Brian Tracy - 21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires

Summary


A photograph of Brian Tracy, signed with the text 'Quintus, you are the best!'

  1. Dream Big Dreams!
    Allow yourself to dream. Practice "back from the future" thinking. Create a vision for yourself for the long-term future. Always tend to move in the direction of your dominant dreams, images and visions. Dreaming big dreams is the starting point of achieving your goal of financial independence.
  2. Develop a clear sense of direction.
    Successful people think about their goals most of the time. Make a list of the goals that you would like to achieve for the next year, sorted from most important to less important, from highest impact to lowest impact.
  3. See yourself as self-employed.
    Accept complete, 100% responsibility for everything you are and everything you will ever be. Self-responsible people are intensely result oriented.
  4. Do what you love to do.
    Find a field where your natural strengths and abilities are exactly what is required to do the job and achieve the results desired. When you are doing what you love to do, you seem to have a continuous flow of excitement, energy and ideas to do what you do even better.
  5. Commit to excellence.
    Set a goal for yourself to join the top 10% of your field, whatever it is. This is the turning point in your life. Identify the one skill that can help you the most and then throw your whole heart into developing that skill. And remember, no one is better than you and no one is smarter than you.
  6. Develop a workaholic mentality.
    Work all the time you work. Practice the "40 Plus" formula: every hour over 40 is an investment in your future.
  7. Dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.
    Leaders are learners. Get up and read in your field for 30 to 60 minutes each day. Listen to audio programs. Take every course and seminar you can possibly find that can help you to be better in your field.
  8. Pay yourself first.
    Save and invest 10% of your income throughout your working life. Practice frugality, frugality, frugality in all things. A major reason that people retire poor is because of impulse purchases, so avoid them at all cost.
  9. Learn every detail of your business.
    The Law of Integrative Complexity says that, the individual who can integrate and use the greatest amount of information in any field soon rises to the top of that field.
  10. Dedicate yourself to serving others.
    Your rewards in life will always be in direct proportion to your service to other people. Your success in life will be in direct proportion to what you do after you do what you are expected to do.
  11. Be impeccably honest with yourself and others.
    All successful business is based on trust. Protect your integrity:
    • Be true to yourself, in all things.
    • Be true to the other people in your life.
    Also, set high standards for yourself and keep raising the bar.
  12. Set priorities on your activities and concentrate single mindedly on one thing at a time.
    Your ability to determine your highest priority and then to work on that high priority until it is completed is the primary test and measure of willpower, self-discipline and personal character. Ask yourself the following questions:
    • "What are my highest value activities?"
    • "Why am I on the payroll?"
    • "What can I and only I do that, if done well, will make a real difference?"
    • "What is the most valuable use of my time right now?"
    Commit yourself to work single mindedly on the most important task, and stay with it until it is 100% complete. Develop the habit of high performance.
  13. Develop a reputation for speed and dependability.
    Develop a sense of urgency. Develop a bias for action. Move fast on opportunities. Move fast when people want or need something. Amaze people with your speed.
  14. Be prepared to climb from peak to peak in your life and in your career.
    Your life and career will be a series of ups and downs. (Remember "Life is two steps forward and one step back"?) Develop long-time perspective. Keep reminding yourself that everything in your life goes in cycles and trends.
  15. Practice self-discipline in all things.
    Combine long-time perspective with the ability to delay gratification in the short term. Self-discipline means self-mastery, self-control, self-responsibility and self-direction. Successful people are more concerned with pleasing results. Every act of self-discipline strengthens your other disciplines as well. Everything in life is a test.
  16. Unlock your inborn creativity.
    You are a potential genius. Your creativity is stimulated by three things:
    • Intensely desired goals.
    • Pressing problems.
    • Focused questions.
    Your brain, your creativity, is like a muscle. Train it to learn.
  17. Get around the right people.
    Everything is relationships. 85% of your success in life is going to be determined by the quality of the relationships that you have in your personal and your business activities. More than 90% of your success will be determined by your "reference group". Network continually.
  18. Take excellent care of your physical health.
    Set a goal to live to be at least 80 years old. There are three keys to living a long, happy, healthy life:
    • Proper weight.
    • Proper diet.
    • Proper exercise.
  19. Be decisive and action oriented.
    Think carefully and then make decisions quickly. The key to triumph is for you to try. Widen your experiences.
  20. Never consider the possibility of failure.
    The fear of failure is the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life. Dare to go forward. When you act boldly, unseen forces will come to your aid. When you look back, there was no reason to fear at all!
  21. Back everything you do with the twin qualities of persistence and determination.
    Persistence is the iron quality of character. The courage to persist in the face of adversity and disappointment is the one quality that more than anything, will guarantee your success. However, be prepared for the inevitable recurring crisis in your life. Become the kind of person that never quits, no matter what the difficulty, no matter what crisis.

Posted on 1st September 2007 by Quintus Hegie

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