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No Excuses by Brian Tracy
21 Ways to Achieve Lasting Happiness and Success

My Thoughts

Although the audiobook is only seven hours long, this is one of my longest book summaries. No Excuses has some of the best advice on almost every major topic in business, personal development, and even family life. This is the type of book that I would want to read every couple of years to motivate me. It really challenges you to improve and strive for excellence in every aspect of life.

My Favorite Quotes

Losers make excuses, winners make progress.
Bad habits are easy to form but hard to live with. Good habits are hard to form but easy to live with.
Your success in life depends more on the person you become than the things you do or acquire.
What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear a word you say. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is not possible to imagine a true leader who whines and complains.
Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals and to work toward them every day will go more to guarantee your success than any other single factor.
When you change your thinking you change your life.
The discipline of daily goal setting will make you a powerful, purposeful, and irresistible person.
The power of compound learning is amazing. The more you learn the more you can learn. The more you learn, the better your brain functions.
Never miss an opportunity to treat people well.
The discipline of advanced planning can spell the difference between success and failure.
My ability to organize my life and select the highest priority is a key measure of my intelligence and my effectiveness.
There is never enough time to do everything but there is always enough time to do the most important things.
You will rise in life to the height of the problems you are capable of solving.
Happiness comes to you when you are engaged in doing something you really enjoy while in the company of people you like and respect.
To the degree to which you can make other people feel important, you will become one of the most popular people in your world.
Men are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. – James Allen

Key Questions

There were dozens of excellent questions in this book and this section was much longer than normal. I’ve moved the list to the end of the summary, click here to jump to the key questions.

No Excuses by Brian Tracy Outline

Introduction
Part 1: Self-Discipline and Personal Success
Part 2: Business, Sales, and Personal Finances
Part 3: Self-Discipline and Happiness
Key Questions

Introduction

There are 1,000 excuses for failure but never a good reason.
There is a fantasy place called “Someday Isle” which is a place where people always say “someday I’ll do it.”
80% of the population lives on “Someday Isle.”

Excuses for being on Someday Isle:

Childhood
Education
Lack of money
My boss
Marriage
No one appreciates me
Economy
“Excuse-itis.”

The first rule of success: vote yourself off the island (Someday Isle).
No more excuses, do it or don’t do it, but stop making excuses.
Losers make excuses, winners make progress.

How to tell if your favorite excuse is valid or not.
Look around and ask yourself is there anyone else who has my same excuse but is successful anyway?

If people put as much energy into achieving their goals as they do into making excuses they will surprise themselves.

Why are some people more successful than others?

Self-discipline
Resisting the lure of excuses
Continually demand more of themselves

To achieve greatly you must become a different person.

What matters is the quality of person you must become to accomplish well above the average.
Most important success principle of all time by Albert Hubbard: Self-discipline is the ability to do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
Without self-discipline, no success principles work.
Self-discipline is the key to personal greatness.
Lack of self-discipline causes us to make excuses and sell ourselves short.

The two biggest enemies to success, happiness, and personal fulfillment are:

Taking the path of least resistance
The expediency factor

The Path of Least Resistance

The path of least resistance causes people to do the following:

Take the easy way in almost every situation
Seek shortcuts to everything.
Look for get rich quick schemes.
Developt the habit of always seeking an easier faster way to get what they want instead of doing what is hard but necessary to achieve real success.

The Expediency Factor (an extension of the law of least resistance)

People invariably seek the fastest and easiest way to get the things they want right now with little or no concern for the long-term consequences of their behaviors.
Resist the pull of the path of least resistance if you truly desire to be everything you are capable of becoming.
Self-mastery.
Self-denial.
Self-control.

Think Long-Term

Long-time perspective is the single most important attribute of people who achieve great success in life.
Time perspective = the amount of time a person takes into consideration when determining his present actions.
Look into the future as far as you can to determine the kind of person you want to become and the goals you want to achieve.
Determine the type of person you need to become to achieve this.
Everything you do in the short term should be consistent with where you want to end up in the long term.
Sacrifice. Be willing to make the short-term sacrifice.
The ability to think long-term is a developed skill. You become more able to predict, with increasing accuracy, what is likely to happen to you in the future as a result of your actions in the present. This is the quality of a superior thinker.
Short-term gain can cause long-term pain.

Two laws you fall victim to when you fail to practice self-discipline.

The Law of Unintended Consequences
The Law of Perverse Consequences

Law of unintended consequences.
The unintended consequences of an action can be far worse than the intended consequences of that behavior because of a lack of long-term thinking.

Law of perverse consequences.
A short-action aimed at immediate gratification can lead to perverse or the opposite consequences from those at which it was aimed.

The common denominator of success.

Successful people make a habit of doing the things that unsuccessful people don’t like to do.
Successful people were more concerned with pleasing results while failures were more concerned with pleasing methods.

Self-discipline becomes stronger and stronger as you develop it.

Bad habits are easy to form but hard to live with. Good habits are hard to form but easy to live with.
Everything is hard before it’s easy.
Every practice of self-discipline strengthens every other discipline.
The payoff for developing high levels of self-discipline is extraordinary.
Self-discipline is the key to self-esteem, self-respect and personal pride.
When you master the power of self-discipline you will become unstoppable.

Part 1: Self Discipline and Personal Success

Your success in life depends more on the person you become than the things you do or acquire.

Aristotle said that the ultimate end of life is the development of character.

Chapter 1: Self-Discipline and Personal Success

“The first and best victory is to conquer self.” – Plato
Why do some people accomplish so much more?

How shall we live in order to be happy?
Ask and answer that question for yourself.

Begin with your own personal definition.

How do you define success?

If you could wave a magic wand and make your life perfect in every way, what would it look like?
Describe your ideal life.
If your business, work, and career were ideal in every way, what would they look like?
What sort of a company would you work for?
What position would you have?
How much money would you earn?
What kind of people would you work with?
What would you need to do more or less of to create your perfect career?

Family life:

Where would you live?
How would you be living?
What kind of a lifestyle would you have?
What things would you want to have and do with the members of your family?
If you had no limitations, in what ways would you change your family life today?
Perfect health – what steps can you take immediately to move toward your ideal levels of health and energy?

Financial situation:

How much would you have in the bank?
How much would you be earning each month and each year from your investments?
If you had enough money so that you never had to worry about finances again, how much would that be?
What steps can you take, starting today, to create your ideal financial life?

When you define what success means to you, you begin to see things you should be doing more or less of in order to begin creating your ideal life.
The biggest things that hold you back from moving in the direction of your dreams are a lack of self-discipline and your favorite excuses.

Action Exercises

Take out a pen and write down answers to the questions below.

If your work life and career were ideal, what would they look like? What one discipline could you develop that would help you to achieve it?
If your family life were ideal, what would that look like? What one discipline would help you the very most to make it a reality?
If your health were perfect in every way, what discipline would you have that would make that possible?
If your financial situation were ideal today, what one discipline would you have that would help you the most?
Why aren’t you already as successful as you would like to be. What one discipline would help you the most to achieve all your goals?
What one skill could you develop that would help you to realize more of your goals?
If you could wave a magic wand and be completely disciplined in any one area, which one discipline would have the greatest positive impact on your life?

Chapter 2: Self-Discipline and Character

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. Never excuse yourself, never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself and be lenient to everyone else.

The development of character is the great business of life.

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear a word you say. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The great virtues: (a series of virtues or values that are usually possessed by a person of character)

Integrity (the most important of all)
Courage
Compassion
Generosity
Temperance
Persistence
Friendliness

Integrity is the value that guarantees all of the other values.

It takes tremendous self-discipline to become a person of character.
Resist the temptation to cut corners, take the easy way, or go for short-term advantage.
Wisdom can be developed in private through study and reflection, but character can only be developed in the give and take of daily life when you are forced to chose and decide among alternatives and temptations.
Every choice you make is a statement about your true values and priorities.

Development of Character.

Development of character begins with the learning and practice of values.

You learn values in three ways.

Instruction
Study
Practice

Instruction

Teach your children values.
Explain values over and over as they are growing up.
The value and the importance of living the value must be explained.
You write your description of values on their souls which are like wet clay.

Study

Study the values you admire.
You learn values by studying them closely.
The law of concentration says that whatever you dwell upon grows and increases in your life.

The core value or virtue of character is truth.

Emulate the people you admire.

Make a list of the people you most admire.
Next to their names write out the virtues or values they most represent to you.
If you could spend an afternoon with anyone, living or dead, what one person would you chose and why?
What would you talk about during your afternoon together?
What questions would you ask?
What would you want to learn?
Why would that person want to spend an afternoon with you?
What are the virtues and values that you have developed that make you a valuable and interesting person?
What makes you special?

Practice The Values You Respect

Circumstances do not make the man, they merely reveal him to himself.
When a problem occurs people tend to react automatically based on the highest values they have developed up to that moment.
We develop values by repetition.
Practice the value over and over again until it becomes a habit.
Once a value becomes a habit we practice it automatically.
Men and women of high character act in accordance with their highest values without thought or hesitation.

The Structure of Personality

The psychology of character involves the three parts of your personality.

Self-ideal
Self-image
Self-esteem

Self-ideal

Values
Virtues
Ideals
Goals
Aspirations
Your idea of the very best person you can be.
The values you most admire in others and most aspire to possess yourself.

The most important part of your self-ideal is clarity.
Superior people are those who are absolutely clear about who they are and what they believe.
They have complete clarity about what they believe and the values they stand for.
They are not confused or indecisive.

Weak and irresolute people are fuzzy and unclear about their values.
Only a vague notion about what is right or wrong in any situation.
As a result, they take the path of least resistance and act expediently.

The evolution of character.
From the least to the most complex life forms.

Humans can be organized along a spectrum from the least to the most developed.
Lowest forms of humans: no values, virtues or character.
Highest levels: men and women of complete integrity. Will never compromise honesty or character for anything, including financial loss, pain or even death.

Societies can be divided into two kinds; high trust and low trust.

Self-image (inner mirror)

The way we see and think about ourselves. Especially prior to any event of importance.
People typically behave on the outside with ways they see themselves on the inside.
When you see yourself as calm, positive, truthful, and possessed of high character; you behave with greater strength and personal power, other people respect you more, you feel in control of yourself and the situation.
When you behave in a manner that is consistent with your highest values, your self image improves, you see and think about yourself in a better light, you feel happier and more confident, your behavior and outward performance then reflects this increasingly improving inner picture you have of yourself.
People tend to accept you at your own evaluation of yourself.
If you see and think of yourself as an excellent person who is possessed of high character, you will treat other people with courtesy, grace and respect. In turn they will likewise treat you as a person of honor and character.

Self-esteem (how much you like yourself)

The more you see yourself as a valuable and important person, the more positive and optimistic you will be.
The more you like yourself, the more you like others and the more they like you in return.
When you act with character and in harmony with your highest values; you put your whole life into an upward spiral. In every area of your life, things will get better and better.
Your role models have a tremendous impact on shaping your character.
When you compromise your values the opposite happens.
Almost all human problems can be solved by a return to your highest values and innermost convictions.
The more you think about the long-term consequences of your behavior, the more likely you will be to do the right thing in the short term.

When making a decision, always ask: what is important here?
What you dwell upon grows.
If you are in a situation where you are not living up to your highest values, make a decision to confront the situation immediately and straighten it out.
Think and talk about the virtues and values you most respect. Program them into your subconscious.

Action Exercises

Name three people living or dead whom you most admire and describe one quality of each of them that you respect.
Determine the most important virtue or quality in your life that you strive the most to practice or emulate.
Identify those situations in which you feel the most confident, in which you feel like the very best person you could possibly be.
What situations give you your greatest feelings of self-esteem and personal worth?
If you were already an excellent person in every respect, how would you behave differently from today onward?
What one quality would you like people to think of when your name is mentioned? What could you do to ensure this happens?
In what one area do you need to be more truthful and practice higher levels of integrity than you do today?

Chapter 3: Self-Discipline and Responsibility

The individual that wants to reach the top in life and business must appreciate the might and force of habit; he must be quick to break the habits that will break him.
The ability to discipline oneself and accept responsibility is essential to success and happiness.
Failure to accept responsibility leads to endless excuses.
This is my life, it is not a rehearsal for something else.
Unless I change, nothing else is going to change.
Accept responsibility for doing your job better than ever before. Rather than doing the minimum necessary to avoid getting fired.
Accept responsibility for your finances, health, and future.
Dedicate your life to self-improvement and continuous learning in every way possible.
“I can learn anything I need to learn in order to accomplish any goal I set for myself.”

Eliminating Negative Emotions

Happiness arises from the absence of negative emotions.
The most common negative emotions are:

Guilt
Resentment
Envy
Jealousy
Fear
Hostility

They all ultimately boil down to a feeling of anger directed inward or outward.

Anger is directed inwardly when you bottle it up rather than expressing it constructively to others.

Anger is directed outwardly when you criticize or attack other people.

Negative emotions weaken your immune system and make you susceptible to colds, flu and other diseases.

Excuses

It takes enormous self-control to refuse to make excuses.
Deliberately chose to think positive, constructive thoughts that enhance your life and improve the quality of your relationships and results.
Blaming is easy. People even blame inanimate objects.
Immediately say “I am responsible.” to neutralize feelings of negativity.
The law of substitution: you can substitute a positive thought for a negative thought. Your mind can only hold one thought at a time.
As long as you continue to blame someone else you remain a mental child.

Responsibility and Control

The more you accept responsibility the greater sense of control you experience.
When you accept responsibility you feel strong, powerful, and purposeful.
After saying “I am responsible.” Look into the reasons why you are responsible for what happened or for what is going on.
Your intelligence is a double-edged sword. You can use it to make excuses and place blame or use it to figure out the reasons and take action to solve the problem or resolve the situation.
You can make excuses or you can make progress.
Never complain, never explain.
It is not possible to imagine a true leader who whines and complains.
The sense of responsibility is the mark of a highly developed personality.
Do not get angry over situations you cannot control. For example, the weather.
Do not allow yourself to be angry in the present over situations that happened in the past.
What cannot be cured must be endured.
You can let the past go at any time.
Begin thinking about your goals and your unlimited future.
Take charge of your emotions.
Refuse to make excuses, complain, criticize or blame others for anything.
The only real anecdote is action. Purposeful action in the direction of your goals.
Be so full working on things important to you that you don’t have time to think about or express negative emotions to or about anyone for any reason.

Action Exercises

Resolve today to accept 100% responsibility for everything you are and for everything you become. Never complain, never explain.
Look into your past and select the person or incident that still makes you unhappy today. Instead of justifying your negative feelings, look for reasons why you were partially responsible for what happened.
Select a relationship in your past that made you unhappy and then give three reasons why you were responsible for what occurred.
Select one person in your past with whom you are still angry and resolve to forgive that person completely for what happened. This act will liberate you emotionally.
Accept complete responsibility for your financial situation and refuse to blame any financial problems on anyone else.
Accept complete responsibility for your family situation with each person. Then take immediate action to improve your relationships wherever there may be problems.
Accept 100% responsibility for your health, resolve to do today, or stop doing, whatever is necessary for you to attain excellent all-around health.

Chapter 4: Self-Discipline and Goals

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals and to work toward them every day will go more to guarantee your success than any other single factor.
You need to have goals to accomplish worthwhile things in life.
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
The very act of taking the time to decide what you want in each area of your life can change your life completely.

The 3% Factor

Only 3% of adults have written goals and plans. This 3% earn more than all of the other 97% put together.
More and more of your time is focused on a straight line from where you are to where you want to go.
Most people think they already have goals, but what they really have are hopes and wishes.
Goals that are not written down and developed into plans are like bullets without powder.
Goal setting is a hard and disciplined effort.
Goal setting is the master skill of success.

New Year’s resolutions.
Only 4% of people that did not write them down followed through.
44% of people that wrote them down followed through.

The Discipline of Writing (Your Goals)

The disciplined act of writing out goals, making plans for accomplishing them, and working on them daily, increases the likelihood of achieving them by ten times (1000%).
There is no cost or risk involved in putting pen to paper and writing them down.
Writing is called a psycho-neuro-motor activity.
The very act of writing forces you to think and concentrate. It forces you to chose what is more important to you and your future.
When you write down a goal you impress it into your subconscious mind.
In life, you either work to achieve your own goals or the goals of someone else.
Become a lifelong goal setter.

When human beings set a goal, like a homing pigeon, they will head toward that goal without even knowing the way and that goal will head toward them.
Many people are hesitant to set goals.
You don’t need to know how to get there in order to set a goal, you just need to be clear about what you want to accomplish and the goal-striving mechanism in your brain will guide you unerringly to the destination.
Example. You can set a goal to find your ideal job in which you work for and with people you like and respect and do work that is both challenging and enjoyable.
Write down an exact description of what your ideal job would look like.
You must develop absolute clarity about what you really want.

The Seven Step Method to Achieving Your Goals

Decide exactly what you want
Write it down
Set a deadline for your goal
Make a list of everything you can think of that you can possibly do to achieve your goal
Organize your list by both sequence and priority
Take action on your plan immediately
Do something every day that moves you in the direction of your major goal

Step 1: Decide exactly what you want.

Be specific.
If you want to increase your income decide on a specific amount of money.

Step 2: Write it down.

A goal that is not in writing is like smoke. It is insubstantial.
A written goal becomes something you can see, touch, read and modify if necessary.

Step 3: Set a deadline for your goal.

Pick a reasonable time period and write down the date when you want to achieve it.
If it is a big enough goal set a final deadline and sub-goals.
A deadline serves as a forcing system in your brain.
Your subconscious mind works faster and more efficiently when you have decided that you want to achieve a goal by a specific time.
There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic deadlines.
If you don’t achieve your goal by your deadline, set another deadline.

Step 4: Make a list of everything you can think of that you can possibly do to achieve your goal.

Make a list of the obstacles and difficulties you will have to overcome, both external and internal, in order to achieve your goal.
Make a list of the additional knowledge and skills you will need to acquire in order to achieve your goal.
Make a list of the people whose cooperation and support you will require to achieve your goal.
Make a list of everything you can think of that you will have to do. Add to this list as new tasks and responsibilities occur to you.

Step 5: organize your list by both sequence and priority.

A list of activities organized by sequence requires that you decide what you need to do first, what you need to do second, and what you need to do later on.
A list organized by priority enables you to determine what is more important and what is less important.
Sometimes sequence and priority are the same, often they are not.

Step 6: take action on your plan immediately.

Take the first steps. Get going, get busy, don’t delay.
Procrastination is not only the thief of time, it is the thief of life.
Winners take the first step, they are action oriented.
Winners are willing to take action with no guarantees of success.
Winners are willing to face failure and disappointment.

Step 7: do something every day that moves you in the direction of your major goal.

Do anything that moves you at least one step closer to the goal.
When you do something every day that moves you in the direction of your goal you develop momentum.
This momentum motivates, inspires, and energizes you.
As you develop momentum you will find it increasingly easy to take more steps towards your goal.
It will soon become easy and automatic.

The Ten Goal Exercise

Take out a clean sheet of paper.
At the top of the page write the word “goals” and today’s date.
Discipline yourself to write down ten goals you would like to accomplish in the next 12 months.
Write down family, financial and fitness goals. As well as goals for personal possessions.
Don’t worry for the moment about how you will achieve these goals, just write them down. Write them down as quickly as you can. You can write up to 15 if you want.
Write a minimum of 10 in 3-5 minutes.
Select one goal. Imagine you can achieve one goal.
Which one goal will change or improve your life more than anything else?
Which one goal if you achieve it will help you accomplish more of your other goals than anything else?
This goal becomes your major definite purpose, your focal point.
Make a plan!
Once you have written out the goal clearly and specifically and made it measurable, set a deadline for your goal.
Make your plan.
Select the most important or logical next step.
Resolve to work on this goal every day until it is achieved.
Resolve that you will never give up until this goal is achieved, this decision will change your life.

Mind-Storming Goals

Use mind-storming to get started.
Take out a clean piece of paper and write out your major goal at the top in the form of a question.
Discipline yourself to write a minimum of 20 answers to the question.
For example, if your goal is to make a certain amount of money by a certain date. Ask yourself the question “How can I earn this amount of money by this specific date?
Discipline yourself to generate 20 answers to the question.
The first 3-5 will be easy, the next 5 will be difficult, and the last 10 answers will be harder than you can imagine. At least the first time you do this exercise.
Once you have generated 20 answers, select one of the answers to take action on immediately.

The great law of cause and effect.
The most important application of this law.
Thoughts are causes, conditions are effects.
Your thoughts create the conditions of your life.
When you change your thinking you change your life.
Your outer world becomes a mirror image reflection of your inner world.
You become what you think about most of the time.
Whatever you can think about on a continuing basis you can have.
The discipline of daily goal setting will make you a powerful, purposeful, and irresistible person.

Action Exercises

Resolve today to switch on your success mechanism and unlock your goal-achieving mechanism by deciding exactly what you really want in life.
Make a list of 10 goals that you want to achieve in the foreseeable future, write them down in the present tense as if you have already achieved them.
Select the one goal that could have the greatest positive impact on your life if you were to achieve it, write it down at the top of another piece of paper.
Make a list of everything that you could do to achieve this goal, organize it by sequence and priority, take action on it immediately.
Practice mind-storming by writing out 20 ideas that could help you to achieve your most important goal, take action on at least one of these ideas.
Resolve to do something every day, seven days a week, to achieve your most important goal until you are successful.
Continually remind yourself that failure is not an option. No matter what, resolve to persist until you succeed.

Chapter 5: Self-Discipline and Personal Excellence

We are what we repeatedly do; excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle

You are Your Most Valuable Asset

Your ability to learn and grow is unlimited.
Your most precious financial asset is your earning ability.
Your earning ability is like a muscle, it can increase in strength and power year by year as a result of regular exercise.
It can also become weaker or decline if you fail to upgrade continually.
Your earning ability can appreciate or depreciate.
See yourself as the president of your own personal services corporation. Are you a growth stock?
The knowledge and skill you have today is becoming obsolete. It is being replaced by new knowledge and skills.

Join the Top 20%

No one is better than you or smarter than you. If someone is doing better than you are today, it is simply proof that they have begun doing the things other successful people have also done.
The application of the law of cause and effect in your personal life is: learn and do.
In the absence of a commitment to excellence in your chosen field, you automatically default to average performance or even mediocrity.
No one becomes excellent accidentally. It requires a definite decision and a lifelong commitment.
Mental fitness is like physical fitness, you must work at it all the time.
To earn more you must learn more.
Almost every important skill is learnable.
All money-making skills are learnable.
All of the answers have been found, all of the roots to success have been discovered, all you need to learn to move to the top of your field has already been learned by thousands of people if you ask them for advice they will give it to you. Successful people will put their work aside to help other people.
You just have to ask and do what they tell you.
Learn from the best.
Set high income as a goal.
Find out what the people in the top 20% of your field are earning.
Once you know this income target, write it down as your goal and make a plan to achieve it, work on this goal every day.
The secret to high income in business and sales is simple: learn and do.

Use the 3% formula to invest in yourself.

Invest 3% of your income into yourself in order to make yourself an appreciating asset.
Invest 3% of your target income goal in yourself, not what your current income is.
The payoff is extraordinary.

Three Steps to Becoming the Best in Your Field

Read 60 minutes in your field each day.
Listen to educational audio programs in your car.
Attend courses and seminars in your field regularly.

The power of compound learning is amazing. The more you learn the more you can learn. The more you learn, the better your brain functions. Your memory and brain function improves.

The starting point of achieving mastery is my commitment to excellence.
The only direction you can coast is downhill.
Often there is only a thin veil that separates the average person from the excellent person.

Two hours each day will get you to the top.
Form the habit of continuous learning.
Learn, grow and upgrade your skills every day and every week.
The average adult watches 5 hours of television a day.
Your television can make you rich or poor, if you watch it all the time it will make you poor.
The more television you watch the lower are your levels of energy and self-esteem. At an unconscious level you don’t like or respect yourself as much.
Your television can make you rich if you turn it off.

How to Increase Your Income by 1000%.

First ask yourself: is it possible for you to increase your performance by 1/10th of 1% in a working day (one one-thousandth)?
Yes, you can. Do this every day. This equals one-half of a percent every week. Do this every week.
You will be 2% more productive each month.
You will be 26% more productive each year.
You will be 1004% more productive after 10 years by the law of accumulation with compounding.
Your income will increase at the same rate.

Seven Steps to Accomplish the 1000% Income Increase

Arise two hours before your first appointment or before you have to be at work.
Re-write your goals every day.
Plan every day in advance.
Discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing.
Listen to educational audio programs in your car.
Ask two magic questions after every call or event.
Treat every person you meet like a million-dollar customer.

Step 1: Arise two hours before your first appointment or before you have to be at work.

Invest the first hour in yourself by reading something educational, motivational, or spiritual.
The first hour is the rudder of the day.
You will be more positive, productive, and creative throughout the day.
If you read one hour per day in your field that is about one book per week, 50 books per year, 500 books in 10 years.
Reading one hour per day in your field will make you a national authority in your field in 3-5 years.

Step 2: Re-write your goals every day.

Write your major goals in a spiral notebook every day before you start out, without looking back at what you wrote the previous days.

Step 3: Plan every day in advance.

Make a list and set priorities on your work every day before you start off.
Your ability to set priorities and chose the most important thing you could be doing every moment is the key to organizing your life and doubling your productivity.

Step 4: Discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing.

Chose the most important thing that you can do each day, then start on it first thing and work on it until it is 100% complete.
Your ability to focus and concentrate will enable you to double your output in the next month.

Step 5: Listen to educational audio programs in your car.

Turn your car into a university on wheels.
Many people have gone from rags to riches by simply listening to educational audio programs in their cars.

Step 6: Ask two magic questions after every call or event.

1. What did I do right?
2. What would I do differently?
By doing this you program yourself to perform better next time.

Step 7: treat every person you meet like a million-dollar customer.

Treat them like they are the most important person in the world.
Do this by starting at home with the members of your family.
85% of your success will be determined by how much people like and respect you, especially in business and sales.
Never miss an opportunity to treat people well.

Be the best.
Every time you learn and apply something new your brain releases endorphin.

Action Exercises

Make a decision today to invest in yourself in getting better as if your future depends on it, because it does.
Identify the most important skills you have that determine the quantity and quality of results you get at your work, and make a plan to get better in each one.
If you could wave a magic wand and become absolutely excellent in any one skill, which one skill would have the greatest impact on your earning ability? Whatever your answer, set that skill as a goal, make a plan and work on it every day.
Set excellent performance in your work as a goal, and then determine exactly what you need to do every day to join the top 20% of people in your field.
Look ahead 3-5 years and determine the new knowledge and skills you will need in order to lead your field in the future. Start acquiring them today.
Select the top person in your field whom you admire the most and use him or her as a role model for your own development.
Commit yourself today to lifelong learning. Never let a day go by without getting better in some area.

Chapter 6: Self-Discipline and Courage

Courage is not the absence of fear, it is control of fear, mastery of fear. Mark Twain
To develop a quality that you lack, act as if you already had that quality in every situation where it is called for. Aristotle

Tips and Advice About Courage

Repeat the words “I can” and “I can do it.”
Visualize yourself as unafraid.
The salesperson 100 call method. Make 100 calls as fast as possible without caring if you make a sale. This is a good way to overcome fear.
Eliminate two fears at once, some fears are bundled together.
Confront your fears.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. Eleanor Roosevelt
The most common quality of leaders is vision.
The second most common quality is courage.

Two types of courage you need.

The courage to launch, take action, take a leap of faith. The major feeling that holds most people back is that they don’t have the courage to take the first step.
Courageous patience. The ability to hang in there after you have gone all-in but have yet to see any rewards.

The companion of fear is worry.
98% of the things you worry about never happen.

Disaster Reports to Destroy Fear

Whenever you worry about something fill out a “disaster report” on the situation. This will destroy your fear almost immediately.

Define the situation clearly. What exactly are you worried about?
Identify the worst possible thing that could happen if this worry situation were to take place. Lose your job, lose money, etc.
Resolve to accept the worst possible outcome should it occur. Say to yourself “well, if that happens it won’t kill me.”
Begin immediately to improve on the worst. Take every step you possibly can to make sure that the worst possible outcome does not occur. Take action immediately.

Action Exercises

Identify your three biggest fears in life right now, what are they?
Determine what you would do in each of these situations if you were guaranteed of complete success. What actions would you take?
What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt? What would you do differently if you were guaranteed success?
In what three areas of life and work do you most experience the fears of failure and loss? What steps can you take immediately to confront and eliminate those fears?
In what three areas of life do you most experience the fears of criticism, rejection or embarrassment? How could you confront these fears and overcome them?
What one great goal would you set for yourself if you knew you could not fail?
What would you do differently in life if you had $20 million dollars in the bank but only 10 years left to live?

Chapter 7: Self-Discipline and Persistence

Beware of endeavoring to become a great man in a hurry, one attempt in 10,000 may succeed. Benjamin Disraeli

Persistence is self-discipline in action.
There is a direct link between self-discipline and self-esteem.
Persistence is its own reward.
Say these words “I am unstoppable” and “I never give up.”
Optimism gives you resilience.
When you complain and blame other people it makes you sound petty and small, it also takes away your personal power.
Be proactive instead of reactive.
The difference between success and failures. Failures feel sorry for themselves when things go wrong. Whereas successful people look for the valuable lessons they can learn that will help them in the future.
Continually think of yourself as a strong, powerful resolute person in the face of adversity.
Resolve in advance that you will never give up.

Action Exercises

Identify one area in your life where you need to persist even harder to achieve your goal. Take action in that area.
Identify a goal in your life that you did not accomplish because you failed to persist to completion. What steps could you take today to achieve in that area?
Identify one big goal that you achieved because you persisted and refused to give up no matter how difficult it became.
Decide on your major definite purpose in life. The one goal that, if you achieved it, would have the greatest positive impact on your life.
Write down your goal clearly. Make a detailed plan of action to accomplish it, tell yourself that failure is not an option.
Make a decision today that you will persist until you succeed no matter what happens because “I am unstoppable.”
Resolve to set and achieve one important goal, overcoming the inevitable difficulties, problems, and setbacks you will experience until you succeed. Repeat this process over and over until persistence becomes a habit.

Part 2: Business, Sales, and Personal Finances

Chapter 8: Self-Discipline and Work

Leaders aren’t born they are made, they are made just like anything else, through hard work. Vince Lombardi

It is through doing the most important tasks that you move onward and upward quickly and independently in your career.
Diligent, disciplined, and focused work will enable you to get consistently and predictably more done and paid more and get promoted faster than the average person.
Separate the relevant from the irrelevant.
80% of what you accomplish will come from 20% of the things you do.

Poor Time Management

The average employee wastes about 50% of his or her time on non-work-related activities.
37% of the time is wasted on idle talk.
The other 13% is wasted on personal time, leaving early or showing up late, etc.

Develop an Excellent Reputation

The top 20% of people in their fields increase their income 10-25% per year, compounded year after year.
You can double your income. Set a goal to double your income.
Is there anyone in your company that earns twice as much as you?

The Law of Three

Make a list of all the things you do in a week (or month) from the time you start on Monday through the end of the week. Write down everything small and large including checking your email, returning phone calls, etc.

Review this list and ask yourself three questions:

If I could only do one thing on this list all day long, which one activity contributes the most value to my company? (circle this task)
If I could only do two things on this list all day long, which next activity contributes the most value to my company? (identify your second most important task and circle it)
If I could only do three things on this list all day long, what is the third item that contributes the most value to my company?

This is the law of three.

There are three primary things you do that contribute 90% of the value to your company or organization. Train yourself to do these three things all day long.

Calculate Your Hourly Rate

Refuse to do things that someone of a lower hourly rate can do for you.
Get on the same page about what work is most important.
Make a list of the things you feel you have been hired to accomplish. Once you have determined your three most important tasks, take your list to your boss and have him organize the list based on his most important priorities.
The very worst use of time is to do very well what need not be done at all.
Many people work on tasks that are of little or no value to their bosses.
Hard work on the wrong job can sabotage your own career.

Develop Your Reputation and Work Ethic

Your job is first to make yourself valuable, and then to make yourself indispensable to your company.
Work all of the time you are at work. When you work, work! Don’t waste time.
In every organization, everyone knows who works harder than everyone else.
Resolve today that you are going to develop the reputation for being the hardest working person in your business.
The author finished all tasks and then asked his boss for more work and more responsibility. He became the “go-to” guy for his boss.
Whatever your boss gives you to do, do it quickly and well, then go and ask for more responsibility. When you get it, do the job quickly and well until you get a reputation for being the person that does things fast.

Pay the Price

The three-part formula for success at work:

Come in a little earlier.
Work a littler harder.
Stay a little later.

This will move you so far ahead of your competitors that they will never catch up.

Don’t waste time, don’t chat with co-workers, work through lunch.
By coming in an hour early, leaving an hour late, and working through lunch, you will get an extra three hours of work each day.
Because these are normally uninterrupted hours you will get twice as much done during these hours as normal working hours.
This will double or even triple your output at work.

The 40+ Formula

You can tell where you are going to be five years from now by looking at the number of hours you work today in excess of forty hours per week.
Make it a habit to do more than what you are paid for.
Working more than forty hours a week is an investment in your future success.
The highest paid people in America in every field work 50-60 hours per week.
The average self-made millionaire works 59 hours per week.

Look the Part – Dress for Success

Each morning before you go to work, ask yourself “do I look like one of the top people in my field?” If you don’t, go back and change. Keep changing until you look like one of the top dressed people in your field.
Dress for the job two levels above your current job.

Your work behaviors naturally determine your ascension to leadership.

Action Exercises

Make a decision today that you are going to become one of the top 20% of people in your company and your industry. What should you do or could you do differently to achieve that goal?
Make a list of everything you do in your job, then identify the three things that contribute the greatest value to your work and your company.
Set a new work schedule for yourself and begin to start earlier, work harder, and stay later until it becomes a habit.
Identify the most important results you are expected to achieve in your job, then work on those results all day long.
Determine the person who is the best dressed and groomed in your company, and then resolve to use him or her as a role model for your own appearance.
Decide today that from now on you are actually going to work all the time you are at work, and that you are going to develop the reputation for being the hardest working person in your company.
Develop a sense of urgency. Resolve to move fast when you are given a job or opportunity.

Chapter 9: Self-Discipline and Leadership

It is not possible to imagine an effective leader who lacks self-discipline, willpower, self-control, and self-mastery.
A leader is in complete control of himself in every situation.

Leadership is in great demand today.

Four Stages of Development

In your career and business, you progress through four levels of activity and attainment.

An employee with limited knowledge and experience.
Supervisor with responsibility for the performance and results of other people.
Manager, someone who assigns work to people with demonstrated competence in certain areas. Have a larger view that comes with greater responsibilities.
Leader, responsible for determining what is to be done rather than how it is to be done.

The ongoing question of a leader is always, “what results are expected of me?”
Clarity is essential.

Leaders Have Vision

The first quality of leadership is vision.
The ability to project forward into the future and develop a clear picture of where they want their organizations to go.
You become a leader when you accept responsibility for results.
Develop a vision for your life, your company and your areas of responsibility.
A military leader has a vision of victory from which he never deviates.
A business leader has a vision of success for the business based on excellent performance to which he or she is completely committed.

Morale in a business filters down from the top, from the leader.
Discipline yourself to be a role model.
In excellent organizations, the leader is one whom everyone looks up to and wants to emulate.

Seven Principles of Leadership

Clarity
Competence
Commitment
Constraints (identify the constraints and limitations)
Creativity (open to new ideas of all kinds from all sources)
Continuous Learning
Consistency

There is a direct correlation between your ability to discipline yourself and your behaviors and your readiness to lead.
Only when you prove to others that you are in complete control of yourself do they develop the confidence to put you in a leadership position and keep you there.
Everything a leader says to or about another person is magnified. A leader, therefore, encourages and praises people, both when they are there and when they are not around.
A leader never says anything negative that could be misinterpreted.

Leadership Qualities

Leaders discipline themselves to plan, prepare, organize and check every detail.
They ask questions to ensure they have a complete understanding of the situation.
Great leaders act as if they own the entire company.
Leaders are intensely action-oriented.
They set measures and standards and hold others to them.
Leaders insist that the job be done quickly and well.
Your position will be equal to your performance.

Action Exercises

Ask yourself, “what results are expected of me?” Concentrate single-mindedly on getting those results every day.
See yourself as the leader of your organization and ask yourself, “what kind of company would this be if everyone in it were just like me?”
Create a clear and exciting vision for yourself and your organization based on success and excellent performance.
Identify the most important people in your business world and determine how you will have to behave toward them to get them to perform at their best.
Resolve in advance, when the inevitable crisis occurs you will respond in a calm, controlled, and intelligent manner.
Six: clarify the exact values and principles you believe in and stand for, and then share them with the people around you.
Treat each person around you as if they are competent, valuable, and important.

For further reading on leadership see my page of business and leadership book summaries.

Chapter 10: Self-Discipline and Business

The achievement of business success requires self-discipline.

The first law of economics is scarcity. (Customers, good employees, suppliers, etc.)
The first law of business is competition.
You must compete continually against all other uses of the same amount of money that you want to charge for what you sell.

The First Discipline of Business Success

The first discipline of business success is that you offer a product or service that people want, need, and will pay for at a price they will accept, a price that is competitive with every other business that wants the same customer dollar.
The customer is always right.
Starting a business requires a high level of optimism. At the same time, you must remain objective and realistic.
The discipline of advanced planning can spell the difference between success and failure.
Challenge your assumptions.

Identify Your Ideal Customer

Be clear about what your competitive advantage is.
You need the discipline to develop a complete sales system from beginning to end.
Know your true costs.

The Discipline to Develop a Customer Service Policy

The purpose of a business is to create and keep customers.
The key measure of business success is customer satisfaction.
The measure of customer satisfaction is repeat business.
The key to long-term success and profitability is recommendations and referrals.

Set High Standards

Set standards of excellence in every area of your business and keep them
CANI formula = Continuous and Never-ending Improvement
Never be satisfied with where you are. You must be continually raising the bar on yourself and everyone within your area of responsibility.
Focus on the most important thing you could possibly be doing every hour of every day.
Develop a long time-perspective in your business life.
It takes many years of disciplined effort for you to become a business success.
The lifeblood of your business is sales.

Action Exercises

Stand back and look at every area of your business as if you were an outside consultant. What changes would you recommend?
Imagine you were starting your business over again today. Are there any products or services that you would not bring to the current market?
Identify the 20% of your products and services that account for 80% of your profit. How could you sell more of them?
Project forward one, two, and five years in your business. What are the trends? What will your customers be buying in the future?
List three ways you could improve your customer service to ensure that customers buy from you again and tell their friends.
List three ways you could attract more and better-qualified leads from your marketing and advertising activities.
List three ways that you could make more sales to the prospects you attract or that you could attract more and better prospects.

For further reading on business see my page of business and leadership book summaries.

Chapter 11: Self-Discipline and Sales

Nothing happens until a sale takes place.
The most important element in business success is selling.
Everything is secondary to sales, your business does not exist without sales.
You require the self-discipline to focus and concentrate on generating sales every hour of every business day.
Ask yourself frequently “Is what I am doing right now leading to a sale?” Ask this repeatedly throughout the day.
Overcome your fear of rejection.
Salespeople make fewer calls to avoid being rejected.
Increase face time with customers and prospects.
The rule for successful sales results: Spend more time with better prospects.
Realize that rejection is not personal.
The key to success is to eliminate the fear of rejection.
There is a direct relationship between the number of new customer contacts you make and your level of sales.
When you increase your sales activity you activate the law of probability to work on your behalf.

How to Double Your Sales Income

Practice the “minutes principle.”
If you are earning the money that you are earning today with only the number of minutes you are spending face to face with customers today; by increasing that number of minutes you can also increase your sales.
Double the number of minutes you spend face to face with customers.
The actual sale itself is not under your control, the only thing you can control are the activities that lead to sales.
Do what you can, with what you have, right where you are.
Improve your ratios.
- The ratio between the number of cold calls you make and the number of people you will be able to talk to or visit.
- The ratio between the number of prospective customers that you see or talk to, and the number of prospects that you can follow up on.
- The ratio between the number of people you follow up on with proposals and presentations and the number of sales that you close.
This is a sales funnel.
- Prospects
- Presentation
- Closing

Keys to Sales Success

Keep your funnel full.
Get better at each stage of selling.
The better you get, the fewer prospects you require at the top of the funnel to generate sales at the bottom of the funnel.
Start early.
You are only working when you are ear to ear or face to face with someone who can and will buy.
Set higher standards for yourself.
Outside salespeople require a higher level of discipline than most others.
If someone was observing you all throughout the day how would you work differently? That is how you should work all the time.
All sales skills can be learned.
Read every day.
Listen to educational audio programs in your car.
Attend every sales seminar you can.
Dedicate yourself to continuous learning as if your future depends on it, because it does.
Learn the law of cause and effect.
The only limits are the limits you place on yourself with your own thinking.

Action Exercises

See yourself as the president of your own personal sales corporation, completely responsible for sales results. This is the attitude of the highest-paid salespeople in every field.
Set clear, written income goals for yourself for the next twelve months, as well as goals for each month of the year.
Determine exactly how much of your product or service you will have to sell in order to earn that desired income.
Determine how many individual sales you will have to make based on your average size of sale and the amount of commission earned.
Determine how many prospects you will have to call on, based on your current experience, to make this number of sales.
Dedicate yourself to continuous improvement in sales by reading each day, listening to audio programs in your car, and attending sales seminars.
Spend every minute of every sales day getting face to face with people who can and will buy from you in the near future.

For more advice on sales and marketing see my book summary of Fanatical Prospecting and my summary of The One Page Marketing Plan.

Chapter 12: Self-Discipline and Money

The first victory of all great men is over themselves. Self-discipline comes first.

Saving Money and Delayed Gratification

Inability to delay gratification in the short term is the reason for financial problems in life.
We are living in the most affluent time in all of human history.
Many people unconsciously associate buying something with being happy. When unhappy they will go out and buy something.
Re-wire your responses to money. Disconnect the wire linking happiness to spending money. Re-link the happiness wire to the saving and investing wire.
Say “I feel happy when I save money.”
Open a financial freedom account at your local bank. Only touch it to invest.
Associate happiness with saving.
The act of disciplining yourself to save money makes you feel stronger and more in control of your destiny.

The Laws of Attraction and Accumulation

As your money grows you activate two laws; the law of attraction and the law of accumulation.
The law of accumulation says every great achievement is an accumulation of smaller achievements.
The law of attraction says that you attract into your life those things that are in harmony with your dominant thoughts.
The miracle of compound interest.
The rule for financial independence is to pay yourself first.
Save throughout your lifetime.
Happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
Increasing income is not the answer. Because Parkinson’s law says expenditures rise to meet income.
Practice the wedge principle for the rest of your life.
Drive a wedge between your increasing income and your increasing expenses.
Resolve to save 50% of all income increases for the rest of your life.
By doing this you will join the top 5% of wealthy people in society.
Compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe. – Albert Einstein

Action Exercises

Make a decision today to take complete control of your financial life, get out of debt, and achieve financial independence.
Determine your net worth today.
Set up a separate bank account and begin saving at least 1% of your income as you receive it, every month or paycheck.
Make a list of all your debts and begin paying them off, starting with those carrying the highest interest rates.
Calculate the exact amount you will need to be financially independent at the end of your career and set this as a goal.
Set specific financial accumulation goals for yourself for each month, quarter, and year for the rest of your life.
Practice frugality in spending by putting off and delaying every expenditure you possibly can until you achieve your long-term financial goals.

For more advice on personal finance see my book summary of The Richest Man in Babylon and my summary of Think and Grow Rich.

Chapter 13: Self-Discipline and Time Management

If you do not conquer yourself, you will be conquered by yourself.

You cannot manage time, you can only manage yourself. Peter Drucker.

Time Management is Life Management

Time management is a core discipline that largely determines the quality of your life.
Time is perishable, it cannot be saved.
Time is irreplaceable.
Time is irretrievable.
Time is indispensable.
All results and all success require time.
You cannot save time, you can only spend it differently.
You can only reallocate your time usage from areas of low value to areas of high value.
Time management is the ability to chose the sequence of events.
You can choose what to do first, second, and not at all.

Procrastination is the thief of dreams.

20% of the things you do account for 80% of the value you accomplish.
80% of what you do is worth 20% or less of the value you accomplish.
Assess the true value of everything you do.
Some things you do are 5x and 10x more valuable than other things you do.
You can tell the value something has to you by the amount of your time that you invest in it.
Some people say career success is most important to them but spend several hours a day watching TV when they get home.
Only your actions tell you and others what you truly value.
The essence of time management is for you to discipline yourself to set priorities and stick to those priorities.

Personal Strategic Planning

Individuals invest human capital.
My most vital assets are my mental, emotional and physical energy.
How I invest them determines my entire quality of life.
My goal is to get the highest return on energy for my activities.
Highest return on life. (ROL)
Think before you act. Always ask, “Is this the very best use of my time?”

Priority vs Posteriority

Posteriority is something you do less of or later.
To embark on a new task you must discontinue an old task.
Practice creative abandonment.
Identify the consequences.
Something is important to the degree that it has serious potential consequences for completion or non-completion.
Example: the consequences of completing a major project vs drinking coffee, chatting with co-workers, etc.

A System for Managing Your Time

Before you begin each day, start by making a list of everything you have to do that day. The best time to make this list is the evening before or at the end of the workday.

Your subconscious mind can work on your list of activities while you sleep. You will often wake up with ideas and insights for how to more effectively complete the tasks of the day.

Apply the ABCDE method to your list.

A = must do. Serious consequences for non-completion.
B = should do. Mild consequences for doing or not doing.
C = nice to do. No consequences whether you do it or not.
D = delegate. Delegate everything you possibly can to free up more time for those things that only you can do.
E = eliminate. Discontinue all tasks and activities that are no longer essential to your work and achieving your goals.

If you have several A tasks, write them by importance making the A1, A2, etc. Same with B and C tasks.

Never do a lower value task when you have a higher value task before you.

Discipline yourself to start on your A1 task first thing in the morning before you do anything else.
Practice single-handling. 100% of time and attention dedicated until the task is complete.
Once you start working on it you will feel a flow of energy that propels and motivates you to complete the task.
The very act of starting on an important task raises your self-esteem and motivates you to continue.

1000% return on investment.

This ABCDE method takes 10 minutes to organize your day but you will save 10 minutes in execution for every minute you invest in planning before you begin.
You will get a 1000% return on energy (ROE) from the act of planning thoroughly and setting priorities before you start on your first task.
Your payoff from excellent planning is never-ending.
The more you plan and execute the better you feel. Your body releases endorphin.
Keep yourself focused.
The law of forced efficiency says: there is never enough time to do everything but there is always enough time to do the most important things.

Questions to Ask Yourself

Questions to ask yourself to help keep focused on your top tasks, activities, and responsibilities.

One: Why am I on the payroll?
- What have I been hired to do? What results are expected of me?
Two: What are my key result areas?
- Of all the things I do, what are the most important results I am expected to achieve in my position?
Three: What are my highest value activities?
- Of all the things I do, which activities contribute the greatest value to my company and to myself?
- I have core competencies that enable me to make a valuable contribution, what are they?
Four: What can I, and only I, do, that if done well will make a real difference?
- There is only one answer to this question at any given time.
Five: What is the most valuable use of my time right now?
- This is the most important question of all for setting priorities.
- My ability to organize my life and select the highest priority is a key measure of my intelligence and my effectiveness.

Start today!

Overcome the procrastination that holds most people back.

What stands between me and my goals are almost always problems and difficulties of some kind. My ability to effectively solve the problems of daily life can have an enormous impact on my results and rewards.

Action Exercises

Make a decision today to become absolutely excellent at time management. Work at it until it becomes a habit.
Before you begin each day, make a list of everything you have to do that day, as new tasks arise, write them down before you act on them.
Organize your work list by priority using the ABCDE method, over and over until it becomes a habit.
Identify your A1 task each day. Resolve to work single-mindedly on that task until it is totally complete.
Identify the one task that only you can do, and that if you do it well, can make a real difference.
Determine the 20% of your tasks that can account for 80% of your results. Discipline yourself to work on them most of the time.
Every minute of every day, ask yourself “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” discipline yourself to work on only that task until it is complete.

For more advice on time management see my book summary of The ONE Thing, or my summary of Getting Things Done, or my summary of The E-myth Revisited.

Chapter 14: Self-Discipline and Problem-Solving

Experience is not what happens to a man, it is what a man does with what happens to him.

Improve Your Thinking

Thoughts are causes, conditions are effects.
The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your life.
You become what you think about most of the time.

Focus on Solutions

The top people in every field are intensely solutions-oriented.
All of life is a test, the only question is do you pass or fail.
Blaming people is a waste of energy.
Focus on the solution rather than the problem.
Immediately say “I am responsible” when a problem or crisis occurs.
When you become angry or upset, your thinking brain immediately shuts down and your emotional brain takes over.
Top people realize that every problem is an opportunity to grow in self-control and confidence.
You will rise in life to the height of the problems you are capable of solving.

Stepping Stones to Success

The Peter Principle by Dr. Lawrence Peter
In every organization, people continue to be promoted until they reach the level where they are no longer competent to solve the problems at that level.
Train your brain to be intensely solutions-oriented.
Develop a formula or method for problem-solving that enables you to deal effectively with almost any problem you face in the course of your career or personal life.
Your rate of pay and forward movement in your career is largely determined by your problem-solving ability.
Success is the ability to solve problems.
Leadership is the ability to solve problems.
There is already a proven formula that you can use in any situation.

A Nine Step Method for Solving Problems Effectively

Step one: Take time to define the problem clearly.
- Accurate diagnosis is half the cure.
Step two: Ask “Is it really a problem?”
- There are some things you can do nothing about, they are not problems but simply facts of life. Something that must be worked around and dealt with.
- Often things that appear as problems are an opportunity in disguise.
- Some problems do not need to be solved at all, you are now free to do something completely different.
Step three: Ask “What else is the problem?”
- The more ways you can define a problem, the more likely you will find the best solution.
- Go to deeper layers of the problem. For example, our sales are too low. What else is the problem? Our competitors’ sales are too high. What else is the problem? Etc.
Step four: Ask “How did this problem occur?”
- Seek to understand the causes so you can ensure it doesn’t happen again.
- If a problem occurs repeatedly it is a sign that your business is out of control in that area.
- There is a defect in your system.
Step five: Ask “What are all the possible solutions?”
- The quality of the solution is in direct proportion to the quantity of solutions.
Step six: Ask “What is the best solution at this time?”
- An average solution vigorously executed is often superior to an excellent solution that cannot be implemented due to its complexity.
- 80% of all problems should be dealt with immediately.
- Every large problem was once a small problem that could have been solved easily and inexpensively at that time.
Step seven: Make a decision.
- Always ask, what is our next step? What are we going to do right now?
Step eight: Assign responsibility.
- Who is going to carry out the solution?
Step nine: Set a measure for the decision.
- What are you trying to accomplish with this decision, and how will you measure results? How will you know that it worked?

Action Exercises

Solving problems is like solving mathematical equations, it is learnable with practice and repetition. Start by determining the biggest problems facing you today, write them down.
Accept complete responsibility for solving the problems you encounter in your daily work. Then think about the solutions.
Define your biggest business or personal problem clearly, write it down. Then ask, “what exactly is the problem?”
Why is this a problem? Could it be an opportunity in disguise? If so, what opportunity or lesson could this problem contain?
What else is the problem?
What are all the possible solutions and what else could be the solution?
Select the best solution that is available to you right now and take action immediately.

Part 3: Self-Discipline and Happiness

Happiness is more spiritual and emotional than it is about acquiring material things.

Chapter 15: Self-Discipline and Happiness

No one else can achieve happiness for you.
Behind each of your goals lies another goal until finally, you arrive at your final goal, this is the first moving force in life. This always turns out to be the desire to be happy.
You can only truly be happy when you practice self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control.

The Law of Control

The law of control says: you feel happy to the degree to which you feel you are in control of your own life. You feel unhappy to the degree to which you feel you are not in control of your own life.

Psychologists call this the locus of control.
Internal vs external locus of control.
Many people wrongly believe they are controlled by their personalities and blame things on “this is the way I am.”
They use this to absolve them of responsibility.
Decide today to take complete control of your life and your decisions. Realize and accept that you make your own decision and that you are where you are, and what you are, because of your decisions.
Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.
Happiness is a byproduct. It is not a goal you can aim for and achieve in and of itself.
Happiness comes to you when you are engaged in doing something you really enjoy while in the company of people you like and respect.
Happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.
Self-discipline is a requirement for happiness. It requires that you determine clearly what happiness means to you and that you are working progressively every day toward the achievement of that ideal condition.

Five Ingredients of Happiness

Health and Energy
Happy relationships
Meaningful work
Financial independence
Self-actualization

See Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Deficiency needs:

Safety and survival.
Security. Financial, emotional, and physical.
Belonging.

Self-Esteem Needs:

Being needed.
To feel valuable

Self-Actualization

This is the highest level of happiness.
Striving to do, be, and experience more.
Writing books, creating works of art, climbing mountains, building businesses.
These needs can never be completely satisfied.
Becoming more and more of what you are truly meant to become.

Action Exercises

Identify the areas of your life in which you feel the happiest and the most in control. How could you expand them?
Identify the areas of your life in which you feel controlled by other people or factors. What could you do to resolve these situations?
Identify those areas in your life where there is a gap between your current levels of accomplishment and what you would really like to achieve. What could you do to bridge these gaps?
Identify the most pressing needs you have today that are not being fulfilled. How could you begin to satisfy these deficiency needs?
Identify those activities that give you the greatest feeling of personal happiness, your peak experiences in life. What could you do to increase these moments of happiness?
Identify the areas in your life where you feel the most discontented. What steps could you take immediately to resolve these feelings of discontent?
Define happiness for myself. What does it mean? What would have to happen for me to feel truly happy? What can I do immediately to create this situation.

Chapter 16: Self-Discipline and Personal Health

Self-respect is the root of discipline. The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to one’s self.
There is no area more important to practice self-discipline than your personal health.
Your #1 goal should be to live as long and as well as you possibly can.

Seven Key Health Habits

Eat regularly. Preferably 5-6 times a day.
Eat lightly. Overeating makes you feel sluggish.
Don’t snack between meals.
Exercise regularly. Ideally 30 minutes per day.
Wear a seat belt.
Do not smoke.
Drink alcohol in moderation.

The Five “Ps” of Excellent Health

Proper weight.
Proper diet. Lean source protein. Wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Lots of water.
Proper exercise.
Proper rest.
Proper attitude. Optimism.

Losing Weight

To lose weight permanently you must change your set point to a lower number.
Create a clear mental image of how you will look when at your ideal weight.
Change the quality and quantity of what you eat permanently with no intention of going back.
Set up a reward system for yourself that does not include food, like buying new clothes.
The formula for permanent weight loss: eat less and exercise more.
Avoid the three white poisons, sugar, salt, and flour.

Action Exercises

Idealize with regard to your health. If you could wave a magic wand and make your health perfect in every way, how would it be different from today?
Resolve to make the rest of your life the best of your life. What is the first thing you should change or do?
Get a complete medical examination and ask your doctor for advice on how to enjoy superb levels of physical health. Then follow that advice.
Determine your ideal weight and set it as a goal. Use the goal-setting process from chapter 4 to make a plan to achieve it, and keep it there for life.
Use mind-storming, also described in chapter 4, and write out a list of at least 20 answers to the question “What can I do every day to enjoy superb levels of health and energy?”
Review the health habits and research discussed in this chapter and give yourself a grade ranging from 1-10 on how well you are practicing them.
Decide on one specific action you are going to take immediately to ensure that you live to age 80, 90, and beyond.

Chapter 17: Self-Discipline and Physical Fitness

Mental toughness is a state of mind you could call character in action.

The Benefits of Physical Fitness

Physical fitness is its own reward.
You feel good while exercising and feel wonderful about yourself the rest of the time.
There is no substitute for regular exercise.
The general consensus among experts is you need to exercise 200-300 minutes each week.
If you walk 30 minutes each day you will be one of the healthiest people in society.

Tips on Physical Fitness

The best time to exercise is first thing in the morning.
People who engage in physical exercise in the morning have been shown to be brighter, more creative, and more intelligent throughout the day. They score higher on intelligence tests and have better ideas during the day.
Make exercise a part of your lifestyle.
Consider hiring a personal trainer.
Consider joining an organized sport.
Develop new and better habits.
Whatever you do repeatedly becomes a habit.
You can start today.

Action Exercises

Today is the day. Make a decision that you are going to achieve the best physical condition of your life in the months ahead. Then take action immediately.
Get a complete medical examination so that you know your condition and limits before you begin.
Start walking for 30 minutes each day, preferably first thing in the morning. If not in the morning, right after work.
Join a gym or health club, pay for a year, make an appointment with yourself to work out 5 times a week 60 minutes each time.
Hire a personal trainer and have him or her guide you through an exercise program that includes aerobics, strength, and flexibility exercises each week.
Invest in a treadmill, life-cycle, or elliptical machine and put it in front of your TV so that you can exercise as part of your home and family life.
Start gradually and work up slowly, resolving to exercise for several weeks before you notice a major difference.

Chapter 18: Self-Discipline and Marriage

It is better to control yourself than to win a thousand battles.
Trust and respect are the foundation elements of a successful relationship.
We love what we most value in ourselves and others.
Love is the greatest need in our lives.
A happy marriage requires tremendous self-discipline and control.
I Corinthians 13
Self-discipline in a relationship requires that you be completely honest and open.
Men use 2 centers of their brains when communicating, women use 7 centers of their brains.

Four Disciplines of Listening

Listen attentively. Without interrupting. Listen as though the other person is about to reveal a great secret.
Pause before replying.
Ask for clarification.
Feed it back. Paraphrase in your own words. This proves to the other person you were really listening.

The most compatible couples are those in whom the desire to talk and listen are in balance with each other.
You must have a total commitment to each other.

Two Ways to Avoid Temptation

Make a decision in advance that you will never be unfaithful to your spouse.
Discipline yourself to stay out of harm’s way. Refuse to go anywhere or do anything where temptation may exist.

The Only Four Ways You Can Change Your Life

Do more of some things
Do less of other things
Start something you have never done before
Stop doing certain things altogether

Important Questions

Ask yourself: is there anything I need to do more of, less of, start doing, or stop doing?

Ask your children and your spouse on a regular basis:

Is there anything that I am doing that you would like me to do more of?
Is there anything that I am doing that you would like me to do less of?
Is there anything that you would like me to start doing that I am not doing today?
Is there anything that I am doing that you would like me to stop doing altogether?

Your spouse should be your best friend.

Action Exercises

What is the most important single action you could take right now to increase the love and harmony in your relationship?
What disciplines or practices could I develop that would improve the quality of my marriage for my spouse?
Identify one behavior I could engage in that would improve communication in my marriage.
Sit down with my spouse and ask for ideas on things I should do more of, less of, stop doing, or start doing.
Identify the two qualities that I most admire in my spouse.
Identify the areas in which I and my spouse are most compatible.
Identify the most important values that I and my spouse share.

Chapter 19: Self-Discipline and Children

Right discipline exists not in external compulsion. It exists in habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable, rather than undesirable, activities.
Becoming a parent is one of the most important things you will ever do.
Children need love almost as much as they need oxygen.
Children spell love T-I-M-E.
The greatest gift you can give children is love.
Long-term thinking: anything you do, or fail to do, with your children during their formative years will have a lasting impact for generations to come.

Discipline vs Development

Raise your children with a sense of responsibility and self-control.
Your example is the most powerful influence you have on your children.
Your example sets the standard for your children.
Building character.
Teach them what values are important; especially those of integrity and truth-telling.
If your children lie to you, who has made them afraid to tell the truth?
Think before you act or re-act, control yourself and your temper.

The Power of Forgiveness

The inability to forgive is at the root of most negative emotions.
Children will make countless mistakes while growing up.
Whenever you make a mistake with a child, apologize and ask for forgiveness.
Teaching your children is never-ending.

Action Exercises

What two qualities would you like your children to identify with you by observing your behavior?
What two qualities would you like most to instill in your children and how could you achieve this?
If you were an excellent role model for your children, how would your behaviors be different starting today?
What mistakes have my children made that I should forgive and forget about starting immediately?
What actions am I going to take immediately to spend more time with my children?
What actions should I take to instill the quality of truthfulness in my children?
How could I encourage and reward my children so they practice greater self-discipline, self-control, and self-mastery?

For further reading on parenting see my book summary of The Gift of Failure, or my summary of Boys Should be Boys, or my summary of When Work and Family Collide.

Chapter 20: Self-Discipline and Friendship

Everything you want in life has a price connected to it.
There is a price to pay if you want to make things better; a price to pay for leaving things as they are.
85% of your happiness will come from happy relationships with other people.
Friendships are important to your wellbeing.
Become absolutely excellent in human relations.
This is a learnable skill.

Your Self-Image

Your self-image is made up of three parts.

The way you see yourself.
The way you think others see you.
The way people actually do see you and treat you.

You are only truly happy when you feel all three parts of your self-image coincide.

The Law of Indirect Effort

Get out of yourself and your own preoccupations.
If you want to have a friend you must first be a friend.
If you want people to like you; you must first like them.
If you want people to respect you; you should first respect them. Etc.
By approaching people indirectly you appeal to their deepest subconscious needs.
Raise other people’s self-esteem.
Focus on making other people feel important.
When you say something to raise the self-esteem of another person you trigger a boomerang effect that causes your own self-esteem to go up at the same time and in the same measure.
Instead of focusing on trying to get other people to like, respect and be impressed by you, focus first on trying to like and be impressed by them.
To the degree to which you can make other people feel important, you will become one of the most popular people in your world.

Seven Ways to Make Other People Feel Important

Accept people the way they are.
Show your appreciation for others.
Be agreeable.
Show your admiration.
Pay attention to others.
Never criticize, condemn or complain about anything, whether it be directly or indirectly. Never say anything that lowers another person’s self-esteem.
Be courteous, concerned and considerate of everyone you meet.

The key to good listening is asking questions and hanging on to every word of the answers. Ask people how they are doing and listen considerately. Resolve that from now on, when people leave your presence they will feel much better than they did when they entered your presence.

Action Exercises

Make a list of the most important friends in my work and personal life. What can I do to make them feel better about themselves?
Identify the first thing I could do in every meeting or encounter to make the other person feel important.
Resolve to make each person feel more valuable and worthwhile because he or she spoke to you.
Practice non-judgmental-ism in all of your relationships. Always assume the best of intentions on the part of others.
Imagine that each person you meet has only a short time to live, and you are the only person who knows.
Find something about each person that is impressive to you and then tell the other person how impressed you are.
Imagine there is a hidden camera and microphone recording every interaction you have with other people, how would you behave differently?

Chapter 21: Self-Discipline and Peace of Mind

Men are anxious to improve their circumstances but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. – James Allen

Your ability to achieve your own peace of mind is the true measure of your success.
Spiritual development, inner peace, and the experience of joy all require self-mastery and self-control.

How to Succeed in the Outer World and Inner World

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? – Dr. Gerald Jampolsky
Refuse to blame anyone for anything.
Blame is the chief cause of negative emotions and primary destroyer of inner peace.

Two causes of blaming:

Attachment
Justification

Discipline yourself to stop justifying your negative emotions.

Practice Forgiveness

The height of self-discipline and spiritual development is the practice of forgiveness.
The law of forgiveness: you are mentally and emotionally healthy to the degree to which you can freely forgive anyone who has hurt you in any way.
The only question that matters after you’ve had a negative experience is how long does it take you to get over this event and get on with your life.
Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person, you forgive so that you yourself can be emotionally free.

Action Exercises

Take the forgiveness test. Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?
Identify the people from your past who you feel have hurt you in any way, make a decision today to forgive them and let go of those negative feelings.
Find reasons not to justify your negative emotions of blame or anger and use your intelligence to accept responsibility.
Set peace of mind as your highest goal and resolve to let go of any thoughts or emotions that disturb you in any way.
Begin today to read something spiritual and uplifting each morning before you begin your day. This habit will change your life.
From now on, refuse to take things personally. Ask yourself how much it will matter 5 years from today.
Practice the Buddhist method of detachment from money and material things, refuse to become upset or worried about anything.

Key Questions from No Excuses

Is there anyone else who has my same excuse but is successful anyway?
Why are some people more successful than others?
Why do some people accomplish so much more?
How shall we live in order to be happy?
How do you define success?
If you could wave a magic wand and make your life perfect in every way, what would it look like?
If your business, work, and career were ideal in every way, what would they look like?
What sort of a company would you work for?
What position would you have?
How much money would you earn?
What kind of people would you work with?
What would you need to do more or less of to create your perfect career?
Questions about your ideal family life:
- Where would you live?
- How would you be living?
- What kind of a lifestyle would you have?
- What things would you want to have and do with the members of your family?
- If you had no limitations, in what ways would you change your family life today?
- Perfect health – What steps can you take immediately to move toward your ideal levels of health and energy?
Questions about your financial situation:
- How much would you have in the bank?
- How much would you be earning each month and each year from your investments?
- If you had enough money so that you never had to worry about finances again, how much would that be?
- What steps can you take, starting today, to create your ideal financial life?
If your work life and career were ideal, what would they look like? What one discipline could you develop that would help you to achieve it?
If your family life were ideal, what would that look like? What one discipline would help you the very most to make it a reality?
If your health were perfect in every way, what discipline would you have that would make that possible?
If your financial situation were ideal today, what one discipline would you have that would help you the most?
Why aren’t you already as successful as you would like to be. What one discipline would help you the most to achieve all your goals?
What one skill could you develop that would help you to realize more of your goals?
If you could wave a magic wand and be completely disciplined in any one area, which one discipline would have the greatest positive impact on your life?
If you could spend an afternoon with anyone, living or dead, what one person would you chose and why?
What would you talk about during your afternoon together?
What questions would you ask?
What would you want to learn?
Why would that person want to spend an afternoon with you?
What are the virtues and values that you have developed that make you a valuable and interesting person?
What makes you special?
What situations give you your greatest feelings of self-esteem and personal worth?
If you were already an excellent person in every respect, how would you behave differently from today onward?
What one quality would you like people to think of when your name is mentioned? What could you do to ensure this happens?
In what one area do you need to be more truthful and practice higher levels of integrity than you do today?
If you could wave a magic wand and become absolutely excellent in any one skill, which one skill would have the greatest impact on your earning ability?
Is it possible for you to increase your performance by 1/10th of 1% in a working day (one one-thousandth)?
Ask two magic questions after every call or event.
- What did I do right?
- What would I do differently?
What have you always wanted to do but been afraid to attempt? What would you do differently if you were guaranteed success?
What one great goal would you set for yourself if you knew you could not fail?
What would you do differently in life if you had $20 million dollars in the bank but only 10 years left to live?
Each morning before you go to work, ask yourself “do I look like one of the top people in my field?”
Stand back and look at every area of your business as if you were an outside consultant. What changes would you recommend?
Imagine you were starting your business over again today. Are there any products or services that you would not bring to the current market?
Identify the 20% of your products and services that account for 80% of your profit. How could you sell more of them?
Project forward one, two, and five years in your business. What are the trends? What will your customers be buying in the future?
Is this the very best use of my time?
Why am I on the payroll?
- What have I been hired to do? What results are expected of me?
What are my key result areas?
- Of all the things I do, what are the most important results I am expected to achieve in my position?
What are my highest value activities?
- Of all the things I do, which activities contribute the greatest value to my company and to myself?
- I have core competencies that enable me to make a valuable contribution, what are they?
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?
Problem Solving Questions
- Is it really a problem?
- What else is the problem?
- How did this problem occur?
- What are all the possible solutions?
- What is the best solution at this time?
- Who is going to carry out the solution?
- What are you trying to accomplish with this decision, and how will you measure the results?
- How will you know that it worked?
Is there anything I need to do more of, less of, start doing, or stop doing?
Ask your children and your spouse on a regular basis:
- Is there anything that I am doing that you would like me to do more of?
- Is there anything that I am doing that you would like me to do less of?
- Is there anything that you would like me to start doing that I am not doing today?
- Is there anything that I am doing that you would like me to stop doing altogether?
What is the most important single action you could take right now to increase the love and harmony in your relationship?
What disciplines or practices could I develop that would improve the quality of my marriage for my spouse?
What two qualities would you like your children to identify with you by observing your behavior?
What two qualities would you like most to instill in your children and how could you achieve this?
If you were an excellent role model for your children, how would your behaviors be different starting today?
What mistakes have my children made that I should forgive and forget about starting immediately?
What actions am I going to take immediately to spend more time with my children?
What actions should I take to instill the quality of truthfulness in my children?
How could I encourage and reward my children so they practice greater self-discipline, self-control, and self-mastery?

Related Book Summaries

Hope you enjoyed this and got value from my notes.
This is the 58th book read in my 2018 reading list.
Here is a list of all my book summaries.

Goals

No Excuses by Brian Tracy21 Ways to Achieve Lasting Happiness and Success

My Thoughts

My Favorite Quotes

Key Questions

No Excuses by Brian Tracy Outline

Introduction

The Path of Least Resistance

The Expediency Factor (an extension of the law of least resistance)

Think Long-Term

Part 1: Self Discipline and Personal Success

Chapter 1: Self-Discipline and Personal Success

Action Exercises

Chapter 2: Self-Discipline and Character

Development of Character.

The Structure of Personality

Action Exercises

Chapter 3: Self-Discipline and Responsibility

Eliminating Negative Emotions

Excuses

Responsibility and Control

Action Exercises

Chapter 4: Self-Discipline and Goals

The 3% Factor

The Discipline of Writing (Your Goals)

The Seven Step Method to Achieving Your Goals

The Ten Goal Exercise

Mind-Storming Goals

Action Exercises

Chapter 5: Self-Discipline and Personal Excellence

You are Your Most Valuable Asset

Join the Top 20%

Three Steps to Becoming the Best in Your Field

How to Increase Your Income by 1000%.

Seven Steps to Accomplish the 1000% Income Increase

Action Exercises

Chapter 6: Self-Discipline and Courage

Tips and Advice About Courage

Disaster Reports to Destroy Fear

Action Exercises

Chapter 7: Self-Discipline and Persistence

Action Exercises

Part 2: Business, Sales, and Personal Finances

Chapter 8: Self-Discipline and Work

Poor Time Management

Develop an Excellent Reputation

The Law of Three

Calculate Your Hourly Rate

Develop Your Reputation and Work Ethic

Pay the Price

The 40+ Formula

Look the Part – Dress for Success

Action Exercises

Chapter 9: Self-Discipline and Leadership

Four Stages of Development

Leaders Have Vision

Seven Principles of Leadership

Leadership Qualities

Action Exercises

Chapter 10: Self-Discipline and Business

The First Discipline of Business Success

Identify Your Ideal Customer

The Discipline to Develop a Customer Service Policy

Set High Standards

Action Exercises

Chapter 11: Self-Discipline and Sales

How to Double Your Sales Income

Keys to Sales Success

Action Exercises

Chapter 12: Self-Discipline and Money

Saving Money and Delayed Gratification

The Laws of Attraction and Accumulation

Action Exercises

Chapter 13: Self-Discipline and Time Management

Time Management is Life Management

Procrastination is the thief of dreams.

Personal Strategic Planning

Priority vs Posteriority

A System for Managing Your Time

Questions to Ask Yourself

Start today!

No Excuses by Brian Tracy
21 Ways to Achieve Lasting Happiness and Success