Think Like a Genius

In "Change Your Thinking Change Your Life", Brian Tracy quotes Maxwell Maltz.  He stated, "Make ever thought, every fact, that comes into your mind pay you a profit.  Make it work and produce for you.  Think of things not as they are but as they might be.  Don't merely dream - but create!"  Our brain has more than 18 billion cells each one is connected to and interlinked with as many as 20,000 other cells.  We have the capacity to learn at incredible rates and to retain more information than we can ever imagine.

We have moved from the agricultural age to the industrial to the service age now to the communication age.  We can create an unlimited future for ourselves by tapping into our brainpower, channeling it to energize our life.   The chief assets of any organization are contained in the ability to think and to apply that thinking to get results that other people will pay us for.  The ability to create wealth is determined by mental strength rather than physical strength.

Often small improvements in the way we think and perform can lead to significant improvements in our performance.  Successful people today are those who are continually investing in learning and expanding their intellectual asset base.  Knowledge grows exponentially.  Tracy writes, "if we fail to regularly seek out new knowledge in our fields it means we have unconsciously, accidentally, slipped into the intelligence trap of the low performer."  OUCH... but true and we don't want to be the low performer! 

Answers are changing.  The answers in our field are changing as we sit here.  What was true a year ago may not be true today.  Keep open and alert to changes.  Nothing remains the same for vey long.  Our best opportunities come from applying our knowledge and brainpower to new products and new services.  Make it a little bit better, faster, or cheaper.

Questions open our mind and expand our options.  It increases our creativity, enables us to think effectively about a problem and to ultimately reach a better decision.  Questions stimulates our imagination.  Some questions to consider are:

• What exactly is the problem?
• Why is this a problem?
• What is the ideal solution?
• What holds us back from achieving the solution?
• Which solutions seem to be the most acceptable?

Look for ideas everwhere and get around the right people.  According to the American Management Association, at least 70% of our decision will turn out to be wrong in the fullness of time.  7out of 10 decisions...wrong!  With the numbers against us, we need to be willing to admit we made a mistake and adjust the decision.  Don't "fall in love" with the decision, be willing to "give it up".  Be flexible.

Brian Tracy encourages us to read something related to our field at least one hour everyday. Take notes, review them, reflect on what we are learning and apply the new ideas to our life.  He also encourages us to take all the training we can get, because knowledge is power.  To change our thinking in a positive and constructive way, we must continually feed our minds with new ideas and stay on the cutting edge of our field.

Recently the company I worked for offered a webinar training session during our workday.  Unfortunately, I was not in the office that day.  A co-worked decided to take the class and said she learned some good nuggets and was happy she went.  If your employer offers training, don't pass it up.  If you feel you need additional training, don't hesitate to ask.  Develop a plan to study and learn everything you can in an area.  Be the best at what you do.

Put People First

In Change Your Thinking Change Your Life, Brian Tracy writes of a study Dr. David McClelland performed.  He interviewed graduates of Harvard University and the attendees of his Achievement in  American Life seminars, tracking these people for years.  He discovered that many of the people failed to build successful businesses or careers because the graduates returned to the same group of people they associated with before.  As a result they went back to the same old ways, old habits, and same manner of living. 

No one achieves anything of consequence by himself.  The people we know, help determine our success, happiness and level of achievement.  Our "reference group" is defined as the people we consider ourself similar to.  Over time, through a process of absorption, we will adopt other's attitudes, mannerisms, ways of speaking, levels of aspiration and even their style of dress.  Our reference group will exert an inordinate influence on the kind of person we become.

I have told my children to be careful of who they hang out with.  To look for the smart kids in the class and become their friend.  They may not be the most popular but they will help them stay focused on school and why they are there and what they are trying to accomplish.

If we want to change our thinking so to change our life, we may need a new reference group.  Associate with people we enjoy but with whom we can learn from. 

Build a network.  Brian Tracy has a very good suggestion in the book.  He suggests we write down 100 important people's names that we should get to know.  Then begin to get to know them.  He suggests writing them a letter complementing them on something they are involved in or express congraduations on an achievement they recently experienced.  Brian writes that we should not expect the person to respond but that we are sowing seeds and we need to continue to look for opportunities to meet the person.  Join groups, clubs and associations that contain members who can assist you in a particular way.  Join associates that relate to your profession or occupation.  Get involved.  Donate your time.  Look for ways to put in... to contribute.

Keep a small group of people close to you.  Tracy calls this group your "Mastermind network".  Just four to five people who you meet with and talk to regularly.  You can have multiple mastermind networks but the most important is your spouse.  Tracy states when two people are attuned to each other and completely supportive of each others hopes and dreams, they form a powerful combination that enables each of them to accomplish far more than they could achieve alone.

Watch your time.  Be selective.  Keep away from negative or "toxic" people.  See a Mentor.  The best mentors are successful people who are already very busy.  Be respectful of their time.  Approach them with a short list of key questions.

Remember relationships are everything!  We need to become a relationship creating individual.  I'm starting my list today!  Let me know if you do too.

Committed to Excellence

In Change Your Thinking Change Your Life, Brian Tracy writes how you think and feel about yourself is determined by how effective you feel you are in the important things you do. To be with the top 10% in our field we have to decide to “be the best”. The market pays superior rewards only for superior performance. Ambition is the most important quality of high-achieving people. Our self-esteem is our power source. The more we like and respect our self the better we do at everything we attempt. High levels of courage and confidence will help us break the bonds of what could hold us back from reaching our goals.

To succeed at our jobs we need to identify the key result areas (tasks that have to be done well) of our job and make a plan to improve in each area. To improve in an area we first need to measure how well we are doing. That gives us a baseline. Then we identify our lowest scoring areas and make a plan to improve in those areas as quickly as possible. We should think of ourselves as a personal service corporation and develop a personal strategic plan. Strategic plans are aimed at reorganizing resources and activities in such a way that we achieve a higher rate of return. We want to get a good return on our energy.

Companies need a competitive advantage or unique selling proposition to grow. We are not different. We must develop an area of uniqueness. First we have to ask our self: What is our competitive advantage? What are we excellent at doing? What is it we want to do better than anyone else? What unique set of skills do we possess? Next is to look at the trends in our industry and determine what our competitive advantage should be in three to five years? If you are not sure, ask your boss or co-workers.

If you are like me, you are now wondering… What is my competitive advantage…what makes me unique? Brian Tracy writes to for us to think back into our past. What fascinated us? What holds our attention? What do we enjoy to read, talk about and learn about? Ask friends and family what they think. Often people around you can see clearly what you should be doing, even if you cannot see our self. Successful people do what they love to do. But we need to be prepared to walk away from doing what we are currently doing. We need to have the courage to do what we love.

Personal Strategic Planning has several concepts that will improve our results.
• Draw the line. – Take a “time-out” from life and work to ask yourself, “If there is anything in your life (knowing what you know now) you would not get into or start up gain if you had to do it over? Why keep trying to make something work that you wouldn’t even get into if you had to do it over again.
• Hold your feet to the fire. – Is there a relationship – personal or business – that knowing what you know now, you wouldn’t get into today? Is there a business process, procedure, activity, investment you wouldn’t get into today? If it is not working, abandon it and do something else.
• 80/20 rule. – This rule states that 80% of our results comes from 20% of our activities. We must discipline ourselves to focus on the one or two things we can do that are more important and valuable than the eight to ten other things.

Time is our most valuable asset and our scarcest resource. We cannot save time, we can only spend it. If we want a different future, we have to spend our time differently. Time is like money. Spend it or invest it. Therefore, everything we do, we need to make sure we are making wise choices and eliminate activities that do not give us a high return on our energy.

To summarize, a Personal Strategic Plan needs to be:
• Specialized
• Differentiate
• Segment – identify our ideal “customers
• Concentrate – focus
As President of our own life and career, we must become excellent and continue to get better in one to two areas that the market will pay for. Do not leave nothing to chance. Do not sit around hoping for a miracle or wishing for a lucky break… it is up to us!

Take Charge of Your Life

In “Change Your Thinking Change Your Life”, Brian Tracy writes, “You can learn anything you need to learn, to accomplish any goal you can set for yourself.”  Another words, no one is smarter than you, and no one is better than you.  If someone is doing better than you, it is just because he learned how to succeed in that area before you have.  You can do it, too! 

We need to learn what you need and apply it as fast as you can.  Psychologists and scholars have spent many years researching the psychology of success and failure.  They have concluded two major mental blocks that hold people back.  The first is: Learned Helplessness.  This afflicts 80% of the population and is a major obstacle.  People become passive and accepting of their situations.  They have concluded there is very little they can do to change their future.  Usually they use the words “I Can’t”.  The second major mental block that holds people back is: Comfort Zone – a Trap of Complacency.  People get into a rut, and the longer they stay in their rut the deeper it grows until they finally give up all hope of changing or improving their lives.  These individuals strive for security rather than opportunity.  They feel trapped and helpless, unable to take control.

These mind sets are easy to fall in too.  We blame others, our jobs, everything and/or everyone around us but don’t look at what we are doing or how we are thinking that keeps us from succeeding.  It is difficult to “keep up the good fight”.  But that is what we have to do.  Our true potential is limited only by our own imagination and determination. 

Fear and ignorance are our biggest enemies.  They can mentally paralyze us.  But we can build our confidence and diminish our fears by learning, by obtaining knowledge.  We are responsible for ourselves.  The more we think about something we want, the more excited we will become about achieving it.  Dr. William James of Harvard in 1905 said, “…by changing our inner attitudes, we can change the outer aspects of our life.”  We need to take charge and control the content of our mind.

Let’s stop making excuses, stop blaming others, stop feeling sorry for ourselves and stop allowing ourselves dwell on negative thinking.  Instead let’s review our goals, our steps.  Complete a specific action that will help us get closer to accomplishing our goal.  What action did you take?

Dream Big Dreams

In "Change Your Thinking Change Your Life" Brian Tracy writes that our main goal in life must be to harness our amazing powers and direct them intelligently and systematically toward achieving what we want.  What we want could be a happier family, a healthy and fit body, money in the bank, no more debt, or a job we enjoy.

To realize our full potential, our greatness need is to break out of our limited thinking by dreaming big dreams and imaging unlimited possibilities.  We have to work on ourselves for days, weeks, months and even years to develop our talents and abilities and bring them out.  Tracy states, "All successful men and women are dreamers.  They look into the future and imagine what they want to achieve.  Then they look at the path that they have to take to get there."  I have a wealthy acquaintance who told me every year he sits with his wife and they set goals.  He said if you don't set goals you can't measure your successes.  If we don't know where we are going, any road will take us there.

Brian Tracy's gives a seven-step formula for achieving our goals.  The steps are:

1. Decide What You Want.  A real goal is clear, specific, measurable and time bound.  Tracy writes that people fail in life because they waste time doing low value or no value things.  We should ask ourselves, "Does this move me toward the achievement of any of my goals?"  By asking ourselves this, we can determine whether something is a good use of our time.

2. Write Down Your Goals.  By writing down our goals we intensify our belief and deepen our conviction that our goals are possible.

3. Be Willing to Pay the Price.  Are we willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reach our goal?  Will we pay the full price that the goal demands?  I have a niece who is really smart.  During her high school years, she applied herself to her studies.  She received exceptional grades.  When she started college she was already a Sophomore because of the classes she took in high school.  After just three years in college she will graduate with a very high grade point average and plans on continuing her education.  I am very proud of her!  She is an example others should follow.  During those tough teenage years she stayed focused, work hard, and reached her goal.  I know she will continue to do great things in her life.

4.  Make a Detailed Plan.  Once again, put the plan in writing.  Make a list of all the things necessary to reach our goals.  Prioritize them in order of importance.

5. Take Action.  Do something!  No matter how small it may seem...start.  Let's not just daydream about how wonderful it would be, but let's take specific, irrevocable action.

6. Do Something Every Day.  Do something that will move us toward our most important goal.

7.  Never Give Up.  Decide in advance to persist, no matter how difficult it may become.  Our persistence will eventually guarantee our success.

What would you dare to dream?   What goal do you want to achieve?  What's your plan?  Please share it.  You may inspire someone else.

Ready to Change Your Life?

When we change the quality of our thinking, we change the quality of our life.  Brian Tracy states in “Change Your Thinking Change Your Life” we have complete control over our thinking.  It all starts with our thoughts.  Positive thoughts are life enhancing.  The more positive and optimistic we are, the happier we will be.  Positive thinking leads to mental health and peak performance.  Negative thoughts or negative statements made by us will cause us to feel frustrated, unhappy, defensive and angry.  We need to choose our thoughts.  We need to deliberately think about something positive when we need to cancel out a negative thought.  Repeating this process will allow us to take full control over our conscious mind.

When we have a negative or malevolent worldview, we see problems and injustice, oppression and evil.  We see guilty people, limitations and unfairness.  Worst of all, according to Tracy, we will spend our time apportioning blame for all the problems we see.

Eliminating negative emotions starts with forgiving everyone who has hurt us in anyway.  Forgiveness sets us free.  It is a choice we make.  If we forgive a person, it does not mean we condone their behavior and it does not mean you have to “like” the person who hurt us.  We need to forgive to liberate ourselves.  Forgiveness is actually a selfish act.  It has to do with our mental integrity and peace of mind.

There are four groups of people we need to forgive:

1.        Parents

2.       Close relationships

3.       Everyone else in our life that has hurt us (boss, business partner, friend, etc.)

4.       Ourselves

Not forgiving one person can put the brakes on all our forward process; Tracy states.  He continues, “What we dwell upon and talk about grows in our reality. “  We need to decide to give up negative emotions.  Will you join me in becoming a positive, optimistic, happy, enthusiastic person?  If we change our thinking about ourselves and our possibilities, we will change our life.

Let’s set ourselves free.  Forgive yourself for every mistake we have made (so far) and ask for forgiveness to those we have hurt.

So how do we overcome a bad self-image and a low self-esteem?

Brian Tracy states in “Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life“, “ Just as you become what you think about, you also become what you say to yourself.  The most powerful words you can repeat to yourself are, I Like Myself.”  Tracy continues, “these words are so powerful and positive, they are immediately accepted by your subconscious mind as a command.”  Try it.  Doe your body-language improve?  Are you more cheerful, more confident?  Keep practicing this.  We begin the process of change by working on our self-concept.  Imagine yourself performing at your very best in everything you do.  Learn to accept yourself unconditionally as a valuable and worthwhile person. 

We have to Exam our Premises.   These are the ideas, beliefs, opinions, and conclusions we developed since childhoods.  They are our philosophy of life.  It is not what happens to us in life that is important, it is how we react to what happens in our life.  Just like it does not matter where we came from but where we are going.  Our imagination is unlimited, so our future is unlimited.

Dissolve the Myths.  We have accepted myths that can sabotage our hopes for success.  We have the ability to be excellent in any area that is important to us.

Talk Positively to Yourself.  Our self-talk, our inner dialogue, determines 95% of our emotions; according to Tracy.  Talking to ourselves causes our subconscious mind to accept these words as commands.  This will adjust our behavior, self-image and even body language.  If you are like me, and even jokingly say negative things about yourself, join me and STOP IT!  Let’s start speaking what we desire to be true about ourselves.  We need to believe it.  Let me know if you are willing to join me and what “self-talk” you are starting.