Let me give you three steps to start a life change that can change your life, your personality, your lifestyle—everything can change. Here are the steps: Number one: Find out how things work. The first key to doing better is to find out how to change your life.
Really, you need ideas; there isn't anything an idea can't change. Schul taught me that the major problem is lack of an idea, not a problem. At first, I didn't have any money.
I said to Mr Schul, "I don't have any money. " He said, "That's not a problem. " Now see, up until then, I always thought it was.
I was confused. He said, "No, no. The problem is lack of an idea on how to create money and wealth.
It isn't lack of money; it's lack of ideas. " So if you get the ideas, you can change anything. Now, to get ideas, you need a constant study of finding out.
Now, Scha also said when you find out something that works, put the information in your journal. Don't use your head for a filing cabinet; put it in your journal so that you can do the next best thing: repetition, repetition, repetition. Go over it, and if you repeat it, go over it.
Sure enough, someday, some mysterious day, the idea takes root, starts to grow, and shows up in your bank account, in your dress, in your personality, and in your lifestyle. But capture the ideas in your journal. Find out how things work.
Scha gave me this word for my life change: he said, "Study. " Great word! If you wish to be successful, study success.
If you wish to be happy, study happiness. If you wish to be wealthy, study wealth. Don't leave it to chance; make it a study.
Some people just go through the day with their fingers crossed. See, that won't do it. You've got to study the things that can change your economic, social, spiritual, and personal life.
Now, here's a qualifying phrase, and we'll have several of these qualifying phrases throughout the seminar. Here's the first one: You may not be able to do all you find out. I understand that.
You may not be able to do all you find out, but you should find out all you can do. See, you don't want to wind up at the end of your life and discover that you've lived only one tenth of it, and the other nine-tenths went down the drain—not for lack of opportunity, but for lack of information. So that's number one: find out how things work.
Now, here's the best human virtue for finding out: curiosity. Make a note of that—curiosity. Be curious.
You might add a word to it that’ll help: childish curiosity. What will kids do if they want to know something bad enough? Bug you!
That’s the phrase. They can ask a thousand questions. You think they’re through?
They’ve got another thousand. They’ll drive you to the brink. It’s a virtue when you’ve got to know.
Be like a child. In fact, Jesus, the master teacher, said, "Unless you can become like little children, you might as well forget it. You don’t have a prayer.
" Excellent advice! You’ve got to be like children. In my opinion, there are four ways to be like a child.
Number one is curiosity; number two is excitement—get excited like a child over your ability to make yourself do anything for change; third is faith—have faith like a child. Adults are too skeptical; and fourth is trust. Trust is a childish virtue, but the rewards are incredible.
So be like a child. Now, if you’re curious, let me give you three ways to find out how to change anything—any life direction, any dimension. Here are three ways to find out how to change anything: Number one is to read.
Become a good reader. All of the successful people I know and work with around the world are all good readers. Curiosity drives them to read—they’ve got to know!
They just read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read. Become a good reader. Now, that’s my opinion.
Listen to the other lecturers, and listen to me, and make up your own mind. Don’t be a follower; be a student. Okay, I say really, for life change, you’ve got to read.
One way to learn is from your own experiences, but another way to learn is from other people's experiences. See, one book might save you five years if you read it. Did you know there are books on how to be stronger, more decisive, be a speaker, be a leader, have a better effect on other people, and develop your personality?
Did you know there are books on that? And people don’t read them. How would you explain that?
They can read! Did you know that hundreds of successful people have written their stories in books, and they wrote down how they did it—but people don’t read it? How would you explain that?
The guy’s busy, I guess. You know, you get tied up. The guy says, "Well, yeah, you work where I work, but by the time you struggle home, it’s late; you’ve got to eat, watch a little TV, get to bed.
You can’t sit up half the night reading, reading, reading, reading. " And the guy’s behind on his car payment. Good worker, hard worker, sincere, but you’ve got to be better than sincere and work hard.
Otherwise, at the end of your life, you’ll wind up cold, stony broke. You’ve got to be better than just a good worker. You’ve got to be a good reader.
Get around successful people and listen. Now, you can also learn from unsuccessful people. Take notes on both negative and positive.
On the negative, the notes are called "what not to do," and you’ve got to learn what not to do as well as what to do. So learn from the negative. As well as the positive, okay, find out what poor people read and don't read it.
Right, that's good information. Learn from the negative, but now you can also learn from the positive. Get around successful people, listen to what they say, listen to how they say it—it’s important.
We've all got about 16 waking hours; practice listening during those 16 hours. And I say practice listening because listening isn't easy. I found out it's easier to talk than it is to listen.
But if you will practice listening during the 16 hours you're awake, sure enough, from surprising sources come great ideas. In sales training, we teach if you want to learn sales, listen to the kids. Kids have got to be the master salespeople of all time; they have no equal.
A father tells his young son no, you cannot have an ice cream cone. Thirty minutes later, he's licking on one—now that'd be 30 minutes' worth of listening to! They’ve got moves you wouldn't believe.
Persistence runs deep like the ocean, and the kids never took a class on how to overcome objections; they already know how. They don't need classes, so listen and learn. Now here's some of the best advice I've got for the whole evening: it won't get any better than this, this is it.
Poor people ought to take rich people out to dinner and listen. That's some of the best I've got. If a guy is not doing well, one of the first things he ought to do is find a guy that is doing well and offer to buy him his dinner.
Spend $50, $60, $800—go for the full nine-course. Start him on the juices and hors d'oeuvres; get him started talking. The salad takes 15 minutes; keep it rolling.
The biggest steak in town takes 45; keep it rolling. Pour on the dessert; stretch that meal out about 2 hours! If you get a successful person to eat and talk for 2 hours, they're liable to drop ideas in your lap that could change your life and multiply your income by two, by three, by five!
But you're right, poor people don't usually take rich people out to dinner; that's the problem. The guy says he's rich; let him buy his own dinner. I'm not coming up with any money.
And he says, besides, you work where I work, but by the time you struggle home, it's late; you're lucky to get your own supper, let alone running around trying to find a rich man to feed. And the guy's behind on his house payment—good worker, hard worker, sincere—but you’ve got to be better than sincere. Work hard, and you wind up broke.
You've got to be better than a good worker; you’ve got to be a good listener. And remember what you read and what you hear; put the good stuff in your journal. Now here's the third way to find out how to change your life, and that's to observe.
You can pick up a lot of ideas just by watching. Get around successful people and watch. Here's why: success leaves clues.
Watch how the man shakes hands; watch how the lady responds. People who do well do certain things over and over and over and over, and if you're clever, you can pick them up. Watch it all!
If a guy's making $10,000 a month, I’d watch how he walks—maybe that's it. Copy his funny little walk. Somebody says, “Well, that's kind of a silly walk.
” I say, “It's $10,000! I haven't got the money yet, but I got the walk. It's bound to start somewhere!
” What I ask you tonight is to be unusual and be a good observer of what's going on. You can pick up ideas that can change your life starting tomorrow—just be a more careful observer. Now remember, there are two ways to see.
One is called sight—see with your eyes. The other one is called insight—see with your mind. See with your eyes; you'll see things.
See with your mind; you'll see answers. Put your eyes and your mind to work, and the best advice on developing sight and insight is pay attention. Don't miss anything.
In the weekend seminar, we teach one of the greatest fatalities to success is preoccupation, lack of concentration—the guy's mind wanders, and see, you wind up average. You've got to learn to zero in and concentrate. I read a good article one time in Reader's Digest; the title was "Wherever You Are, Be There.
" Excellent! Don't miss anything. Now we've lingered a little bit long on number one here for personal development: find out how things work.
But it's so very important finding out, and I’ve given you three ways to find out. Now here's the second step to personal development: okay, number one was find out how things work. Here’s number two: go to work!
You must now take action on what you found out. In doing business around the world, we call it game plan—put together your game plan. One of the major things we teach in the weekend seminars is game plans—how to game plan your office.
If you're in sales, you need a game plan. Kids need a game plan; you need a home game plan, social game plan, a business game plan. Everybody needs game plans: financial independence game plan, your investment game plan.
Don't think in your head; put it on paper. Don't operate out of your mind; operate from paper. I often ask somebody, “What are you going to do the next six months?
” And if somebody starts to tell me, I say, “No, don’t tell me; show me! Show me your game plan for the next six months. ” Then I can look at things and maybe I can help.
But you’ve got to operate from paper—put it on a game plan, and take action on what you found out. Now here's the best word I know of to go with action. Massive!
See, that'll change everything. Massive Action is called "The Cure All. " If you're going to make calls, make a few thousand.
If you're going to make contacts, make a few thousand. If you're going to knock on doors, knock on a few thousand. See, that'll change everything.
Here's the language of the poor: "I'll try it a time or two and see what happens. " It's the way poor people talk. The guy says, "Well, I'll give it 30 days.
" Thirty days? You could guess his bank balance! You've got to have a better game plan.
So, here's one of the major things to do starting tomorrow: take a look at your game plan. If it isn't loaded with Massive Action, change it tomorrow! The formula really works like this: pick up a good idea, take heavy action; pick up a couple of good ideas, take heavy action.
That's the formula for success: heavy action. It's a good thing we can edit all this, right? The formula for success: take heavy action on a good idea.
That's the ratio. Now, here's the key: don't wait till you've learned two or three thousand things. Because that way, you'll use up all the time, and you could wind up smart and broke.
And hey, it's okay to be dumb and broke, but if a guy's smart and broke, that's pitiful! Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; you'll become a fool. Let your learning lead to action, and you can become wealthy.
And there's many kinds of wealth; I understand that—not just money. Money is one of the least of all values. I know some people with a lot of money who are very poor.
As for fortune and as for fame, they are illusions; they're not the solutions they promise to be. So, there's all kinds of wealth, but to get a big share coming your way, you've got to have a heavy action game plan. Now, here's the third step to personal development, and we'll wrap up personal development.
Step number three: it's just a little caution, and all through life we need little cautions. This one simply says: don't try to beat the system. Find out how it works, work it, but don't try to beat it.
Some people learn just enough to start slicing it, shading it, thinning it, cutting corners, and looking for cheap answers. See, don't fall for that; you'll wind up with a cheap life. Find out how it works best and do it that way.
Even though it seems to take a little longer, do it right. Don't compromise with right. Now, under this step, here's another key: be a quick learner.
Don't let it take long to teach you. Learn quick! Don't run at the wall too many times—learn quicker.
One guy said he broke his nose seven times in the same place. Someone says, "Looks like you'd stay out of that place. " Learn quicker!
Now, the third point here is: don't be stubborn. See, some people won't change even when a better way comes. They say, "Well, I've been doing it this way for 30 years.
" Hey, be ready for change! If it's a better way, go for it! But don't try to beat it, or you'll be like the guy who went to Las Vegas.
He didn't have much money, so he didn't want to risk his money gambling. But he gets to Las Vegas, and the jackpot bells are ringing, the money's flowing, the lights are flashing, and he can't help himself; he's got to gamble! But instead of gambling with his cash, he decides to play the mental gambling game.
His brilliant scheme goes like this: he'd pick a number, like number three, mentally he'd bet a certain amount of money on the number, and whether it won or lost, he would jot down that amount in his little pad. "I would have won $5 if I'd made that bet," just to keep track of it, win or lose. That way, come midnight, he can calculate how he's doing—winner, loser, how much—only not with his money!
Keep his money, just play this mental gambling game. So here he is around the gambling table, everybody else shelling out their hard-earned cash. He's got this brilliant scheme; instead of betting with his money, he's betting with his mind.
And he lost his mind. Which means: don't try to beat the system. I guess.
