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!