You know what the problem is? Most people spend their entire lives working on their job, but they don't spend any time working on themselves. And here's what happens.
Their job income stays about the same. Their relationships stay about the same. Their health stays about the same.
And they wonder why life isn't getting better. Well, let me tell you something I learned a long time ago that changed everything for me. Life doesn't get better by chance.
It gets better by change. And the change has to start with you. I remember sitting across from a man about 20 years ago.
Sharp dresser, drove a nice car, had all the appearances of success, but he was struggling, really struggling. And he spent an hour telling me about all his problems. The economy was bad.
His company didn't appreciate him. His customers were difficult. His wife didn't understand him.
His kids were rebellious. On and on it went. Everything wrong in his life was because of something or someone else.
And when he finished, I asked him a simple question. How long have all these people and circumstances been ganging up on you? He thought about it and said about 10 years 10 years of the whole world being against him.
You see the pattern here? Here's what I've learned. For things to change, you have to change.
For things to get better, you have to get better. You can't just wish for things to improve. You have to become the kind of person who deserves those improvements.
That's the key. The question isn't what can you get. The question is what can you become?
Because what you become directly influences what you get. Let me share with you one of the most important philosophies I ever learned. I learned this from my mentor when I was 25 years old, broke and going nowhere fast.
He said, "Jim, if you want to be wealthy and happy, learn this lesson. " Well, work harder on yourself than you do on your job. Now, I was confused by that.
I said, "Mr Schaef, I already work hard on my job. " And he he said, "I'm sure you do, but that's not enough. If you work hard on your job, you'll make a living.
But if you work hard on yourself, you can make a fortune. That hit me like a thunderboat. I'd been spending all my time trying to get the company to change, trying to get my circumstances to change, trying to get other people to change, but I hadn't spent any time trying to change myself.
I was working 8 hours a day for the company, but I wasn't working 10 minutes a day on my own development. No wonder I was going nowhere. Here's the fascinating thing about this principle.
Your income will rarely exceed your personal development. Think about that. If you're a $2,000 a month person, that's about what you'll make.
Now, you might get a lucky break here and there and make 3,000 for a month or two, but you know what happens? You'll find a way to get back to 2,000 because that's who you are. That's your level of development.
The marketplace reads you like a book. It knows exactly what you're worth and it pays you accordingly. I've watched this happen hundreds of times.
Two people start the same job on the same day. Same opportunity, same training, same company, same economy. 5 years later, one is earning 50,000 and the other is earning 200,000.
Same company, same products, same market. What's the difference? The difference is in the person.
One worked on developing skills, improving knowledge, building character, and becoming more valuable. The other just put in the time. You see, most people are putting in the time, but they're not putting in the effort on themselves.
They show up, they do the job, they collect the paycheck, but they're not reading the books, they're not listening to the educational programs, they're not going to the seminars, they're not practicing their skills, they're not studying their craft. They're not working on their attitude. They're not developing their character.
And then they wonder why their five-year plan looks exactly like their last five years. Let me tell you what happens when you shift this around. When you start working harder on yourself than you do on your job, everything changes.
And I mean everything. Your confidence changes because you know you're becoming more valuable. Your income changes because you're worth more to the marketplace.
Your relationships change because you're becoming a better person to be around. Your health changes because you start taking yourself seriously. Your whole life starts to transform.
But here's the catch. This kind of change is invisible at first. When you work on yourself, nobody sees it right away.
If you paint your house, everybody notices. If you buy a new car, everybody sees it. But if you read a book, if you develop a new skill, if you work on your attitude, nobody knows.
It's all internal. And because it's invisible, most people don't do it. They want the visible results without the invisible work.
I had to learn this lesson the hard way. When I first started working on myself, nothing seemed to change. I read books, but my bank accounts stayed the same.
I listened to speakers, but my circumstances didn't improve. I went to seminars, but I still had the same problems. And I got discouraged.
I thought, "This personal development stuff doesn't work. " But my mentor told me, "Jim, keep at it. You're not working on your circumstances.
You're working on yourself. And when you change, everything around you will change. He was right.
Took about 6 months before I started seeing results. But when things started changing, they changed fast. It was like I'd been pushing against a wall for months.
And suddenly the wall moved. Opportunities started showing up. People started responding differently to me.
Money started coming in. But here's what really happened. The opportunities were always there.
I just wasn't ready for them. The people were always willing to help. I just wasn't worth helping.
The money was always available. I just wasn't valuable enough to earn it. That's the truth most people don't want to hear.
They want to blame the economy, the government, the company, the competition, their spouse, their parents, their education, their lack of education. But the real problem is they haven't done the work on themselves. They haven't paid the price to become valuable.
They haven't invested the time to develop their skills. They haven't made the effort to build their character. And until they do, nothing really changes.
So let me ask you, who are you becoming? Not what are you doing, but who are you becoming? Because who you become is far more important than what you get.
What you get can be taken away. The house can burn down. The stock market can crash.
The company can go bankrupt. But who you've become, nobody can take that from you. your knowledge, your skills, your character, your wisdom, that's yours forever.
And here's the beautiful part. When you work on becoming, the getting takes care of itself. When you become more valuable, you earn more money.
When you become more loving, you attract better relationships. When you become more disciplined, you achieve bigger goals. When you become more knowledgeable, you make better decisions.
Everything flows from who you are. I've seen people try to do it the other way around. They try to get the money without becoming valuable.
They try to get the relationship without becoming loving. They try to achieve the goals without becoming disciplined and it never works. You can't shortcut this process.
You can't skip the personal development and jump straight to the results. Life doesn't work that way. The marketplace is a very honest place.
It pays you exactly what you're worth. Not what you need, not what you want, not what you hope for what you're worth. And your worth is determined by one thing, who you've become.
If you want to increase your worth, you have to increase your value. And the only way to increase your value is to work on yourself. Now, I know what some of you are thinking.
Jim, I don't have time to work on myself. I'm too busy working, taking care of my family, paying my bills. And I understand that.
I've been there. But let me ask you this. Can you afford not to?
Can you afford to stay the same? Can you afford to be the same person 5 years from now that you are today? Because if you don't work on yourself, that's exactly what's going to happen.
You'll be 5 years older with 5 years more experience at being the same person. The truth is, you don't have to spend hours every day on personal development. You just have to be consistent.
30 minutes a day will transform your life. 30 minutes of reading, 30 minutes of listening to something educational, 30 minutes of working on a skill. That's all it takes.
But you have to do it every day. Not when you feel like it, not when it's convenient. Every day.
Here's what I discovered. The difference between successful people and unsuccessful people isn't some big mysterious secret. It's not luck.
It's not talent. It's not connections. It's simply this.
Successful people have developed the habit of doing the things unsuccessful people don't like to do. And one of those things is working on themselves consistently even when they don't feel like it, even when they don't see immediate results. Even when nobody else is watching.
You see, personal development is like farming. You plant the seeds, you water them, you pull the weeds, and then you wait. You don't get the harvest the next day.
It takes time. But if you're faithful to the process, if you keep planting and watering and weeding, the harvest will come. It has to.
That's the law of the harvest. You reap what you sow. But most people quit before the harvest.
They read a book and expect to be rich. They go to one seminar and expect to be transformed. They try for a week and expect to see results.
And when nothing happens immediately, they quit. They say, "See, I knew this stuff didn't work. " But it does work.
It just takes time. Let me tell you what my mentor told me. Jim, if you'll spend the next 5 years working on yourself, becoming more valuable, developing your skills, building your character, I promise you, your life will be so different you won't recognize it.
And you know what? He was absolutely right. 5 years later, my life had completely changed.
Not because circumstances changed but because I changed. I became a different person and different people get different results. Now let me tell you where all this personal development work really begins.
It begins with what you put into your mind. You see your mind is like a garden. Whatever you plant in it will grow.
If you plant good seeds you get good crops. If you plant weeds you get weeds. It's that simple.
But here's what most people do. They let anybody plant anything in their garden. They watch any television program.
They listen to any conversation. They read any material that comes along. And then they wonder why their life is full of weeds.
I'll never forget when I was 25 years old working at a department store, barely making ends meet. My mentor, Mr Schae, asked me a question that changed my life. He said, "Jim, in the last 90 days, how many books have you read?
" I said, "Books? I haven't read a book since high school. And he looked at me with this expression I'll never forget and said, "Jim, that explains everything.
" That one sentence hit me harder than anything anyone had ever said to me. My poverty, my struggles, my lack of progress, it all made sense. I wasn't feeding my mind.
He told me something that day that became a cornerstone of my philosophy. He said, "Formal education will make you a living, but self-education will make you a fortune. " Think about that.
Your formal education gets you the job, but your self-education gets you everything else. It gets you the promotion. It gets you the business success.
It gets you the better life. And the best part, self-education is available to everyone. You don't need permission.
You don't need a degree. You just need to be willing to learn. So I started reading.
Not just anything, but books that could help me grow. books on business, books on personal development, books on philosophy, books on success. And here's what happened.
Nothing changed immediately. My bank account didn't suddenly increase cuz I read a book. But something was changing inside me.
My thinking was changing. My perspective was changing. The way I saw problems was changing.
The way I saw opportunities was changing. I was becoming a different person even though nobody could see it yet. Let me tell you what reading does.
When you read a good book, you're having a conversation with some of the finest minds who ever lived. You're sitting down with people who spent decades figuring out what works and what doesn't, and they're sharing it all with you for the price of a book. How incredible is that?
You can learn in hours what took them years to discover. You can avoid the mistakes they made. You can apply the wisdom they earned.
That's the power of reading. But here's what I discovered. It's not enough to just read.
You have to become a student of what you read. You have to take notes. You have to underline.
You have to think about it. You have to discuss it. You have to apply it.
Reading without application is just entertainment. It might make you feel good, but it won't change your life. The magic happens when you take what you learn and put it to work.
That's why I started keeping a journal. My mentor told me, "Don't just experience life. Study it.
Write down your observations. Write down the lessons. write down the insights.
At first, I thought that was silly. Who's going to read my journal? But then I realized I'm going to read it.
And more importantly, the act of writing makes you think deeper. When you write something down, you process it differently. You understand it better.
You remember it longer. I've been keeping a journal for over 40 years now, and I can tell you the practice of documenting my life has been invaluable. I write down things I learn.
I write down mistakes I make. I write down observations about people and situations. I write down ideas that come to me.
And when I look back through those journals, I see patterns. I see growth. I see where I was and how far I've come.
That's powerful. Here's what most people don't understand. Successful people are students.
They're always learning, always growing, always improving. Unsuccessful people think they already know everything they need to know. They stopped learning when they left school.
They think education is for kids. But the truth is education is for anyone who wants a better life. And if you're not learning, you're dying.
Maybe not physically, but mentally, spiritually, economically, you're dying. So, let me ask you, what are you feeding your mind? What books are you reading?
What educational programs are you listening to? What seminars are you attending? What are you learning this month that you didn't know last month?
Because I guarantee you, 5 years from now, you'll be the same person you are today, except for two things. The people you meet and the books you read. That's it.
Those two things will determine who you become. The question is, are you going to be intentional about it? Are you going to carefully select what goes into your mind, or are you going to just let life happen to you?
Let any information come in. Let any influence affect you. Because if you don't control what goes into your mind, someone else will.
The television will control it. Social media will control it. The news will control it.
Other people's opinions will control it. And you'll end up becoming whoever they want you to be instead of who you're capable of becoming. Work on yourself.
Feed your mind good information. Read the books. Listen to the programs.
Go to the seminars. Take the courses. Invest in your education because every book you read, every lesson you learn, every skill you develop makes you more valuable.
And when you become more valuable, everything in your life improves. Now, all this learning and knowledge means nothing if you don't have the character to back it up. You can be the smartest person in the room, but if you don't have character, nobody will trust you.
And without trust, you can't build anything that lasts. Let me tell you something I learned early in my business career. Skills will get you to the top, but character keeps you there.
There's a big difference between personality and character. Personality is what people see on the surface. It's your charisma, your charm, your ability to make a good first impression.
And don't get me wrong, personality matters, but character is what's underneath all that. Character is who you are when nobody's watching. Character is what you do when it's not convenient, when it's not profitable, when nobody will ever know.
I remember facing a decision early in my business career that tested my character. I had an opportunity to make a significant amount of money on a deal, but to do it, I had to cut some corners. Nothing illegal, mind you, but it wasn't quite right either.
It was one of those gray areas where you could justify it if you wanted to. And I wanted to. I needed the money.
I had bills to pay, a family to support. But something inside me said, "This isn't who you want to be. So, I walked away from the deal.
And let me tell you, it hurt. Financially, it hurt. I watched someone else take that deal and make the money I could have made.
For a while, I questioned my decision. I thought maybe I was being too rigid, too idealistic. But years later, I ran into the person who took that deal.
And you know what? It had destroyed his reputation. People stopped trusting him.
His business fell apart. And I realized that walking away from that money was one of the best decisions I ever made. Here's what I learned.
Every time you make a decision that's in alignment with your values, even when it costs you something, you build character. And every time you compromise your values for short-term gain, you erode character. And once character is damaged, it's incredibly hard to rebuild.
Your reputation, your relationships, your self-respect, they all rest on the foundation of character. But character isn't something you develop in one big moment. It's developed in a thousand small moments.
It's developed when you tell the truth, even though a lie would be easier. It's developed when you keep your word, even when circumstances change. It's developed when you do what's right, even when no one's watching.
Character is built in the daily decisions that nobody sees but everybody eventually feels. And that brings me to discipline. You see, discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.
You can have all the goals in the world, all the dreams, all the plans, but without discipline, they're just wishes. Discipline is what turns intention into action. It's what makes you do the thing you know you should do, even when you don't feel like doing it.
Let me tell you something about discipline that most people don't understand. Discipline is not about restriction. It's about freedom.
When you're disciplined, you're free. You're free from the chaos of a disorganized life. You're free from the regret of wasted time.
You're free from the anxiety of things undone. Discipline gives you control over your life instead of your life controlling you. I learned this lesson from watching successful people.
They all had routines. They all had habits. They all had disciplines that they followed regardless of how they felt.
They didn't wait for inspiration. They didn't wait until they felt motivated. They just did what needed to be done day after day after day.
And that consistency, that discipline, that's what created their success. Here's a principle that changed my life. How you do anything is how you do everything.
If you're sloppy in small areas, you'll be sloppy in big areas. If you're disciplined in small areas, you'll be disciplined in big areas. You can't separate it.
The person who won't make their bed in the morning won't follow through on their business plan. The person who's always late to small appointments will be late to big opportunities. It's all connected.
So, I started with small disciplines. I made a commitment to myself to read every day and I kept it. I made a commitment to exercise every week and I kept it.
I made a commitment to review my goals every morning and I kept it. These weren't big dramatic things. But each time I kept a commitment to myself, I built a little more self-respect.
Each time I did what I said I would do, I trusted myself a little more. And here's what happens when you start keeping commitments to yourself. You become someone you can count on.
Most people can't even count on themselves. They make promises to themselves and break them. They set goals and abandon them.
They say they're going to change and they don't. And after years of letting themselves down, they stop believing in themselves. But when you start keeping your commitments, even small ones, you rebuild that self-rust.
Let me talk about the morning because this is where most people lose the battle before the day even starts. You know what I learned? If you win the morning, you win the day.
The first hour of your day sets the tone for everything that follows. If you start your day rushed, chaotic, reactive, that's how the whole day will go. But if you start your day with purpose, with discipline, with intention, everything changes.
I developed a morning routine that became sacred to me. I wake up early before the world starts making demands on my time. I spend time reading something inspirational or educational.
I review my goals. I think about what I want to to accomplish that day. I take care of my body with exercise or a walk.
And I do all this before I respond to anyone else's agenda. That hour in the morning belongs to me, to my growth, to my development. And speaking of the body, let me tell you something most people in personal development don't talk about enough.
You can't separate your physical health from your success. Your body affects your mind and your mind affects your results. If you're not taking care of your body, everything else suffers.
Your energy suffers, your clarity suffers, your confidence suffers. Your ability to handle stress suffers. I learned this lesson the hard way.
There was a period in my life when I got so busy building my business that I stopped exercising. I stopped eating right. I stopped taking care of myself physically.
And you know what happened? My business suffered. I didn't have the energy to do what needed to be done.
I didn't have the mental clarity to make good decisions. I was exhausted all the time. It took me months to realize that my declining business wasn't because of market conditions or competition.
It was because I was running on empty. So, I made my health a priority again. Not because I wanted to look good, although that was nice.
But because I realized that my body is the vehicle that carries my mind around. And if the vehicle's broken down, doesn't matter how good the driver is, you've got to maintain the vehicle if you want to go anywhere. Here's what I started doing.
I treated my body like it mattered. I ate food that gave me energy instead of food that made me sluggish. I exercised regularly, not to become an athlete, but to keep my body strong and functional.
I got enough sleep because I realized that cutting sleep to work more hours was actually making me less productive, not more. These simple changes made an enormous difference in every area of my life. And here's the connection.
When you take care of your body, you're sending yourself a message. You're saying, "I matter. My future matters.
My goals matter. " But when you neglect your body, you're sending the opposite message. You're saying, "I don't matter enough to take care of.
" And that message seeps into everything else you do. The same principle applies to how you keep your environment. Your car, your home, your workspace.
These are extensions of your mind. If they're cluttered and chaotic, your thinking will be cluttered and chaotic. If they're organized and clean, your thinking will be clearer.
I'm not saying you need to be obsessive about it. But I am saying that how you keep your space reflects how you keep your life. I started paying attention to these details.
I kept my car clean. I organized my workspace. I made my home a place of peace instead of a place of chaos.
And these small acts of discipline created a ripple effect. When my environment was in order, I felt more in control. When I felt more in control, I made better decisions.
When I made better decisions, I got better results. You see, working on yourself isn't just about reading books and going to seminars. It's about the daily practices that shape who you're becoming.
It's about the character you build when no one's watching. It's about the discipline you develop in small things that prepares you for big things. It's about taking care of your body because it affects everything else.
It's about keeping your commitments to yourself because that builds self-rust. These things might seem small. They might seem insignificant compared to your big goals and dreams, but I'm telling you, these are the things that make the difference.
The person who masters these fundamentals, who builds strong character, who develops daily discipline, who takes care of their body and their environment, that person is unstoppable. Not because they're lucky or talented or connected, but because they've done the work on themselves that most people won't do. And that's what separates those who succeed from those who struggle.
It's not the big dramatic actions. It's the small daily disciplines practiced consistently over time that create the foundation for everything else. Now, let me tell you about something that will accelerate or destroy all this work you're doing on yourself.
The people you spend time with. You've probably heard me say this before, but it bears repeating because it's that important. You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. This is one of the toughest lessons to learn because it involves relationships. We're talking about friends, family, people we care about.
But here's the truth. Some people in your life are dream killers. They don't mean to be.
They're not bad people, but they're going in a different direction than you are. And if you stay closely associated with them, they'll pull you back down to their level. I had to make this decision when I started working on myself.
I had friends who wanted to keep living the way we'd always lived. Going to bars every weekend, complaining about everything, making excuses, blaming circumstances. And when I started reading books and going to seminars and talking about goals, they laughed at me.
They called me crazy. They said I was getting too big for my britches. And I realized I had a choice.
keep these relationships and stay where I was or change my associations and have a chance at the life I wanted. It was one of the hardest things I ever did. But I made the decision to spend less time with people who were going nowhere and more time with people who were going somewhere.
Not because I stopped caring about my old friends, but because I cared more about my future. There's a difference between being friendly to everyone and being friends with everyone. You can be kind.
You can be courteous. You can wish people well, but you don't have to give them your time and your energy if they're pulling you down. Here's what happened.
When I changed my associations, I started thinking bigger. I started believing more was possible. I started acting differently because I was around people who were doing what I wanted to do.
Success became normal instead of unusual. Growth became expected instead of exceptional. And within a year, my whole life had changed.
Not because circumstances changed, but because I changed who I was spending time with. So evaluate your associations honestly. After you spend time with someone, do you feel inspired or drained?
Do they add to your life or subtract from it? Do they encourage your growth or discourage it? These are important questions.
And if you find that someone is consistently pulling you down, you have to make a decision. You have to protect your mind, protect your dreams, protect your future. The same principle applies to what you allow into your mind through media.
The television programs you watch, the news you consume, the social media you scroll through, the conversations you participate in. All of this is shaping you. And if you're not careful, you'll let negative, useless, timewasting information fill your mind until there's no room left for anything productive.
Successful people are very selective about what enters their mind. They guard it like a fortress. They don't watch hours of television.
They don't consume negative news all day. They don't engage in gossip. They don't fill their mind with garbage.
Instead, they fill it with things that help them grow, that inspire them, that move them toward their goals. But here's what all this work on yourself is really about. It's about becoming someone who can build something that matters.
It's about creating a life of significance, not just success. Success is what you accomplish. Significance is what you contribute.
And you can't contribute at a high level if you haven't developed yourself to a high level. Think about the impact you can have when you work on yourself. When you become wiser, you can help others with better advice.
When you become more successful, you can support causes that matter. When you become stronger in character, you can be an example for your children and grandchildren. When you become more disciplined, you can lead others who are struggling.
Your personal development creates a ripple effect that touches lives you'll never even know about. That's what working on yourself is really about. It's not selfish.
It's not self-centered. It's the most generous thing you can do because the better you become, the more you have to give. The more you have to offer, the more you can contribute to making the world better.
So here's my challenge to you. Start today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not when conditions are perfect.
Today. Pick one area and work on it. Read one chapter of a book.
Keep one promise to yourself. Change one habit. Spend time with one person who lifts you up.
Guard your mind from one negative influence. Just start. Because five years from now, you'll arrive.
The question is where the person you're becoming today is creating the life you'll be living tomorrow. Work on you. Everything else will follow.
