Brian Tracy's Tips to Success

Here’s a guide to finding opportunities within your own realm of talents and interests:

Look for Opportunities
How do you find a new product or service, recognizing that 80 percent or more will be new in five years? Here’s a series of ideas. Number one, begin with yourself. Begin with your own talents, your abilities, your experience, knowledge, interests, background, education and so on. Look carefully at your current work, your current business, your current position, or your current product or service. Seek for what is called your own acres of diamonds. Look under your own feet.

Look Into Yourself
Here’s a question. What qualities account for your greatest successes in life so far? What personal qualities and abilities have gotten you to where you are? And how could you apply those qualities and abilities to starting and building a new business?

If you already have a company, ask what are your company’s talents, abilities, experience, knowledge, interests, background and so on. What qualities, talents and abilities have enabled your company to succeed up to now? Where can you specialize? Where can you make a difference?

Identify What You Really Enjoy
Number two is to look for a product or service about which you can become really enthusiastic. Sometimes people become wealthy by translating or transforming their hobbies into a business. You will be most successful doing something or marketing something that you really love.

Every product must have a champion. Every product or service must have someone in the business who really, really loves the product or service and is eager to get out and tell other people about it.

Improve on Something Else
Number three, look for something that’s an improvement on an existing product or service, not something brand new. Look for something that’s cheaper or better quality. Something that has additional features or functions. Look for something that’s an improvement.

Remember, improving an existing successful product or service is the fastest and surest way to build a successful business. An idea only needs to be 10 percent new and better to capture substantial market share. Brand-new products or services are very risky.

Be Willing to Work Hard
The fourth key to finding a new product or service is this: Don’t look for easy money. Don’t look for gimmicks or useless knickknacks. Don’t look for get-rich-quick schemes or rewards without working, because there aren’t any.

More people have wasted more time, more of their life and more money trying to find quick ways to make easy money than you can possibly imagine. So be willing to put in a lot of hard work before you start making real money in a business.

Success Takes Time
It takes two years to break even in the average business. It takes four years to show a profit. It takes maybe eight to 10 years before it starts to generate real cash flow. So you have to be patient. If you’re impatient, what will happen is you’ll end up setting yourself further back than you can imagine.

Action Exercises
First, be prepared to research a lot of business ideas before you make a final decision. The first 10 percent of time that you spend doing your homework will save you 90 percent of the effort getting results later on.

Second, look for something that you can improve upon rather than something new. You’re surrounded by ideas and opportunities for improvement–if you can just identify them.

All of life is a risk of some kind. Whenever you engage in any action where the outcome is uncertain, for any reason, you are taking a risk. You take a small risk when you drive to work or walk across the street. You take a larger risk when you start a business or invest a sum of money. You take a risk whenever you venture into the unknown, where your possibilities and probabilities cannot be determined to an exact degree. From the time you get up in the morning until you go to bed at night, and even when you are sleeping, you are facing risk to some degree.

The issue, then, is not whether or not you take risks. The issue is how skillful you are and, therefore, how confident you are in taking the right risks for the right reasons in pursuit of the right goals or objectives.

It’s a fact that every great leap forward in human life begins with a giant step of faith into the unknown. Men and women who accomplish wonderful things are invariably men and women of great faith and confidence in themselves and their abilities. The better you become at analyzing and assessing risk, and then avoiding as much of the risk as possible, the more competent and more capable you will become, and the more successful you will be.

There are basically five types of risk for you to consider. The first type is the simplest. It’s the risk that’s not yours to take. It’s the decision you do not have to make or the gamble you do not have to engage in. Every action has a consequence and often creates the need for further action, either to follow up or to remedy what happened. Whenever you can delegate an act entailing uncertainty, you can reduce your risk of losing time and money, and can increase your likelihood of long-term success.

The second type of risk is the risk that’s unnecessary. You engage in an unnecessary risk when you act precipitously, without sufficient information or without taking time to think things through. Peter Drucker said, “Action without thinking is the cause of every failure.” Many of the mistakes you’ve made occurred because you acted without thinking—that is, you acted without taking time to minimize the risks involved.

The third type of risk is the risk you can afford to take. Calling on a new prospect, following up on a lead and exploring a new opportunity all are risks you can afford to take. In these cases, the cost of failure is very low, while the rewards of success can be very great. Buying an inexpensive product or service, trying a new restaurant and going out with a new person all are risks entailing uncertainty that you can afford to take because the down side is limited. The worst that could happen is that your ego might be bruised.

The fourth type of risk is the risk you cannot afford to take. The consequences of making a mistake would be too enormous. You cannot afford to bet your whole company or your whole bankroll on speculation of any kind. You cannot afford to commit all your resources to a single project and have your entire success or failure hinge on the outcome of that project.

Many salespeople make the mistake of working on one very large prospect and gradually curtailing their efforts to develop a series of smaller prospects. From everything I’ve heard and seen, whenever a salesperson does that, the large prospect always fails to materialize, and the salesperson is left with empty hands and an empty pocketbook.

People in the world of investing talk about the importance of spreading one’s risk. No individual and no company should be dependent upon one or two people for its financial well-being. One of the best ways to minimize risk is to develop alternatives to what you are currently doing. The more alternatives you have, the lower your risk and the higher your likelihood of success.

The fifth type of risk is the risk that you can’t afford not to take. The down side may be costly, but the up side is so exciting that it’s worth taking a chance to go after it. If you are working on a big prospect whose headquarters is a long way from your main office, it’s certainly a risk to travel all the way there and back several times, but it’s a risk you can’t afford not to take. If the prospect materializes, it can make a major difference to both you and your company.

Sometimes you will be given a job opportunity you can’t afford not to take. Although there is always a potential loss involved, the up side may be tremendous.

One of the best of all exercises, in every situation involving uncertainty, is to assess and evaluate the worst possible outcome. Ask yourself, “What could possibly go wrong in this situation?”

Remember Murphy’s Law: “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.” There are several secondary laws to Murphy’s Law, such as “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible time” and “Of all the things that can go wrong, the most expensive thing will go wrong at the worst possible time.”

Another sublaw is “Everything takes longer than your best calculation.” In advising businesspeople, I suggest that they take their very best estimate of break-even for any business venture and then triple it to arrive at a more realistic number. Whenever businesspeople follow this advice, they are amazed to find that, in spite of their best initial calculations, it indeed takes about three times longer than they thought it would to start making money.

Another sublaw is “Everything costs more than you can possibly anticipate in advance.” In minimizing risk in any venture, always add a “fudge factor” to account for the uncertainty. Whenever I do a business plan, I always add 20 percent to the total of all costs I can identify, to come up with the probable cost. Anything less than this, whether in business or your personal life, is likely to be an exercise in self-delusion.

Once you have identified the worst possible things that could go wrong, make a list of everything you could do to offset these negative factors. Engage in what is called “crisis anticipation.” Look into the future, and imagine every possible crisis that could arise as a result of changing external circumstances.

Men and women who have achieved a high level of success are intensely realistic. They do not put their trust in luck. They carefully calculate every possible risk and then think about what they would do should it occur. They always have a backup plan in case things do not go as they wish them to. They have a “Plan B” and options to that plan that take all kinds of variables into consideration.

Successful individuals engage in strategic thinking. They minimize risk by continually questioning their assumptions and asking themselves what they would do in the case of unanticipated delays, cost overruns or unexpected actions by their competitors. They are seldom caught unprepared because they have thought through the kind of uncertainties that create unacceptable risks—risks they cannot afford to take.

In dealing with risk, a mild degree of fear or anticipation is often helpful because it keeps you alert and aware of what might go wrong. The problem with fear is that most people have it to an excess and are, therefore, paralyzed by their fears rather than motivated by their opportunities.

There is an old saying: “Faint heart ne’er won fair maid.” And there is another: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Giving in to fear makes you fearful, while acting boldly makes you courageous. Your actions create your beliefs, and your beliefs create your realities. Each time you feel afraid or nervous for any reason, the only solution is, “Do the thing you fear.” An old man once advised his grandson with these wonderful words: “Act boldly, and unseen forces will come to your aid.” Truer words were never spoken.

Most salespeople are selling far less and earning far less than they are capable of because they have an exaggerated fear of rejection. Even though they have never met the prospective client or customer, they have an inordinate fear of that person and worry whether that person will like or approve of them. When you actually dissect the fear of rejection by prospects or strangers, it seems kind of silly. But for salespeople faced with the need to develop new prospects, it can–and often does–paralyze and hold them back.

One of the very best ways to develop your ability to take intelligent risks is to consciously and deliberately do the things you fear, one step at a time. You don’t have to leap out of an airplane without a parachute. That is not risk taking. That is simply being foolish. What you do have to do is to resist your natural tendency to slip into a comfort zone of complacency and low performance. Take any fear you may be experiencing and treat it as a challenge, and as an opportunity to grow and to become a better person. Face the fear, control the fear, master the fear–and continue to move forward regardless of the fear. This is the mark of the superior person.

Many of our fears of taking risks are unfounded. They have no basis in reality. When you test them, you find that they don’t even exist.

Often we are afraid to take the risk of approaching a stranger because we fear this person will not like us, be interested in us or be impressed enough to want to have anything to do with us. However, the simple solution is to get out of yourself and focus all of your attention on the other individual. When you concentrate your attention on the other person and find reasons to like him or her, to be interested in him or her, or to be impressed by him or her, a remarkable thing happens: The other person, in turn, finds you likable, interesting and impressive. The secret is to ask questions about the other person and then listen attentively to the answers. Men and women who are popular with others practice this all the time. They eventually find that they have nothing to fear in introducing themselves to people, either on a personal or on a business level.

If you are in sales and you are thoroughly conversant with the benefits that your product or service can bring to people, you can approach them with calmness and confidence, seeing yourself as a helper rather than a salesperson. The very best salespeople, in all fields, see themselves as friends and advisers to their customers and prospective clients. They feel they are in a position to do a favor for a person who can benefit from what they have to offer. Instead of seeing risks in approaching someone they haven’t met, they see opportunities and possibilities. Their attitudes are positive and expectant rather than negative and reluctant. They overcome the fear of rejection by thinking and talking about ways in which their product or service can help the other person and enrich the other person’s life or work.

A  good way to overcome the fear of risk taking is to set clear, written, measurable goals for yourself, and then to review those goals regularly.

When you have clear goals and plans, and you continually work on them and evaluate your progress each day, you will see what you’re doing right and how you could improve your performance. You’ll feel more competent, capable and better about yourself. You’ll become more thoughtful and reflective and willing to take on even greater challenges. You’ll feel like the “master of your fate and the captain of your soul.” And your fears of taking risks will become smaller and smaller.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle said that all virtues are located on what he called the “golden mean” between two vices. The virtue of courage, or the willingness to take risks, is located between these two vices: cowardice on one end and impetuousness on the other. Your job is to straddle this golden mean and strike a happy balance between acting impetuously and not acting at all, allowing fear to govern your emotions and actions.

You learn how to take intelligent risks without fear by taking intelligent risks and then analyzing what happened. When you have clearly identified the risk involved, you can plan and prepare to maximize your opportunities while minimizing those risks. The more positive you feel about yourself, the more effective you will be in everything you undertake. Your ability to confidently take calculated risks in the direction of your goals will ultimately lead you toward success.

Your habits have been developed from early childhood as the result of things you have chosen to do, or not to do. Your entire life is the result of your past choices and decisions. And like all of us, you probably have some bad habits that have held you back from your true potential. But here’s the good news: Since you are always free to choose, you can make new choices and decisions today that will determine what happens to you in the future.

One of your main objectives in life is to develop new habits and make them your masters, while at the same time overriding and setting aside old habits that may be interfering with your progress.

You have two major types of habits. You have habits that revolve around your desires and habits that revolve around your fears. The habits that revolve around your desires for health, happiness, financial independence and success are life-enhancing. They are the habits that have brought you the success you enjoy today. The habits that revolve around your fears, on the other hand, act as brakes on your potential. They hold you back. They interfere with your success. They trip you up on a regular basis. They cause you to sell yourself short and settle for far less than your potential.

Martin Seligman, in his book, Learned Optimism, wrote about the chief psychological phenomenon of modern life. He called it “learned helplessness.” Based on his 25 years of research, he discovered that virtually every person has one or more areas where he or she feels helpless and unable to do something he or she really wants to do.

Seligman’s research demonstrated how animals can be trained to feel that they are helpless. In one example, he put a dog in a cage with a glass wall in the middle that separated the dog from a bowl of food. The dog was hungry and tried to get at the food but kept banging his nose on the glass. After several hours, Seligman removed the glass. And what happened then? The dog, who was still hungry, sat only a few inches away from the food and never even attempted to eat it. The dog had learned to feel helpless. It had become so convinced that it was incapable of getting to the food that even when the obstacle was removed, it just sat there with its stomach growling.

There are dozens of experiments like this. In every case, it’s clear that animals–and human beings, for that matter–learn to feel helpless. They develop habits of thought that hold them back from reaching their full potential.

If someone were to tell you that you could learn to type 30 40, or 50 words per minute by taking a typing course and practicing an hour each day for the next few months, you would shrug your shoulders and say, “Of course!” Everybody knows you can acquire a particular physical skill by learning how it is done and then repeating it over and over until it becomes automatic.

But when it comes to mental habit patterns, most people are a little baffled. They don’t realize that you can learn mental habit patterns by following exactly the same process you would use to learn physical habit patterns. And mental habit patterns will have a far greater impact on your life and happiness than any physical habit pattern ever could.

Once you’ve recognized the old, negative habit patterns that do not serve your purposes, you can determine what new habit patterns you would like to adopt. Begin this process by looking around and deciding which people you admire the most, both living and dead. Ask yourself: What qualities do they have? Which of their characteristics do I most wish to have for myself? Then make a plan to incorporate those ideal habits into your own character and personality.

You know that you can shape a piece of clay into any desired form. You can also shape your own character and personality by simply deciding to do so. I won’t say that it’s easy. Changing your beliefs and attitudes about yourself is one of the most difficult things you’ll ever undertake. But it’s definitely possible and achievable if you dedicate the necessary time and effort.

How long does it take to develop a new habit pattern? It depends on how complex the habit pattern is. You can develop a simple habit pattern in 14 to 21 days. For example, if you want to begin getting up half an hour earlier so that you can plan and organize your day, it might take just two to three weeks to develop the habit. If you want to develop a new habit pattern of behavior that goes deeper into your character, it might take several months or even a year or more. The most important point is that, no matter how long it takes, the end result is achievable if you are really determined.

The habits of success have been studied by great thinkers and philosophers for at least 2,500 years. After personally studying the subject for more than 30 years, I have found that the very best people have the very best habits. Based on these findings, I have identified seven habits you need to develop if you want to perform at your maximum in everything you do.

The first is goal orientation. You need to become a habitual goal setter and dedicate yourself to working from clear, written goals every day of your life.

The second habit is result orientation. Result orientation is made up of two practices. The first is the practice of continuously learning so that you become better at what you do. The second practice is that of time management, which means setting clear priorities on what you do and then concentrating single-mindedly on the most valuable uses of your time.

The third major habit you need to develop is action orientation. This is really the most important habit for material success. It’s the ability to get on with the job and get it done fast. Fast tempo in whatever you do is essential to your success. You need to overcome procrastination, push aside your fears and launch 100 percent toward the achievement of your most important goals.

The fourth habit you need is people orientation. This is your decision to cultivate within yourself the habits of patience, kindness, compassion and understanding. Virtually all of your happiness in life will come from your ability to get along well with other people. And getting along well with other people is based on a set of habits that you have learned, or failed to learn, from childhood. But it’s never too late. The more you practice being a truly excellent person in your relationships with others, the more you will internalize those qualities and actually become that person.

The fifth habit is health orientation. This means you must make a conscious effort to eat the right foods in the right proportions. You must exercise on a regular basis, continually using every muscle and joint of your body to keep it young and fit. And finally, you must have regular habits of rest and recreation that will enable you, in combination with diet and exercise, to live a long, full life. Remember, your health is the single most important thing you have, and it is completely dependent upon the habits you develop with regard to the way you live.

The sixth habit is an orientation toward honesty and integrity. In the final analysis, the character you develop as you go through life is more important than virtually anything else. Honesty means that you practice the “reality principle” in everything you do. You are completely objective with yourself and with the world around you. You set clear values for yourself, and you organize your life around your values. You develop a vision for yourself, and then you live your life consistent with your highest ideals. You never compromise your integrity or peace of mind for anyone or anything.

This attitude of honesty will enable you to enjoy all of the other success habits that you are developing.

The seventh habit, the one habit that guarantees all the others, is that of self-discipline. Your ability to discipline yourself, to master yourself, to control yourself, goes hand in hand with success in every area of life. My favorite definition of self-discipline comes from Elbert Hubbard. He said, “Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.”

Every one of these habits can be developed. Following is a seven-step method you can use to internalize any habit or group of habits that you want to make a permanent part of your character and personality.

1. Decide clearly on the new habit. Write it down as a goal in the form of a present tense, personal, positive affirmation. For example, if you want to develop the habit of self-discipline, you write, “I am an extremely well-disciplined individual in everything I do.”

2. Repeat your affirmation as often as possible, with as much enthusiasm and conviction as possible. The more times you repeat this command, the more likely it is that your subconscious mind will ultimately accept it and begin to adjust your thoughts, words and behaviors to be consistent with it.

3. Visualize yourself as if you already had the new habit pattern. Imagine yourself as already being exactly the person you want to become in the future. Remember, your subconscious mind is activated and programmed by mental pictures. All improvement in your life and character begins with an improvement in your mental picture. Use visualization on a regular basis in conjunction with your positive affirmations.

4. Emotionalize the affirmation and the visualization. Take a few minutes each day to actually experience the feeling of being the excellent, outstanding human being you have decided to become.

5. Launch into your new habit with conviction. Assume the role, acting as if you had been hired to perform this role in a movie or play. The more you behave exactly as if you already had the habit, the more you actually become the person you desire to be.

6. Tell others that you have decided to develop this habit. When you tell others, you motivate and encourage yourself. You also force yourself to act consistently in accordance with your new resolutions because you know that others are watching.

7. Continually review your progress on a day-to-day basis. When Benjamin Franklin developed his own process for character formation, he would review his behavior every single day to see if he was living consistent with the values that he had determined were important. You can do the same thing. At the end of every day, do a brief recap of your behavior during the day relative to the values and habits you are trying to develop. Give yourself points when you are strong, and be patient with yourself when you slip from time to time.

The most important keys to developing new habit patterns are patience, determination and persistence. When you begin to change, you will find it’s not easy. But it is possible if you continue to work at it.

You can take complete control over the shaping of your character and personality, and everything that happens to you in the future, by making the decision, right now, to define and develop the habits that will lead you to great success. And when you develop the habits possessed by other successful people, you will enjoy an equal, if not greater, level of success.

Self-promotion is the business of getting ahead more rapidly in your life by selling yourself more effectively to more people in more places more often. When you become good at self-promotion, you can make the same progress in five years that someone else might make in 15 or even 25 years, if at all.

The starting point of self-promotion is to set a goal and make a plan to become one of the very best people in your field. The better you get and the more respected you become, the more you will have in common with other people who also are farther along on the road of life. You must ask for advice and follow it. You must make every effort to overcome the obstacles within yourself that might be holding you back. You must develop the essential skills that you need to join the top 20 percent in your field.

The wonderful thing about this aspect of self-promotion is that it is totally under your control. It depends on no one else. It is an ongoing journey. As Denis Waitley says, “It is continually viewing yourself as a ‘do it to yourself’ project.”

At the same time, you should be getting to know more and more of the most important people in your community and your industry. This is the second aspect of self-promotion. As you are getting better at what you do, you deliberately and systematically make efforts to meet more people whom you can help and who can help you.

People in any field eventually take on the attitudes and behaviors of the other people in that field. Your peer group has a powerful effect on the person you are today and on the person you will become tomorrow. The friends you socialize with after work and on the weekends have an enormous impact on everything you do and accomplish.

Every major turning point in your life will coincide with the development of a new group of friends and associates. I have seen many occasions where an average salesperson joined a company that was full of top salespeople; within three months, he or she also was a top salesperson in the industry. The act of changing reference groups often leads to a complete change of aspirations, goals, work routines and levels of achievement.

Many people’s lives, unfortunately, are a series of random or haphazard events, like bumper cars at a carnival. They take whatever job is offered to them. They have lunch with whomever is available, and they socialize with whomever they run into or whomever happens to be going out the door at the same time. Their human relationships are largely unplanned and uncoordinated. Their lives seem to go back and forth, and they make very little progress.

Successful people, on the other hand, are deliberate about their choice of friends, associates and colleagues. Successful people make a plan for their lives, and then they look around them to see which people fit into their plans for where they are going in the years ahead. Successful people are very specific about what they need to do and whom they need to know if they want to get ahead rapidly.

Baron Rothschild, one of the world’s wealthiest men in his time, wrote in his rules for success, “Make no useless acquaintances.” To some people, this seems a little undemocratic. Aren’t you  supposed to like and hang around with anybody who happens to be there, regardless of personality or direction? Not if you want your life to take a specific, upward path.

One study found that the top 20 percent of high achievers strongly identified with other high achievers, even before they had had a chance to accomplish very much in life. Their role models were men and women at the top of their organizations. The high achievers did not identify with the average people around them. Their sights were set much higher. And in almost no time at all, they were up among the top 20 percent, exactly as they had planned it.

There are a variety of things that you can do to promote yourself to the head of the pack. You can bring yourself to the attention of people who can help you quite rapidly, simply by engaging in the same behaviors that others have used over the years to rise rapidly in competitive careers.

Start with your work. As I said earlier, you must be very good at what you do and continually get better if you want to get ahead in your company. Sometimes, people are convinced that they can play politics to get ahead. However, it has been shown again and again that politics and gamesmanship will get a person only so far before he is found out. Management consultant Peter Drucker said, “Only the truly competent person can rise above politics.”

Politics in organizations has to do with gaining control of people and resources. If you are one of the most valuable people in your organization, you will not have to engage in very much politicking because you will be one of the precious resources  others will be eager to court and influence. You can rise above petty politicking simply by getting better and better at what you do. When you reach the point where you are making an invaluable contribution, everyone else, including your boss, will come to you. Being good at what you do is the key to gaining the respect and esteem of people around you.

Now let’s say you’re in an organization that has quite a few people who are good at what they do. How can you stand out from the crowd?

In a study of 104 senior executives, the vast majority said that the key to rapid promotion in their organizations was twofold. First, they said, an individual had to have the ability to set clear priorities, to focus on what was valuable and relevant rather than waste time on what was small and insignificant. Second, they said, the employee had to have a “sense of urgency,” a desire and a drive to get the job done fast.

In short, developing a reputation for speed and dependability, for doing the right things, doing them right and doing them quickly, is the most important reputation you can develop with your boss. It’s invaluable to getting ahead rapidly.

Make a list of everything you’ve been hired to accomplish. Take the list to your boss and ask your boss to organize the list in order of priority. What does your boss consider to be the most important thing you do? What does he or she consider to be the second most important thing?

Discuss the list with your boss so that you and your boss are perfectly clear about exactly why you are on the payroll. Then concentrate on doing an excellent job at the things that are most important to him or her. I have discussed this with thousands of managers all over the country. They all say nothing pleases them more than to have an employee working hard on something that the managers consider a top priority.

Continually ask your boss if there is anything he does on a regular basis that you can take off his shoulders. Every boss has tasks he or she dislikes. If you can take one or more of these tasks away and learn how to do them yourself, you will be promoting yourself in one of the most professional ways possible.

Self-promotion also means looking for every opportunity to help your boss and co-workers look good at their jobs. Concentrate on cooperation rather than competition. If you help others get ahead, it will come back to you exponentially. And the more you help others, the more they will help you in return.

According to the Law of Sowing and Reaping, the more you give of yourself, without expectation of return, the more will come back to you from the most unexpected sources. Successful people in every organization are always looking for ways to help, always looking for ways to put in more than they take out. As my father once said, “It’s amazing how much you can get done when no one cares who gets the credit.”

In self-promotion, you never need to worry about who’ll get the credit. The more credit you give away, the more will come back to you. The more you help others, the more they’ll want to help you. The more you help your boss look good and stay on top of his or her work, the more your boss will want to open doors of opportunity that enable you to get ahead.

Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote, “All of life is action and passion, and not to be involved in the actions and passions of your time is to risk having not really lived at all.”

Your job is to engage in deliberate self-promotion by becoming very good at what you do, by becoming indispensable to your boss and your company, and by becoming better and better known to the important people in your field. The rewards that will come back to you eventually will be much greater than the efforts you have put in. And there is no limit to what you can put in.

In Leading and Motivating: Part I, I spoke about the first three qualities a leader should have in order to lead and motivate well. We spoke about vision, integrity, and courage. In a way, it is easy to develop a big vision for yourself and for the person you want to be. It is easy to commit yourself to living with complete integrity. But it requires incredible courage to follow through on your vision and on your commitments. You see, as soon as you set a high goal or standard for yourself, you will run into all kinds of difficulties and setbacks. You will be surrounded by temptations to compromise your values and your vision. You will feel an almost irresistible urge to “get along by going along.” Your desire to earn the respect and cooperation of others can easily lead to the abandonment of your principles, and here is where courage comes in.

Courage combined with integrity is the foundation of character. The first form of courage is your ability to stick to your principles, to stand for what you believe in and to refuse to budge unless you feel right about the alternative. Courage is also the ability to step out in faith, to launch out into the unknown and then to face the inevitable doubt and uncertainty that accompany every new venture.

Most people are seduced by the lure of the comfort zone. This can be likened to going out of a warm house on a cold, windy morning. The average person, when he feels the storm swirling outside his comfort zone, rushes back inside where it’s nice and warm. But not the true leader. The true leader has the courage to step away from the familiar and comfortable and to face the unknown with no guarantees of success. It is this ability to “boldly go where no man has gone before” that distinguishes you as a leader from the average person. This is the example that you must set if you are to rise above the average. It is this example that inspires and motivates other people to rise above their previous levels of accomplishment as well.

Alexander the Great, the king of Macedonia, was one of the most superb leaders of all time. He became king at the age of 19, when his father, Philip II, was assassinated. In the next 11 years, he conquered much of the known world, leading his armies against numerically superior forces.

Yet, when he was at the height of his power, the master of the known world, the greatest ruler in history to that date, he would still draw his sword at the beginning of a battle and lead his men forward into the conflict. He insisted on leading by example. Alexander felt that he could not ask his men to risk their lives unless he was willing to demonstrate by his actions that he had complete confidence in the outcome. The sight of Alexander charging forward so excited and motivated his soldiers that no force on earth could stand before them.

The fourth quality of motivational leadership is realism. Realism is a form of intellectual honesty. The realist insists upon seeing the world as it really is, not as he wishes it were. This objectivity, this refusal to engage in self-delusion, is a mark of the true leader.

Those who exhibit the quality of realism do not trust to luck, hope for miracles, pray for exceptions to basic business principles, expect rewards without working or hope that problems will go away by themselves. These all are examples of self-delusion, of living in a fantasyland.

The motivational leader insists on seeing things exactly as they are and encourages others to look at life the same way. As a motivational leader, you get the facts, whatever they are. You deal with people honestly and tell them exactly what you perceive to be the truth. This doesn’t mean that you will always be right, but you will always be expressing the truth in the best way you know how.

The fifth quality of motivational leadership is responsibility. This is perhaps the hardest of all to develop. The acceptance of responsibility means that, as Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here.”

The game of life is very competitive. Sometimes, great success and great failure are separated by a very small distance. In watching the play-offs in basketball, baseball and football, we see that the winner can be decided by a single point, and that single point can rest on a single action, or inaction, on the part of a single team member at a critical part of the game.

Life is very much like competitive sports. Very small things that you do, or don’t do, can either give you the edge that leads to victory or take away your edge at the critical moment. This principle is especially true with regard to accepting responsibility for yourself and for everything that happens to you.

The opposite of accepting responsibility is making excuses, blaming others and becoming upset, angry and resentful toward people for what they have done to you or not done for you.

Any one of these three behaviors can trip you up and be enough to cost you the game:
If you run into an obstacle or setback and you make excuses rather than accept responsibility, it’s a five-yard penalty. It can cost you a first down. It can cost you a touchdown. It can make the difference between success and failure.

If, when you face a problem or setback, and you both make excuses and blame someone else, you get a 10-yard penalty. In a tightly contested game, where the teams are just about even, a 10-yard penalty can cost you the game.

If, instead of accepting responsibility when things go wrong, you make excuses, blame someone else and simultaneously become angry and resentful and blow up, you get a 15-yard penalty. This may cost you the championship and your career as well if it continues.

Personal leadership and motivational leadership are very much the same. To lead others, you must first lead yourself. To be an example or a role model for others, you must first become an excellent person
yourself.

You motivate yourself with a big vision, and as you move progressively toward its realization, you motivate and enthuse others to work with you to fulfill that vision.

You exhibit absolute honesty and integrity with everyone in everything you do. You are the kind of person others admire and respect and want to be like. You set a standard that others aspire to. You live in truth with yourself and others so that they feel confident giving you their support and their commitment.

You demonstrate courage in everything you do by facing doubts and uncertainties and moving forward regardless. You put up a good front even when you feel anxious about the outcome. You don’t burden others with your fears and misgivings. You keep them to yourself. You constantly push yourself out of your comfort zone and in the direction of your goals. And no matter how bleak the situation might appear, you keep on keeping on with a smile.

You are intensely realistic. You refuse to engage in mental games or self-delusion. You encourage others to be realistic and objective about their situations as well. You encourage them to realize and appreciate that there is a price to pay for everything they want. They have weaknesses that they will have to overcome, and they have standards that they will have to meet, if they want to survive and thrive in a competitive market.

You accept complete responsibility for results. You refuse to make excuses or blame others or hold grudges against people who you feel may have wronged you. You say, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me.” You repeat over and over the words, “I am responsible. I am responsible. I am responsible.”

Finally, you take action. You know that all mental preparation and character building is merely a prelude to action. It’s not what you say but what you do that counts.

The mark of the true leader is that he or she leads the action. He or she is willing to go first. He or she sets the example and acts as the role model. He or she does what he or she expects others to do.

You become a motivational leader by motivating yourself. And you motivate yourself by striving toward excellence, by committing yourself to becoming everything you are capable of becoming. You motivate yourself by throwing your whole heart into doing your job in an excellent fashion. You motivate yourself and others by continually looking for ways to help others to improve their lives and achieve their goals.

You become a motivational leader by becoming the kind of person others want to get behind and support in every way. Your main job is to take complete control of your personal evolution and become a leader in every area of your life. You could ask for nothing more, and you should settle for nothing less.

It’s been said that “Leadership is not what you do, but who you are.” This, however, is only partially true. Leadership is very much who you are, but it cannot be divorced from what you do. Who you are represents the inner person, and what you do represents the outer person. Each is dependent on the other for maximum effectiveness.

The starting point of motivational leadership is to begin seeing yourself as a role model, an example to others. See yourself as a person who sets the standards others follow. A key characteristic of leaders is that they set high standards of accountability for themselves and their behaviors. They assume that others are watching them and are setting their own standards based on what the leader does. They lead by example, exactly as though someone were following them around, surreptitiously taking notes and photographs of their daily actions for others to see and act on.

Motivational leadership is based on the Law of Indirect Effort. According to this law, most things in life are achieved more easily by indirect means than by direct means. You more easily become a leader to others by demonstrating that you have the qualities of leadership than you do by ordering others to follow your directions. Instead of trying to get people to emulate you, you concentrate on living a life that is so admirable that others want to be like you without your saying a word.

In business, there are several kinds of power. Two of these are ascribed power and position power. Position power is the power that comes with a job title or position in any organization. If you become a manager in a company, you automatically have certain powers and privileges that go with your rank. You can order people about and make certain decisions. You can be a leader whether or not anyone likes you.

Ascribed power is the power you gain because of the kind of person you are. In every organization, there are people who are inordinately influential and looked up to by others, even though their positions may not be high on the organizational chart. These men and women are genuine leaders because of their quality, their character and their personalities.

Perhaps the most powerful of motivational leaders is the person who practices what is called “servant leadership.” Confucius said, “He who would be master must be servant of all.” The person who sees himself or herself as a servant and does everything possible to help others perform at their best is practicing the highest form of servant leadership.

Over the years, we have been led to believe that leaders are those who stride boldly about, exude power and confidence, give orders and make decisions for others to carry out. That’s old school. The leader of today is the one who asks questions, listens carefully, plans diligently and then builds consensus among all those who are necessary to achieve the agreed-upon goals. The leader does not try to do it by himself or herself. The leader gets things done by helping others to do them.

This brings us to five of the qualities of motivational leaders. These are qualities you already have to a certain degree and that you can develop further to stand out from the people around you in a short period of time.

The first quality is vision. This is the one quality that, more than anything, separates leaders from followers. Leaders have vision. Followers do not. Leaders have the ability to stand back and see the big picture. Followers are caught up in day-to-day activities. Leaders have developed the ability to fix their eyes on the horizon and see greater possibilities. Followers’ eyes are fixed on the ground in front of them and are so busy they seldom look at themselves and their activities in a larger context.

George Bernard Shaw summarized this quality of leaders. In the words of one of his characters, “Most men look at what is and ask, ‘Why?’ I instead look at what could be and ask, ‘Why not?’ ”

The best way for you to motivate others is to be motivated yourself. The fastest way to get others excited about a project is to get excited yourself. The way to get others committed to achieving a goal or a result is to be totally committed yourself. The way to build loyalty to your organization, and to other people, is to be an example of loyalty in everything you say and do. These all are applications of the Law of Indirect Effort. They very neatly tie in to the quality of vision.

One requirement of leadership is the ability to choose an area of excellence. Just as a good general chooses the terrain on which to do battle, an excellent leader chooses the area in which he and others are going to do an outstanding job. The commitment to excellence is one of the most powerful of all motivators. All leaders who change people and organizations are enthusiastic about achieving excellence in a particular area.

The most motivational vision you can have for yourself and others is to “Be the best!” Many people don’t yet realize that excellent performance in serving other people is an absolute, basic essential for survival in the economy of the future. Many individuals and companies still adhere to the idea that as long as they are no worse than anyone else, they can remain in business. That’s just plain silly! It’s prehistoric thinking. We’re now in the age of excellence. Customers assume that they will get excellent quality and, if they don’t, they’ll go to your competitors.

As a leader, your job is to be excellent at what you do, to be the best in your chosen field of endeavor. Your job is to have a vision of high standards in serving people. You not only exemplify excellence in your own behavior, you also translate it to others so that they, too, become committed to this vision.

This is the key to servant leadership. It is the commitment to doing work of the highest quality in the service of other people, both inside and outside the organization. Leadership today requires an equal focus on the people who must do the job, on the one hand, and the people who are expected to benefit from the job, on the other.

The second quality, which is perhaps the single most respected quality of leaders, is integrity. Integrity is complete, unflinching honesty in everything you say and do. Integrity underlies all the other qualities. Your measure of integrity is determined by how honest you are in the critical areas of your life.

Integrity means this: When someone asks you at the end of the day, “Did you do your very best?” you can look him in the eye and say, “Yes!” Integrity means this: When someone asks you if you could have done it better, you can honestly say, “No, I did everything I possibly could.”

Integrity means that you, as a leader, admit your shortcomings. It means that you work to develop your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses. Integrity means that you tell the truth, and that you live the truth in everything you do and in all your relationships. Integrity means that you deal straightforwardly with people and situations, and that you do not compromise what you believe to be true.

If the first two qualities of motivational leadership are vision and integrity, the third quality is the one that backs them both up. It’s courage. It’s the chief distinguishing characteristic of the true leader. It’s almost always visible in the leader’s words and actions. It is absolutely indispensable to success, happiness and the ability to motivate other people to be the best they can be.

Next week, I will cover the final two qualities of motivational leaders as well as other tips to gain the motivational and leadership skills you strive to have.

Everyone wants to be physically healthy. You want to be mentally healthy, as well. The true measure of “mental fitness” is how optimistic you are about yourself and your life.

You can learn how to control your thinking in very specific ways so that you feel terrific about yourself and your situation, no matter what happens.

Control Your Reactions and Responses
There are three basic differences in the reactions of optimists and pessimists. The first difference is that the optimist sees a setback as temporary, while the pessimist sees it as permanent. The optimist sees an unfortunate event, such as an order that falls through or a sales call that fails, as a temporary event, something that is limited in time and has no real impact on the future. The pessimist, on the other hand, sees negative events as permanent, as part of life and destiny.

Isolate the Incident
The second difference between the optimist and the pessimist is that the optimist sees difficulties as specific, while the pessimist sees them as pervasive. This means that when things go wrong for the optimist, he looks at the event as an isolated incident largely disconnected from other things that are going on in his life.

For example, if something you were counting on failed to materialize and you interpreted it as being an unfortunate event, but something that happens in the course of life and business, you would be reacting like an optimist. The pessimist, on the other hand, sees disappointments as being pervasive. That is, to him they are indications of a problem or shortcoming that pervades every area of life.

Don’t Take Failure Personally
The third difference between optimists and pessimists is that optimists see events as external, while pessimists interpret events as personal. When things go wrong, the optimist will tend to see the setback as resulting from external factors over which one has little control.

If the optimist is cut off in traffic, for example, instead of getting angry or upset, he will simply downgrade the importance of the event by saying something like, “Oh, well, I guess that person is just having a bad day.”

The pessimist, on the other hand, has a tendency to take everything personally. If the pessimist is cut off in traffic, he will react as though the other driver has deliberately acted to upset and frustrate him.

Remain Calm and Objective
The hallmark of the fully mature, fully functioning, self-actualizing personality is the ability to be objective and unemotional when caught up in the inevitable storms of daily life. The superior person has the ability to continue talking to himself in a positive and optimistic way, keeping his mind calm, clear and completely under control. The mature personality is more relaxed, aware and capable of interpreting events more realistically and less emotionally than the immature personality. As a result, the mature person exerts a far greater sense of control and influence over his environment and is far less likely to be angry, upset, or distracted.

Take the Long View
Look upon the inevitable setbacks you face as being temporary, specific and external. View the negative situation as a single event that is not connected to other potential events and that is caused largely by external factors over which you have little control. Simply refuse to see the event as being in any way permanent, pervasive or indicative of personal incompetence or inability.

Resolve to think like an optimist, no matter what happens. You may not be able to control events, but you can control the way you react to them.

Action Exercises
Here are three things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, remind yourself continually that setbacks are only temporary; they will soon be past, and nothing is as serious as you think it is.

Second, look upon each problem as a specific event, not connected to other events and not indicative of a pattern of any kind. Deal with it and get on with your life.

Third, recognize that when things go wrong, they are usually caused by a variety of external events. Say to yourself, “What can’t be cured must be endured,” and then get back to thinking about your goals.

Want to find the fastest way to grow your business and ramp up sales and profits? Want to know how to make more money and stop wasting it on mailings, ads and websites that don’t get results?

Use A Proven Strategy and System
It’s easy to pour money into direct mail, advertising and websites, but just investing in these marketing activities won’t guarantee that you’ll generate a single sale.

Don’t make the mistake of confusing marketing activity with marketing strategy. It’s the difference between eating high-fat junk food instead of balanced meals: Your stomach may feel full, but you aren’t building a healthy future. Or it’s like “bulking up” at the gym to build big, impressive muscles when what you need is to increase strength, speed and endurance.

To improve the performance of your business, you need a proven strategy and system for getting prospects’ attention, generating leads, converting leads to clients, maximizing sales and generating repeat sales.

Reaching your marketing goals is like getting into shape. You need to do the same thing you’d do if you wanted to become more successful at a sport, whether it’s skiing, golf, tennis or basketball. Discover which exercises to use and have a system for making sure your workout develops the specific muscles and flexibility you need to excel at your sport.

Ready to get your marketing in shape? Use this system.

To grow your business, to realize the sales and profits you want, you need a marketing system that can:

1. Position Your Company as the Expert
Becoming known as the expert rarely happens by itself. To position yourself and your company as the go-to experts, use a system to attract free publicity, credibility and sales.

2. Generate Leads
Just sending out a mailing or running an ad won’t guarantee anything except that you’ll be spending money. To create a steady stream of new prospects, you’ll need a reliable lead-generation system that brings qualified prospects your way each week.

3. Convert Your Prospects to Paying Clients
Eighty percent of potential sales are lost because of lack of follow-up. You need a proven strategy to convert your qualified prospect into a client.

Such a system helps your prospect get to know you, trust you and understand the compelling value of your products and services. Using one can increase your sales and profits by 500 percent.

4. Maximize the Dollar Value of the Sale
Once your prospect is ready to buy and has his or her credit card or checkbook in hand, your upsell system can move him or her to buy the most comprehensive solution, not just the lowest-priced product.

5. Generate Repeat Sales
It’s far easier to sell to a happy customer than a prospect. The moment you’ve completed a sale with a new customer is when you go to work selling him or her so he or she buys from you again and again. With a system in place for generating repeat sales, you’ll make a lot more with less effort.

Creativity is your key to the future. All progress comes about as the result of finding better, faster, cheaper, easier or different ways to do things, and this requires the continual honing of your creative thinking skills.

Your Key Job At Work
One of the key functions of the executive is problem-solving, which takes up as much as 50 percent of executive time. It can be said with some confidence that your ability to deal with problems creatively and effectively is the key determinant of your success as a manager. It would be hard to imagine an effective executive who could not solve problems and make decisions with a high level of competence.

Step On Your Own Acceleration
I’ve studied and lectured on creative thinking for years, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there is virtually no problem you cannot solve, no goal you cannot achieve, no obstacle you cannot overcome if you know how to apply the creative powers of your mind, like a laser beam, to cut through every difficulty in your life and your work.

Earn More, Faster
The benefits of functioning with more creativity can be enormous. Each of us wants to earn more money, be promoted faster, and enjoy greater status, prestige and recognition. In most cases, however, we can only earn more by producing more, producing something of better quality or producing it cheaper or faster–and this requires doing things differently, using creativity.

Step On Your Own Acceleration
The good news is that creativity is a skill that can be learned and developed through practice. With this skill, you can dramatically accelerate your personal and professional growth. By sharpening your thinking skills and exercising your natural creative powers, you can multiply the value of your efforts and rapidly increase the quantity and quality of your rewards.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to be more creative:

First, see yourself as a professional problem-solver and look upon every difficulty or challenge as an opportunity to develop your creative powers.

Second, look for problems you can solve and obstacles you can overcome. The more you seek answers and ideas, the smarter and more creative you become.

Set Priorities
Stress management requires that you take complete control over the activities of your daily life. This means that you plan your day, set priorities and work on high-value tasks. The indispensable key to time management is concentration, the ability to focus single-mindedly on one thing–the most important thing–and to stay with it until it is 100 percent complete.

Create Chunks of Time
This is the hardest challenge a manager faces. The ability to concentrate single-mindedly is probably the rarest single ability in the workplace. Most of our important tasks take large chunks of time. We need to plan and organize our days in such a way that we allocate these chunks of time so that we can do the jobs upon which our success depends.

A Burst of Energy
The wonderful thing about setting priorities and concentrating single-mindedly is that, the very minute you do these two things, you will begin to feel a tremendous sense of control and well-being. As you work progressively toward the accomplishment of your most important tasks, you will feel a flow of energy and enthusiasm. As you finish something that is relevant and significant to your company and to yourself, you get a burst of energy. Your self-esteem improves. You feel good about yourself. You have a wonderful sense of making measurable progress toward greater success in your career. You feel like you are making a difference.

Action Exercises
Here are two ideas you can use immediately to concentrate single-mindedly on the highest-value use of your time.

Before you begin, analyze your work and then ask yourself, “What one thing, if I did it quickly and well, would have the greatest impact on my work?” Whatever it is, go to work on that one item immediately.

Once you have begun on a high-value task, discipline yourself by repeating over and over, “Back to work, back to work, back to work!” This will keep you focused and on track until you finish the job.