The 21 Success Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires
How to Achieve Financial Independence Faster and Easier Than You Ever Thought Possible
Brian Tracy
20001013
About This Book
This book is the culmination of 15 years of research, teaching, and personal experience on the subject of self-made millionaires. These pages contain the key ideas and strategies Brian has discovered in reading hundreds of books and thousands of articles on the subject of wealth accumulation. The ideas and strategies are presented in a simple, tested, proven, easy-to-use format so that you can learn and apply them immediately.
These 21 “success secrets” are the keys to great success in every area of life, whether or not you make a lot of money. The good news is that these principles are so powerful that you can apply them to accomplish almost anything you really want.
The Law of Cause and Effect
There is a specific effect for every cause. For every action, there is a reaction. This law says that success is not an accident. Financial success is the result of doing certain, specific things over and over again until you achieve the financial independence that you desire. If you do what other successful people do, you will eventually get the results that other successful people get.
1. Dream Big Dreams
Dream big dreams; only big dreams have the power to move men’s souls. -Marcus Aurelius
Action Exercise: Make a list of everything you would do or attempt if you were absolutely guaranteed of success. Then decide upon one specific action and do it immediately.
2. Develop a Clear Sense of Direction
A person with a clear purpose will make progress on even the roughest road. A person with no purpose will make no progress on even the smoothest road. -Thomas Carlyle
Action Exercise: Always think on paper. Sit down and begin writing out your goals and creating your plan to achieve them. This exercise alone can make you a self-made millionaire.
3. See Yourself as Self-Employed
I am the captain of my soul; I am the master of my fate. -William Henley
Action Exercise: Identify your favorite reasons and excuses for not committing wholeheartedly to your financial goals. Is there anyone or anything in your life that you are blaming for holding you back? Whatever it might be, accept complete responsibility for your life and take action today!
4. Do What You Love to Do
When you start doing what you really love to do, you’ll never work another day in your life. -Brian Tracy
Action Exercise: Identify the type of work that you enjoy the most. What activities have been most responsible for your success in life to date? If you could do any job at all and be successful at it, what would you choose? Set it as a goal, make a plan, and begin moving in that direction today.
5. Commit to Excellence
The quality of your life will be determined by the depth of your commitment to excellence, no matter what your chosen field. -Vince Lombardi
Action Exercise: Identify your key result areas in your current job. What are the parts of your work that you must absolutely, positively perform in an excellent fashion to move to the top of your field? Where are you strong and where are you weak? Make a plan today to get better in the one skill area where improvement can help you the most.
6. Work Longer and Harder
The harder I work, the luckier I get. -James Thurber
Action Exercise: Make a plan today to increase the number of hours you work each day. Resolve to get to the office one hour earlier and get a head start on the day. Work at lunchtime when others are gone. Stay one hour later to get caught up. This strategy alone will double your output while adding only two hours to your day.
7. Dedicate Yourself to Lifelong Learning
Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field. -Denis Waitley
Action Exercise: Select a subject that can really help you to be more productive and effective in your field. Set a goal to master this subject. Make it a “do-it-to-yourself” project. Then, read on this subject every day. Listen to audio programs on the subject. Attend courses on the subject. Work on this project as if your future depends on it, because it does!
8. Pay Yourself First
A part of all you earn is yours to keep, and if you cannot save money, the seeds of greatness are not in you. -W. Clement Stone
Action Exercise: Open a special account for financial accumulation today. Make a deposit in this account, no matter how small. Then, look for every opportunity to add to this account. Begin to study money so that you understand how to make it grow. Read books and magazines by experts on the subject. Never stop saving, learning, and growing until you become financially independent.
9. Learn Every Detail of Your Business
If you become very good at what you do, there is nothing that can stop you from getting paid more and promoted faster. -Dan Kennedy
Action Exercise: Identify the trends in your business. What are the core competencies or key skills that you will need to lead your field in the future? Make a plan today to develop those skills and then work on them every day.
10. Dedicate Yourself to Serving Others
You can get everything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what they want. -Zig Ziglar
Action Exercise: Identify your most important customers, both inside and outside your company. Who are the people you most depend upon? Who are the people who most depend upon you? What could you do, starting today, to take better care of them?
11. Be Absolutely Honest with Yourself and Others
Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and all achievement. -Claude M. Bristol
Action Exercise: Almost every problem in your life can be resolved by a return to your values. What are they? What do you believe in and stand for? Whenever you experience stress of any kind, it usually means that you are compromising one of your values. Whatever it is, resolve this very minute to be true to what you really believe to be important in your life.
12. Determine Your Highest Priorities and Concentrate on Them Single-Mindedly
“A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.” Do what comes to your hand to do. -Brian Tracy
Action Exercise: Identify the most important thing that you can do right now to achieve your most important goal and them discipline yourself to do that, and only that, until it is 100 percent complete. Your ability to do this, and this alone, can change your whole life.
13. Develop a Reputation for Speed and Dependability
Do your work; not just your work and no more, but a little bit more for the lavishings sake, that little more which is worth more than all the rest. -Dean Briggs
Action Exercise: Select just one key task that you have been procrastinating on starting, or bringing to completion, and resolve to take action on it immediately. Keep repeating to yourself these magic motivating words: “Do it now! Do it now! Do it now!”
14. Be Prepared to Climb from Peak to Peak
Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. -Vince Lombardi
Action Exercise: Identify the key cycles and trends in your business. Where is the market going? What is changing and how will you have to adapt to these changes? What steps should you be taking today to be ready to take advantage of the new world of tomorrow? Whatever your answer, take those steps now!
15. Practice Self-Discipline in All Things
Self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. -Elbert Hubbard
Action Exercise: Change one thing at a time. Identify one area of your life where lack of discipline is interfering with your success. Decide today to develop discipline in that area. Launch strongly. Tell others about your decision. Never allow exceptions until the new habit is firmly entrenched. This decision alone could change your life.
16. Unlock Your Inborn Creativity
Imagination is more important than facts. -Albert Einstein
Action Exercise: Write down your most pressing problem or your most intensely desired goal. Then, imagine that this problem was solved perfectly or this goal was achieved in an ideal way. What would the solution or achievement look like? What could you do immediately to bring about this result? Remember, action is everything!
17. Get around the Right People
You will be the same person in five years except for the people you meet and the book you read. -Charlie Jones
Action Exercise: Identify the most important people in your life, both present and future. What could you do to help them in their lives and work so that they would be open to helping you? Identify the people you should get to know. What could you do to help them in advance of your needing anything in return? Remember, first you sow and then you reap.
18. Take Excellent Care of Your Physical Health
The key to happiness is a sound mind in a sound body. -Theodore Roosevelt
Action Exercise: Identify one health habit that you need to develop to enjoy higher levels of health and energy. Perhaps it is eliminating desserts altogether. Then, set this as a personal challenge and resolve to discipline yourself until your new health habit is firmly entrenched.
19. Be Decisive and Action Oriented
Take arms against a sea of troubles, and in so doing, end them. -William Shakespeare
Action Exercise: Ask yourself, “What one action, if I did it immediately, could have the greatest positive impact on my results?” Whatever your answer to that question, just do it!
20. Never Allow Failure to Be an Option
There is nothing to fear but fear itself. -Franklin D. Roosevelt
Action Exercise: Identify one major fear in your life – for example, failure, criticism, or disapproval – and resolve to act as if the fear did not exist. Imagine that you were guaranteed success if you would only take action in the direction of your goals and dreams. Then, just do it!
21. Pass the “Persistence Test”
Nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. -Calvin Coolidge
Action Exercise: What is the most difficult situation you are facing in your life today? Whatever it is, imagine that it has been sent to you at this time to teach you a valuable lesson that you need to learn to be even more successful in the future. What could that lesson be? From this moment onward, always seek the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty. You will always find it, and it will help you in your quest to become a self-made millionaire.