service at the end.
It is important that you visualize the happy result that you want from this
event or meeting.
4. Mental Programming Technique: your subconscious mind is most amenable

to new programming in the last few minutes before you fall asleep, and the
first few minutes after you awake.

Just before sleeping, create a clear mental picture of an upcoming situation

or goal occurring exactly as you desire. Enjoy this picture as you gradually
fall asleep, and your subconscious mind then goes to work on it all night
long.
Upon awakening, think of your most important goal and quickly create a
clear mental image of yourself achieving that goal or enjoying the results.
5. Autogenic Programming Technique: this form of autogenic conditioning

is considered to be perhaps the most powerful method of reprogramming
your mind ever discovered.

Autogenic refers to self-programming. To use this method, you close your

eyes, breathe deeply seven times so you drop into the alpha level of mind,
verbalize your goal exactly as you wish it to appear, visualize your goal by
creating a clear picture of your goal as a reality, emotionalize your goal by
getting the feeling that would go with success, and then release your goal
and just relax, all with your eyes completely closed.
77
You can use autogenic conditioning either sitting comfortably or lying down,
as long as you dont fall asleep.
Autogenic conditioning can be used in combination with meditation techniques for deep relaxation.
The more deeply relaxed you are when you feed a new goal picture into
your mind, the faster your subconscious mind goes to work on it.
6. Heterogenic Conditioning: the root word hetero means other in Greek.

Therefore, heterogenic conditioning occurs when someone else talks to you
while you are in a deeply relaxed state of mind.

When you close your eyes and deeply relax while another voice is talking to
you, the words bypass your skeptical conscious mind and go straight into
your subconscious mind.
We provide you with a heterogenic conditioning CD that you can use to

completely re-program your subconscious mind, starting from the first day
that you listen to it.
Perhaps the most important attitude of all in using these techniques is one
of confident expectations. When you confidently expect that your goal will
come to you, exactly as you desire it, and at exactly the right time for you,
the goal seems to materialize exactly as you expected.
78
Chapter 8
Unlocking Your
Superconscious Mind
Brian
Tracy
79
Unlocking Your Superconscious Mind
he Superconscious Mind this has been referred to throughout the ages as

the Source, God Mind, Universal Subconscious Mind, Oversoul,
and the Supraconscious Mind.
Your superconscious mind is the most powerful source for success, achievement
and happiness that exists in your personal universe.
Almost all great success and all works of creation in human history are inspired
by the superconscious mind.
The superconscious mind has several faculties:
1. The superconscious mind is stimulated and motivated by clear goals.

2. The superconscious mind is stimulated by positive affirmations and visualization, accompanied by emotionalization.
3. The superconscious mind is motivated and stimulated by intense desire for
the achievement of a goal.
4. The superconscious mind works on your goal 24 hours per day.
5. The superconscious mind is the seat of the Law of Attraction, drawing into
your life people, money, ideas and resources to help you to achieve your
goal.
6. The superconscious mind gives you ideas and insights for goal attainment,
as long as your goal is clear.
80
7. This mind solves every problem on the path to your goal, including giving
you valuable lessons in the form of temporary obstacles and difficulties.
8. The superconscious mind is a source of free energy, stimulating and motivating you even if you feel tired, or it is late at night.
9. The superconscious mind brings you your goal at exactly the right time for
you.

A superconscious solution has three characteristics:
1) First, it is 100% complete, in every detail.
2) Second it is a blinding flash of the obvious. You wonder why you hadnt
thought of it before.
3) It is immediately achievable with your own resources, right now, with

no necessity for outside help or other people.
The Law of Superconscious activity says, Any thought, plan, goal or idea held
continuously in your conscious mind must be accepted and brought into your
life by the power of your superconscious mind.
When you begin to verbalize, visualize, emotionalize and take action on your
goal, you trigger all the powers of the universe to help you achieve it.
81
Notes
82
Chapter 9
Becoming
Unstoppable
Brian
Tracy
83
Becoming Unstoppable
he most powerful influence on your attitude and personality is what you say
to yourself, and what you believe. Its not what happens to you, but how you
respond internally to what happens to you, that determines your thoughts and
feelings, and ultimately, your actions.
If you can learn to control your inner dialogue, you can begin to assert control
over every other dimension of your life.
You may not be aware of it, but the words that you use to describe what is happening to you, and the way it makes you feel, determine the quality and tone
of your life.
One of the characteristics of superior men and women is that they can recognize
the inevitability of temporary disappointments and defeats, and they accept them
as normal, natural parts of life.
They do everything possible to avoid problems, but when problems come, superior people learn from them, rise above them, and continue onward in the
direction of their dreams. And the key to this, of course, is maintaining a positive attitude.
So how do you maintain a positive attitude?
First, resolve in advance that no matter what happens, you will not allow it to
bring you down.
You will respond in a constructive way. You will take a deep breath, relax and
look for whatever good the situation may bring.
84
When you make this decision in advance, you mentally prepare yourself so that
you are not knocked off balance when things go wrong, as they inevitably will.
Second, neutralize any negative thoughts or emotions by speaking to yourself
positively all the time.
Say things like, I feel healthy! I feel happy! I feel terrific! As you go about your
job, say to yourself, I love my work! Say things like, Today is a great day; its
wonderful to be alive!
According to the law of expression, whatever is expressed is impressed. Whatever you say to yourself or others is impressed deeply into your subconscious
mind and is likely to become a permanent part of your personality.
Third, look upon the inevitable setbacks that you face as being temporary and
external.
View the negative situations as a single event that is not connected to other potential events, and that is caused largely by external factors that you have little
or no control over.
Simply refuse to see the event as being in any way permanent, or something
that cannot be overcome.
Fourth, remember that its absolutely impossible to learn and grow and become
a successful person without adversity and difficulties.
You must rise above them in order to become a better person.
Welcome each difficulty by saying, Thats good! and then look into the situation to find the good in it.
85
Lastly, keep your thoughts focused on your goals and dreams, on the person
you are working toward becoming.

When things go wrong temporarily, respond by saying to yourself, I believe

in the perfect outcome of every situation in my life.
Resolve to be pleasant, and resist every temptation toward negativity and

disappointment.
View every disappointment as an opportunity to grow stronger.
When youre able to respond positively to your internal self and learn to
control your inner dialogue, youll start to notice serious external changes
right away.
Youll find yourself working more comfortably with other people, making
bigger and better sales, getting promoted faster and reaching professional
heights more rapidly.
A positive mental attitude is the key to success and achievement.

And the best way for you to build and maintain a positive mental attitude is
through developing and strengthening your self-confidence.
Of course, this is easier said than done. Most people start off with little or no
self-confidence, but as a result of their own efforts, they become bold and brave
and outgoing.
If you want to become an unstoppable force, you MUST use the proven methods and techniques that have been developed by the most successful men and
women in the world.
86
The key is to be true to yourself, to be true to the very best that is in you, and to
live your life consistent with your highest values and aspirations.
Take some time to think about who you are and what you believe in and what
is important to you.
Decide that you will never compromise your integrity by trying to be or say or
feel something that is not true for you. Have the courage to accept yourself as you
really arenot as you might be, or as someone else thinks you should beand
know that, taking everything into consideration, you are a good virtuous person.
After all, we all have our own talents, skills and abilities that make us extraordinary. No one, including yourself, has any idea of your capabilities or of what
you might ultimately do or become.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do in life is to accept how extraordinary you really
can be, and then to incorporate this awareness into your attitude and personality.
In developing unshakable levels of self-confidence, your self-esteem and selfregard are important starting points, but alone, theyre not enough.
To develop the deep-down kind of self-confidence that leads to victory, you need
positive knowing, not just positive thinking.
Self-confidence comes from a sense of control. When you feel very much in control of yourself and your life, you feel confident enough to do and say the things
that are consistent with your highest values.
Psychologists today agree that a feeling of being out of control is the primary
reason for stress and negativity and for feelings of inferiority and low selfconfidence.
87
And the way for you to get a solid sense of control over every part of your life
is to set clear goals or objectives, and establish a sense of direction, based on
purposeful behavior aimed at predetermined ends.
Being true to yourself means knowing exactly what you want and having a plan
to achieve it.
You are behind the wheel of your life. You are the architect of your destiny and
the master of your fate.
Another way to build your self-confidence, through positive knowing rather
than just positive thinking, is to become very good at what you do.
The flip side of self-confidence is self-efficacy, or the ability to perform effectively in your chosen area.
You can raise your self-confidence instantly by committing yourself to becoming excellent in your chosen field. You immediately separate yourself from the
average individual who drifts from job to job and accepts mediocrity.
The most wonderful result of developing high levels of self-confidence is the
positive impact that your personality will have on your relationships.
There are two mental laws that determine much of what happens to you in your
interactions with people.
The first mental law is the law of attraction, which says that you will inevitably
attract into your life people who are very much like you.
88
The second mental law is the law of correspondence, which says that your outer
world of relationships will correspond perfectly, like a mirror image, to your inner world of personality and temperament.
In combination, these laws will push you in a positive direction. Youll find
yourself surrounded by people who are very much like the new person you are
becoming. As you get better, the quality and quantity of your relationships will
get better.
Youll meet nicer, more self-confident, more interesting and enjoyable people.
Youll find yourself getting along better with members of the opposite sex. Youll
find yourself doing better at your job. Your new attitude of confidence and calm
assurance will even make you more attractive to people.
As you grow more confident, youll also become more courageous. Winston
Churchill once wrote, Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues,
for upon it, all others depend.
The wonderful thing about courage is that its a learned habit.
The starting point in overcoming fear and developing courage is to discover the
things that make you fearful.
For most people, there are two types of fear.
The first type of fear is the fear of failure, which makes us think, I cant, I cant,
I cant
The second type of is the fear of rejection, which makes us think I have to, I
have to, I have to.
89
Fears can be paralyzing, and will hold you back from taking constructive action
in the direction of your dreams and goals. Unfortunately NO one is exempt from
them, so the question becomes, how do you deal with fear?
You confront it. Make a list of your fears-- major and minor, over which you
experience anxiety, face them head-on. Make a conscious effort to continually
try something new and different things. Step out of your , comfort zone, with
no guarantee of success.
And if you dont succeed, you eliminate dwelling upon it.
If you worry long enough and hard enough about something, you are going to
attract it into your life.
The great tragedy is that even if the situation you are worrying about doesnt
materialize, your health and your emotions will suffer just the same.
And the fact is that most of things that people worry about never DO happen.
The only real antidote to worry, is to take purposeful, prepared action toward
a predetermined goal or solution. Since the conscious mind can only hold one
thought at a time, when you get busy doing something to resolve your problem,
you will not have the time or the mental capacity to worry about it. And before
you know it, your worrysome situation will have been resolved.
The mastery of fear and the development of courage are essential prerequisites
for a happy, successful life. With a commitment to acquire the habit of courage,
you will eventually reach the point where your fears no longer play a role in
your decision making.
90
Youll set big, challenging, exciting goals, and youll have the confidence of
knowing that you can attain them. Most importantly, youll learn how to face
every situation with calmness and self-assurance.
There is a natural tendency in all of us to react emotionally when our expectations
are frustrated in any way. When something we wanted and hoped for fails to
materialize, we feel a temporary sense of disappointment and unhappiness. We
feel disillusioned. We react as though we have been punched in the emotional
solar plexus.
The optimistic person, however, soon moves beyond this disappointment. He
responds quickly to the adverse event and interprets it as being temporary, specific and external to himself. The optimist takes full control of his inner dialogue
and counters the negative feelings by immediately reframing the event so that
it appear positive in some way.
Napoleon Hill, who, prior to writing his best-selling books on success, interviewed 500 of the most successful people in America, concluded that Contained
within a setback or disappointment is the seed of an equal or greater advantage
or benefit. And this is one of the great secrets of success.
Since your conscious mind can hold only one thought at a time, either positive
or negative, if you deliberately choose a positive thought to dwell upon, you
keep your mind optimistic and your emotions positive.
Since your thoughts and feelings determine your actions, you will tend to be a
more constructive person, and you will move much more rapidly toward the
goals that you have chosen.
91
I will leave you with a 5 step exercise that you can practice to build your selfconfidence and persist through any obstacles until you succeed.

First, identify the biggest challenge or problem facing you today on the way
to achieving your biggest goal. Imagine that it has been sent to test your
resolve and desire. Decide that you will never give up.
Second, think back over your life and identify the occasions where your
determination to persist was the key to your success. Remind yourself of
those experiences whenever you face difficulties or discouragement of any
kind.
Third, resolve in advance that as long as you intensely desire your goal, you
will never give up until you achieve it.
Fourth, look into every problem, difficulty, obstacle, or setback for the seed
of an equal or greater benefit or opportunity. You will always find something
that can help you.
And finally, number five, resolve to be solution oriented and action oriented
in every situation.
Remember the biggest obstacle you will face, and the toughest battle you will
encounter down your road to success is usually with yourself.
Think always in terms of what you can do right now to solve your problems or
achieve your goals and then get started!
Never give up!
92
Chapter 10
Bouncing Back
From Adversity
Brian
Tracy
93
Bouncing Back From Adversity
very great accomplishment came with setbacks and obstacles. Every high
achiever has encountered adversity while on their path to great success. And
the truth is, at some point, so will you.
If you are like most people, your life is full of stress, of all kinds, coming from all
directions. This stress can make you or break you. It can build you up or tear
you down. It can make you healthy, vital, alive and successful or it can make
you negative, angry, depressed and even ruin your health.
The one thing we know about stress is that it is inevitable, unavoidable and continuous. It never stops. It is triggered by every single event around you of which
you are aware in any way. As Hans Selye the pioneer in stress research once
said, Stress is any non-specific reaction to a stimulus from your environment.
This means that everything around you causes you stress of one kind or another.
Your job is to learn how to identify, manage, control and turn stress to your advantage. Your goal should be to make yourself a highly effective, highly energetic, positive, focused, goal-oriented person with a continuous river of personal
power flowing through your veins and into everything you do.
Im going to teach you how to take the raw material of the unavoidable stress that
goes with living in a dynamic, fast-paced society and transform it into a source of
inner strength that you can use to accomplish any goal you can set for yourself.
All human beings experience stress of some kind. Since it is a non-specific response to stimuli, it means that everything around you causes you to react in
some way. The only question is whether or not you are going to allow stress to
94
build you up or to tear you down. And heres the key: Stress is not contained in
people or events themselves, but only in your reaction to those people or events.
The world around you is largely neutral. It is how you respond to what is going
on around you that determines how you think and feel about the event. The
only thing over which you have complete control in the entire world is the way
you think. When you choose to exercise your power of thought in responding
to anything that occurs, you determine the positive or negative content of that
event and everything that you will subsequently do in dealing with that event
effectively or ineffectively.
For example, two people could be driving to work and be caught in the same
traffic jam. One person could become upset, angry and frustrated, shouting at
other drivers, banging on his horn and generally working himself into a lather
of stress that may take many hours to dissipate. Another person, in the same
traffic jam, could be listening to classical music or an educational audio tape, or
perhaps talking to someone on his or her cellular telephone. He or she completely
ignores the traffic jam and instead goes about calmly utilizing every moment
to his or her advantage. Its the same event but two different people respond
totally differently.
Heres another example. The same person could be caught in a traffic jam on
two different days. On one day, the individual is late for an extremely important
appointment as the result of not starting out early enough or preparing well
enough in advance. This person begins to imagine all kinds of terrible consequences that might occur as the result of being late for this appointment. The
more he thinks about the negative possible consequences, the more frustrated
and upset he becomes as the traffic inches along. However, this same person,
caught in a traffic jam the very next day with no pressure to be at work on time
may be completely relaxed and accepting of the event. Its the same person and
the same situation, but two totally different reactions.
95
The bottom line is that how you feel and react is largely determined by how you
interpret events to yourself. And heres the key to the kind of inner control that
leads to outer power and personal effectiveness. When you interpret an event to
yourself in a positive and constructive way, it makes you feel calm, clear, poised,
powerful and creative. When you interpret an event constructively, your mind,
your body and your emotions all harmonize and function in a fully integrated
way, enabling you to think and respond better and more effectively to anything
that happens to you.
However, if you interpret an event in a negative or destructive way, allowing
yourself to become excited, angry, frustrated or depressed, these thoughts will
affect your emotions and your physical body, completely disintegrating your
ability to function effectively and leading to high levels of disharmony and dysfunction in your reactions and responses to the people and situations around you.
And you are always free to choose. This is the great discovery that enables
you to take full and complete control over your thoughts, your feelings and
your reactions. You are always free to choose how you deal with anything that
happens to you. You can choose to react in a positive, calm, and constructive
manner or you can fail to choose, and end up acting in a negative, irritable,
reactive-responsive mode that leads to feelings of frustration and unhappiness.
The choice is always yours.
If you want to be successful in life, the formula is quite simple. Just find out
what other successful people do, and have done, in your field of endeavor, and
do the same things that they do until you get the same results. The world is full
of people who are trying to succeed by doing the opposite of what successful
people do and they are always amazed at their lack of progress. But this is not
for you.
96
If you want to be a high performance person in a world of constantly changing

stimuli and stressful events, you need only to study the most effective people
around you, and do what they do, and you will be just like them.
Men and women who have been defined as peak performers self-actualizing,
high-achieving individuals have been studied exhaustively over the years
to find out how it is they think, feel and interpret events to themselves to keep
functioning at the very peak of their abilities. Lets look at some of these discoveries and see how you can use them to turn your stress into success in everything
you do.
Nobel Prize winning author Arnold Toynbee studied the rise and fall of 28 civilizations over the course of human history. He developed what has come to be
known as Challenge-Response Theory of Civilization Life Cycles. The same
theory is perfectly applicable to your life and experiences as well.
What Toynbee found is that every civilization began to grow as the result of an
unexpected challenge from the outside to which it reorganized and responded
effectively. Because it responded effectively to the challenge, the small group
of people, often a single tribe or village grew larger. As a result, it bumped into
another group or tribe, thereby triggering another external challenge to which
it had to respond effectively. As long as the tribe or group of people responded
effectively, it continued to grow and grow until, over time, great empires and
civilizations were formed.
In your life, it can be very much the same. You are surrounded by a continuous
succession of problems and difficulties all of the time. In fact, your life is one
never ending series of problems or challenges to which you have to respond
effectively if you want to survive and continue to grow in our fast-paced and
competitive society.
97
Heres the most important part. The challenges or problems come unbidden.
They come in spite of your very best efforts to avoid them. If you are intelligent
and reasonable, you organize every part of your life so as to minimize the number of unexpected difficulties that will occur. Therefore, the ones that do occur
are ones that you have been unable to anticipate or avoid.
The only part of the Challenge-Response equation that you have any control
over is your response. In fact, it is your response-ability that determines your
success, health, happiness and effectiveness in life. If you continue to respond in
a positive and constructive way to the inevitable challenges that you face every
single day, you continue to grow and develop as a person, just as a civilization
would continue to grow and develop.
Your response-ability is the most important single measure of everything that
you are and everything that you have become as a human being, to this very
moment. All of your education, your experience, your background, and your
personal growth are measured at the moment of response to the inevitable and
unavoidable challenge or crisis that occurs, despite your best efforts to avoid it.
Highly successful people are those who have learned to respond better than
unsuccessful people. As a result, they grow and move forward in their lives far
more rapidly than others who respond ineffectively or inappropriately. According
to Robert Fritz, author of The Path of Least Resistance, most people are in what
he calls a Reactive-Responsive mode of living. That is, something happens in
their environment and they immediately react or respond, without thought or
analysis. Sometimes their response is appropriate or correct, but because they
give no thought at all in their automatic reactions, too many of their responses
turn out to be wrong or ineffective.
However, you can decide that, between the event that occurs and your response
to that event, you are going to stop and think for a moment before reacting. In
98
this moment of thought is contained all the knowledge and wisdom that you
have developed in your life to this date. When you chose to exercise this ability
to think before reacting, you become sharper, calmer, more creative and more
alert than ever before.
And the way you develop this faculty or skill of success in dealing with stressful
events is through the process of mental rehearsal. When the event occurs, it is
too late for you to stop and think before reacting constructively and creatively.
You must prepare mentally in advance. You must rehearse, in your mind, the
upcoming event so that when it does occur, you are subconsciously programmed
to respond effectively to it.
This is a method used by the highest performing and most effective men and
women in our society. It is used by all peak performing athletes, all high achievers and all self-made millionaires. It is as simple as it is powerful.
This is how it works. In your life, there are a variety of situations to which
you can respond either positively or negatively. In many of these situations,
especially with regard to negative people or experiences in your past, you are
unconsciously programmed to respond negatively the very instant the name of
the person or the thought of the situation arises.
For example, if you think of someone who you intensely dislike because he or she
did something that really hurt you in the past; the very mention of the persons
name will cause an instant, negative high-stress response from you. You can
even be driving along and something can occur to cause you to think about that
person and you will respond instantaneously the way you have been conditioned
to respond when you thought about or talked about that person in the past.
You have to re-wire your thoughts about this person. You have to disconnect
the reactive response button that causes you to feel negative. And the way you
99
do this, using mental rehearsal, is you think about the person and mentally picture yourself responding in a calm, relaxed, positive and unaffected way to any
thought or mention of that person.
As you visualize yourself responding in an effective way to an experience that
used to make you angry or upset, you are gently removing the hot wires from
this situation and neutralizing it in your mind. The next time that this person
comes to mind or conversation, you will find that you experience little or no reaction at all. In time, the situation or person will not trigger any feelings in you
of any kind. You will have taken full mental control over the situation.
When I started in selling, I found myself becoming very tense and anxious when
I approached a new prospect. I steeled myself and got all wound up, ready for
the negative response, objection, turn down or disappointment that accompanied door-to-door and office-to-office selling. In fact, this kind of selling leads
to rejection as much as 20 times for ever sale.
Then, I decided to rewire myself with regard to rejection. I decided that I would
use every rejection as a stimulus to greater action. I decided, in advance, that
every time someone turned me down, I would become more positive, more
motivated and even more energized in going after the next prospect. And it
worked like a charm!
The very first day I tried this technique, by the time I had been turned down
three or four times, I was so positive and motivated I could barely keep my feet
on the ground. And my sales career turned around 180 degrees. Within a few
months I was the top salesman in my organization, and within a year I was the
sales manager. Within two years, I had 95 salespeople under me in six countries
and I was enjoying the kind of life I had never dreamed of. And it all happened
because I began practicing mental rehearsal and deciding, in advance, that
100
I would respond in a positive, constructive way to every stressful or difficult

event. And you can do the same thing.
There are some wonderful techniques that you can use to turn stress into success. They are all ways of taking complete control of your thinking, and thereby
your feeling and your responses. Here are some of the most popular ones used
by the most effective people in our society.
All of these techniques are based on the Law of Substitution. This law says that
you can only hold one thought in your mind at a time, either positive or negative. And you can substitute a positive thought for a negative thought. You can,
in fact, knock a negative thought out of your mind by simply switching your
thinking to something positive.
Successful people are those who continually think and talk about the things they
want. Unsuccessful people are those who continually think and talk about the
things they dont want. When you think and talk about the things you want,
you are calm, positive, purposeful and self-directed. When you talk about the
things you dont want, you are angry, frustrated, disappointed, and depressed.
And the choice is always up to you.
101
Notes
102
Chapter 11
Marriage and
Children
Brian
Tracy
103
Marriage and Children
our ability to enter into a long-term, loving relation-ship is an important

measure of your character and personality.
Men and women are born to be two halves that make up one whole. They have
different qualities and characteristics that, when properly combined, achieve
completion and the balance and harmony that nature demands.
The foundational qualities for marriage and loving relationships are trust and
respect. Men and women can have many disagreements over the course of their
married life together, but as long as the trust and respect between them endure,
the marriage can go on indefinitely.
If ever one or the other party can no longer trust the other or no longer respects
the other, the relationship is finished.
Perhaps the most important reason for a happy marriage is compatibility. The
two people are ideally balanced with each other, with each one possessing
complementary qualities and characteristics that combine comfortably to form
a perfect balance.
People often say that opposites attract. This is a misunderstanding. Opposites
attract in only one area, and that is temperament. You will always be most compatible with a person who has an opposite or counterbalancing temperament
to your own.
For example, if you are outgoing and extroverted, you will be most compatible
with a person who is more reserved and self-contained. If you are voluble and
expressive, you will be most compatible with a person who is relaxed and a
104
good listener. Nature demands a balance in temperament for two people to be

compatible and happy together.
In all other areas, especially in the area of values, it is similarities that attract.
Birds of a feather do flock together. You will always be attracted to people and
most compatible with those who have the greatest number of fundamental values
in common with yourself.
All of love, of any kind, is a response to value. We love what we most value, both
in ourselves and others. When a couple is truly happy together, they seem to
have very much the same values regarding family, money, ethics, work, children,
politics, religion, and people.
A happy marriage requires tremendous self-discipline and self-control. Love
requires self-denial and sacrifice.
When you are truly in love with another person, that persons happiness and
well-being become more important than your own. You are willing to pay whatever price and make whatever sacrifice in order to ensure the well-being of the
person you love.
When you come together with another person in a loving relationship, no matter how close you feel to each other and no matter how compatible you may
be in many ways, you will still have areas of disagreement, dissatisfaction, and
discontent. This is normal and natural and something to be worked through by
practicing self- discipline and self-control whenever these differences occur.
Self-discipline in a relationship requires that you be completely honest and
open, that you be yourself and never try to be someone or something else. Selfdiscipline and honesty require that you state clearly what you are thinking and
105
feeling, without anger or irritation, and that you listen calmly and patiently to
the feelings, thoughts, and opinions of the other person.
Because of the many differences between men and women, it takes tremendous
discipline to build and maintain a long-term, loving, and happy relationship.
Perhaps the most important area of mutual compatibility has to do with the
discipline of listening. It is only when two people take the time to listen closely
and carefully to each other when they speak that the lines of communications
stay open, and this is when love and harmony continue in the relationship.
There are four simple disciplines of effective listening.
They are mostly of importance to men, who are notoriously poor listeners, especially with the women in their lives. This is not because they are not interested. It
is simply because their minds are focused on something else and they are easily
distracted.
Listen Attentively. The first discipline is to listen attentively, without interrupting.
Listen as though the other person is about to reveal a great secret or the winning
lottery number and you will hear it only once.
When she wants to talk to you, if you are a man, put aside all possible distractions. Turn off the television or radio. Put down the newspaper or mail. Face her
directly, lean slightly forward, and concentrate single-mindedly on what she is
saying.
The book His Needs, Her Needs points out that the most important need that a
woman has from a man is affection. Affection is expressed by paying total attention to her when she speaks. Since you always pay attention to what you
106
most value, when you pay close attention to another person while she speaks,
you tell that person that she is of great value to you. This satisfies the deepest
sub-conscious needs of a womanto feel valuable, important, and respected.
The second discipline of listening is to pause before replying. Take a few seconds
to carefully consider what he or she has said. When you pause, you avoid the
risk of interrupting the other person if she is just reformulating her thoughts. You
tell her that you value what she said and that you are giving her words careful
consideration.
Another advantage of pausing, of allowing a silence in the conversation, is that
it enables you to hear not only what was said, but also what was not said or
what was said between the lines. The actual message soaks into a deeper level
of your mind, enabling you to understand better and to therefore respond with
greater awareness and sensitivity.
Ask for Clarification. The third discipline of effective listening is to question for
clarification. Never assume that you automatically know what the other person
is thinking or feeling. Instead, if you are at all unclear, simply ask,
How do you mean? or How do you mean, exactly?
It is when you ask questions and seek clarity and meaning that you demonstrate
to the other person that you really care about what he or she is saying, and that
you are genuinely interested in understanding how he or she thinks and feels.
Feed It Back. The fourth discipline of effective listening is for you to feed back
what the other person has said, and paraphrase it in your own words. This is
the acid test of listening. This is where you demonstrate to the other person
that you were genuinely paying attention. It is only when you can repeat back
107
what the other person has just said, in your own words, that you prove to him
or her that you were really listening.
Most problems in relationships arise because of poor communication. The couple
does not talk together often enough or one or the other does not listen attentively
when the other wants to speak.
Each person has an emotional need to talk a certain amount with his or her
spouse. Each person also has an emotional need to listen a certain amount. The
most compatible couples are those in whom the desire to talk and listen are in
balance with each other. There is an easy ebb and flow of conversation, punctuated with comfortable silences. Each person gets a chance to fulfill his or her
need for both talking and listening, and both parties are content.
Total commitment is essential for a successful, healthy, and happy marriage.
Love and marriage require total commitment on the part of both people. It takes
tremendous discipline to go all in in a relationship. Whats more, this is also
tremendously liberating. It is only when you are totally committed to a relationship with a single person that you are completely free to turn your attention
toward fulfilling your potential in the other aspects of your life.
Love and marriage are perhaps the most important elements of a happy, fulfilling life. They require a lifelong exercise of self-discipline and willpower to create
and maintain harmony. They require that you be open, honest, and candid at
all times.
Most of all, a happy, a loving marriage requires that you see your spouse as your
best friend. There should be no one in the world who you would rather spend
time with more than him or her. There should be no one with whom you are
more open and honest than with him or her. When you see your spouse as your
108
best friend and treat him or her as such, you can create a loving relationship that
lasts all the days of your lives.
Here are 7 exercises you can do to improve the quality of your marriage immediately.

Number one, what is the most important single action you could take, right
now, to increase the love and harmony in your marriage or relationship?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Number two, what disciplines or practices could you develop that would
improve the quality of your marriage for the other person?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Number three, identify one behavior you could engage in that would improve your communications in your marriage.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Number four, it down with your spouse and ask him/her for ideas for things
that you should do more of, less of, start, or stop doing.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
109
Number five, identify the two qualities that you most admire in your partner.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Number six, identify the areas in which you and your partner are the most
compatible.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

And lastly, number seven, identify the most important values that you and
your partner share.

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
Now that Ive talked a little bit about how to build and maintain a successful
marriage, I want to talk a little bit about the importance of great parenting and
what it takes to raise happy, healthy, self-confident children.
When you have a child, a high level of self-discipline is essential in order to fulfill
your commitment and deliver on your responsibility. The day your first child is
born, you have taken on a minimum twenty-year commitment to do everything
possible to raise your child as a happy, healthy, and self-confident adult.
At every stage of your childs life, your words, actions, non-actions, and behaviors are shaping and influencing that child and determining how he or she will
turn out as an adult.
110
The greatest need that a child has is for an unbroken flow of unconditional love
and acceptance from his or her parents. Children need love almost as much as
they need oxygen. The amount of love that a child receives, especially in his or
her formative years, is the critical determinant of how healthy and happy he or
she becomes as an adult.
How does a child spell love? T-I-M-E.
Children determine how valuable and important they are and develop their
self-esteem and self-worth by measuring the amount of time that the most important people in their lives spend with them when they are young. There is no
substitute for time, and once gone, you cannot make it up. Perhaps the greatest
regret reported by parents is that I didnt spend enough time with my child
when he or she was young.
When you become a parent, you must discipline yourself and organize your
life so you can spend ample time with your child throughout his or her growing
years. You must discipline yourself to cut back, reduce, downsize, and eliminate
other activities that prevent you from being an excellent parent. Then you get
married, your life goes though a major shift. Your lifestyle changes and many
of your common activities lose their importance and urgency.
When your first child is born, your life shifts again. It often feels as if the first
stage of your lifeyour youth has dropped off, like the first stage of a rocket,
and you are now on a different trajectory in life. In fact, it is not uncommon for
couples to change their lives completely when their first child is born. They cut
back or discontinue many of their previous social activities. They stop dining
and drinking with friends, and they stop going out socially on the weekends.
They begin to build a different life together around their home and children. The
children become the focus of their time and attention. The children become the
primary subject of their conversations.
111
Responsible parents approach child rearing as the most important part of their
lives. They plan and organize their time and activities so they can fulfill this
responsibility at a high level. Children force you to think long-term. When you
realize that everything that you do or fail to do with your children.
The greatest gift you can give children is to let them know that you love them
100% of the time and that your love for them never changes, no matter what
happens.
There is no greater blessing for children than to know with complete confidence
that the most important people in their lifetheir parentslove them completely
and accept them totally, no matter what they do or what mistakes they make.
Children are not little adults. They do not have the ability to make good judgments about the right or wrong things to do. It takes them many years of trial
and error and sometimes bitter experience to develop the wisdom and judgment
that enable them to make good decisions for themselves and their futures.
The kindest way to treat your children when they make mistakes is to behave
with calmness and compassion and to help them learn the lessons contained in
the problem or difficulty.
The most important job you have as a parent is to instill values and to build character in your children. You do this by teaching them what values are important,
especially those of integrity and truth telling.
You set yourself up as a role model and demonstrate the values you want your
children to have in every situation where those values are called for. Developing proper values and teaching proper conduct to your children is a lifelong job.
The discipline of raising children so that they grow up with high self-esteem,
being positive and confident in themselves and their own value is one of the
most important things you ever do. The results of your child rearing will last
you all the years of your life.
112
Here are 7 questions you can ask yourself to ensure that you are continuously
fulfilling your job as a parent and role model for your children.
Number one, what two qualities would you like your children to identify with
you by observing your behavior?
1)____________________________________________________________________
2)____________________________________________________________________
Number two, what two qualities would you like most to instill in your children,
and how could you achieve this?
1)____________________________________________________________________
2)____________________________________________________________________
Number three, if you were an excellent role model for your children, how would
your behaviors be different, starting today?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Number four, what mistakes have your children made that you should forgive
and forget about, starting immediately?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
113
Number five, what actions are you going to take immediately to spend more
time with your children?
1)____________________________________________________________________
2)____________________________________________________________________
Number six, what actions could you take to instill the quality of truthfulness in
your children?
1)____________________________________________________________________
2)____________________________________________________________________
Number seven, how could you encourage and reward your children so that they
practice greater self-discipline, self-control, and self-mastery?
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
The relationship you have with your spouse and your children are most important
relationships you will ever have. You will find more happiness and fulfillment
in life from those relationships than any other relationships you have. Remember
that the success of those relationships is based off of communication, patience,
and most of all, love. Make a commitment, today, to work on nurturing those
relationships and improving them every day for the rest of your life.
114
Chapter 12
The Most Important
Quality of Success
Brian
Tracy
115
The Most Important Quality of Success
here is one special quality that you can develop that will guarantee you greater
success, accomplishment and happiness in life. Of a thousand principles for
success developed over the ages, this one quality and practice will do more to
assure that you accomplish wonderful things with your life and achieve all of
your goals more than anything else you do.
This quality is so important that, if you dont develop it to a high degree, it is
impossible for you to ever achieve what you are truly capable of achieving.
The quality that I am talking about is the quality of self-discipline.
It is a habit, a practice, a philosophy and a way of living. All successful men and
women are highly disciplined in the important work that they do.
All unsuccessful men and women are undisciplined and unable to control their
behaviors and their appetites. And when you develop the same levels of high,
personal discipline possessed by the most successful people in our society, you
will very soon begin to achieve the same results that they do.
All great success in life is preceded by long, sustained periods of focused effort
on a single goal, the most important goal, with the determination to stay with
it until it is complete.
Throughout history, we find that every man or woman, who achieved anything
lasting and worthwhile, had engaged in long, often unappreciated hours, weeks,
months and even years of concentrated, disciplined work, in a particular direction.
116
Fortunately the quality of self-discipline is something that you can learn by

continuous practice, over and over, until you master it.
Once you have mastered the ability to delay gratification, the ability to discipline
yourself to keep your attention focused on the most important task in front of
you, there is virtually no goal that you cannot accomplish and no task that you
cannot complete.
I have studied successful men and women for more than 30 years. In the simplest
of terms, successful men and women are those who work almost all the time on
high value tasks. Unsuccessful men and women are those who waste their time
by wasting the minutes and hours of each day on low value activities.
You see, there is a crowding out principle in time and personal management.
It simply says that, if you spend all of your time on highly productive tasks, by
the end of the day, you will have crowded out all the unproductive activities
that might have distracted you from your real work.
On the other hand, if you spend your time on low value activities, those low
value activities will crowd out the time that you need to complete the tasks that
can make all the difference in your life. And the key to this attitude toward time
and personal management is always self-discipline.
There are 6 disciplines that you must master in order to achieve all of your goals
and become a highly successful person in all areas of your life.
The first discipline you need to develop, which I spoke about earlier, is the discipline of continuous goal-setting.
You should write and rewrite your goals every single day, every week, every
month. If a person were to wake you up out of a sound sleep, you should know
117
and be able to tell that person immediately what your major definite purpose
in life is at that moment.
The second discipline you need to develop for success is the discipline of planning.
Many people think that they are too busy to plan. Or they dont give themselves
enough time to plan. But our studies show that you will save ten minutes in
execution for every minute that you invest in planning. You will get a 1000%
return on your time investment by taking the time to think through, in advance,
what you are going to do in the hours and days ahead.
Here are five steps you can take to make an effective plan of action:

First, make a list of everything that you can think of that you will have to
do to achieve your goal. Leave nothing out.
Second, organize your list by priority. What is the most important task or
activity? Whats the second most important? And so on.
Third, organize your list by sequence. What must be done before something
else can be done?
Fourth, determine how much time and money it will take to achieve your
goal or complete your task. Do you have the time and resources necessary
for success?
And fifth, revisit and revise your plan regularly, especially when you get
new information or things are not going as you had expected. Be prepared
to change if you need to.
118
A good friend of mine told me how he became one of the top salespeople in his
industry in America. He had spun his wheels for several months when his sales
manager asked him to come in on a Saturday and talk to him.
This was a bit unusual, but he was frustrated with his low level of sales, so he
agreed to go in on the Saturday. His sales manager then sat him down and
spent the entire afternoon showing him how to plan his days, his weeks, and
his months, in advance.
The very next Monday, he put these lessons into action. Within a few months
he had doubled his sales. He told me that learning how to plan and budget his
time, how to organize his personal resources for maximum attainment, was the
turning point in his life. And, it can be the turning point in your life as well.
Planning your days, weeks and months is not that complicated. You begin with
a time planner of some kind. They are for sale everywhere, and in my experience, virtually any time planner you buy will help you, if you will use it on a
regular basis.
You make a list of the goals you want to accomplish. Many people in sales and
business make a goal of the amount they want to sell and the amount they want
to earn, broken down by year, month, week, day and even by the hour.
For example, if you want to earn $50,000 per year, and you work an average of
250 days per year, this means that you want to earn $200 per day, or $25 per hour.
Once you have determined that you want to earn $25 per hour, you organize
every hour of every day so that you are engaged in activities that pay you $25
or more.
119
You discipline yourself adamantly not to do anything that pays less than the $25
per hour you wish to earn.
It is amazing to me the number of people who sit around reading the paper, making their own photocopies or driving around listening to the radio who think
that somehow, by some miracle, someone is going to pay them $25 per hour or
more for their time.
And you know exactly the kind of activities that you have to engage in that are
worth $25 per hour, or more. You must discipline yourself so that for at least eight
hours every day, you do only those things that pay you your desired hourly rate.
Planning begins with your making a list of everything that you have to do in the
coming day, week and month. You then go through your list and you use the
ABCDE method to divide your list into high and low priority tasks.
The ABCDE Method is as follows:
An A task is something that is very important.

There are serious consequences if you dont achieve it.
People will be extremely unhappy and it can be costly to you in terms of

money and success.
You put an A next to all the activities that are vital to your success.
B activities are those things that you should do.

These are things for which there are mild consequences if they are done or
not done.
120
The rule is that you never work on a B task when there is an A task left
undone.
C tasks are those things that would be nice to do, but which dont really matter very much in the great scheme of things.

Calling a friend, reading the paper, having a coffee break or going for lunch
are C activities.
Whether you do them or not, there will be no consequences whatsoever.
D activities are those that you delegate.

The rule is that you delegate everything that you possibly can to others so
that you can use your precious minutes and hours each day doing only those
things that are really important to your life and your career.
Sometimes people think that only managers with staffs can delegate tasks to
others. But every time you buy Chinese food to take home, you are delegating
the making of a meal.
Each time that you have someone else wash your car or mow your lawn, you
are delegating an activity. Your job is to free up as much of your time during
the week for things that make a difference in your life by delegating everything
that is humanly possible to anyone else who can do it at an hourly rate lower
than the hourly rate you want to earn for yourself.
The last letter in the ABCDE formula is E and it stands for eliminate.
121
As you move through life, it is essential that you eliminate tasks and activities that consume a lot of time if you want to have sufficient hours in the
day to do the things that are most important to you.
Just as a snake sluffs off its skin every season, as you grow and mature, there are
activities you need to sluff off as well.
There are activities that take up an enormous amount of time that you have to
eliminate from your life altogether.
If you dont, you will continue adding more new activities while you hold onto
the old ones. Soon you will find yourself completely overwhelmed with too
much to do and too little time. Eliminating low value activities is one of the
most important aspects of the discipline of planning.
Here is a 5 step process to help you organize your to-do list and plan your time
accordingly so you get the most amount of work done in the least amount of time.

First, make a list of everything you would like to be, do, or have in the
months and years ahead.
Second, the evening before, make a list of everything you have to do the
next day.
Third, organize your list by priority using the 80/20 Rule outlined in this
chapter and the ABCDE method.
Analyze your list and select those items that can have the greatest possible consequences on your life.
Let your subconscious mind work on your list while you sleep.
122
Separate the urgent from the non-urgent and the important from the
non-important before you begin.
Fourth, select the most important task, the one with the greatest possible
consequences for completion or incompletion, and circle it, making it your
A-1 job.
Fifth, begin working immediately on your most important task, and then
discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on this one task until it
is 100% complete.
As soon as you master the discipline of planning, you will immediately begin to
save time and see positive results and change in all areas in your life.
In the next chapter, Im going to talk about disciplines 3, 4, 5, and 6, which you
must also master if you want to achieve all of your goals and live your life to its
fullest potential.
123
Notes
124
Chapter 13
Discipline and
Personal Power
Brian
Tracy
125
Discipline and Personal Power
n the last chapter, I talked about the first 2 of 6 disciplines you must master in
order to become successful in everything that you do. The first is discipline of
goal setting and the second is discipline of planning.
In this chapter, Im going to talk about disciplines 3 through 6, in which you
must also master if you want to achieve all of your goals and live the life youve
always dreamt of.
The third discipline you need to practice is the discipline of budgeting.
This refers to both your time and your money.
Every study shows that men and women who accomplish extraordinary amounts
of work give an enormous amount of thought to how they use their time, and
how they spend their money.
In a Wall Street Journal study of senior executives of Fortune 500 Companies,
they found that every single one of them, each of whom earned an average of
$1,400,000 per year, was a systematic and continuous time planner. They gave
an enormous amount of thought to how they would allocate their time on a dayto-day and hour-to-hour basis. So must you.
Whenever I speak to successful people and I ask them where they will be and
what they will be doing in a couple of days or a couple of weeks, they can take
out their time planners and show me exactly where they will be and how they
will be using their time.
When you speak to an unsuccessful person and ask him what he will be doing
next Thursday, he will have no idea. For him, life is random and haphazard.
126
Every new stop sign is an adventure. Does he turn to the right or to the left? His
days just unravel like a ball of yarn rather than moving straight and true like a
flying arrow toward a target.
Some people ask, Which comes first, the tight time planning or the success?
The answer to that is quite clear.
When you begin to plan your time in 10 and 15 minute blocks so that you know
exactly where you will be and what you will be doing during every hour of
every day, you will find yourself doing more and more things of higher and
higher value.
As a result, you will accomplish more and more and you will be paid increasingly higher amounts. The very act of budgeting your time or money causes
you to use them both more efficiently.
The fourth discipline is the discipline of self-responsibility, the discipline of
viewing yourself as being in charge of your own life.
This means seeing yourself as self-employed, as the president of your own personal services corporation.
The habit or discipline of viewing yourself as an independent contractor, selling
your services to your existing company, is one of the most important paradigm
shifts that have taken place in the world of work in the last 20 years.
Today, all top people, no matter who signs their paycheck, and no matter what
they do, view themselves as if they were totally responsible for results at their
corporation.
127
They act as if they own the place. They act as if they are the president of an
entrepreneurial company with one employee, themselves, selling the highest
quality and quantity of their services possible, at the best possible price.
Here is an exercise for you:
Imagine that your company decided to fire everybody and hire independent
contractors. You were informed that you could reapply for your job, but you
would have to present a proposal outlining exactly what you would do, how
much you would charge, and how the company could justify paying you these
amounts.
You would have to compete with other people for your job. You would have to
make a complete business rationale for the amount of money that you wanted
to earn by demonstrating that the company would earn far more by utilizing
your services than it would end up paying you in the form of salary and benefits.
Even if you own your own company, you must go through this exercise on a
regular basis. It will keep you focused and highly self-responsible.
The fifth discipline is the discipline of result-orientation.

Result-orientation is a hallmark of the highest performing, highest paid,

most successful and most effective people in our society.
They think continually in terms of the results that are expected of them
rather than the activities they engage in on a day-to-day basis.
They see themselves as highly productive people who have specific responsibilities to fulfill, and they never lose sight of the most important things
that they can be doing.
128
There are 5 key questions that you can ask yourself, as a regular discipline, to
keep yourself focused on achieving the results that are most important to you.
The first of these questions is, What am I on the payroll?

What specifically have you been hired to accomplish?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Why is it that they pay you money where you work?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

What is it that you contribute that entitles you to be paid as much or more
than you are receiving?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
If you dont know the answer to this question with absolute clarity, make a list of
everything that you feel that you have been hired to accomplish, and go through
the list on your own to determine the most valuable contributions that you make.
Take your list to your boss and ask your boss to organize the list in order of priority. Tell your boss that you want to be sure that you are always working on
the things that he or she considers to be the most important.
129
From that moment on, keep all of your attention focused on doing an excellent
job on those few things that your boss really considers to be the highest priority.
The second question you must continually ask yourself is, What are my highest
value activities?

What are the things that you do that represent the very highest value to
yourself and your company?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

What represents the highest pay-off?

_________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________
When you do these things and do them well, they really make an impact on you
and on your organization. Once you have identified them, you must resolve to
keep yourself focused on them every minute of every day.
The third question for result-orientation is, What are my key result areas?

Many management courses are built around this concept. A key result
area is defined as something that you are completely responsible for doing.
It is specific and measurable, and it creates an output that becomes an input

for someone else.
130
For example, if you develop a customer and make a sale, you create business
that then is fulfilled by other parts of the company. Your output is an input for
other departments. What are your key result areas? What are the one or two
things that you do that really make a contribution to your company? Whatever
they are, dedicate yourself to doing them in an excellent fashion. Do them well
and do them before you do anything else.
The fourth question for you to ask yourself is, What can I, and only I, do, that
if done well, will make a real difference?

The answer to this question, at any given time, is only one activity.
At any given time, there is only one thing that you, and only you, can do,
that, if you do it really well, will make a real difference to you and your
organization.
It is absolutely essential that you identify this one task and then focus all your
time and energy on it until it is done in an outstanding fashion.
Your successful accomplishment of this key, central task can be more important
to you than your completion of a whole list of other less-important activities.
The final question, and the key question in time management is, What is the
most valuable use of my time, right now?

At every minute of every day, there is an answer to this question.
You must think before you begin working, and then begin working on the
one thing that is more valuable to you and your company than anything
else.
131
The habit of working on your most valuable and important tasks at all times, lies
at the heart of the entire practice of self-discipline. If you can discipline yourself
to do it, there is virtually nothing that you cannot accomplish.
The inability to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing, the most important
thing, and stay with it until it is complete, is the number one reason for failure
in life. The ability to do it is the number one reason for success.
The sixth discipline you need is the discipline of action-orientation.
This requires you to develop a sense of urgency. You develop a fast-tempo.
You continually repeat to yourself, Do it now! Do it now!
Action orientation is the most noticeable quality of the highest performers in
every field of business and personal life.
When they see something that needs to be done, they get on with it and get it
done immediately. They function in real time. They dont procrastinate or
delay. They take the ball and run with it, quickly. They develop a reputation
for being the kind of people that get the job done fast.
When you can combine the ability to think through your work, set specific priorities, determine your area of concentration, and then get on with it quickly,
you will begin to move ahead in your life more rapidly than the other people
around you.
Successful people engage in activities that are goal-achieving. Unsuccessful
people engage in activities that are tension-reliving.
Successful people plan their work, and work their plan.
132
They take the time to think through their responsibilities before they begin. They
make clear decisions which they then implement immediately. They get a lot
more done in a shorter period of time than the average person. And it all has to
do with their disciplines.
Every act of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline in your life. Every
weakness of self-discipline weakens your other disciplines as well.
When you make a habit of disciplining yourself in little things, like flossing
your teeth every night, youll soon become able to discipline yourself to accomplish even larger things, like working long, long hours to bring a major task to
completion.
Your entire life is an on-going battle between the forces of doing what is right and
necessary on the one hand and doing what is fun and easy on the other hand.
It is a battle between the forces of discipline and the forces of ease or expediency. And when you develop the strength of character that gives you complete
self-mastery, self-control and self-discipline, you feel wonderful about yourself.
You develop a deep inner sense of strength and confidence. You replace positive thinking with positive knowing. You reach the point inside where you
absolutely know that you can do whatever it takes to achieve any goal that you
can set for yourself.
Self-discipline is its own reward. Not only does it pay off in terms of greater
self-esteem and a more positive mental attitude, but it pays off throughout your
life in terms of the goals that you achieve and the success that you attain in everything you do.
133
Self-discipline is a skill and a habit that can be learned by practice. Every time
you practice a little self-discipline, you become stronger and stronger. Bit by bit,
you become more capable of even greater disciplines.
As you become a totally self-disciplined individual, your entire future opens up
in front of you like a broad highway. Everything becomes possible for you and
your future becomes unlimited.
134
Chapter 14
Personal Financial
Planning
Brian
Tracy
135
Personal Financial Planning

The quality and condition of your financial life has a major impact on your health,
happiness and well-being. Your financial situation affects your relationships and
your self-image. It raises or lowers your self-respect and self-esteem.
Your goal should be financial freedom, financial independence. You should have
enough money so that you never worry about money again.
The good news is that it has never been more possible for you to achieve your
financial goals than it is today. There have never been more opportunities than
now. Your goal should be to take advantage of them.
The key to financial success is simple. It can be summarized in five words: Spend
less than you earn. But it is not easy.
You become financially independent by first of all deciding to do it. And second,
you set a goal, make a plan and work on your plan every day.
You first of all analyze your current financial situation and get your financial life
under control. Then, you dedicate yourself to becoming better, more valuable at
what you do. Finally, you cut back everywhere you can and save or invest more
and more of your income.
In this session, you complete a series of exercises that can change your entire
financial future. Then, you take action.
136
Personal Financial Planning

Personal financial planning begins with a thorough and accurate analysis of
your current financial situation.
1.
Make a list of all your assets, things that have a market value, that you
could sell and turn into cash.
Organize your list starting with the most liquid assets (i.e., cash) and
going to the least liquid (i.e., personal possessions):

Cash (in banks, on hand)
$ __________________

Receivables (money owed to you) __________________

Stocks, bonds, other securities __________________

Real Estate __________________

Equity in your business __________________

Cars, boats, motor home __________________

Personal property __________________
Other:_______________________________
__________________
Other:_______________________________
__________________

Total Assets:
$ __________________
2.
Make a list of all your liabilities, money owing, of all kinds:

Current bills (home/office)
$ ________________

Credit cards
________________

Loans (cars, boats, motor home, etc.)
________________

Mortgage balances
________________

Unpaid taxes
________________
Commitments/promises
________________
Other:_______________________________
________________

____________________________________
________________

____________________________________
________________

Total Liabilities:
________________
137
3.
Calculate your current net worth:
Total Assets:
$ ________________
Less: Total Debt
($ ________________ )
Net Worth:
$ ________________
(Be sure this is an honest number. Imagine having to explain

each asset and liability, under oath, to a banker).
4.
Determine your main sources of income today:

Annual Amount
1)
_______________________________________ $_______________
2)
_______________________________________
_______________
3)
_______________________________________
_______________
5.

Make a list, in descending order of importance, of your top 5 customers

or sources of income.
Customer/Source of Income
Amount
1)
____________________________________________ $___________
2)
____________________________________________ ____________

3)
____________________________________________ ____________
4)
____________________________________________ ____________
5)
____________________________________________ ____________
138
6.

Analyze your most recent 5 year income history. How much did you
earn each year?
Year
Amount
__________ ...................................................................... $___________
__________........................................................................ $___________
__________........................................................................ $___________
__________........................................................................ $___________
__________........................................................................ $___________
7.

What are your financial goals for the next 5 years?

Year
Amount
__________ ...................................................................... $___________
__________........................................................................ $___________
__________........................................................................ $___________
__________........................................................................ $___________
__________........................................................................ $___________
8.

What are the most important things you do today that are
responsible for most of your income?
Activities
Percentage %
1)
____________________________________________
____________
2)
____________________________________________
____________
3)
____________________________________________
____________
139
9.

What are the key result areas of your job? What are the results expected
or required of you to accomplish the business result?
Key Result Areas
1-10
1)
____________________________________________
____________
2)
____________________________________________
____________
3)
____________________________________________
____________
4)
____________________________________________
____________
5)
____________________________________________
____________
6)
____________________________________________
____________
7)
____________________________________________
____________
Give yourself a score of 1-10 (1 = lowest) in each of your key result areas,
in terms of how well you perform today in each area.
10.

What are the three skills or qualities that are more responsible
for your income than any other?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
11.

What one skill, if you developed and did it in an excellent fashion,

would have the greatest positive impact on your career?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
140
12.

What is your weakest important skill? What one skill, quality or ability
holds you back more than any other?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
13.

What is your area of excellence today? Where do you perform in an

outstanding way?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
14.

What are the key qualities and abilities of the highest paid people in
your field?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
15.

What core competencies, skills or abilities will you have to have in

5 years to earn twice as much as you are earning today?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
141
16.

In what skill area do you have to be absolutely, positively outstanding to

lead your field in the months and years ahead?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
17.
What is your plan to develop this skill as quickly as possible?
1)
Write it down:______________________________________________
2)
Set a deadline:______________________________________________
3)
Make a list of all the things you can do to develop this ability.

Priority?
a)
______________________________________
____________
b)
______________________________________
____________
c)
______________________________________
____________
d)
______________________________________
____________
e)
______________________________________
____________
f)
______________________________________
____________
g)
______________________________________
____________
142
4)
Set priorities on your list what is most important?
a)
_________________________________________________________
b)
_________________________________________________________
c)
_________________________________________________________

5)
Take action on your plan immediately!

What one step are you going to take today to become outstanding
in this key skill area?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________

6)

What are you going to do every day to improve yourself, to move

you toward your goal? (Read, listen to audio programs, attend
courses and practice!)
1)
_________________________________________________________
2)
_________________________________________________________
3)
_________________________________________________________
143
18.

Track your current income and expenditures. Determine exactly

how much you are earning and spending each month.
Monthly income (all sources)?
$ ______________
Monthly expenditures?
$ ______________
1)
Mortgage, rent?
$ _____________
2)
Car, transportation
$ _____________

3) Food, clothes, entertainment

4) Utilities, telephone, monthly
bills
$ _____________
5)
Payments credit cards, etc.
$ _____________
6)
Other payments
$ _____________
7)
Other expenditures
$ _____________
TOTAL

Monthly profit/loss?
19.

$
_____________
($_______________ )
$ ______________
Long-term financial planning: how much would you need to

retire on today?

1)

Determine the amount you

would need each month:
$ ______________

2)

Determine the amount you would need

each year (your annual income goal):
$ ______________
Lifetime estate goal (Annual income goal x 20)
$ ______________
144
(Example: If you wanted to retire on $100,000 per year, you would need
$2,000,000 in savings. With this amount, you could withdraw 5% per
year indefinitely).
20.
Desired net worth at age 65?
$ _______________
21.
Subtract: Your Net worth today (# 3)
($ _______________ )
22.

Amount you must accumulate between

today and age 65?
$ _______________
23.

Amount you will have to save/invest each

month/year to reach this amount?
$ _______________
(Exercise: Assume compound interest growth of 7% per annum on your

savings and investments. Use a calculator or have someone calculate your
required monthly savings rate).
24.

Trim your expenditures whenever possible. In what areas could you cut
back, reduce expenses?
Area of Expenditure
Saving
1)
_______________________________________ $
__________
2)
_______________________________________ $
__________
3)
_______________________________________ $
__________
4)
_______________________________________ $
__________
5)
_______________________________________ $
__________
6)
_______________________________________ $
__________
7)
_______________________________________ $
__________

Potential monthly savings:
$ __________
145
25.

What are the three most important things you could do to increase
your income?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________

Which one activity are you going to start on today?
________________________________________________________________
26.
Savings/Investment/Accumulation Projections:
________________________________________________________________
Year
Net Worth
__________ (current year) ............................................ $___________
__________ (5 years in future) ...................................... $___________
__________ (10 years in future)..................................... $___________
__________ (15 years in future)..................................... $___________
__________ (20 years in future)..................................... $___________
__________ (25 years in future)..................................... $___________
__________ (30 years in future)..................................... $___________

146
Example: Determine each 5-year goal.

(assuming your Net Worth today is $100,000)
$1,000,000
$1,000,000
$875,000
$750,000
$625,000
$500,000
$375,000
$250,000
$125,000
$100,000

27.
2005
2010
2015
2020
2025
2030
Five year plan: determine how much you want to be worth each year:
$175,000
(at 10%)
$160,000
$145,000
$130,000
$115,000
$100,000

2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
147
28.
Determine how much you will have to save each month, each paycheck:
Answer:
Approximately 6% of your annual goal.

Example: Annual Savings goal = $15,000

Monthly saving: $990

(These calculations are conservative. Your experience could be better.)
29.

What three things could you do to study, learn, read, become

extremely knowledgeable about money, investments, finances?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________
30.

What three things does money mean to you? What roles does it play
in your life? How do you feel about it?
1)_______________________________________________________________
2)_______________________________________________________________
3)_______________________________________________________________

What one action are you going to take immediately to achieve your
financial goals?
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
148
Notes
149
Notes
150
The only real limitation on your abilities

is the level of your desires.
If you want it badly enough, there are no limits
on what you can achieve.
462 Stevens Avenue, Suite 305

Solana Beach, CA 92075
858-436-7300 800-542-4252 Fax 858-436-7301
www.briantracy.com

Goal Setting and Achieving: Brian Tracy

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Título original

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Goal Setting and Achieving: Brian Tracy

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Goal Setting

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

First, take the complete Personal Goal Setting exercise at the

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Personal Goal Setting........................................................................ 1

2 Your Unlimited Potential................................................................ 13

Personal Strategic Planning............................................................ 37

5 Your Meaning and Purpose in Life................................................ 55

Advanced Programming Techniques............................................ 75

8 Unlocking Your Superconscious Mind......................................... 79

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Personal Goal Setting

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Personal Goal Setting

You must know exactly what you want.

Absolute clarity regarding your goals is essential to high performance.

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

What sort of work or activity gives you your greatest feeling of

What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Business & Career

When you set your goals, imagine you have no limitations.

List your three most intensely desired personal goals:

is at the same level of me or higher.

List your three most important business and career goals:

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

What are your three most important financial goals?

What are your three most important goals in regards to education,

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Without referring to your answers in the previous goal-setting

Imagine you could be absolutely guaranteed of success in any of your

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Write out your goal in detail make it clear, specific and

December 31, 2015

List the additional information, knowledge and skills you will

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Find someone to create website for free in order to

Charge more for the service as I get better

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Organize your list by:

a) Priority: What is most important?

b) Sequence: What must you do before something else?

A list organized by priority and sequence is a PLAN.

Assign responsibility for carrying out your plan. What exactly is

buy genesis framework

get first client

Updates my website and portfolio

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Take action: What one task are you going to complete

12) Resolve to do something every day toward the achievement of

Action-orientation is the most important single quality of high performing men

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

Your Unlimited Potential

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

GOAL SETTING AND ACHIEVING

and fitness. May be a fitness program for digital nomad.