Client Advocate Network

Best Practices Article - KNOWLEDGE

FRUMI BARR'S BOOK NOTES:
"The Success Principles - How to Get From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be"
(Part one of two)

REVIEW BY:
Frumi Rachel Barr, Ph.D.
Frumi is an Associate Director with CLIENT ADVOCATE NETWORK specializing in executive coaching & mentoring of members of the executive management team

Author: Jack Canfield
Publisher: Harper Collins
Copyright year: 2005
ISBN: 978-06-059489-3

Author's Bio: Jack Canfield is the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. He is an internationally known corporate trainer, keynote speaker, and popular radio and TV talk show guest.
Author's big thought: The Success Principles will teach you to increase your confidence, tackle daily challenges, live with passion and purpose and realize all your ambitions. The book spells out the 64 timeless principles use by successful men and women throughout history.

I. The Fundamentals of Success

Principle 1: Take 100% Responsibility for Your Life

There is only one person responsible for the quality of the life you live. That person is you.

If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life.
It is only by acknowledging that you have created everything up until now that you can take charge of creating the future you want.
(Event + Response = Outcome)
Every outcome you experience in life is the result of how you have responded to an earlier event or events in your life. If you don't like the outcomes you are currently getting, there are two basic choices you can make.
You can blame the event (E) for your lack of results (O).
You can instead simply change your responses to the events (E)-the way things are-until you get the outcomes (O) you want.
Everything you experience today is the result of choices you have made in the past
You only have control over three things in your life-the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take (your behavior). How you use these three things determines everything you experience.
If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got
You have to give up blaming
You have to give up complaining
If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be, of course you're going to have to take that risk.
Learn to replace complaining with making requests and taking action that will achieve your desired outcomes.
You either create or allow everything that happens to you
To be powerful, you need to take the position that you create or allow everything that happens to you.
You are in charge of your current thoughts and your present feelings. You are in charge of what you say and what you do. You are also in charge of what goes into your mind.
To be more successful, all you have to do is act in ways that produce more of what you want.
Don't be afraid to ask for feedback. You are better off knowing the truth than not knowing it.
S1ow down and pay attention.
Do more of what is working, do less of what isn't, and try on new behaviors to see if they produce better results.
The easiest, fastest, and best way to find out what is or isn't working is to pay attention to the results you are currently producing.
You have to give up the excuses and justifications and come to terms with the results you are producing.
Be ruthlessly honest with yourself Take your own inventory.

Principle 2: Be Clear Why You're Here

Each of us is born with a life purpose. Identifying, acknowledging, and honoring this purpose is perhaps the most important action successful people take.
Once you know what your life purpose is, you can organize all of your activities around it. Everything you do should be an expression of your purpose.
The things that bring you the greatest joy are in alignment with your purpose.
Once you have determined and written down your life purpose, read it every day, preferably in the morning.

Principle 3: Decide What You Want

Once you have decided why you are here, you have to decide what you want to do, be, and have.
One of the main reasons why most people don't get what they want is they haven't decided what they want. They haven't defined their desires in clear and compelling detail.
Don't Live Someone Else's Dreams
You start on the smallest level by honoring your preferences in every situation-no matter how large or small.
Stop settling for less than you want. Not being clear about what you want and making other people's needs and desires more important than your own is simply a habit.
Make An "I Want" List - Make a list of 20 things you love to do, and then think of ways you can mike a living doing some of those things.
Clarify Your Vision Of Your Ideal Life. Your vision is a detailed description of where you want to get to. To create a balanced and successful life, your vision needs to include the following seven areas: work and career, finances, recreation and free time, health and fitness, relationships, personal goals, and contribution to the larger community. If you get clear on the what, the how will be taken care of. Decide where want to go by clarifying your vision, lock in the destination through goal-setting, affirmations, and visualization, and start moving in the right direction- Once you are clear about what you want and keep your mind constantly focused on it, the how will keep showing up.
High Achievers Have Bigger Visions. Don't limit your vision in any way.
Don't Let Anyone Talk You Out Of Your Vision
Share Your Vision For Maximum Impact. Share your vision with a good friend whom you can trust to be positive and supportive.
You'll find that when you share your vision, some people will want to help you make it happen. Each time you share your vision it becomes clearer and feels more real and attainable. And most importantly, every time you share your vision, you strengthen your own subconscious belief that you can achieve it.

Principle 4: Believe It's Possible

You Get What You Expect
We respond to what the brain, on the basis of previous experience, expects to happen next.
Because our brain expects something will happen a certain way, we often achieve exactly at we anticipate. This is why it's so important to hold positive expectations in your mind. When you replace your old negative expectations with more positive ones- When you begin to believe that what you want is possible-your brain will actually take over the job of accomplishing that possibility for you.
Believe In Yourself And Go For It

Principle 5: Believe in Yourself

If you are going to be successful in creating the life of your dreams, you have to believe that you are capable of making it happen.
Believing In Yourself Is An Attitude: It's now your responsibility to take charge of your own self-concept and your beliefs. You must choose to believe that you can do anything you set your mind to-
If you assume in favor of yourself and act as if it is possible, then you will do the things that are necessary to bring about the result. If you believe it is impossible, you will not do what is necessary, and you will not produce the result. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Choice Of What To Believe Is Up To You
If you are going to be successful, you need to give up the phrase "I can't" and all of its cousins, such as "I wish I were able to." The words I can't actually empower you. They actually make you weaker when you say them.
Your brain is designed to solve any problem and reach any goal that you give it. The words you think and say actually affect your body.
It's All About Attitude
Don't Assume You Need A College Degree
What Others Think About You Is None Of Your Business
If having others believing in you and your dream was a requirement for success, most of us would never accomplish anything. You need to base your decisions about what you want to do on your goals and desires-not the goals, desires, opinions, and judgments of your parents, friends, spouse, children, and coworkers. Quit worrying what other people think about you and follow your heart.

Principle 6: Become an Inverse Paranoid

Imagine how much easier it would be to succeed in life if you were constantly expecting the world to support you and bring you opportunity Successful people do just that.
Look For The Opportunity In Everything
If you take the approach that "good" is not an accident-that everyone and everything that shows up in your life is there for a reason-and that the universe is moving you toward your ultimate destiny for learning, growth. and achievement, you'll begin to see every event-no matter how difficult or challenging-as a chance for enrichment and advancement in your life.

Principle 7: Unleash the Power of Goal-Setting

Once you know your life purpose, determine your vision, and clarify what our true needs and desires are, you have to convert them into specific, measurable goals and objectives and then act on them with the certainty that you will achieve them.
Whatever goal you give to your subconscious mind, it will work night and day to achieve.
To make sure a goal unleashes the power of your subconscious mind, it must meet two criteria. It must be stated in a way that you and anybody else could measure it. The two criteria are how much (some measurable quantity such as pages, pounds, dollars, square feet, or points) and by when (a specific time and date).
Write It Out In Detail. When you write it all down, your subconscious mind will know what to work on. It will know which opportunities to hone in on to help you reach your goal.
You Need Goals That Stretch You. The ultimate goal, in addition to achieving your material goals, is to become a master at life. And to do this, you will need to learn new skills, expand your vision of what's possible, build new relationships, and learn to overcome your fears, considerations, and roadblocks.
Create a Breakthrough Goal that would represent a quantum leap for you and your career. By a breakthrough goal the author means something that changes your life, brings you new opportunities, gets you in front of the right people, and takes every activity, relationship or group you are involved in to a higher level.
Read Your Goals Three Times A Day
Activate the creative powers of your subconscious mind by reviewing your list two or three times every day.
By constantly repeating and visualizing your goal as already achieved, you will be increasing this structural tension. This will increase your motivation, stimulate your creativity, and heighten your awareness of resources that can help you achieve your goal.
Create A Goals Book
Carry Your Most Important Goal In Your Wallet
Considerations, Fears, And Roadblocks
It's important to understand that as soon as you set a goal, three things are going to emerge that stop most people-These three obstacles to success are considerations, fears, and roadblocks.
They are all the reasons why you shouldn't attempt the goal-all t the reasons why it is impossible. But surfacing these considerations is a good thing. They are how you have been subconsciously stopping yourself all along. Now that you have brought them into conscious awareness, you can deal with them, confront them, and move past them. Fears, on the other hand, are feelings. You may experience a fear of rejection, a fear of failure, or a fear of making a fool of yourself. These fears are not unusual. They are just part of the process.
Finally you'll become aware of roadblocks. These are purely external circumstances. Roadblocks are simply obstacles that the world throws at you. Unfortunately when these considerations, fears, and roadblocks come up, most people see them as a stop sign.
In fact, they're supposed to appear. If they don't, it means you haven't set a goal that's big enough to stretch you and grow you. Once you can see these subconscious thoughts, feelings, and obstacles. Once you are aware of them, you can face them, process them, and deal with them.
Mastery Is The Goal. The ultimate benefit of overcoming these considerations, fears, and roadblocks is not the material rewards that you enjoy but the personal development that you achieve in the process.

Principle 8: Chunk It Down

The next step is to determine a11 of the individual action steps you will need to take to accomplish your goal.

Consult with people who have already done what you want to do and ask what steps they took.
Purchase a book or manual that outlines the process.
Yet another way is to start from the end and look backward.

A valuable technique for creating an action plan for your goals is called mind mapping.
Next, Make A Daily To-Do List then schedule them in the appropriate order into your calendar and do whatever it takes to stay on schedule.
Do First Things First - When you accomplish your toughest task early in the day, it sets the tone for the rest of your day. It creates momentum and builds your confidence, both of which move you farther and faster toward your goal.
Plan Your Day The Night Before -

Your subconscious mind will work on these tasks all night. It will think of creative ways to solve any problem, overcome any obstacle, and achieve your desired outcomes.
You can start your day running.

Principle 9: Success Leaves Clues

Almost everything you want to do has already been done by someone else. Someone has already done it and left clues in the form of books, manuals, audio and video programs, university classes, online courses, seminars, and workshops.
All you have to do is follow the blueprint, use the system, or work the program that they provide. Most people love to talk about how they built their business or accomplished their goals.

Principle 10: Release the Brakes

Most people drive through life with their psychological emergency brake on.
Successful people, on the other hand, have discovered that instead of using increased willpower as the engine to power their success, it's simply easier to "release the brakes" by letting go of and replacing their limiting beliefs and changing their self-images.
Get out of your comfort zone. Our comfort zone consists of the collection of can'ts, musts, must nots, and other unfounded beliefs formed from all the negative thoughts and decisions you have accumulated and reinforced during your lifetime.
There are three different ways to change your comfort zone:

You can use affirmations and positive self-talk to affirm already having what you want, doing what you want, and being the way you want.
You can create powerful and compelling new internal images of having, doing, and being what you want.
You can simply change your behavior

Stop Re-Creating the Same Experience Over and Over! To change this cycle, you must focus instead on thinking, talking and writing about the reality you want t create. You must flood your unconscious with thoughts and images of this new reality.
You have an internal psychological thermostat that regulates your level of performance in the world.
Change Your Self-Talk with Affirmations. One way to stretch your comfort zone is to bombard your subconscious mind with new thoughts and images. The technique you use to do this is called affirmations. An affirmation is a statement that describes a goal in its already completed state.
The Nine Guidelines For Creating Effective Affirmations

Start with the words I am.
Use the present tense.
State it in the positive. Affirm what you want, not what you don't want.
Keep it brief.
Make it specific.
Include an action word ending with -ing.
Include at least one dynamic emotion or feeling word.
Make affirmations for yourself, not others.
Add or something better.

Example: I am enjoying living in my beautiful beachfront villa on the Ka'anapali coast of Maui or somewhere better.

Principle 11: See What You Want, Get What You See

Visualization, or the act of creating compelling and vivid pictures in your mind, greatly accelerates the achievement of any success in three powerful ways.

Visualization activates the creative powers of your subconscious mind.
Visualization focuses your brain by programming its reticular activating system (RAS) to notice available resources that were always there but were previously unnoticed.
Visualization magnetizes and attracts to you the people, resources, and opportunities you need to achieve your goal.

Your brain sees no difference whatsoever between visualizing something and actually doing it.
Visualization simply makes the brain achieve more.
When you visualize your goals as already complete each and every day, it creates a conflict in your subconscious mind between what you are visualizing and what you currently have. Your subconscious mind tries to resolve that conflict by turning your current reality into the new, more exciting vision.
The process of visualizing for success is really quite simple. All you have to do is close your eyes and see your goals as already complete. Fill in all of the details. Make the images as clear and bright as possible.
To multiply the effect many times over, add sound, smells, tastes, and feelings to your pictures. When accompanied by intense emotions, an image or scene can ay locked in the memory forever.
If you have trouble seeing your goals, use pictures, images, and symbols you collect to keep your conscious and subconscious mind focused on your goals.
Start Now- Set aside time each and every day to visualize every one of your goals as already complete. This is one of the most vital things you can do to make your dreams come true.

Principle 12: Act as If

One of the great strategies for success is to act as if you are already where you want to be.
Acting as if sends powerful commands to your subconscious mind to find creative ways to achieve your goals. It programs the reticular activating system (RAS) in your brain to start noticing anything that will help you succeed, and it sends strong messages to the universe that this end goal is something you really want.
The Law of Attraction simply states that like attracts like. The more you create the vibration-the mental and emotional states-of already having something, the faster you attract it to you.
Be, Do, and Have Everything You Want Starting Now
Successful people exude self-confidence, ask for what they want, and say what they don't want. And as soon as you start acting as if, you will start drawing to you the very people and things that will help you achieve it in real life.
The proper order of things is to start now and be who you want to be, and then do the actions that go along with being that person, and soon you will find that you easily have everything you want in life.

Principle 13: Take Action

When you take action, you trigger all kinds of things that will inevitably carry you to success.
The one thing that seems to separate winners from losers more than anything else is that winners take action. They simply up and do what has to be done. Once they have developed a plan, they start.
Even if they don't start perfectly, they learn from their mistakes, make the necessary corrections, and keep taking action, all the time building momentum, until they finally produce the result they set out to produce . or something even better than they conceived of when they started.
It's time to stop holding yourself back and just go for the gold.
Planning has its place, but it must be kept in perspective. Some people spend their whole lives waiting for the perfect time to do something. There's rarely a "perfect" time to do anything. What is important is to just get started.
Fail Forward. Many people fail to take action because they're afraid to fail. Successful people, on the other hand, realize that failure is an important part of the learning process. They know that failure is just a way we learn by trial and error. Not only do we need to stop being so afraid of failure but we also need to be willing to fail. This kind of instructive failure is "failing forward." Simply get started, make mistakes, listen to the feedback, correct, and keep moving forward toward the goal. Every experience will yield up more useful information that you can apply the next time.
Mistakes are just opportunities for learning something new.

Principle 14: Just Lean into It

Oftentimes, success happens when you just lean into it - when you make yourself open to opportunities and are willing to do what it takes to pursue it further - without a contract, without a promise of success, without any expectation whatsoever.
You begin creating momentum - that unseen energy force that brings more opportunity, more resources, and more people who can help you into your life at seemingly just the right time for you to benefit the most from them.
Be Willing To Start Without Seeing The Whole Path - Simply start, then keep taking what feel like logical next steps, and the journey will ultimately take you to where you want to go-or even someplace better.
Often when you lean into it, roadblocks are put in your path to force you onto different path-a path that may be truer to your real purpose.

Principle 15: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

As you move forward on your journey from where you are to where you want to be, you are going to have to confront your fears. Fear is natural.
Successful people feel the fear along with the rest of us but don't let it keep them from doing anything they want to do- or have to do. They understand that fear is something to be acknowledged, experienced, and taken along for the ride.
Fear is a signal that we must stay alert and cautious. We knowledge that fear exists but don't let it keep you from doing important tasks.
Almost all of our fears are now self-created. Because we are the ones doing the fantasizing, we are also the ones who can stop the fear and bring ourselves into a state of clarity and peace by facing the actual facts, rather than giving in to our imaginations. Fear is Fantasized Experiences Appearing Real
Make a list of the things you are afraid to do. Reframe your fears as follows:
I want to ask my friends to look at my new business opportunity, and I scare myself by imagining they will think I am only interested making money off of them.
How to Get Rid Of Fear. One way to actually disappear your fear is to ask yourself what you're imagining that is scary to you, and then replace that image with its positive opposite.
Replace the Physical Sensations Fear Brings. Focus on those feelings you would like to be experiencing stead-courage, self-confidence, calm, joy.
Remember When You Triumphed In The Face Of Fear
Scale Down The Risk - If a fear is so big that it paralyzes you, scale down the amount of risk. Take on smaller challenges and work your way up.
High Intention... Low Attachment. If you want to remain calm and peaceful as you go through life, you have to have high intention and low attachment. You do everything you can to create your desired outcomes, and then you let it go.
When things don't unfold as you anticipated, always ask yourself the question "What's the possibility that this is?"

Principle 16: Be Willing to Pay the Price

Behind every great achievement is a story of education, training, practice, discipline, and sacrifice. You have to be willing to pay the price.
Maybe that price is pursuing one single activity while putting everything se in your life on hold. Maybe it's investing all of your own personal wealth savings. Maybe it's the willingness to walk away from the safety of your current situation.
But though many things are typically required to reach a successful outcome, the willingness to do what's required adds that extra dimension to the mix that helps you persevere in the face of overwhelming challenges, setbacks, pain, and even personal injury.
Putting In the Time. Part of paying the price is the willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done. It comes from a declaration that you are going to get it done no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, no matter what comes up. It's a done deal. You are responsible for the results you intend. No excuses, just a world-class performance or an outstanding result that can be counted on.
It's About Building Momentum. Creating momentum is an important part of the success process. In fact successful people know that if you are willing to pay the price in the beginning, you can reap the benefits for the rest of your life.
You have to be willing to go through that awkward stage in order to become proficient.
To gain a new skill or get better at anything you want to do, you have to be willing to keep on going in the face of looking foolish and feeling stupid for a time.
Find Out The Price You Have To Pay The first step is to investigate the steps that will be required to achieve your desired goal. You might want to make a list of several people who have already done what you want to do and interview them about what sacrifices they had to make along the way.
You may discover that some costs are more than you want to pay. You may not want to risk your health, your relationships, or your entire life savings for a certain goal. You have to weigh all of the factors. Only you can decide what is right for you and what price you are willing to pay

Principle 17: Ask! Ask! Ask!

Surprisingly, asking-one of the most powerful success principles of all-is still a challenge that holds most people back. If you are like most people, you may be holding yourself back by not asking for the information, assistance, support, money, and time that you need to fulfill your vision and make your dreams come true.
Why People Are Afraid To Ask They are afraid of hearing the word no. The sad thing is that they're actually rejecting themselves in advance. They're saying no to themselves before anyone else even has a chance to.
How To Ask For What You Want -

Ask as if you expect to get it.
Assume you can.
Ask someone who can give it to you.
Be clear and specific. Vague requests produce vague results. Your requests need to be specific. When it comes to money, you need to ask for a specific amount. When it comes to when you want something done, don't say "soon" or "whenever it's convenient." Give a specific date and time. When it comes to a behavioral request, be specific. Say exactly what you want the person to do.
Ask repeatedly. One of the most important principles of success is persistence, not giving up!

You may have the capacity, but you also have to have the tenacity! To be successful, you have to ask, ask ask
You Have Nothing to Lose and Everything to Gain by Asking. To be successful, you have to take risks, and one of the risks is the willingness to risk rejection.
Start Asking Today Write down what it is costing you not to ask. Then write down what benefit you would get if you were to ask.

Principle 18: Reject Rejection

If you are going to be successful, you are going to need to learn how to deal with rejection. Rejection is a natural part of life.
To get over rejection, you have to realize that rejection is really a myth. It t is simply a concept that you hold in your head.
The truth is, you never have anything to lose by asking, and because there is something to possibly gain, by all means ask.
Whenever you ask anyone for anything, remember the following SWSWSW, which stands for "some will, some won't; so what-someone's waiting." It is simply a numbers game.
If you're committed to a cause that evokes your passion and commitment, you keep learning from your experiences, and you stay the course to the end, you will eventually create your desired outcome.
Someone, somewhere, sometime will say yes.
Remember, to get what you want you are going to need to ask, ask, ask, and say next, next, next until you get the yes(es) you are looking for! Asking is, was, and always will be a numbers game. It isn't personal. It's just not a match until it is.

Principle 19: Use Feedback to Your Advantage

There Are Two Kinds Of Feedback -there is as much useful data in negative feedback as there is in positive feedback. It tells that we are off course, headed in the wrong direction, doing the wrong thing.
One of the most useful projects you could undertake is to change how you feel about negative feedback. Think of it as "improvement opportunities."
To reach your goals more quickly, you need to welcome, receive, and embrace all the feedback that comes your way.
All we have to do is to start to take action and then respond to the feedback. If we do that diligently enough and long enough, we will eventually get to our goals and achieve our dreams.
Ways Of Responding To Feedback That Don't Work

Caving in and quitting: It's easier not to cave in when you receive feedback if you remember that feedback is simply information. Stop taking feedback so personally.
Getting mad at the source of the feedback.
Ignoring the feedback

To get honest and open feedback, you are going to need to ask for it .and make it safe for the person to give it to you.
The Most Valuable Question You May Ever Learn: On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the quality of our relationship (service/product) during the last week (month etc.)
Any answer less than a 10 gets the follow-up question: What would it take to make it a 10?
Make it a habit to end every project, meeting, class, training, consultation, and with the two questions.
Be Willing To Ask Most people are afraid to ask for corrective feedback because they are afraid what they are going to hear. You cannot improve your life, your relationships, your game, or your performance without feedback.

First you must intentionally and actively solicit feedback.
Second, you must be grateful for the feedback.

Listen To The Feedback Listen externally to what others may be telling you, but also listen internally to what your body, your feelings, and your instincts may be telling you. Whatever feedback you get, don't ignore the yellow alerts. Never go against your gut. If it doesn't feel right to you, it probably isn't.
Not all feedback is useful or accurate. You must consider the source.
Look for patterns in the feedback you get. If several people are telling you the same thing, there is probably some truth in it.
What To Do When The Feedback Tells You You've Failed

Acknowledge you did the best you could with the awareness, knowledge, and skills you had at the time.
Acknowledge that you survived and that you can absolutely cope with any and all of the consequences or results.
Write down everything you learned from the experience.
Make sure to thank everyone for their feedback and their insights.
Clean up any messes that have been created and deliver any communications that are necessary to complete the experience, including any apologies or regrets that are due.
Do not try to hide le failure.
Take some time to go back and review your successes
Regroup. Spend some time with positive loving friends, family, and coworkers who can reaffirm your worth and your contribution
Refocus on your vision. Incorporate the lessons learned, recommit to your original plan, or create a new plan of action, and then get on with it.

Principle 20: Commit to Constant and Never-Ending Improvement

Achievers-whether in business, sports, or the arts-are committed to continual improvement. If you today's world a 'certain amount of improvement is necessary just to keep up with the rapid pace of change.
To thrive, as successful people do, a more dedicated approach to improvement is required.
Beginning in small, manageable steps gives you a greater chance of long term success.
Whatever your goal, decide where you want to improve and what steps you'll need take to achieve that improvement.
To keep yourself focused on constant and never-ending improvement, ask yourself every day, "How can I/we improve today?
Becoming a master takes time. You have to practice, practice, practice! You have to hone your skills through constant use and refinement.

Principle 21: Keep Score for Success

Successful people keep score of exciting progress, positive behavior, and financial gain... anything they want more of.
Decide where you need to keep score in order to manifest your vision and achieve your goals.
Make sure to keep score in all the areas of your life.
Post your scores where you and any others playing the game can easily see them.

Principle 22: Practice Persistence

Persistence is probably the single most common quality of high achievers. They simply refuse to give up. No matter how hard it seems, the longer you persist the more likely your success.
Sometimes you are going to have to persist in the face of obstacles that no amount of planning or forethought could have predicted. And sometimes, the universe will test your commitment to the goal you're pursuing. The going may be hard, requiring you to refuse to give up while you learn new lessons, develop new parts of yourself, and make difficult decisions.
Whenever you confront an obstacle or run into a roadblock, you can come up with three different strategies for handling the potential obstacle.
Always be solution oriented in your thinking. Persevere until you find a way that works.

Principle 23: Practice the Rule of 5

The Rule of 5 simply means that every day, we do five specific things that will move our goal toward completion.

Principle 24: Exceed Expectations

Exceeding expectations helps you stand above the crowd. Almost by force of habit, successful people simply do more. As a result, they experience not only greater financial rewards for their extra efforts but also a personal transformation, becoming more self-confident, more self-reliant, and more influential with those around them.
When you give more than is expected, you are more likely to receive promotions, raises, bonuses, and extra benefits. You will always be the first hired and the last fired. Your business will make more money and attract lifelong loyal customers.
You'll also find that you feel more satisfied at the end of each day. But you have to start now for the rewards to begin appearing. Business that goes the extra mile earns the respect, loyalty, and referrals of its customers.
Surprise people with more than they expect.

II. Transform Yourself for Success

Principle 25: Drop Out of the "Ain't It Awful" Club... and Surround Yourself with Successful People

"You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with". Jim Rohn
If you want to be more successful you have to start hanging out with more successful people.
But to be surrounded with those who've done it; you need to be surrounded with people who have a positive attitude, a solution-oriented approach to life-people who know that they can accomplish whatever they set out to do.
Be Selective - Stop ending time with those people with a minus sign next to their name. If that impossible (and remember, nothing is impossible; it is always a choice), then severely decrease the amount of time you spend with them. You have to free yourself from the negative influence of others. They are psychic vampires. Stop spending time with them.
Avoid Toxic People - Until you reach the point in your self-development where you no longer allow people to affect you with their negativity, you need to avoid toxic people at all costs.
Make a conscious effort to surround yourself with positive, nourishing, and uplifting people-people who believe in you, encourage you to go after your dreams, and applaud your victories. Surround yourself with possibility inkers, idealists, and visionaries.
If you are going to be successful, you have to start hanging out with the successful people. You need to ask them to share their success strategies with you.

Principle 26: Acknowledge Your Positive Past

There was almost always more emotional intensity around your errors, mistakes, and failures than there was around your successes. Because the brain more easily remembers events that were accompanied by strong emotions, most people underestimate and under-appreciate the number of successes they've had in relation to the number of failures they've had. One of the ways to counteract this phenomenon is to consciously focus on and celebrate your successes.
The more self-esteem you have, the more risks you are willing to take.
Research has shown over and over again that the more you acknowledge your past successes, the more confident you become in taking on and successfully accomplishing new ones. The more you risk, the more you win in life.
Begin with Nine Major Successes- Start by dividing your life into three equal time periods. Then list three successes you've had for each time period.
To really convince yourself that you're a successful person who can continue achieve great things, complete the next step of this exercise and list 100 or more of your life successes.
Create a Victory Log - Keeping and referring to your victory log keeps you focused on your successes
Display Your Success Symbols - A valuable technique that will help build your self-esteem and motivate you to greater future success is the practice of surrounding yourself with rewards, pictures, and other objects that remind you of your successes. This will have a powerful effect on your subconscious mind.
The Mirror Exercise is based on the principle that we all need acknowledgment, but the most important acknowledgement is le acknowledgment we give ourselves.
The Mirror Exercise gives your subconscious mind the positive strokes it needs to pursue further achievements and it helps change any negative beliefs you have toward praise and accomplishment, which puts you in an achieving frame of mind. Do this exercise for a minimum of 3 months. Just before going to bed, stand in front of a mirror and appreciate yourself for all that you have accomplished during the day. Maintain eye contact with yourself throughout the exercise.
It's not unusual to have a number of reactions the first few times you do this. We are not trained to acknowledge ourselves.
A Sense of Completion: Another reason to celebrate your successes is that you don't feel complete until you've been acknowledged. It gives you a sense of accomplishment and cognition. Your mind needs to complete the cycle. Rewarding yourself for your wins powerfully reinforces your subconscious mind's desire to want to work harder for you. It's just basic human nature.

Principle 27: Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what is going on around them. They are constantly proactive in the pursuit of their chosen objectives.
An important part of any focusing regimen is to set aside time at the end of the day, just before going to sleep, to acknowledge your successes, review your goals, focus on your successful future, and make specific plans for what you want to accomplish the next day
Whatever you read, see, listen to, talk about, and experience during the last 45 minutes of the day has a large influence on your sleep and on your net day. During the night, the unconscious mind replays and processes this late-night input up to six times more often than anything else you experienced during the day.
Take each incident and replay it in your mind the way you would have preferred to have done it had you been more conscious and intentional at the time. This creates a subconscious image that will help form the desired behavior the next time a similar situation occurs.
The Daily Success Focus Journal - Another powerful tool to keep yourself focused on the positive and your eye on the prize is the Daily Success Focus Journal. This is an advanced variation n the victory log. If you do this exercise every day for a month, you will increase your self-confidence as well as improve your performance in all areas of your life.
At the end of every day, simply identify five things that you accomplished during the day. These can be in any area of your life.
To do this create a blank form with four columns titled Success, reason, Further Progress and Next Action. Identify a success, write it down in the first box under "Success.'' Next, consider why that accomplishment is important to you and write that reason down in the second box under the heading "Reason." Then, identify how you can make further progress in this same area listed under "Further Progress." Last, write down a specific action step that will lead to this progress and jot it down in the fourth box under "Next Action."
Once you have completed the form, transfer all of the action items in the "Next Action" column into your calendar or planner. Schedule a specific time to do each item so that you actually get them done.
Create your ideal day- Another powerful tool to keep you focused on creating your life exactly as you want it to be is to take a few minutes after you have planned your next day's schedule and visualize the entire day going exactly as you want it.

Principle 28: Clean Up Your Messes and Your Incompletes

Often, incompletes represent areas in our life where we're not clear or where we have emotional and psychological blocks. Some incompletions come from simply not having adequate systems, knowledge, or expertise for handling these tasks. Other incompletions pile up because of our bad work habits.
Get Into Completion Consciousness - Continually ask yourself. What does it take to actually get this task completed?
The Four D'S of Completion: Do it, delegate it, delay it, or dump it.
Making Space For Something New - One of the ways to free up attention units is to free your living and work environment from the mental burden of this clutter. When you clear out the old, you also make room for something new. If there's anything new that you want in your life, you've got to make room for it. This means psychologically as well as physically.
When we don't throw away clutter and items we no longer need, it's as if we don't trust our ability to manifest the necessary abundance in our lives to buy new ones. But incompletes like this keep that very abundance from showing up. We need lo complete the past so that our present can show up more fully.
Make a list, and then write down how you'll complete each task.
Once you've made your list, choose four items and start completing them. Choose those that would immediately free up the most time, energy, or space for you-whether it's mental space or physical space.
What's Irritating You? Like incompletes, daily irritants are equally damaging to your success because they too take up attention units. Fix, replace, mend, or get rid of those daily irritants that annoy you and stay on your mind.
You don't need to get it done all at once. Choose one each month. Just as cleaning up your incompletes is important to successful future, there is literally no excuse for enduring the disorganization in your life.

Principle 29: Complete the Past to Embrace the Future

We need to let go of the past to embrace the future.
The Total Truth Process - The Total Truth Process can be conducted verbally or in writing. Whichever method you choose, the goal is to express the anger and hurt, and then move toward forgiveness and love.
If you're uncomfortable participating verbally or if the other person cannot or will not participate, put your feelings in writing using the Total Truth letter to express your true feelings.
Forgive and Move On - Although it may seem unusual to mention forgiveness in a book on how to become more successful, the reality is that anger, resentment, and the desire for revenge can waste valuable energy that could be directed toward positive goal-directed action.
What can hurt you even more is harboring the resentment, holding a grudge, and rerunning the same hatred over and over. The word forgive really means to give it up for yourself-not for them.
Steps to Forgiving
The following steps are all integral to forgiving:

Acknowledge your anger and resentment.
Acknowledge the hurt and pain it created.
Acknowledge the fears and self-doubts that it created.
Own any part you may have played in letting it occur or letting it continue.
Acknowledge what you were wanting that you didn't get, and then put yourself in the other person's shoes and attempt to understand where he or she was coming from at that time, and what needs the person was trying to meet-however inelegantly-by his or her behavior.
Let go and forgive the person.

Principle 30: Face What Isn't Working

If you are going to become more successful, you have to get out of denial and face what isn't working in your life. Successful people face circumstances squarely, heed the warning signs, and take appropriate action, no matter how uncomfortable or challenging it might be.
To face what's not working in your life usually means you're going to have to do something uncomfortable.
We don't even realize we are in denial.
Successful people, on the other hand, are more committed to finding out why things are going wrong and fixing them than they are to defending their own position or maintaining their ignorance. They are willing to look at what is and deal with it rather than hide it and deny it.
A big part of getting out of denial is to get good at recognizing bad situations d then deciding to do something about them. Defending and justifying a bad situation really just a form of denial.
Often, denial is based on the notion that something even worse will happen we stop denying and take action. In other words, we're afraid to face acts squarely.
The more you face uncomfortable situations, the better you get at it.
Take Action Now - make a list of what isn't working in your life. Choose one action and do it. Then keep taking another action and another action until you get the situation resolved.

Principle 31: Embrace Change

Change is inevitable. You can resist change and potentially be swept away by it, you can also choose to cooperate with it, adapt to it, and benefit from it.
When you embrace change wholeheartedly as an inevitable part of life, looking for ways to use new changes to make your life richer, easier, and more fulfilling, your life will work much better. You will experience change as an opportunity for growth and new experiences.
How to Embrace Change - There are two kinds of change-cyclical change and structural change, neither of which you can control.
Cyclical change, are changes that happen in cycles, and frankly most of them we just accept as a normal part of life.
Structural changes are the kinds of changes where there is no going back to doing things the way they were before. And these are the kinds of changes that can sweep you away if you resist them.
If you can always remember that you've been through changes in the past, and that they've largely worked out for the best, you can begin to approach each new change with the excitement and anticipation you should.

Principle 32: Transform Your Inner Critic into an Inner Coach

Research indicates that the average person-that means you!-talks to himself or herself about 50,000 times a day and most of that self-talk is about yourself, and is 80% negative. These thoughts have a powerful effect on us. They affect our attitude, our physiology, and our motivation to act. Our negative thoughts actually control our behavior.
Negative thoughts affect your body negatively, weakening you, making you sweat, and making you uptight. Positive thoughts affect your body in a positive way, making you more relaxed, centered, and alert. Positive thoughts will cause the secretions of endorphins in the brain and will reduce pain and increase pleasure.
Talk to Yourself Like a Winner - You could transform your inner critic, who judges your every move into a supportive inner coach who would encourage you and give you confidence as you faced new situations and risks. That is possible with a little awareness, focus and intention.
Psychiatrist Daniel G. Amen has named the limiting thoughts we hear in our head ANTs, Automatic Negative Thoughts.
The key to any kind of negative thinking is to realize that you are ultimately in charge of whether to listen to or agree with any thought. Just because you think it-or hear it-doesn't mean it's true. You have to learn to challenge and talk back to the thoughts that are not serving you in creating greater success and happiness.
To talk back to your ANTs, you first have to be aware of them. Write down every negative thought you think or say out loud and every negative thought you hear anyone else say-for 3 whole days! This is the best way to heighten your awareness of your ANTs.

Different Types of Ants

Here are some of the most common kinds of ANTs and how to stomp them:
Always-or-Never Thinking : When you use all-or-nothing words such as always, never, everyone, no one, every time, and everything, you are usually wrong
When you find yourself thinking always-or-never thoughts, replace them with what is really true. Replace, You always take advantage of me with I get angry when you take advantage of me, but I know that you have treated me fairly in the past and that you will again.
Focusing on the Negative: Some people focus on the bad and never on the good in a situation. Learn to look for the positive. Not only will it help you feel better, but it will also be a critical component of your creating the success you want. Learn to play the Appreciation Game. Look for things to appreciate in every situation.
A powerful exercise for building your appreciation muscle is to take 7 minutes every morning to write down all the things you appreciate in your life. At least do it for 30 to 40 days.
Catastrophic Predicting: you create the worst possible scenario in your mind and then act as if it were a certainty.
Mind-Reading: You are mind-reading when you believe you know what another person is thinking even though he or she hasn't told you. Check out your assumptions by asking,
Guilt-Tripping: Guilt happens when you think words such as should, must, ought to, or have to. As soon as we feel like we should do something, we create an internal resistance to doing it. Guilt is never productive.
Labeling is attaching a negative label to yourself or someone else. It is challenging the thought "I am stupid" with "What I just did was less than brilliant, but 1 am still a smart person."
Personalizing: You personalize when you invest a neutral event with personal meaning.
Transforming Your Inner Critic into Your Inner Coach
One of the most powerful exercises for retraining your inner critic is to teach to tell you the total truth. You have to understand a core principle. Most self-criticism and self-judgment is motivated by love. Your inner critic really has your best interests in mind when it is criticizing you. The problem is that it tells you only part of the truth.
Make a list of all the things you say when you are judging yourself. Include all of the things that you tell yourself you should do that you don't. E.g. You don't exercise enough. Then practice communicating the information using a four-step process outlined above: (1) anger, (2) fear, (3) requests, and (4) love. Be very specific.
Anger: I'm angry at you for not taking better care of your body.
Fear: If you don't change, I am afraid you are going to keep gaining weight until you are facing a real health risk.
Requests: I want you to join a health club and go at least three days week.
Love: I love you. I want you to be around for a long time.
Whenever you hear a part of you judging yourself, simply reply, "Thank you for caring. What is your fear?... What specifically do you want me to do?... How will this serve me?...Thank you."
How to Silence Your Performance Critic
Have you ever taught a class, given a speech, or made a sales presentation and then found yourself on the way home listening to that voice in your head telling you how you messed up, what you should have done differently, how you could have and should have done it better? Here is another simple but powerful method for redirecting the communication from one of judgment and criticism to one of correction and support.
Tell that inner voice you are not willing to listen to any more character assassinations, only specific steps you can take to do it better the next time. This eliminates put-downs and focuses the conversation on "improvement opportunities" for the next occasion.
There are a lot of things that your inner coach observes about how to improve your performance in future situations. The problem-up until now!-is that it has been presenting the information as a judgment. Once you switch the conversation to a non-emotional discussion of improvement opportunities, the experience changes from a negative to a positive one.
It is important to write these ideas down and put them in a file that you review before your next performance. Otherwise, you may lose the benefit of the valuable feedback.

Principle 33: Transcend Your Limiting Beliefs

You can learn how to identify those beliefs that are limiting you and then replace them with positive ones that support your success
One of the most limiting beliefs apparent today is the notion that somehow we are not capable of accomplishing our goals.
If you decided to say instead, I can do this, I am capable, Other people have accomplished this, If I don't have the knowledge, there's someone out there who can teach me. You make the shift to competence and mastery.
Many people don't believe they are competent to handle life's challenges or worthy of love-the two main pillars of high self-esteem. But haven't you handled everything that has ever happened to you? You can handle anything else that happens to you as well. Once you get that, your confidence will soar.
You can overcome any limiting belief
How To Overcome Any Limiting Belief
Here is a simple but powerful four-step process you can use to transform any limiting belief into an empowering belief

Identify a limiting belief that you want to change. Invite two or three friends and brainstorm a list of all the things you heard growing up from your parents, guardians, teachers, and coaches- When you are finished creating your list, pick a belief that you think is still limiting you and take yourself through the remaining three steps of the process.
Determine how the belief limits you.
Decide how you want to be, act, or feel.
Create a turnaround statement that affirms or gives you permission to be, act, or feel this new way.

Here are some other examples of a turnaround statement:
Negative: It's not okay to focus on my own needs.
Turnaround: My needs are just as important as everyone else's needs
Use the following template to turn any limiting belief into an empowering belief.

My negative/limiting belief is
The way it limits me is
The way I want to be, act, or feel is
My turnaround statement that affirms or gives me permission to do this is

Once you have created a new belief-your turnaround statement-you will need to implant it into your subconscious mind through constant repetition several times a day for a minimum of 30 days. It's the repeated suggestion that makes you believe.

Principle 34: Develop Four New Success Habits a Year

Psychologists tell us that up to 90% of our behavior is habitual.
Over the years, you have developed a set of firmly entrenched habits that determine how well every area of your life works, from your job and your income to your health and your relationships.
The good news is that habits help free up your mind while your body is on automatic. The bad news is that you can become locked into unconscious self-defeating behavior patterns that inhibit your growth and limit your success.
Whatever habits you currently have established are producing your current level of results.
Your habits determine your outcomes. The habits you develop from this day forward will ultimately determine how your future unfolds. Negative habits breed negative consequences. Positive habits create positive consequences.
Take Action To Develop Better Habits Now. There are two action steps for changing your habits: The first step is to make a list of all the habits that keep you unproductive or that might negatively impact your future. Look for patterns. Once you have identified your negative habits, the second step is to choose setter, more productive success habit and develop systems that will help support them.
If you use these strategies to develop just four new habits a year, 5 years from now you'll have 20 new success habits that could bring you all the money you want, the wonderful loving relationships you desire, a healthier, more energized body, plus all sorts of new opportunities.
Start by listing four new habits you would like to establish in the next year. Work on one new habit every quarter. By systematically adding one behavior at a time, you can dramatically improve your overall lifestyle.
Put up signs to remind you to follow through on the new behavior. Here is a great example - a little dehydration can decrease your mental acuity by as much as 30%; make a note to drink ten 8-ounce glasses of water a day and put the notes on your phone, office door, and anywhere else you can think of to remind you every hour.
Another powerful technique is to partner with someone, keep score, and hold each other accountable.

Principle 35: 99% Is a Bitch; 100% Is a Breeze

There is a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when it's convenient. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.
The "No-Exceptions Rule": Successful people adhere to the "no exceptions rule" when it comes to their daily disciplines. Once you make a 100% commitment to something, there are no exceptions.
It frees up tons of energy that would otherwise be spent internally debating the topic over and over and over, because all the energy expended on internal conflict is unavailable to use for creating other achievement.
This powerful 100% commitment also figures critically in other important areas-for instance, the workplace. Consider what a commitment to just 99.9% quality would mean.

Principle 36: Learn More to Earn More

People who have more information have a tremendous advantage over people who don't
Decrease Your Television Time
The sad reality is the average American watches television 6 hours a day. If by the time you are 60 years old you will have wasted 15 years of your life watching television. Cutting out just 1 hour of television a day creates an extra 365 hours per year (that's over nine additional 40-hour workweeks-2 months of additional time!)
Leaders Are Readers If you were to read one book a week, in 10 years you'd have read 520 books and in 20 years, more than 1,000 books-enough to easily put you in the top 1% of experts in your field.
Learn To Read Faster To Read More
If you make a commitment to read one book a week, review what you have read, and apply at least one thing you learn from each book, you will be miles ahead of everyone else in create an extraordinary life.
Study the Lives of Great People: Read biographies and autobiographies of great people. By reading them, you will learn how to become great yourself
Attend Success Rallies, Conferences, and Retreats
Be Teachable: To learn and grow in life, you need to be teachable, too. You need to let go of already knowing it all and needing to be right and look good, and open yourself to being a learner.
Be Prepared When Opportunity Knocks
What Do You Need to Do to Get Ready? If you're an industry expert an believe your consulting business would sky-rocket after presenting a workshop at the national convention, why not get prepared now If you want a promotion at work, why not ask your boss what it takes to become promotable?
Whatever you need to do to get ready, start now by making a list of the 10 things you could be doing to be ready when opportunity finds you.
Therapy and Counseling: Some of us simply need more in-depth work to remove the emotional blocks and childhood programming that are holding us back.
Commit to Lifelong Learning: The information that allows you to be successful, to be on the cutting edge of your career and profession, is evolving at a very fast pace. That's why you must commit to lifelong self-improvement and learning-improving your mind, increasing your skills, and boosting your ability to assimilate and apply what you learn.

Principle 37: Stay Motivated with the Masters

What truly successful people do is listen daily to audio programs from the world's most renowned motivational masters-in the car, at home, and at the office-even if it's just for 15 minutes at a time

Principle 38: Fuel Your Success with Passion and Enthusiasm

Passion is something within you that provides the continual enthusiasm, focus, and energy you need to succeed. It comes from within. And it can be channeled into amazing feats of success.
This kind of passion comes from loving and enjoying your work. It comes from doing what you were born to do. It comes from following your heart and trusting your joy as a guide. Enthusiasm and passion come as a result of caring about what you do. If you love your work, if you enjoy it, you're already a success.
How to Develop Passion: If you're not skilled enough to do the work you'd love to do, make time too educate yourself so you are. Do whatever it takes to prepare, working part time in your dream job or even volunteering as an intern, while still maintaining your current job.
Pay attention, too, to those times outside of the office when you feel the happiest, the most joyous, the most fully engaged, the most acknowledged and appreciated, and the most connected with yourself and others.
How to Keep Passion and Enthusiasm Alive: Passion is a powerful tool for success and, as such, deserves to be an area you consistently work on.
To maintain passion and enthusiasm every day, spend more time doing what you love to do. That includes discovering your true purpose, deciding what you really want to do and have, believing you can do and have it, deliberately creating your dream career, delegating as much as you can that is not our core genius to someone else, and taking concrete steps toward the attainment of your goals. Reconnect with your original purpose for doing anything that you do.
Ask "What is the why underneath what I'm doing?" If you can get in touch with that, it is a lot easier to get enthusiastic about whatever it is that you have to do.
You'll discover that all of the things you feel like you have to do are really choices that you are making that serve some higher purpose such as feeding our family, or creating security for your future. Once you realize that these are choices you are making, you realize you can make one more choice, and that is the choice your attitude. Why not choose to do everything you do with joy and enthusiasm? When you express your passion and enthusiasm, you will become a magnet to others, who will be attracted to your high level of energy. They will want to play with you, work with you, and support your dreams and goals. As a result, you will ultimately get more done in a shorter period of time.

III. Build Your Success Team

Principle 39: Stay Focused on Your Core Genius

Successful people put their core genius first. They focus on it-and delegate everything else to other people on their team.
When you delegate the grunt work-the things you hate doing
Or those tasks that are so painful, you end up putting them off-you get to concentrate on what you love to do.
Delegate a task once and completely-rather than delegating it each time it needs to be done.
Lost entrepreneurs spend less than 30% of their time focusing on your core genius and unique abilities. In fact, by the time they've launched a business, it often seems entrepreneurs are doing everything but the one thing they went into business for in the first place.
Do What You Love - The Money Will Follow

Principle 40: Redefine Time

Successful people use a unique planning system that structures their time into three very different kinds of days that are prescheduled to assure the highest payoff for their efforts while still allowing abundant amounts of free time to pursue heir personal interests.
Dan Sullivan, President of The Strategic Coach, created a great system called The Entrepreneurial Time System®*. It divides all of your ne into three kinds of days: Focus Days, Buffer Days, and Free Days.
A Focus Day is a day in which you spend at least 80% of your time operating on your core genius, or primary area of expertise-interacting with people or processes that give you the highest payoffs for the time you invest. To be successful, you must schedule more Focus Days and hold yourself accountable for producing the results.
A Buffer Day is a day when you prepare and plan for a Focus or Free Day- either by learning a new skill, locating a new resource, training your support team, or delegating tasks and projects to others. Buffer Days ensure that your Focus Days are as productive as possible.
A Free Day extends from midnight to midnight and involves no work-related activity of any kind. On a true Free Day, you're not available to your staff, clients, or students for any kind of contact except for true emergencies.
When you train your employer, staff, and coworkers not to bother you on your Free Days, it forces them to become more self-reliant.
Free Means Some Days Without The Kids, Too
The value of regular Free days is that you come back to refreshed and ready to tackle it with renewed vigor, enthusiasm, and creativity.
Use Your Vacation Time: More than one fourth of all American employees did not even use their vacation time. Why? They were afraid that their job might not be there when they returned. Compare that with the concept of Free Days, which actually makes you more rested, more productive, and more valuable to your employer.
Start Scheduling: The key to getting more Free Days and Focus Days in your life is s to sit down schedule them. You'll find yourself creating greater results at work, enjoying more fulfillment in your personal life, and experiencing more balance between the two.
As our world gets more complicated and more pressured, you will have to be increasingly more conscious and intentional to structure your time in a way that takes full advantage of your talents and maximizes your results and your income.

Principle 41: Build a Powerful Support Team and Delegate to Them

Every high achiever has a powerful team of key staff members, consultants. Vendors and helpers who do the bulk of the work while he or she is free to create new sources of income and new opportunities for success.
The Total Focus Process
Your goal is to find the top one, two, or three activities that best use your core genius, brings you the most money, and produces the greatest level of enjoyment.
Start by listing all those activities that occupy your time.
Next, choose from this list those one, two, or three things you are particularly brilliant at, your special and unique talents, those things very few other people can do as well as you, create a plan for delegating everything else to other people.
Why You Need Personal Advisors
Our world has become a very complex place. That's why every high achiever has a powerful team of personal advisors to turn to for assistance, advice, and support. In fact, this team is so critical, it pays to begin assembling the team early in your success journey.
Your personal advisors can walk you through challenges and opportunities. Saving you time, effort, and usually money. If you run a business, this principle takes on a whole new meaning.
Once you determine who members of this support team are, you can begin to build and nurture those relationships. Make sure team members are clear about what you expect from them and that you are clear about what they expect from you.
Create a schedule of monthly, quarterly. Or semiannual meetings with every member of your team.
Once You've Chosen Your Team Members, Trust Them: Though we often fear that if someone else performs tasks for us, they won't be done well-the reality is there are people who love to do what you hate to do. And they often do a much better job than you would or could yourself-at a surprisingly low cost.

Principle 42: Just Say No!

Our world is a highly competitive and over-stimulating place, and more and more concentration is needed every day just to stay focused on completing our daily tasks and pursuing your longer-term goals. Because of the explosion of communications technology, we are more accessible to more people than ever before
We suffer under project and productivity overload at work, taking on more than we can comfortably deliver in an unconscious desire to impress others, get ahead, and keep up with others' expectations. Meanwhile, our top priorities go unaddressed.
To be successful in achieving your goals and creating your desired lifestyle, you will have to get good at saying no to all of the people and distractions that would otherwise devour you. Successful people know how to say no without feeling guilty.
Don't Just Delegate, Eliminate! Eliminate those tasks, requests, and other time-stealers that don't have a high payoff. Structure your work so that you are focusing your time, effort, energies, and resources only on projects, opportunities, and people that give you a huge reward for your efforts'. You are going to have to create strong boundaries about what you will and won't do.
Most of us are busy but undisciplined. We are active but not focused. We are moving, but not always in the right direction.
Start by creating a stop-doing list as soon as possible. Then make the things in your list "policies."
Consider Giving Up Your Cell Phone And Your Email: Many businesspeople spend 3 to 4 hours a day just answering email. Because they provide instant communication, cell phones and e-mail also create the expectation of an instant response.
When you distribute your cell phone number and e-mail address, you give others implied permission to make these demands upon you.
You might consider sending everyone in your address book an email asking them to stop forwarding feel-good e-mails, poems, and other material. (Apologize for the bulk e-mail)
If Saying No Is So Important, Then Why Is It So Hard To Say? Successful people say no all the time-to projects, to crazy deadlines, to questionable priorities, and to other people's crises. In fact, they view the decision to say no as equally acceptable as the decision to say yes.
One response that is helpful in saying no to crisis appeals or time robbing requests from people is "It's not against you; it's for me." Few people can get angry at you for making and standing by a higher commitment. In fact, they'll respect you for your clarity and your strength.

Principle 43: Say No to the Good So That You Can Say Yes to the Great

Concentrating on merely the good often prevents the great from showing up, simply because there's no time left in our schedules t o take advantage of any additional opportunity.
The Pareto Principle: When 20% Equals 80%: About 20% of your activity produces about 80% of your success. This phenomenon is the basis for the Pareto Principle.
Stop Majoring In The Minors: Stay focused on the 20% of activity that would bring you the most benefit. Use the extra time to focus on your family, your marriage, your business, starting a new income stream, and other forward-motion pursuits.
How Can You Determine what's Truly Great, So You Can Say No to What's Merely Good?
Start by listing your opportunities-one side of the page for good and the other side for great. Seeing options in writing will help crystallize your thinking and determine what questions to ask, what information to gather, what your plan of attack might be
Talk to advisors about this potential new pursuit.
Test the waters. Conduct a small test, spending a limited amount of time and money.
Finally, look at where you spend your time. Determine if those activities truly serve your goals or if saying no would free up your schedule for more focused pursuits

Principle 44: Find a Wing to Climb Under

Take advantage of all the wisdom and experience that already exists by finding a mentor who has already been down the road you are traveling?
One of the main strategies of the successful is that they constantly seek guidance and advice from experts in their field. Make a list of the people you would like to ask to mentor you. Approach them and ask for their help
Determine in Advance What You Want From A Mentor
Perhaps you just need someone to open doors for you. Or perhaps you need a referral to a technical expert who can help you build a new service for your company. Maybe you simply need validation that the path you're pursuing is the right one. A mentor can help you with all of these lings, but you need to be prepared to ask for specific advice.
Do Your Homework: Look for mentors who have the kind of well-rounded experience you need to tackle your goal.
To contact possible mentors and ensure a successful conversation once you do, make a list of specific points you'd like to cover in your first conversation, such as -why you'd like them to mentor you and what kind of help you might be looking for. Be brief, but be confident, too. Successful people like to share what they have learned with others. It is a human trait to want to pass on wisdom. Keep asking until you get a positive response.
Take Action On Your Mentors' Advice: Mentors don't like to have their time wasted. When you seek out their advice .follow it. Study their methods, ask your questions, make sure you understand the process-then, as much as is possible, duplicate your mentors' efforts.
Be prepared to give your mentors something in return; look for ways to give to your mentors. Help others, too.

Principle 45: Hire a Personal Coach

Coaching has moved into the business and personal realm to include coaches who have succeeded in your area of interest-and who can help you traverse this same path or even one far greater.
Of all the things successful people do to accelerate their trip down the path to success, participating in some kind of coaching program is at the top of the list. A coach will help you clarify your vision and goals, support you through your fears, keep you focused, confront your unconscious behaviors and old patterns, expect you to do your best, help you live by your values, show you low to earn more while working less, and keep you focused on your core
Most coaching clients are smart-yet they still know the value of accessing someone who can be objective, honest, and constructive about the options they are facing.
Why Coaching Works
Executive coaches are not for the meek. They're for people who value unambiguous feedback. If coaches have one thing in common, it's that they are ruthlessly results-oriented. (Fast Company Magazine)

A coach can help you
Determine your values, vision, mission, purpose, and goals
Determine specific action steps to help you achieve those goals
Help you sort through opportunities
Keep you focused on your top priorities
Achieve balance in your life while still accomplishing your business career
A Personal coach can help y you discover what you truly want to do-and can help you determine the steps and take the actions necessary to get there.

Different Formats for Coaching: Coaching can be delivered privately or in groups. Most often, it's done through regularly scheduled telephone contact, although it can also be done in person, as appropriate. Over the course of the sessions, you'll work together with your coach to develop goals, strategies, and a plan of action that is positive, desirable, and realistic. Support is often provided between sessions rough e-mail and other media.
Occasionally depending on the coach, you may be coached via structured large-group teleconferences in which you listen to valuable information, and then implement what you hear on your own.

Principle 46: Mastermind Your Way to Success

Imagine having a permanent group of five to six people who meet every week for the purpose of problem solving, brainstorming, networking, and encouraging and motivating each other.
This process, called masterminding, is one of the most powerful tools for success presented in this book.
Napoleon Hill first wrote about mastermind groups in 1937 in his classic, Think and Grow Rich. It's the one concept achievers reference most when they credit any one thing helping them become a millionaire.
A mastermind group can focus special energy on your efforts-in the form of knowledge, new ideas, a vast array of resources, and, most importantly, spiritual energy.
A Process For Accelerating Your Growth
The basic philosophy of a mastermind group is that more can be achieved in less time when people work together. A mastermind group is made up of people who come together on a regular basis-weekly, biweekly, or monthly-to share ideas, thoughts, information, feedback, and resources. By getting the perspective, knowledge, experience, and resources of the others in the group, not only can you move beyond your own limited view of the world but you can also advance your own goals and projects more quickly.
A mastermind group can be composed of people from your own industry or profession or people from a variety of walks of life. It can focus on business issues, personal issues, or both. But for a mastermind group to be powerfully effective, people must be comfortable enough with each other to tell the truth.
Confidentiality is what allows this level of trust to build. In a mastermind group, participants can let their hair down, tell the truth about their personal and business life, and feel safe that what is said in the group will stay in the group.
When you form your mastermind group, consider bringing together people from different professional arenas and people that are "above" you and who can introduce you to a network of people you normally wouldn't have access to. When you assemble people from different industries and professions, you get lots of different perspectives on the same subject.
How To Assemble A Mastermind Group: Regardless of its purpose, the key is to choose people who are already where you'd like to be in your life-or who are at least a level above you.
Many people at a higher level will want to become involved simply because they'll get to play at a game they might newer take the time to organize for themselves. They'd probably be delighted to mastermind with the other people you're going to invite-especially if some of the others are already playing at their level.
The ideal size of a mastermind group is five to six people. If it is any smaller it loses its dynamics. If it is too much bigger, it gets unwieldy-meetings take longer, some people's needs may go unmet, and personal sharing is minimized.
Conducting A Mastermind Meeting
Mastermind meetings should be conducted weekly or every other week with all members of the group in attendance. They can be conducted in person or over the phone. About 1 to 2 hours is an ideal length of time.
For the first few meetings, it's recommended that each member get the entire hour to familiarize the others with his or her situation, opportunities. , needs, and challenges, while the other members brainstorm ways they can support that person. During later meetings, participants each get a small amount of time to update the others, ask for help, and get feedback.
Each meeting should follow the proven format below to ensure that each participant gets their needs met and therefore stays involved. Your group should also assign someone to be the timekeeper to ensure that all members adhere to their preapproved time to speak and receive attention.

Step 1: Ask for Spiritual Guidance by Delivering an Invocation
Step 2; Share What's New and Good - share a success story.
Step 3: Negotiate for Time: Although the normal weekly time allotment might be 10 to 15 minutes per person, there may be times when one participant needs extra time during that week's session to discuss a particularly difficult situation. Once the negotiation process is complete and everyone agrees to the schedule, the meeting begins in earnest, with the timekeeper ensuring that everyone stays on time and on focus. If some members don't get their needs met, the group will risk losing them as participants.
Step 4: Individual Members Speak while the Group Listens and Brainstorms Solutions: After the allotted time of explanation, discussion, and brainstorming, the timekeeper says, "Time's up!" and the group moves to the next member's needs. Discussions can be personal or professional-it doesn't matter. Groups tend to go through phases. They start out fairly businesslike, but as people get to know each other and begin to delve into personal challenges they take on a special personal bond.
Step 5: Make a Commitment to Stretch Once members have had their time to present, discuss, brainstorm, and gain feedback, the timekeeper asks each member in turn to commit t verbally to an action that will move him or her forward toward the achievement of his or her goals-something that the member will agree to accomplish before the next meeting. The commitment needs to be a stretch. This commitment ensures that everyone is continually moving forward ward the completion of their goals, which is the ultimate benefit of a mastermind group.
Step 6: End with a Moment of Gratitude
Step 7: Be Accountable When members assemble the very next week, each member shares something related to the goal he set at the previous meeting. Did each member take action? Did they achieve their goal? You'll find one of the real values of a mastermind group is the accountability factor-other members checking up on you to make sure you meet your stated commitments. The reality is that if you know you're going to be asked next week about the commitment you made today. you'll take steps to accomplish it by next week's deadline. It's one way to ensure you'll accomplish a lot more.

Accountability Partners: Instead of a mastermind group, you might choose to work with an accountability partner. The two of you agree to a set of goals that each is working toward and agree to talk regularly by phone to hold each other accountable for meeting deadlines, accomplishing goals, and making progress. Knowing that you'll reporting to someone provides the extra motivation to get the job done.
An accountability partner can also provide enthusiasm when yours is waning because of obstacles, distractions, setbacks, or even better opportunities. The key to a successful accountability relationship is choosing someone who is as excited about reaching his or her goal as you are about reaching yours-someone who is committed to your success and theirs.

Principle 47: Inquire Within

Trust Your Intuition: For most of us, our early education and training focused on looking outside of ourselves for the answers to our questions. Few of us have had any training on how to look inside, and yet most of the super-successful people are people who have developed their intuition and learned to trust their gut feelings and follow their inner guidance. Many practice some form of daily meditation to access this voice within.
Everyone Has Intuition - It's Just A Matter Of Developing It: All the ideas needed to complete any task, solve any problem, or achieve any goal are available inside you.
Regular Meditation Will Deepen Your Intuition: A regular practice of meditation will help you clear out distractions and teach you to recognize subtle impulses from within. As you meditate and become more spiritually attuned, you can better discern and recognize the sound of your higher self or the voice of God speaking to you through words, images and sensations.
An indicator that the message is truly from your intuition is that it will often be accompanied by a sense of greater clarity, a feeling of rightness about the answer or the impulse. Another indicator that the message you are receiving is a correct one is an accompanying feeling of passion and excitement. If you are considering a plan of action or a decision, and it leaves you feeling drained, bored or enervated, that's a clear message saying 'Don't go there". On the other hand, if you feel energized and enthusiastic, your intuition is telling you to go ahead.
Make Time To Listen: Your most valuable intuitive wisdom often comes when you are relaxed and open to receiving it.
Ask Questions: Your intuition can provide you with the answers to anything you>u need to know. Ask questions that begin with "Should I..." or "What...".
Write Down Your Answers: Make sure to immediately write down any impressions you receive. Intuitive impressions are often subtle and therefore "evaporate" very quickly, so make sure to capture them in writing as soon as possible.
Take Immediate Action: When you action the information you receive, you'll find that you get more and more intuitive impulses. After a while you will be living in the flow. It will all seem easy and effortless as the wisdom comes to you and you simply action it. As you learn to trust yourself and your intuition more, it will become automatic. Experts agree that your intuition works better when you trust it. The more you demonstrate faith in your intuition, the more you will see the results of it in your life. Remember, it's not what you think of; it's what you write down and take action on that counts

IV. Create Successful Relationships

Principle 48: Be Hear Now

There's a big difference between hearing-that is, simply receiving communication-and truly listening, which is the art of paying thoughtful attention with a mind toward understanding the complete message being delivered.
Listening requires maintaining eye contact, watching the person's body language, asking for clarification, and listening for the unspoken message.
Listening Pays Off
Start your meeting with just one sentence: 'The purpose of this meeting is for me to find out from you what you feel is going on in each of your departments, what you feel the breakdowns are and what you need from me.' If they top talking, just say 'Well, what else?' and let them talk some more."
Argue Less And Listen More
Be Interested Rather Than Interesting: Another way people fail to listen carefully is to be too concerned with being interesting themselves, rather than being interested in the person they're listening to. Listen with the intention of learning about them. When the person feels that you are really interested getting to know them and their feelings, they will open up to you and share their true feelings with you much more quickly. Work to develop an attitude of curiosity.
A Powerful Question is one of the most effective ways to establish rapport and create a feeling of connection with another person. Here are a series of four questions:

If we were meeting three years from today, what has to have happened during that three-year period for you to feel happy about your progress?
What are the biggest dangers you'll have to face and deal with in order to achieve that progress?
What are the biggest opportunities that you have that you would need to focus on and capture to achieve those things?
What strengths will you need to reinforce and maximize, and what skills and resources will you need to develop that you d don't currently have in order to capture those opportunities?

About the reviewer: Frumi Rachel Barr, MBA, Ph.D

Frumi is a trusted advisor and leadership coach. She has a passion for helping business leaders, especially entrepreneurs and financial services leaders. She helps them find clarity out of chaos, communicate effectively with their teams, and accelerate their business results. Frumi is a former CEO and CFO herself and has an MBA and a PhD in business administration. She is known as a catalyst for change and when Frumi shows up with dynamite and band aids, change is bound to happen!

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