all the answers have been found
self-made millionaires have been studied
exhaustively they’ve been analyzed
they’ve been interviewed by the hundreds
of thousands and millions and what we
know is exactly who they are and what
they do and how they think and how they
tick and the decisions they make and the
things that they do and they don’t do
and the wonderful thing is is if you do
what other successful people do you
eventually get the same result that they
do now some people say well I started
off without any money and I you know I
don’t have any money now well join the
crowd nobody’s got any money
most people are broke up into their 40s
and 50s so if you’re broke today you’re
just one of the gang the only question
is do you say that and the answer is no
now when I started off in in this many
years ago I came from very poor
beginnings I did not graduate from high
school I finished in the half of the
class that makes the top half possible
when I left school I dropped out of high
school I could only get laboring jobs I
was told by the way if you don’t get a
good education you won’t do well in life
don’t get good grades you won’t get a
good job you don’t go to college you
won’t do well and so on and I believed
that for a long time until I found these
hundreds of thousands and millions of
people who dropped out of high school
who went on to become millionaires and
billionaires as well the reason I say
that to you by the way is don’t let it
hold you back don’t let any experience
that you’ve ever had in your life act as
a brake on your potential because
there’s hundreds of thousands of people
have had it worse than you could ever
dream up who’ve gone on to accomplish
wonderful things so I worked at laboring
jobs for several years I worked in
construction I worked on farms and
ranches I work in factories putting nuts
on bolts hour after hour and one day in
a state of frustration I began asking
this question why is it that some people
are more successful than others now in
the Bible there’s the line that says
seek and ye shall find for all who seek
find it ask and the door will be open so
I began asking other successful people
what are you doing differently from me
and they told me and I did it and I got
better results I got into sales when I
could no longer get a laboring job
you and in sales I noticed that one of
the guys in my company is making 10
times as much as anybody else and he was
selling the same product out of the same
office at the same price to the same
people under the same conditions and he
was making 10 times as much as anybody
else I wasn’t asked him what are you
doing differently for me and he told me
and I did it now what I discovered which
changed my life which brought us here
today is I discovered the law of cause
and effect the law of cause and effect
sowing and reaping action and reaction
are the great is the great universal or
iron law of the universe what it says is
that everything happens for a reason is
that there are no causeless effects is
that even if we don’t know what is
causing the effect we trace it back it’s
the basis of the scientific process of
all medical research of all marketing of
all business is if you can define and
effect that you want you can trace it
back and find somebody who at one time
did not have that effect and then find
out what they did and then do the same
things and you eventually get the same
results we say that success is not an
accident failure is not an accident
success leaves tracks so if you just
follow the tracks of other successful
people no matter where you’re starting
from you eventually get to the same
place that they again well this this was
a shocker for me because and I learned
later in psychology by the way that one
of the the two most important things we
need to have to be happy and healthy is
a sense of control a feeling that we are
in control of our lives that things are
happening for a reason in a sense of
coherence a feeling that things fit
together well when I realized the law of
cause and effect explained everything
I got a WoW so in sales I went to the
top of my sales force I read I learned
attended courses and especially I
applied what I learned and the one I got
into sales management again read the
books and took the courses and asked for
advice and when I got into real estate
and importation and developing a
manufacturing distribution in a whole
series of businesses over the years the
first thing I did is I asked how does it
work how do people succeed in this field
and then I buried myself and immerse
myself I spent hours and hours and hours
studying and then I did but the most
successful people did interesting point
we say that nature is
neutral in other words Nature doesn’t
care who you are doesn’t care if you’re
tall or short or male or female or black
or white educated or uneducated nature
doesn’t care
all that nature cares is that you do
what successful people do is I’m making
a recipe make sure doesn’t care you
follow a recipe if you follow the recipe
exactly you get the dish nature doesn’t
care who’s doing it and that’s the
wonderful thing about our society it’s
it’s basically like justice it’s blind
yes Nature doesn’t care in fact there
are a lot of people who are not as smart
and not as talented as you who are doing
vastly better than you not because
they’re better but because they’re just
following proven success methods there’s
nothing that will make you matter than
to see somebody who’s dumber than you
who’s making more money than you right
yeah that experience so what we do is we
use proven success methods we just find
out what they are and we do them over
and over again quick point nothing works
the first time okay please understand
that nothing works the first time what
is the average number of times that a
person tries with the new goal before
they give up can you guess where the
average is less than one because most
people give up before they try even once
they say that’s a great goal I’d love to
be financially independent and then they
give up they don’t even try this aaaah
but I couldn’t because of this and
because of that and so on and then they
move away to a wonderful place called
Sunday I’ll
ever heard of someday I’ll someday I’ll
start saving money someday I’ll get out
of debt
someday I’ll lose weight someday I’ll
start a business someday I’ll get
serious about my finances and most
people live on someday I your job and my
job is to vote yourself off the island
right and we start taking control of our
lives well about Tom some years ago I
was called by a major businessman and he
asked me if I would do a talk for his
800 entrepreneurs that own separate
franchises within his organization on
how to become a self-made millionaire
and I said sure when you’re a young
speaker you agreed to speak on any
subject sure I’ll speak on that subject
now I was just like most people when I
was young I wanted to be a millionaire
by the time I was thirty and when I hit
thirty I put it off to 35 and as I got
to 35 you put it off to 40 and then you
kind of just don’t look at it anymore
you forget about it and feel the deck is
stacked against you
well I was about 38 39 when he called me
up and asked me I said sure no problem
and I said now what do I know about
self-made millionaires and this is a
shocker I didn’t know anything oh I knew
that they had more than a million
dollars but that’s a real basic piece of
knowledge you know so I started thinking
what do I know about so I began to study
them and that’s when I found out that
they’ve been studied so thoroughly is we
know everything there is to know about
them they are a source of incredible
fascination and there’s 50 years of
research so I began to read the studies
and find out where they came from and
what they did and how they thought and
where they started and the decisions
they made and the kind of people they
were
one of the things that I learned by the
way is that becoming a self-made
millionaire is not the important thing
what is really important is the person
you have to become to become a self-made
millionaire you have to become a totally
different human being my friend said one
of my friends says that in order to a be
to achieve something you’ve never
achieved before you have to become
someone you’ve never been before
and it’s a really important insight is
the qualities that you need to develop
equalities on the inside to become a
self-made millionaire are incredible
qualities that make you a vastly better
person not only better in terms of
character determination discipline
decision-making strength and so on but
they make you a far better person they
round out your character in a far better
way so that through the real payoff of
becoming wealth wealthy it’s not because
you can eat more because how many more
meals can you eat how many more clothes
can you wear because it’s the kind of
person that you become and then the kind
of person people that you associate the
kind of life that you have and so the
things that we’re going to talk about
now and I know that you’re some of the
smartest people in our country so I’m
going to give you these ideas very
quickly like dealing cards what I found
in my research is that there’s a series
of qualities that self-made millionaires
have if you have these qualities your
success is virtually guaranteed and if
you don’t have these qualities that
qualities are learn about point number
one is that all business or sales skills
are learn about all financial skills are
learn about if you can drive a car you
can learn any skill if you can drive a
car you can learn this skill and number
two is you’re probably only one skill
away from doubling your income right now
you’re probably only one skill away from
setting yourself on the road to becoming
a self-made millionaire that turns out
to be the case for almost everyone and
if you don’t know what that skill is
maybe over the course of the time we
spend together it’ll jump out at you but
whatever it is you’ve got to find it out
and go to work on it because it is learn
about it’s a learning skill
people say well I don’t mean I’ve never
been very good with money well get over
it the fact of the matter is you can
learn what you need to learn to achieve
anything that you want to achieve so the
success secrets of self-made
millionaires give yourself a score of
one to ten and if you are weak on one of
these it can be enough to hold you back
if you’re strong on all these then
there’s no limit to what you can
accomplish the first is to dream big
dreams dream big dreams practice what is
called back from the future thinking and
project forward develop a vision of
yourself as happy healthy wealthy thin
practice what top people practice which
is what is called idealization you
project forward several years and these
to imagine that your life is perfect in
every way imagine that you have no
limitations imagine that you have all
the time and all the money and all the
friends and all the contacts and all the
education all the experience and that
you could be or have or do anything you
want in life if you could what would it
be if your life were perfect in five
years what would it look like how much
would you be earning how much would you
be worth what kind of a family life
would you have what kind of health would
you have what kind of car would you be
driving what would your life be like if
you could wave a magic wand and make it
perfect in every way now what we have
found is this is the starting point of
great riches and it’s the starting point
of great success in life is for you to
have a dream or a vision of a wonderful
future
here’s an exercise that we give people
and our audiences is take a sheet of
paper and make up what is called a dream
list now imagine this is kind of like a
kid’s Christmas list and that it just
allows you to just run wild and just
write down everything that you could
think of that you would possibly want I
had a friend who I taught this to and he
got so excited about he bought a spiral
notebook and he began writing and he go
through the newspaper and every single
thing he saw in the newspaper that was
nice he wrote it down the school
he ended up first time through with
three hundred and thirty goals with the
end of the month he had 500 things that
he wanted the interesting thing was that
his life exploded he activated the law
of attraction he began to attract into
his life people circumstances ideas
resources IP insights this began to move
him toward the accomplishment of the
goals and began to move the goals toward
him
number two is to do what you love to do
whenever you find people who are really
successful in life there are people who
do what they love to do they they love
their work the great rule for success in
life is to find something that you love
to do and then find a way to make a
living doing it now when you find what
you love to do it’ll be something that
gives you energy it motivates you it as
soon as you it’s probably something that
you were meant to do from the time you
were born and when you ask self-made
millionaires what sort of work do you do
they’ll often say I never worked a day
in my life I just do what I like to do I
had a graduate of my course once it came
up to me he said you know that’s
interesting he said when I was a little
boy I loved to study airplanes he said I
got in the airplane books and I had
airplane models on ahead and tie planes
and then and then I got into
competitions with the remote-controlled
planes he said when I grew up and went
to school I studied aeronautical
engineering
he said today’s that I’m 35 he said I
own three companies one builds a small
aircraft another one repairs and
services smaller aircraft in other words
in leasing and chartering smart okay he
said I’ve never worked a day in my life
he said I just played with planes since
the time I was a kid so one of the
things that you can do is go back to the
time when you were young as a child
between the ages of 7 and 14 before you
discovered boys or girls and what is it
that you really love to do
and you’ll often find that within that
is something you’re supposed to do as an
adult
number three is commit to excellence now
this is really really important and I
had a hard time with this as a young man
because I was never good at anything
I was never picked for any team and if I
was picked I was the first person cut
I got lousy grades in every class I got
fired from multiple jobs
I even got fired from a job Tommy gasps
once okay you can imagine that being
fired for pumping gas because you’re no
good they came out and said you’re no
good at pumping gas how can you know
little old ladies can pump gas and here
was I was no good at pumping gas anyway
so no I got fired I went from job to job
and then I discovered that all people
who are successful are excellent at what
they do you know the old question they
asked Willie Sutton the bank robber why
do you rob banks he said well that’s
where the money is well being in the top
10% is where the money is so what you
have to do is you have to pay any price
and make any sacrifice to get into the
top 10% in your field now here’s the
good news if you’re doing what you love
to do you will want to be in the top 10%
in your field if you don’t want to be
excellent at what you’re doing it means
you’re in the wrong field it just means
that you’re marking time you’re treading
water and there’s a lot of people who
are in their field and they do their job
and you know they go home at night and
don’t think about their work and so on
and this kind of an attitude means that
you have no future you have a very shaky
present that crackling sound you hear is
the ice breaking under your feet okay
and you have a very you have no future
because if you’re not doing what you
love to do and throwing your whole heart
into it
it’s just marking time but everybody is
designed so that there is something that
you love to do that you can do well and
the fact that you love it means that you
probably have the ability to excel it so
make this decision to get into the top
10% let me tell you how what changed my
life here I was struck in my late 20s
and I learned this it was a breakthrough
thought
is that everybody’s in the top 10%
started in the bottom 10% everybody
who’s doing well was once doing poorly
everybody who is at top of your field
today was once not even in your field at
all and didn’t even know it existed what
that means is that if you’re willing to
pay the price and work hard and make the
sacrifices you can get into the top 10%
now how long does it take it doesn’t
take a week or a month most people are
really impatient and to achieve mastery
in your field takes five to seven years
you don’t say five to seven years geez
I’ll be five to seven years old or
before I start enjoying the big rewards
well how much older will you be in five
to seven years anyway
now here’s an important point are you
ready the time is going to pass anyway
the time is going to pass five to seven
years from now five to seven years will
have passed the only question is there
are you going to be at the top of your
field or you’re still going to be down
there with a with the mediocre 80% and
the wonderful thing is this is nobody’s
better than you and nobody’s smarter
than you if anybody else is at the top
of the field it means that you can be at
the top of your field just go to them
and find out how they got there because
they started at the bottom
now it may take longer for some people
and less for others but everybody who
puts one foot in front of the other and
keeps moving eventually gets it and
that’s where all the rewards are not
only that that’s where all the joy in
life is when you’re really good at what
you do you feel wonderful about yourself
you’re respected and esteem but
everybody around you you can you can
write your own ticket you can open any
door when you’re good at what you do
because you get up in the morning and
you know you’re good and and and and
that is more important than the rewards
that go with the next key is to develop
your unique talents and abilities every
single person is designed from infancy
with special talents and abilities that
if you develop them to their height can
enable you to accomplish anything you
want in life everyone is genetically
structured to be able to do something
superbly to do something they enjoy to
do it well and to get great satisfaction
from them
Peter Drucker often asks the question
what are you good at what are you good
at today what should you be good at what
could you be good at what will you be
good at and so one of the questions that
we ask is looking back in your life what
has been most responsible for your
success up to now what has been most
responsible in the past what is it that
you have done that has gotten you the
best results because we as we said
before success leaves tracks and if you
look back into your past you’ll often
find indicators that guide you to your
future do you remember that fellow that
won 300 million dollars in the lottery
he was a high school physics teacher and
they asked him what he’s gonna do with
it he said he’s gonna take a week off
and then get back to work because he
doesn’t want to give up his job teaching
high school physics because he loves his
work so much that is a person was in the
right place for him and out there they
can just drive to it you know nice
little car anyway
now the next key to the next key to
becoming a self-made millionaire is to
see yourself a self-employed what we
found is a top 3% of adults in our
society see themselves as self-employed
they see themselves as in charge of
their own lives when I started off my
career as a young man was 21 years old
working as a construction laborer living
in a one-bedroom apartment
taking buses two hours every morning to
get to work and buses two hours to get
back I still remember that I still
remember a light going off one evening I
was sitting there in my little apartment
in my little kitchen out Co and I
suddenly realized that I was responsible
is that I was in charge of my own life
that no one was coming to the rescue and
it was one of the great turning points
in my life so what you find is that all
exceptional people are highly
responsible people they look upon
themselves as self-employed sometimes
I’ll ask an audience I’ll say how many
people here are self-employed and some
people will raise their hand and some
won’t I’ll say now what’s the true
answer to this question and the true
answer is that everyone is self-employed
the biggest mistake you can ever make is
to ever think you work for anyone else
but yourself
even if someone else signs your paycheck
for you all your life the most valuable
people in any organization are the
people who treat the company as though
it belongs to them they see everything
that happens is affecting them
personally they’re not the
nine-to-fivers that no hopers it’s a
yellow I go to work when I’m out of work
I don’t think about my work these people
somebody has told them that’s a clever
way to think it’s the way losers think
winners think about their company and
when they’re not there they think about
how they can do it better when something
happens in their company they take it
personally because they see themselves
as highly responsible as a result
they’re paid more they’re given more
educational opportunities that promoted
faster and these are the people that
eventually like cream rise to the top of
every organization and every industry
the top 3% the next key to becoming a
self-made millionaire is to develop a
clear sense of direction developing a
clear sense of direction means that you
need to become intensely goal-oriented
we find that all successful people are
goal-oriented
there’s an old saying you can’t hit a
target that you can’t see you’ve got to
know what you want in every area of your
life
some years ago I worked with the hot oil
company in Texas the hot oil company was
founded by HL hunt who became the
wealthiest self-made multi-millionaire
billionaire in the world at his peak he
owned 200 companies and had
royalty income of three million dollars
a day most phenomenal man by the way and
he was interviewed by a friend of mine
on television before he died in the
early 70s and he was asked what are the
secrets to success
he said the keys to success have only
been to through all my life and I will
tell you what they are he said number
one he said decide exactly what it is
you want and write it down and make a
plan to achieve it and number two is
determine the price you’re going to have
to pay to get it and then resolve to pay
that price now where the law of sowing
and reaping cause and effect I learned
an additional point to that I learned
that your current life today is the
results for the price you have so on up
to now here’s whatever you’ve put in you
get out so whatever you’re getting out
today as a result of what you put in if
you don’t like what you’re getting out
what you have to do is you have to put
in something different what I found is
this is that life is always just in the
long run so therefore life says this is
there’s a price you have to pay and
there’s two qualities first of all you
have to pay the price in full for your
success of study preparation hard work
and so on and second of all you have to
pay the price in advance you don’t get
it afterwards where the world works is
first to put in what you need to put in
and then you get out the rewards so you
have to ask yourself what is the price
that you have to pay to achieve this
success that you desire and you have to
write it down and make a plan and work
on it every day
now let me give you a quick exercise
which is my only take home or homework
exercise for our time together I want
you to take a piece of paper like this
and write down ten goals that you’d like
to accomplish in the next 12 months
write the word goals and today’s date at
the top of the page write down ten goals
you’d like to accomplish and then ask
yourself this great question if you
could only accomplish one goal on this
list but you could accomplish it within
24 hours which one goal would have the
greatest positive impact on your life
now this is a great question because
it’ll usually jump out at you you say
that’s the one if I had this that would
have more of an impact on my life than
anything else sometimes it’s a financial
goal sometimes it’s a health goal
sometimes it’s a relationship goal but
whatever you put a circle around that
goal and then turn the page over and
write it at the top of the page set a
deadline on the goal make a list of
everything that you can think of to do
to achieve the goal and then begin
working on your list and here’s the
kicker do something every day
do something every day that moves you
one step forward towards your major goal
my promise to you that this exercise
selecting your most important goal
making a plan and working on it every
day will change your life in ways that
you cannot imagine they say that people
begin to become great when they did when
they determined their major definite
purpose their number-one goal and work
on it every day it is the secret to
becoming a self-made millionaire it’s
the secret to great success in life my
promise to you is a week a month a year
from now you’ll look back and you’ll be
absolutely staggered at the difference
it makes I was giving a seminar not long
ago and a gentleman came up to me he
said you know that goal said in exercise
it changed my life 10 years ago he said
I was broke I was divorced he says I was
an alcoholic and somebody dragged me to
one of your seminars he said I did that
exercise and I picked my major goal said
it changed my life I said in what way he
said today he said I’m worth 40 million
dollars I said wow he said yes and I owe
it to that lesson next is refuse to
consider the possibility of failure it’s
the most amazing darn thing is that the
fear of failure is the greatest single
obstacle to success in adult life and
it’s not failure
itself because each one of you is a
professional failure each one of you has
failed over and over and over again is
that true all of us fail all human
beings fail over over nine out of ten
things that we try don’t work out the
way we expect it we have failures and
relationships and in jobs and in careers
and investments and everything it’s not
the failure that holds you back the
failure makes you smarter we say that it
is the fear of failure not failure that
holds you back and the way that you
overcome failure is you never consider
the possibility of failure the rule is
this is there’s no such thing as failure
there’s only feedback is when you try
something it doesn’t work to get
feedback not failure and recognize that
most things you try aren’t going to work
the first few times so what you do is
you say oh that’s an interesting bit of
feedback and you pick yourself up and
you move forward and you have more
feedback and you will Ford to become a
self-made millionaire you’re going to
fail over and over again year after year
after year but your brain has a
cybernetic mechanism which means that
everything sometimes you try something
you get feedback which makes you smarter
and when you try something else you get
feedback which makes you smarter and
eventually you reach the point where
you’re too smart and you stop making
mistakes you start to do more and more
things right and fewer and fewer things
wrong but you can’t get there unless you
have experienced the failures Henry Ford
once said that failure is merely an
opportunity to more intelligently begin
again now let me pass on one great rule
to you which has been discovered in
interviewing self-made millionaires
self-made millionaires look into every
failure for something good
they say there’s got to be something
good in this that I can benefit from and
surprise surprise they always find it
second is self-made millionaires always
seek the valuable lesson in every
setback or obstacle or temporary failure
and they always find the lesson now what
do failures do failures whine and cry
and think about what they’ve lost and
blame their problems on someone else
successful people say what can I learn
from this that will make me smarter next
time and my promise to you those who
seek fine is that if you go looking for
a valuable lesson in the biggest problem
that you’re facing today
you’ll always find the lesson here’s
another possibility your biggest problem
today it could be the biggest gift that
you have ever received because it may
contain within it the lesson that will
make you successful if you stop thinking
about what happened and who’s to blame
and you start looking for the gift
within your problem sometimes it can
transform your life
the next key is to dedicate yourself to
lifelong learning now what takes you
from rags to riches is personal
development personal professional
development in the 21st century as Peter
Drucker says knowledge and skill are the
keys to the 21st century and the only
thing that will be relevant the only
skill that’ll be relevant in the 21st
century is the ability to learn new
skills because virtually everything you
know is becoming obsolete at a rapid
rate Stephen Covey says that your
current knowledge base has a half-life
of two years which means that half of
everything you know will be irrelevant
within two years and two years from now
half more so if you’re not continually
learning and upgrading your knowledge
and skills you’re not staying in the
same place as Pat Roddy says the
basketball coach says you’re not getting
better you’re getting worse if you’re
not constantly learning you’re actually
falling behind so here are the three
keys to continuous learning
number one is read in your field 30 to
60 minutes each day in other words turn
off the television turn off the radio
put aside the newspaper and just read in
your field the very best places to read
by the way are books read books the
best-selling books written by the most
successful people in your field because
books contain a wealth of riches that
can enable you to function at a far
higher level to get much better results
and then you then than you could before
so read 30 to 60 minutes a day I’ve had
people tell me countless people over the
years that reading an hour a day has
doubled and tripled their income within
a year the second thing you do is take
every course that you possibly can the
the courses and seminars that are
available to you in your field that are
given by professionals that are courses
that have been developed over years and
years and years they have been tested
and tested and tested the person who is
talking to you for several hours has
spent thousands of hours learning their
subject they have DRI tested this
or done test runs with thousands of
other people when you take a course you
can learn enough information in one or
two days more than you could learn in
two or three years or maybe even a
lifetime all distilled and put together
people say I can’t afford a course you
cannot afford not to buy books you can’t
afford not afford not to go to courses
some years ago I had a dentist and he
was a very successful dentist I was
recommended to me by a friend and this
dad is retired at the age of 53 and just
before he retired he sold his practice
for about two million dollars just
before he retired he told me why he said
about eight years before he had attended
a dental contra Congress in Hong Kong
his front this is from California it’s
flown all the way to Hong Kong to attend
this international dental Congress
because there were specialists giving
private lectures sort of plenary
sessions on the side and he attended
this session and it was on a particular
technique of cosmetic surgery that this
dentist had developed that no one else
knew where you could basically
straighten out a person’s entire front
jaw so they look beautiful at a very low
cost at a very high level of
effectiveness he came back and he began
implementing this in his practice people
began flying from 500,000 miles away
every dentist sent their family’s
members and themselves to this dentist
he was able to charge whatever he wanted
to charge
he said eight years later he retired as
a self-made millionaire at the age of 53
enjoy his money for the rest of his life
from what he learned from one session at
one convention at one course now that’s
that is a true story and maybe it’s an
exception but you can never tell where
the information is going to come from
the third way that you can upgrade your
skills is listen to audio programs in
your car the average driver drives to a
five hundred to a thousand hours a year
twenty-five to fifty thousand miles if
you listen to audio programs in your car
according to the University of Southern
California you will get the equivalent
of almost full-time University
attendance just listening to learning
material as you drive around it can
totally and profoundly change your life
very very important
here’s an interesting point the more you
commit yourself to becoming the best
person you can be the more you like
yourself and respect yourself the more
energy you have the bigger goals you set
for yourself the more you persist when
you invest in yourself and you read and
learn and upgrade your skills you’re
telling yourself wow I am a person with
a great future and it’s up to me to
maximize my potential and your
self-esteem goes up your self-respect
goes up your sense of personal pride
goes up and you started to get promoted
more and and bred and paid more often in
every part of your work well the next is
to develop a workaholic mentality in our
society day you know all these people
talking about
take it easy have balance in your life
relax lean back have fun at work
happy happy get along with your
coworkers this is loser talk loser loser
loser now there’s a time in your life
when you can back off alright you can
take it easy
but that’s when you’ve made it not
before you’ve made it because before
you’ve made it you’re in a competition
with hundreds of thousands of millions
of other people like at the Olympics you
also want to make it and in order for
you to win you are going to have to work
harder and work better and work smarter
than they do so the rule is to develop a
workaholic mentality what does this mean
it means that you start a little earlier
you work a little harder and you stay a
little later use what I call the 40-plus
formula the 40-plus formula says that
working 40 hours a week gets you
survival and that’s all you work 40
hours a week you survive you make no
progress you don’t go ahead you just
barely hang on every hour that you
invest in your work or yourself over 40
is an investment in your future so you
can tell what your future is going to be
with unerring accuracy by looking at how
many hours over 40 you put in now how
many hours does the average self-made
millionaire in America work until he
passes the million dollar mark 59 some
of them work 70 80 90 the average is 59
hours how much does the average top
executive work 59 hours so that’s rule
number one is the hours you put in over
40 if people say well my office is
locked and I can’t get in more than 40
hours a week then good then spend the
rest of the time investing in yourself
getting better at your work when you do
do it
now here’s my second principle and this
principle changes your life it is this
is work all the time you work when you
work work don’t play fully fifty percent
of working time today is wasted and it’s
wasted and idle conversation personal
business family phone calls surfing the
internet reading the newspaper drinking
coffee long lunch times coming in late
and leaving early and then the other 50%
you’re scrambling because you know
you’re behind because you’ve wasted so
much time fooling around now you start
to work and you don’t work on high
priority tasks to try to get rid of all
the little stuff so what happens is the
big tasks begin to build up like an
avalanche overhang and they cause
enormous stress then you go home at
night and you’re thinking does this job
I’ve got to get this project finished
but I can’t discipline myself to stop
talking to my co-workers every time one
of them comes in I like automatic like a
conditioned response its blah blah time
chatter chatter chatter chatter chatter
chatter chatter chatter know what you
have to do is work all the time you work
if someone comes in says hi you’ve got a
minute to talk you say yes but not now
why don’t we talk after work meanwhile
I’ve got to get back to work I’ll tell
you what why don’t you go down the hall
and ruin his career but don’t stand here
and ruin mine it’s really important it
was a great story little girl goes to
her mother and says mommy why is that
daddy always brings his briefcase home
and he works in the evenings and he
works on the weekends he doesn’t spend
any time with the family and she said
well honey you have to understand Danny
can’t get all his work done at work so
he has to bring it home
she said why don’t they put him in a
slower class
next key is to get around the right
people this is a key for becoming a
self-made Niners get around the right
people dr. David McCullen at Harvard did
studies for 25 years looking into why it
is that some people succeeded greatly in
life what he found was this as much as
99% of your success in life is going to
be determined by what he called your
reference group your reference group are
the people with whom you have actually
associate they’re the people that you
associate with at work the people you
associate with home your church your
political party your social circle what
he found in working with people is that
changing a person’s reference group
totally transformed the way they think
why is because we are like chameleons
and we absorbed through the skin the
attitudes the opinions the behaviors
that style of dress the style of speech
of the people with whom we associate
most of the time if you start to
associate with winners most of the time
you find that they have a totally
different worldview they’re positive
they’re upbeat they’re focused they’re
learning they’re growing they’re
positive of what they’re doing and you
start to become like that we know that
our relationships determine 85% of our
happiness or unhappiness in life in
other words if you have bad
relationships and personal relationships
they will drag you down worse than a sea
anchor if you have worked for a bad boss
it’ll destroy all your joy and work if
you have one negative co-worker they
found that one negative person in an
office can cast a blackness over the
whole office because of his or her
negativity and so most important thing
you do is use choose your relationships
with care and only associated with
people that you like and respect and
enjoy being around
Nexxus be prepared to climb from peak to
peak one of the keys to becoming a
self-made millionaire is to realize that
life is never one continuous train it’s
always up and down so it goes up like if
you climb a mountain peak you have to go
down into the valley before you climb
the next peak so all of life is cycles
and trends all of life is cycles and
trends and there’s up cycles and there’s
down cycles and there’s up trends and
there’s down trends the question is what
is the general direction of your trends
we say this is that life is two steps
forward and one step back
successful people focus on the two steps
forward and then they protect themselves
on the downside they build up cash
reserves they put in stop-loss orders on
their stock market they very carefully
watch what they’re doing so they try to
maintain that two steps up and then make
sure that the one step back is not so
far and then they want to make sure that
this curve is generally upward so that
each time there’s a step back there’s
still further ahead than they were
before
the next one which is to develop
resilience and bounce back developing
resilience and bouncing back is one of
the key qualities of self-made
millionaires because as I said right at
the beginning most things won’t work and
this is a very interesting point is that
you going to go going to be knocked down
over and over again and what we know is
my friend Charlie Jones says is you have
to bounce don’t break and when things go
wrong bounce and so what I learned many
years ago was this interesting technique
of what is called mental rehearsal and
mental rehearsal says that you mentally
prepare for the inevitable downturns
before they occur so you say all right
in the course of life things are going
to go wrong but when they do I’m not
going to become upset I’m not going to
get mad or angry or anything else I’m
just going to take it and learn from it
and pick myself up and keep going
sometimes I ask this question does
anybody here have any problems and
everybody says yes everybody’s got
problems well here’s the rule is all of
life is a continuous series of problems
they never end the problems just keep on
coming like the waves of the ocean the
only break in this unbroken series of
problems will be the occasional crisis
so life will be problem problem problem
problem problem from a crisis problem
problem problem problem problem a crisis
it’s like the waves of the ocean six
problems in a crisis six problems in a
crisis which means that everybody here
is either in a crisis right now has just
gotten out of a crisis or is just about
to have a crisis
so what we have found is this the
hallmark of superior people 30 years of
research is how you respond to a crisis
how you deal with problems and how you
respond to a crisis and what we’ve found
is this is superior people look for the
solution to every problem they don’t
allow themselves to become upset and
angry when something goes wrong they say
ok what’s the solution and they become
intensely solution oriented when you
have a very intense problem that
stimulates creativity to solve the
problem so what you do is you write and
define the problem clarity if you have a
problem you say wait a minute what is my
problem what is it that I’m worried
about and write it down and the very act
of defining a problem clearly often
triggers the solution to the problem one
last technique that I want to give you
with regard to your major definite
purpose and if you only do these two
things as a result of our time together
they will transform your life you’ve
already identified the one goal that can
have the greatest positive impact on
your life now what you do is you take
that goal and you write it at the top of
a page in the form of a question and you
say let us say you your goal is to
double your income that could have a
major impact on your life
say what are all the things that I could
do to double my income in the next 12
months right it is a clear question even
better if you’re earning $50,000 a year
today right what could I do to earn
$100,000 over the next 12 months the
more specific the question the better
then you devote yourself to writing 10
20 answers to this question you must
write a minimum of 20 answers work
harder work smarter start earlier stay
later change occupations upgrade my
skills whatever it is keep forcing
yourself to write to you’ve written 20
answers we call this mind storming the
first 3 to 5 answers will be the next 3
to 5 answers will be difficult the last
10 answers will be incredibly difficult
but I have given this exercise to people
who have gone on to become millionaires
so many times I’ve lost track because
they often find that the 20th answer
changes their whole life and if you’ve
ever done this once it’s absolutely
staggering more people have become
millionaires with this simple idea of
mind storming what I call the 20
idea method than any other single method
of creative thinking ever discover once
you’ve got your twenty answers pick one
answer and take action on it immediately
once you go it doesn’t matter what it is
just take one answer and take action on
it and that will keep you thinking and
acting creatively all day long the
number the next key to becoming a
self-made millionaire is to become an
unshakable optimist and shakable
optimist means that you think and talk
about what you want most of the time
optimists think and talk about what they
want they look for the good in every
situation they seek the valuable lesson
they’re constantly feeding their mind
with great ideas which opens up new
perspectives what I found is that
optimists have three wonderful qualities
number one is they learn more things as
a result they dramatically increase the
likelihood that they will learn the
right thing at the right time number two
is they try more things which
dramatically increases the likelihood
that they’ll try the right thing at the
right time and number three is they
persist they never give up often must
make a decision that once they’ve
decided they’re going to become wealthy
they just never stop until they achieve
that goal now will they have many
setbacks and obstacles and difficulties
do you know that almost everybody
succeeds in a different direction from
what they originally intended or from
what they originally thought but they
just keep going almost like a football
player running down the field running
blocking changing moving back forward
continually but never loses sight of the
goal so optimists learn more things try
more things and persist longer
I want to leave you with the last two
qualities of self-made millionaires
second of the last quality is that they
have developed the qualities of courage
and persistence I said before the
biggest single obstacle to success is
the fear of failure the antidote to the
fear of failure is the habit of courage
and what we know is that you need two
types of courage to succeed the first
type of courage is the courage to begin
it’s the courage to launch with no
guarantees of success someone once said
that if all obstacles must first be
removed nothing will ever get done so
successful people are willing to think
plan make decisions and then take action
with no guarantees we say leap and the
net will appear take action with no
guarantees and then learn the second
part of courage is the courage to endure
it’s the courage to persist it’s the
courage to keep on keeping on is to make
the decision in advance that you will
never give up no matter what happens you
will never give up you will get knocked
down over and over again but you’ll
never give up and the interesting thing
is when you make that decision in
advance you’ll find yourself continually
bouncing back so courage means it means
the courage to begin and the courage to
endure and the final quality of
self-made millionaires and Napoleon Hill
called this the master key to riches
after studying 500 of the richest people
in American history he said as the
quality of self-discipline it’s the
ability to make yourself do what you
should do when you should do it whether
you feel like it or not the quality of
self-discipline is the quality that will
make you a big success it’s the ability
to force yourself to do what you know
you should do and here is the wonderful
discovery this persistence is
self-discipline in action
every time you persist you build
yourself discipline every time you
practice self-discipline you build your
ability to persist and the two of them
are tied into your self-esteem so the
more you persist the more you like
yourself and the more you like yourself
a more just discipline you have and then
we’re discipline you have in practice
the more you like yourself as a result
the more you persist and eventually you
get on to an upper spiral but you become
absolutely unstoppable you reach the
point where you know you can achieve the
goal and nothing in the
can stop you and every step that you
take forward makes you stronger and
stronger and stronger until finally
people say I know one thing about him I
know one thing about her
you cannot stop him or her once they
decided they want something they will
not stop until they get it and when you
develop that quality there will be
nothing that is impossible to you so let
me just leave you with these last points
we’re living at the very best time in
all of human history more people are
going to make more money in the next few
years that have ever been made in all of
human history more people are going to
become millionaires and are becoming
millionaires today at a faster rate than
we ever thought possible and no one is
better than you and no one is smarter
than you and if you do what other
self-made millionaires do and nothing in
the world can stop you from eventually
getting the same results as other
self-made millionaires and I hope you do
[Music]
you
self-made millionaires have been studied
exhaustively they’ve been analyzed
they’ve been interviewed by the hundreds
of thousands and millions and what we
know is exactly who they are and what
they do and how they think and how they
tick and the decisions they make and the
things that they do and they don’t do
and the wonderful thing is is if you do
what other successful people do you
eventually get the same result that they
do now some people say well I started
off without any money and I you know I
don’t have any money now well join the
crowd nobody’s got any money
most people are broke up into their 40s
and 50s so if you’re broke today you’re
just one of the gang the only question
is do you say that and the answer is no
now when I started off in in this many
years ago I came from very poor
beginnings I did not graduate from high
school I finished in the half of the
class that makes the top half possible
when I left school I dropped out of high
school I could only get laboring jobs I
was told by the way if you don’t get a
good education you won’t do well in life
don’t get good grades you won’t get a
good job you don’t go to college you
won’t do well and so on and I believed
that for a long time until I found these
hundreds of thousands and millions of
people who dropped out of high school
who went on to become millionaires and
billionaires as well the reason I say
that to you by the way is don’t let it
hold you back don’t let any experience
that you’ve ever had in your life act as
a brake on your potential because
there’s hundreds of thousands of people
have had it worse than you could ever
dream up who’ve gone on to accomplish
wonderful things so I worked at laboring
jobs for several years I worked in
construction I worked on farms and
ranches I work in factories putting nuts
on bolts hour after hour and one day in
a state of frustration I began asking
this question why is it that some people
are more successful than others now in
the Bible there’s the line that says
seek and ye shall find for all who seek
find it ask and the door will be open so
I began asking other successful people
what are you doing differently from me
and they told me and I did it and I got
better results I got into sales when I
could no longer get a laboring job
you and in sales I noticed that one of
the guys in my company is making 10
times as much as anybody else and he was
selling the same product out of the same
office at the same price to the same
people under the same conditions and he
was making 10 times as much as anybody
else I wasn’t asked him what are you
doing differently for me and he told me
and I did it now what I discovered which
changed my life which brought us here
today is I discovered the law of cause
and effect the law of cause and effect
sowing and reaping action and reaction
are the great is the great universal or
iron law of the universe what it says is
that everything happens for a reason is
that there are no causeless effects is
that even if we don’t know what is
causing the effect we trace it back it’s
the basis of the scientific process of
all medical research of all marketing of
all business is if you can define and
effect that you want you can trace it
back and find somebody who at one time
did not have that effect and then find
out what they did and then do the same
things and you eventually get the same
results we say that success is not an
accident failure is not an accident
success leaves tracks so if you just
follow the tracks of other successful
people no matter where you’re starting
from you eventually get to the same
place that they again well this this was
a shocker for me because and I learned
later in psychology by the way that one
of the the two most important things we
need to have to be happy and healthy is
a sense of control a feeling that we are
in control of our lives that things are
happening for a reason in a sense of
coherence a feeling that things fit
together well when I realized the law of
cause and effect explained everything
I got a WoW so in sales I went to the
top of my sales force I read I learned
attended courses and especially I
applied what I learned and the one I got
into sales management again read the
books and took the courses and asked for
advice and when I got into real estate
and importation and developing a
manufacturing distribution in a whole
series of businesses over the years the
first thing I did is I asked how does it
work how do people succeed in this field
and then I buried myself and immerse
myself I spent hours and hours and hours
studying and then I did but the most
successful people did interesting point
we say that nature is
neutral in other words Nature doesn’t
care who you are doesn’t care if you’re
tall or short or male or female or black
or white educated or uneducated nature
doesn’t care
all that nature cares is that you do
what successful people do is I’m making
a recipe make sure doesn’t care you
follow a recipe if you follow the recipe
exactly you get the dish nature doesn’t
care who’s doing it and that’s the
wonderful thing about our society it’s
it’s basically like justice it’s blind
yes Nature doesn’t care in fact there
are a lot of people who are not as smart
and not as talented as you who are doing
vastly better than you not because
they’re better but because they’re just
following proven success methods there’s
nothing that will make you matter than
to see somebody who’s dumber than you
who’s making more money than you right
yeah that experience so what we do is we
use proven success methods we just find
out what they are and we do them over
and over again quick point nothing works
the first time okay please understand
that nothing works the first time what
is the average number of times that a
person tries with the new goal before
they give up can you guess where the
average is less than one because most
people give up before they try even once
they say that’s a great goal I’d love to
be financially independent and then they
give up they don’t even try this aaaah
but I couldn’t because of this and
because of that and so on and then they
move away to a wonderful place called
Sunday I’ll
ever heard of someday I’ll someday I’ll
start saving money someday I’ll get out
of debt
someday I’ll lose weight someday I’ll
start a business someday I’ll get
serious about my finances and most
people live on someday I your job and my
job is to vote yourself off the island
right and we start taking control of our
lives well about Tom some years ago I
was called by a major businessman and he
asked me if I would do a talk for his
800 entrepreneurs that own separate
franchises within his organization on
how to become a self-made millionaire
and I said sure when you’re a young
speaker you agreed to speak on any
subject sure I’ll speak on that subject
now I was just like most people when I
was young I wanted to be a millionaire
by the time I was thirty and when I hit
thirty I put it off to 35 and as I got
to 35 you put it off to 40 and then you
kind of just don’t look at it anymore
you forget about it and feel the deck is
stacked against you
well I was about 38 39 when he called me
up and asked me I said sure no problem
and I said now what do I know about
self-made millionaires and this is a
shocker I didn’t know anything oh I knew
that they had more than a million
dollars but that’s a real basic piece of
knowledge you know so I started thinking
what do I know about so I began to study
them and that’s when I found out that
they’ve been studied so thoroughly is we
know everything there is to know about
them they are a source of incredible
fascination and there’s 50 years of
research so I began to read the studies
and find out where they came from and
what they did and how they thought and
where they started and the decisions
they made and the kind of people they
were
one of the things that I learned by the
way is that becoming a self-made
millionaire is not the important thing
what is really important is the person
you have to become to become a self-made
millionaire you have to become a totally
different human being my friend said one
of my friends says that in order to a be
to achieve something you’ve never
achieved before you have to become
someone you’ve never been before
and it’s a really important insight is
the qualities that you need to develop
equalities on the inside to become a
self-made millionaire are incredible
qualities that make you a vastly better
person not only better in terms of
character determination discipline
decision-making strength and so on but
they make you a far better person they
round out your character in a far better
way so that through the real payoff of
becoming wealth wealthy it’s not because
you can eat more because how many more
meals can you eat how many more clothes
can you wear because it’s the kind of
person that you become and then the kind
of person people that you associate the
kind of life that you have and so the
things that we’re going to talk about
now and I know that you’re some of the
smartest people in our country so I’m
going to give you these ideas very
quickly like dealing cards what I found
in my research is that there’s a series
of qualities that self-made millionaires
have if you have these qualities your
success is virtually guaranteed and if
you don’t have these qualities that
qualities are learn about point number
one is that all business or sales skills
are learn about all financial skills are
learn about if you can drive a car you
can learn any skill if you can drive a
car you can learn this skill and number
two is you’re probably only one skill
away from doubling your income right now
you’re probably only one skill away from
setting yourself on the road to becoming
a self-made millionaire that turns out
to be the case for almost everyone and
if you don’t know what that skill is
maybe over the course of the time we
spend together it’ll jump out at you but
whatever it is you’ve got to find it out
and go to work on it because it is learn
about it’s a learning skill
people say well I don’t mean I’ve never
been very good with money well get over
it the fact of the matter is you can
learn what you need to learn to achieve
anything that you want to achieve so the
success secrets of self-made
millionaires give yourself a score of
one to ten and if you are weak on one of
these it can be enough to hold you back
if you’re strong on all these then
there’s no limit to what you can
accomplish the first is to dream big
dreams dream big dreams practice what is
called back from the future thinking and
project forward develop a vision of
yourself as happy healthy wealthy thin
practice what top people practice which
is what is called idealization you
project forward several years and these
to imagine that your life is perfect in
every way imagine that you have no
limitations imagine that you have all
the time and all the money and all the
friends and all the contacts and all the
education all the experience and that
you could be or have or do anything you
want in life if you could what would it
be if your life were perfect in five
years what would it look like how much
would you be earning how much would you
be worth what kind of a family life
would you have what kind of health would
you have what kind of car would you be
driving what would your life be like if
you could wave a magic wand and make it
perfect in every way now what we have
found is this is the starting point of
great riches and it’s the starting point
of great success in life is for you to
have a dream or a vision of a wonderful
future
here’s an exercise that we give people
and our audiences is take a sheet of
paper and make up what is called a dream
list now imagine this is kind of like a
kid’s Christmas list and that it just
allows you to just run wild and just
write down everything that you could
think of that you would possibly want I
had a friend who I taught this to and he
got so excited about he bought a spiral
notebook and he began writing and he go
through the newspaper and every single
thing he saw in the newspaper that was
nice he wrote it down the school
he ended up first time through with
three hundred and thirty goals with the
end of the month he had 500 things that
he wanted the interesting thing was that
his life exploded he activated the law
of attraction he began to attract into
his life people circumstances ideas
resources IP insights this began to move
him toward the accomplishment of the
goals and began to move the goals toward
him
number two is to do what you love to do
whenever you find people who are really
successful in life there are people who
do what they love to do they they love
their work the great rule for success in
life is to find something that you love
to do and then find a way to make a
living doing it now when you find what
you love to do it’ll be something that
gives you energy it motivates you it as
soon as you it’s probably something that
you were meant to do from the time you
were born and when you ask self-made
millionaires what sort of work do you do
they’ll often say I never worked a day
in my life I just do what I like to do I
had a graduate of my course once it came
up to me he said you know that’s
interesting he said when I was a little
boy I loved to study airplanes he said I
got in the airplane books and I had
airplane models on ahead and tie planes
and then and then I got into
competitions with the remote-controlled
planes he said when I grew up and went
to school I studied aeronautical
engineering
he said today’s that I’m 35 he said I
own three companies one builds a small
aircraft another one repairs and
services smaller aircraft in other words
in leasing and chartering smart okay he
said I’ve never worked a day in my life
he said I just played with planes since
the time I was a kid so one of the
things that you can do is go back to the
time when you were young as a child
between the ages of 7 and 14 before you
discovered boys or girls and what is it
that you really love to do
and you’ll often find that within that
is something you’re supposed to do as an
adult
number three is commit to excellence now
this is really really important and I
had a hard time with this as a young man
because I was never good at anything
I was never picked for any team and if I
was picked I was the first person cut
I got lousy grades in every class I got
fired from multiple jobs
I even got fired from a job Tommy gasps
once okay you can imagine that being
fired for pumping gas because you’re no
good they came out and said you’re no
good at pumping gas how can you know
little old ladies can pump gas and here
was I was no good at pumping gas anyway
so no I got fired I went from job to job
and then I discovered that all people
who are successful are excellent at what
they do you know the old question they
asked Willie Sutton the bank robber why
do you rob banks he said well that’s
where the money is well being in the top
10% is where the money is so what you
have to do is you have to pay any price
and make any sacrifice to get into the
top 10% in your field now here’s the
good news if you’re doing what you love
to do you will want to be in the top 10%
in your field if you don’t want to be
excellent at what you’re doing it means
you’re in the wrong field it just means
that you’re marking time you’re treading
water and there’s a lot of people who
are in their field and they do their job
and you know they go home at night and
don’t think about their work and so on
and this kind of an attitude means that
you have no future you have a very shaky
present that crackling sound you hear is
the ice breaking under your feet okay
and you have a very you have no future
because if you’re not doing what you
love to do and throwing your whole heart
into it
it’s just marking time but everybody is
designed so that there is something that
you love to do that you can do well and
the fact that you love it means that you
probably have the ability to excel it so
make this decision to get into the top
10% let me tell you how what changed my
life here I was struck in my late 20s
and I learned this it was a breakthrough
thought
is that everybody’s in the top 10%
started in the bottom 10% everybody
who’s doing well was once doing poorly
everybody who is at top of your field
today was once not even in your field at
all and didn’t even know it existed what
that means is that if you’re willing to
pay the price and work hard and make the
sacrifices you can get into the top 10%
now how long does it take it doesn’t
take a week or a month most people are
really impatient and to achieve mastery
in your field takes five to seven years
you don’t say five to seven years geez
I’ll be five to seven years old or
before I start enjoying the big rewards
well how much older will you be in five
to seven years anyway
now here’s an important point are you
ready the time is going to pass anyway
the time is going to pass five to seven
years from now five to seven years will
have passed the only question is there
are you going to be at the top of your
field or you’re still going to be down
there with a with the mediocre 80% and
the wonderful thing is this is nobody’s
better than you and nobody’s smarter
than you if anybody else is at the top
of the field it means that you can be at
the top of your field just go to them
and find out how they got there because
they started at the bottom
now it may take longer for some people
and less for others but everybody who
puts one foot in front of the other and
keeps moving eventually gets it and
that’s where all the rewards are not
only that that’s where all the joy in
life is when you’re really good at what
you do you feel wonderful about yourself
you’re respected and esteem but
everybody around you you can you can
write your own ticket you can open any
door when you’re good at what you do
because you get up in the morning and
you know you’re good and and and and
that is more important than the rewards
that go with the next key is to develop
your unique talents and abilities every
single person is designed from infancy
with special talents and abilities that
if you develop them to their height can
enable you to accomplish anything you
want in life everyone is genetically
structured to be able to do something
superbly to do something they enjoy to
do it well and to get great satisfaction
from them
Peter Drucker often asks the question
what are you good at what are you good
at today what should you be good at what
could you be good at what will you be
good at and so one of the questions that
we ask is looking back in your life what
has been most responsible for your
success up to now what has been most
responsible in the past what is it that
you have done that has gotten you the
best results because we as we said
before success leaves tracks and if you
look back into your past you’ll often
find indicators that guide you to your
future do you remember that fellow that
won 300 million dollars in the lottery
he was a high school physics teacher and
they asked him what he’s gonna do with
it he said he’s gonna take a week off
and then get back to work because he
doesn’t want to give up his job teaching
high school physics because he loves his
work so much that is a person was in the
right place for him and out there they
can just drive to it you know nice
little car anyway
now the next key to the next key to
becoming a self-made millionaire is to
see yourself a self-employed what we
found is a top 3% of adults in our
society see themselves as self-employed
they see themselves as in charge of
their own lives when I started off my
career as a young man was 21 years old
working as a construction laborer living
in a one-bedroom apartment
taking buses two hours every morning to
get to work and buses two hours to get
back I still remember that I still
remember a light going off one evening I
was sitting there in my little apartment
in my little kitchen out Co and I
suddenly realized that I was responsible
is that I was in charge of my own life
that no one was coming to the rescue and
it was one of the great turning points
in my life so what you find is that all
exceptional people are highly
responsible people they look upon
themselves as self-employed sometimes
I’ll ask an audience I’ll say how many
people here are self-employed and some
people will raise their hand and some
won’t I’ll say now what’s the true
answer to this question and the true
answer is that everyone is self-employed
the biggest mistake you can ever make is
to ever think you work for anyone else
but yourself
even if someone else signs your paycheck
for you all your life the most valuable
people in any organization are the
people who treat the company as though
it belongs to them they see everything
that happens is affecting them
personally they’re not the
nine-to-fivers that no hopers it’s a
yellow I go to work when I’m out of work
I don’t think about my work these people
somebody has told them that’s a clever
way to think it’s the way losers think
winners think about their company and
when they’re not there they think about
how they can do it better when something
happens in their company they take it
personally because they see themselves
as highly responsible as a result
they’re paid more they’re given more
educational opportunities that promoted
faster and these are the people that
eventually like cream rise to the top of
every organization and every industry
the top 3% the next key to becoming a
self-made millionaire is to develop a
clear sense of direction developing a
clear sense of direction means that you
need to become intensely goal-oriented
we find that all successful people are
goal-oriented
there’s an old saying you can’t hit a
target that you can’t see you’ve got to
know what you want in every area of your
life
some years ago I worked with the hot oil
company in Texas the hot oil company was
founded by HL hunt who became the
wealthiest self-made multi-millionaire
billionaire in the world at his peak he
owned 200 companies and had
royalty income of three million dollars
a day most phenomenal man by the way and
he was interviewed by a friend of mine
on television before he died in the
early 70s and he was asked what are the
secrets to success
he said the keys to success have only
been to through all my life and I will
tell you what they are he said number
one he said decide exactly what it is
you want and write it down and make a
plan to achieve it and number two is
determine the price you’re going to have
to pay to get it and then resolve to pay
that price now where the law of sowing
and reaping cause and effect I learned
an additional point to that I learned
that your current life today is the
results for the price you have so on up
to now here’s whatever you’ve put in you
get out so whatever you’re getting out
today as a result of what you put in if
you don’t like what you’re getting out
what you have to do is you have to put
in something different what I found is
this is that life is always just in the
long run so therefore life says this is
there’s a price you have to pay and
there’s two qualities first of all you
have to pay the price in full for your
success of study preparation hard work
and so on and second of all you have to
pay the price in advance you don’t get
it afterwards where the world works is
first to put in what you need to put in
and then you get out the rewards so you
have to ask yourself what is the price
that you have to pay to achieve this
success that you desire and you have to
write it down and make a plan and work
on it every day
now let me give you a quick exercise
which is my only take home or homework
exercise for our time together I want
you to take a piece of paper like this
and write down ten goals that you’d like
to accomplish in the next 12 months
write the word goals and today’s date at
the top of the page write down ten goals
you’d like to accomplish and then ask
yourself this great question if you
could only accomplish one goal on this
list but you could accomplish it within
24 hours which one goal would have the
greatest positive impact on your life
now this is a great question because
it’ll usually jump out at you you say
that’s the one if I had this that would
have more of an impact on my life than
anything else sometimes it’s a financial
goal sometimes it’s a health goal
sometimes it’s a relationship goal but
whatever you put a circle around that
goal and then turn the page over and
write it at the top of the page set a
deadline on the goal make a list of
everything that you can think of to do
to achieve the goal and then begin
working on your list and here’s the
kicker do something every day
do something every day that moves you
one step forward towards your major goal
my promise to you that this exercise
selecting your most important goal
making a plan and working on it every
day will change your life in ways that
you cannot imagine they say that people
begin to become great when they did when
they determined their major definite
purpose their number-one goal and work
on it every day it is the secret to
becoming a self-made millionaire it’s
the secret to great success in life my
promise to you is a week a month a year
from now you’ll look back and you’ll be
absolutely staggered at the difference
it makes I was giving a seminar not long
ago and a gentleman came up to me he
said you know that goal said in exercise
it changed my life 10 years ago he said
I was broke I was divorced he says I was
an alcoholic and somebody dragged me to
one of your seminars he said I did that
exercise and I picked my major goal said
it changed my life I said in what way he
said today he said I’m worth 40 million
dollars I said wow he said yes and I owe
it to that lesson next is refuse to
consider the possibility of failure it’s
the most amazing darn thing is that the
fear of failure is the greatest single
obstacle to success in adult life and
it’s not failure
itself because each one of you is a
professional failure each one of you has
failed over and over and over again is
that true all of us fail all human
beings fail over over nine out of ten
things that we try don’t work out the
way we expect it we have failures and
relationships and in jobs and in careers
and investments and everything it’s not
the failure that holds you back the
failure makes you smarter we say that it
is the fear of failure not failure that
holds you back and the way that you
overcome failure is you never consider
the possibility of failure the rule is
this is there’s no such thing as failure
there’s only feedback is when you try
something it doesn’t work to get
feedback not failure and recognize that
most things you try aren’t going to work
the first few times so what you do is
you say oh that’s an interesting bit of
feedback and you pick yourself up and
you move forward and you have more
feedback and you will Ford to become a
self-made millionaire you’re going to
fail over and over again year after year
after year but your brain has a
cybernetic mechanism which means that
everything sometimes you try something
you get feedback which makes you smarter
and when you try something else you get
feedback which makes you smarter and
eventually you reach the point where
you’re too smart and you stop making
mistakes you start to do more and more
things right and fewer and fewer things
wrong but you can’t get there unless you
have experienced the failures Henry Ford
once said that failure is merely an
opportunity to more intelligently begin
again now let me pass on one great rule
to you which has been discovered in
interviewing self-made millionaires
self-made millionaires look into every
failure for something good
they say there’s got to be something
good in this that I can benefit from and
surprise surprise they always find it
second is self-made millionaires always
seek the valuable lesson in every
setback or obstacle or temporary failure
and they always find the lesson now what
do failures do failures whine and cry
and think about what they’ve lost and
blame their problems on someone else
successful people say what can I learn
from this that will make me smarter next
time and my promise to you those who
seek fine is that if you go looking for
a valuable lesson in the biggest problem
that you’re facing today
you’ll always find the lesson here’s
another possibility your biggest problem
today it could be the biggest gift that
you have ever received because it may
contain within it the lesson that will
make you successful if you stop thinking
about what happened and who’s to blame
and you start looking for the gift
within your problem sometimes it can
transform your life
the next key is to dedicate yourself to
lifelong learning now what takes you
from rags to riches is personal
development personal professional
development in the 21st century as Peter
Drucker says knowledge and skill are the
keys to the 21st century and the only
thing that will be relevant the only
skill that’ll be relevant in the 21st
century is the ability to learn new
skills because virtually everything you
know is becoming obsolete at a rapid
rate Stephen Covey says that your
current knowledge base has a half-life
of two years which means that half of
everything you know will be irrelevant
within two years and two years from now
half more so if you’re not continually
learning and upgrading your knowledge
and skills you’re not staying in the
same place as Pat Roddy says the
basketball coach says you’re not getting
better you’re getting worse if you’re
not constantly learning you’re actually
falling behind so here are the three
keys to continuous learning
number one is read in your field 30 to
60 minutes each day in other words turn
off the television turn off the radio
put aside the newspaper and just read in
your field the very best places to read
by the way are books read books the
best-selling books written by the most
successful people in your field because
books contain a wealth of riches that
can enable you to function at a far
higher level to get much better results
and then you then than you could before
so read 30 to 60 minutes a day I’ve had
people tell me countless people over the
years that reading an hour a day has
doubled and tripled their income within
a year the second thing you do is take
every course that you possibly can the
the courses and seminars that are
available to you in your field that are
given by professionals that are courses
that have been developed over years and
years and years they have been tested
and tested and tested the person who is
talking to you for several hours has
spent thousands of hours learning their
subject they have DRI tested this
or done test runs with thousands of
other people when you take a course you
can learn enough information in one or
two days more than you could learn in
two or three years or maybe even a
lifetime all distilled and put together
people say I can’t afford a course you
cannot afford not to buy books you can’t
afford not afford not to go to courses
some years ago I had a dentist and he
was a very successful dentist I was
recommended to me by a friend and this
dad is retired at the age of 53 and just
before he retired he sold his practice
for about two million dollars just
before he retired he told me why he said
about eight years before he had attended
a dental contra Congress in Hong Kong
his front this is from California it’s
flown all the way to Hong Kong to attend
this international dental Congress
because there were specialists giving
private lectures sort of plenary
sessions on the side and he attended
this session and it was on a particular
technique of cosmetic surgery that this
dentist had developed that no one else
knew where you could basically
straighten out a person’s entire front
jaw so they look beautiful at a very low
cost at a very high level of
effectiveness he came back and he began
implementing this in his practice people
began flying from 500,000 miles away
every dentist sent their family’s
members and themselves to this dentist
he was able to charge whatever he wanted
to charge
he said eight years later he retired as
a self-made millionaire at the age of 53
enjoy his money for the rest of his life
from what he learned from one session at
one convention at one course now that’s
that is a true story and maybe it’s an
exception but you can never tell where
the information is going to come from
the third way that you can upgrade your
skills is listen to audio programs in
your car the average driver drives to a
five hundred to a thousand hours a year
twenty-five to fifty thousand miles if
you listen to audio programs in your car
according to the University of Southern
California you will get the equivalent
of almost full-time University
attendance just listening to learning
material as you drive around it can
totally and profoundly change your life
very very important
here’s an interesting point the more you
commit yourself to becoming the best
person you can be the more you like
yourself and respect yourself the more
energy you have the bigger goals you set
for yourself the more you persist when
you invest in yourself and you read and
learn and upgrade your skills you’re
telling yourself wow I am a person with
a great future and it’s up to me to
maximize my potential and your
self-esteem goes up your self-respect
goes up your sense of personal pride
goes up and you started to get promoted
more and and bred and paid more often in
every part of your work well the next is
to develop a workaholic mentality in our
society day you know all these people
talking about
take it easy have balance in your life
relax lean back have fun at work
happy happy get along with your
coworkers this is loser talk loser loser
loser now there’s a time in your life
when you can back off alright you can
take it easy
but that’s when you’ve made it not
before you’ve made it because before
you’ve made it you’re in a competition
with hundreds of thousands of millions
of other people like at the Olympics you
also want to make it and in order for
you to win you are going to have to work
harder and work better and work smarter
than they do so the rule is to develop a
workaholic mentality what does this mean
it means that you start a little earlier
you work a little harder and you stay a
little later use what I call the 40-plus
formula the 40-plus formula says that
working 40 hours a week gets you
survival and that’s all you work 40
hours a week you survive you make no
progress you don’t go ahead you just
barely hang on every hour that you
invest in your work or yourself over 40
is an investment in your future so you
can tell what your future is going to be
with unerring accuracy by looking at how
many hours over 40 you put in now how
many hours does the average self-made
millionaire in America work until he
passes the million dollar mark 59 some
of them work 70 80 90 the average is 59
hours how much does the average top
executive work 59 hours so that’s rule
number one is the hours you put in over
40 if people say well my office is
locked and I can’t get in more than 40
hours a week then good then spend the
rest of the time investing in yourself
getting better at your work when you do
do it
now here’s my second principle and this
principle changes your life it is this
is work all the time you work when you
work work don’t play fully fifty percent
of working time today is wasted and it’s
wasted and idle conversation personal
business family phone calls surfing the
internet reading the newspaper drinking
coffee long lunch times coming in late
and leaving early and then the other 50%
you’re scrambling because you know
you’re behind because you’ve wasted so
much time fooling around now you start
to work and you don’t work on high
priority tasks to try to get rid of all
the little stuff so what happens is the
big tasks begin to build up like an
avalanche overhang and they cause
enormous stress then you go home at
night and you’re thinking does this job
I’ve got to get this project finished
but I can’t discipline myself to stop
talking to my co-workers every time one
of them comes in I like automatic like a
conditioned response its blah blah time
chatter chatter chatter chatter chatter
chatter chatter chatter know what you
have to do is work all the time you work
if someone comes in says hi you’ve got a
minute to talk you say yes but not now
why don’t we talk after work meanwhile
I’ve got to get back to work I’ll tell
you what why don’t you go down the hall
and ruin his career but don’t stand here
and ruin mine it’s really important it
was a great story little girl goes to
her mother and says mommy why is that
daddy always brings his briefcase home
and he works in the evenings and he
works on the weekends he doesn’t spend
any time with the family and she said
well honey you have to understand Danny
can’t get all his work done at work so
he has to bring it home
she said why don’t they put him in a
slower class
next key is to get around the right
people this is a key for becoming a
self-made Niners get around the right
people dr. David McCullen at Harvard did
studies for 25 years looking into why it
is that some people succeeded greatly in
life what he found was this as much as
99% of your success in life is going to
be determined by what he called your
reference group your reference group are
the people with whom you have actually
associate they’re the people that you
associate with at work the people you
associate with home your church your
political party your social circle what
he found in working with people is that
changing a person’s reference group
totally transformed the way they think
why is because we are like chameleons
and we absorbed through the skin the
attitudes the opinions the behaviors
that style of dress the style of speech
of the people with whom we associate
most of the time if you start to
associate with winners most of the time
you find that they have a totally
different worldview they’re positive
they’re upbeat they’re focused they’re
learning they’re growing they’re
positive of what they’re doing and you
start to become like that we know that
our relationships determine 85% of our
happiness or unhappiness in life in
other words if you have bad
relationships and personal relationships
they will drag you down worse than a sea
anchor if you have worked for a bad boss
it’ll destroy all your joy and work if
you have one negative co-worker they
found that one negative person in an
office can cast a blackness over the
whole office because of his or her
negativity and so most important thing
you do is use choose your relationships
with care and only associated with
people that you like and respect and
enjoy being around
Nexxus be prepared to climb from peak to
peak one of the keys to becoming a
self-made millionaire is to realize that
life is never one continuous train it’s
always up and down so it goes up like if
you climb a mountain peak you have to go
down into the valley before you climb
the next peak so all of life is cycles
and trends all of life is cycles and
trends and there’s up cycles and there’s
down cycles and there’s up trends and
there’s down trends the question is what
is the general direction of your trends
we say this is that life is two steps
forward and one step back
successful people focus on the two steps
forward and then they protect themselves
on the downside they build up cash
reserves they put in stop-loss orders on
their stock market they very carefully
watch what they’re doing so they try to
maintain that two steps up and then make
sure that the one step back is not so
far and then they want to make sure that
this curve is generally upward so that
each time there’s a step back there’s
still further ahead than they were
before
the next one which is to develop
resilience and bounce back developing
resilience and bouncing back is one of
the key qualities of self-made
millionaires because as I said right at
the beginning most things won’t work and
this is a very interesting point is that
you going to go going to be knocked down
over and over again and what we know is
my friend Charlie Jones says is you have
to bounce don’t break and when things go
wrong bounce and so what I learned many
years ago was this interesting technique
of what is called mental rehearsal and
mental rehearsal says that you mentally
prepare for the inevitable downturns
before they occur so you say all right
in the course of life things are going
to go wrong but when they do I’m not
going to become upset I’m not going to
get mad or angry or anything else I’m
just going to take it and learn from it
and pick myself up and keep going
sometimes I ask this question does
anybody here have any problems and
everybody says yes everybody’s got
problems well here’s the rule is all of
life is a continuous series of problems
they never end the problems just keep on
coming like the waves of the ocean the
only break in this unbroken series of
problems will be the occasional crisis
so life will be problem problem problem
problem problem from a crisis problem
problem problem problem problem a crisis
it’s like the waves of the ocean six
problems in a crisis six problems in a
crisis which means that everybody here
is either in a crisis right now has just
gotten out of a crisis or is just about
to have a crisis
so what we have found is this the
hallmark of superior people 30 years of
research is how you respond to a crisis
how you deal with problems and how you
respond to a crisis and what we’ve found
is this is superior people look for the
solution to every problem they don’t
allow themselves to become upset and
angry when something goes wrong they say
ok what’s the solution and they become
intensely solution oriented when you
have a very intense problem that
stimulates creativity to solve the
problem so what you do is you write and
define the problem clarity if you have a
problem you say wait a minute what is my
problem what is it that I’m worried
about and write it down and the very act
of defining a problem clearly often
triggers the solution to the problem one
last technique that I want to give you
with regard to your major definite
purpose and if you only do these two
things as a result of our time together
they will transform your life you’ve
already identified the one goal that can
have the greatest positive impact on
your life now what you do is you take
that goal and you write it at the top of
a page in the form of a question and you
say let us say you your goal is to
double your income that could have a
major impact on your life
say what are all the things that I could
do to double my income in the next 12
months right it is a clear question even
better if you’re earning $50,000 a year
today right what could I do to earn
$100,000 over the next 12 months the
more specific the question the better
then you devote yourself to writing 10
20 answers to this question you must
write a minimum of 20 answers work
harder work smarter start earlier stay
later change occupations upgrade my
skills whatever it is keep forcing
yourself to write to you’ve written 20
answers we call this mind storming the
first 3 to 5 answers will be the next 3
to 5 answers will be difficult the last
10 answers will be incredibly difficult
but I have given this exercise to people
who have gone on to become millionaires
so many times I’ve lost track because
they often find that the 20th answer
changes their whole life and if you’ve
ever done this once it’s absolutely
staggering more people have become
millionaires with this simple idea of
mind storming what I call the 20
idea method than any other single method
of creative thinking ever discover once
you’ve got your twenty answers pick one
answer and take action on it immediately
once you go it doesn’t matter what it is
just take one answer and take action on
it and that will keep you thinking and
acting creatively all day long the
number the next key to becoming a
self-made millionaire is to become an
unshakable optimist and shakable
optimist means that you think and talk
about what you want most of the time
optimists think and talk about what they
want they look for the good in every
situation they seek the valuable lesson
they’re constantly feeding their mind
with great ideas which opens up new
perspectives what I found is that
optimists have three wonderful qualities
number one is they learn more things as
a result they dramatically increase the
likelihood that they will learn the
right thing at the right time number two
is they try more things which
dramatically increases the likelihood
that they’ll try the right thing at the
right time and number three is they
persist they never give up often must
make a decision that once they’ve
decided they’re going to become wealthy
they just never stop until they achieve
that goal now will they have many
setbacks and obstacles and difficulties
do you know that almost everybody
succeeds in a different direction from
what they originally intended or from
what they originally thought but they
just keep going almost like a football
player running down the field running
blocking changing moving back forward
continually but never loses sight of the
goal so optimists learn more things try
more things and persist longer
I want to leave you with the last two
qualities of self-made millionaires
second of the last quality is that they
have developed the qualities of courage
and persistence I said before the
biggest single obstacle to success is
the fear of failure the antidote to the
fear of failure is the habit of courage
and what we know is that you need two
types of courage to succeed the first
type of courage is the courage to begin
it’s the courage to launch with no
guarantees of success someone once said
that if all obstacles must first be
removed nothing will ever get done so
successful people are willing to think
plan make decisions and then take action
with no guarantees we say leap and the
net will appear take action with no
guarantees and then learn the second
part of courage is the courage to endure
it’s the courage to persist it’s the
courage to keep on keeping on is to make
the decision in advance that you will
never give up no matter what happens you
will never give up you will get knocked
down over and over again but you’ll
never give up and the interesting thing
is when you make that decision in
advance you’ll find yourself continually
bouncing back so courage means it means
the courage to begin and the courage to
endure and the final quality of
self-made millionaires and Napoleon Hill
called this the master key to riches
after studying 500 of the richest people
in American history he said as the
quality of self-discipline it’s the
ability to make yourself do what you
should do when you should do it whether
you feel like it or not the quality of
self-discipline is the quality that will
make you a big success it’s the ability
to force yourself to do what you know
you should do and here is the wonderful
discovery this persistence is
self-discipline in action
every time you persist you build
yourself discipline every time you
practice self-discipline you build your
ability to persist and the two of them
are tied into your self-esteem so the
more you persist the more you like
yourself and the more you like yourself
a more just discipline you have and then
we’re discipline you have in practice
the more you like yourself as a result
the more you persist and eventually you
get on to an upper spiral but you become
absolutely unstoppable you reach the
point where you know you can achieve the
goal and nothing in the
can stop you and every step that you
take forward makes you stronger and
stronger and stronger until finally
people say I know one thing about him I
know one thing about her
you cannot stop him or her once they
decided they want something they will
not stop until they get it and when you
develop that quality there will be
nothing that is impossible to you so let
me just leave you with these last points
we’re living at the very best time in
all of human history more people are
going to make more money in the next few
years that have ever been made in all of
human history more people are going to
become millionaires and are becoming
millionaires today at a faster rate than
we ever thought possible and no one is
better than you and no one is smarter
than you and if you do what other
self-made millionaires do and nothing in
the world can stop you from eventually
getting the same results as other
self-made millionaires and I hope you do
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you
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