foreign it's nice to see all of you I want to thank you for coming tonight there's a lot of places you could be besides attending a seminar home with your family or visiting friends or having a party or whatever but you've chosen to be here tonight and I appreciate that very much I keenly feel two responsibilities and I'm sure you can guess what those are number one is to make sure you get your money's worth right when you shell out your hard-earned cash and I know the money for the seminar is not the end of the money right by the time you take your family out to dinner and hire a babysitter and put gasoline in your car right the tab keeps going up and by the time you add it all up it's fairly substantial and when you spend your hard-earned cash you want to make sure you get your money's worth so hopefully by the time we finish tonight you'll have your money's worth but I think I have a bigger responsibility and that is to make sure you get your times worth and I say that because time is more valuable than money you can get more money right but you can't get more time when you spend a day you've got one less day to spend so if somebody has the audacity to ask you to spend one of your evenings they darn well better have something important right an evening is a chunk of your life I wouldn't waste one of my evenings for anybody not anymore once I discovered how valuable they were so hopefully by the time we finish tonight you'll have your times worth as well as your money's worth okay we're going to take a break about halfway not just for the smokers but uh for everybody we can't sit here right three hours straight that would be asking a little bit too much somebody once said the mind can only absorb what the seat can endure and I think that's true so we're not going to make you endure too long before we take a break along about Midway we'll stretch a little bit and then we'll come back and we'll finish up does everybody have Note Paper some Note Paper if you don't have some borrow from your neighbor make sure you've got something to take notes on this is a work session tonight okay I have not come to entertain you as you can tell by my opening joke right I wouldn't make it in Las Vegas we don't have a dog and pony show tonight but we've got some ideas to share like to have you capture them also if there's several members of One family my suggestion is all of you take notes one will capture what the other one might miss and that way you'll come up with a more complete set I think you'll be happier about that [Music] okay hopefully everybody can find a seat tonight it's kind of jammed in here do we have any teenagers teenagers 19 years or younger would you stand up no cheating on this now 19 years or younger stand up wherever you are all over the audience let's give him a hand hey nice to see you thank you very much I'm always flattered when the kids come I've got a good story for you two little boys in school one was very bright the other one wasn't very bright teacher gave a test one day 10 questions and she's looking at the papers to her surprise the little boy who isn't very bright has answered nine of the Ten Questions perfect and the teacher thought well that can't be right he's not that smart so she looked at the other paper the little boy who was very bright he had answered nine of the Ten Questions perfect the teacher thought well something's wrong and sure enough the answers to the 10th question was the problem the little boy who was very bright when he got to the 10th question he didn't know the answer and he was running out of time so he just wrote down I don't know the answer to this one turned his paper in teacher looked at the other paper a little boy who wasn't too bright and he had answered the tenth question I don't know either he turned his way which means don't cheat I guess right it never works out well okay the ideas I want to share with you tonight I started listening to at age 25. at a time in my life when I I needed some additional ideas to help get my life straightened out and hit it in a little better Direction I got off to a pretty good startup in Idaho Farm country where I was raised Southwestern corner of Idaho a little community of four or five thousand people in fact my parents still live in the same little Community where I was raised I was just up to visit them last week and they're doing extremely well my father's 79 my mother's 73. and they're still very busy very healthy got all kinds of projects going unbelievable Land Development they're making money I can't believe them they've been a great example for me they bought some property not long ago signed up for a 30-year loan I got to be impressed I was up to visit him last year we had a big party one evening lasted till about two o'clock in the morning celebrating and it was time to celebrate my parents had bought gold at 125 and they were cashing in a big share of it at 680.
and if you get to buy at 125 cash in at 680 you got to celebrate so celebrate we did but anyway that's where I got started I went to high school and graduated I went to college for a year year and a half and I quit decided I was smart enough and got me a job and went to work to see if I could make all of my ambitions come true a couple years later I met a very beautiful young lady and I put probably my finest sales presentation owner I promised her wealth and fame and fortune and World Travel and all those good things I said it will probably be the finest decision of your life to marry me and she bought that story fortunately for me and we got married and I'm continuing to work hard to see if I can't make all these dreams and Promises come true well two or three years after I'd gotten married it didn't look like my new bride had made such a wise decision I'm now starting to struggle I'm not destitute but it isn't working quite like I had promised I'm looking at my paycheck on Friday 57 and that isn't quite what I'd promised and already I had fallen into the someday honey routine with my wife right someday honey you won't have to sit on this old furniture someday honey you'll have a car of your own I had already someday hunted myself into trouble well now I'm wondering what should I do I'm struggling I'm behind money's one of my problems I got far too much month at the end of the money if you've ever had that problem I remember one time losing a ten dollar bill and I was physically ill for two days over ten dollars and of course my friends tried to be cheerful right they said look maybe some poor person that needed it found it I'm willing to admit to you that that really didn't help at age 25 benevolence had not yet seized me you know I'm the poor person that needs to find ten dollars not lose ten dollars but that's where I was I thought well maybe I should go back to school I've got one year of college doesn't look that good on an application but I'm 25 I'm married now my family's starting I'm already working and going back to school seemed like kind of a tough decision but that's where I was at that time in my life wondering what I should do to really turn it around and make the promises all come true well at age 25 Good Fortune came my way and sometimes it's a little difficult to describe Good Fortune why do unique things happen to you when they do I don't know part of that's a mystery to me one of my friends says well things don't just happen they happen just maybe that's it I don't know but my good fortune was at age 25 I met a very remarkable man he was a businessman he was wealthy apparently looked very happy prosperous to me when I met him and my good fortune was a few months after I met this unique man his name was Mrself MrEarl Shelf he hired me gave me a job and I went to work for him and I spent the next five years working for it and during that five-year period Mrsoaf shared with me his ideas that helped to change my life unfortunately at the end of that five years Mrsoaf died but I did get to spend five years with this very remarkable man and the best thing he gave me during that period of time was not a job the best thing he gave me was the benefit of his philosophy how to be wealthy how to be happy and his ideas worked for me then about 16 17 years ago I was living in Beverly Hills and I was going through all the notes that I'd gathered up during that period in fact that's one of the major things Mrsoaf taught me take good notes don't miss anything don't make your mind a filing cabinet trying to remember everything jot it down if you hear a good sermon take notes if you read a good book take notes if you hear something good jot it down if you think something good put it on paper then you can go over it repetition is the mother of skill and someday those ideas if you repeat them often enough they'll take root and start to grow and someday they'll show up in your bank account and your personality and your language and your dress and your lifestyle so he got me hooked on taking notes and I did during that time and I've taken them now all these years and on this particular day I was going through all those journals and the idea occurred to me why don't I share this with other people I've used it to build some of my other companies but I've never shared it with the public and I thought well that'd be an intriguing idea see if I could put into words my feelings and my ideas that helped me to make major changes so I thought well I might as well try it so I put the material together that I thought was the most important and 17 years ago at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills a few blocks from where I lived I gave my first seminar and fortunately tonight you are not in on my first seminar I struggled it really wasn't quite that good in fact I'm willing to admit now it was so bad if I hadn't been conducting it I'd have gone home right that's how bad it was but when you're doing them it's hard to leave but anyway I struggled through it did the best I could and decided Well I'll try it again see if I get any better sure enough I got a little more comfortable with making the presentation and then I got invited other places to share my story my ideas and little by little it started to grow and finally now it's become my major Enterprise I've arranged my other business Affairs so I can spend most of my time now doing what I really like to do and that share ideas talk about things that matter with people who care and now the seminar has been translated in several languages so I get to travel to other countries and share my feelings and my ideas with other people around the world and tonight I find myself in Anaheim and I'm pleased to be here what I would like to do is to share with you what I think made the major difference for me I don't claim to have all the answers for doing well but I've got some that worked for me and what I would like to do is pass it along to you that's the purpose of the seminar tonight for you to pay your money and spend some of your time to be here is to see what you think of my ideas just capture them take them home and edit them as much as you wish throw out what you don't like try what you do like and see what happens but give me your attention for the next little while and let's go through the ideas that I think the major things that help me to really make the changes in my life okay let me give you the table of contents first I'm going to cover five subjects let me give you those five and then we'll come back and take them one at a time and we'll go through them okay the first subject is personal development which is the best place to start right if you don't start there nothing much is going to happen here's the big challenge of life you can have more than you've got because you can become more than you are that's the challenge and of course the other side of the coin reads unless you change how you are you'll always have what you got I have found in my experience that income does not far exceed personal development now sometimes income takes a lucky jump but sure enough unless you grow out where it is it'll usually come back where you are life has strange ways if somebody hands you a million dollars best you become a millionaire quickly so you get to keep the money otherwise sure enough it'll disappear somebody once said if you took all the money in the world divided it up equally among everybody it would soon all be back in the same pockets incredible success is something you attract not something you pursue success is looking for a good place to stay so instead of going after it you work on yourself personal development see the major question to ask on the job is not what are you getting the major question to ask on the job is what are you becoming so the big question is not what am I getting paid here the big question is what am I becoming here because true happiness is not contained in what you get happiness is contained in what you become so that's our major subject for tonight personal development of all the assignments Mrself gave me at age 25 this was probably the most difficult in fact I'm still working on this one I think it's an unending challenge to see what you can become the next subject is called basic laws and it's good to study the basics and I call these Basics primarily because they come from the Bible now I'm not a theologian or a minister and that'll be apparent but Mrself taught me that the Bible was a good textbook for ideas and stories and success equations how to live the better life I found out that was true he also taught me that the Bible is as practical as it is spiritual and I found out that's true if you look at your bank account and your income and you're not happy there are several places in the Bible to check to see what the heck's wrong so you can make the changes and we're going to cover some of those tonight called basics okay the next subject is my favorite setting goals the Shelf taught me how to set goals what a favor that was one morning at breakfast shortly after I met him he said Jim let me see your current list of goals and let's go over them and talk about them he said maybe that's the best way I can help you get a better Direction started and I said I don't have a list he said well is it out in the car or home somewhere I said no sir I don't have a list anywhere he said well young man that's where we got to start he said I can tell you right now if you don't have a list of your goals with you he said I can guess your bank balance within a few hundred dollars which he did and that got my attention I said you mean my bank balance would change if I had a list of goals he said drastically that day I became a willing student how to set goals and sure enough learning how to set goals changed my life and I often wondered why no one had ever taught me how to set goals up until age 25. I went to high school but if they offered it I missed it I went to college for a year never heard it I worked for Sears really and to my knowledge Sears never taught it right how to set goals so here I am age 25 married my family starting I've been to college I'm working and I still don't know how to set goals but fortunately when I was 25 I met the man who taught me how and it revolutionized my whole life economically socially personally it's incredible so I want to share with you tonight what Mrsow shared with me how to set goals it can be a life changer okay the next subject is the negative part of the seminar life is part negative so we got to talk about the negative and this subject is called diseases of attitude diseases of attitude there's a lot of things that can wreck your chances to do well we live in a rather dangerous world so you got to be not only wise you've got to be careful now attitude diseases are just as bad as physical diseases right high blood pressure heart trouble I mean a lot of things lace your chances to do well so you've got to be careful and attitude diseases are deadly I mean they'll destroy all the good things you start okay so we'll go through those attitude diseases how to spot them how to look for them what they are and and the Cure and I'm a pro on these because I've had them all so I can give you excellent advice on these now the last subject we're going to consider tonight is called the day that turns your life around the day that turns your life around and under this subject we're going to talk about the emotions that can change your life human beings are emotional creatures and emotions are powerful for life change now of course emotions are so powerful they can go either way on you emotions can either build or destroy so you really have to employ emotions properly we call civilization the intelligent management of human emotions if you can intelligently apply your emotions in the right direction no telling what can happen could turn your life around one day would be sufficient so we'll talk about those okay now that's a lot to cover in one evening but we'll keep at it here and see if we can't get it all done I'd like to have you now jot down the theme of the seminar every seminar should have a theme I guess we've got one it's on some of our literature if you happen to notice it but if you didn't for your notes here it is the theme of the seminar goes like this the major key to your better future [Music] is you that's the theme of our seminar tonight the major key to your better future is you and I'd like to have you underline two words just to give it some added punch underline the word major and the word you so that it reads the major key to your better future is you now my first suggestion is transfer this to a card or something where you can put it up where you can see it every day preferably put it up where you can see it at the beginning of the day before you go off to put the day together this is a good phrase just to glance at to keep in mind as you're putting the day together it's called The Silent seminar if you'll just let this talk to you during the day I found it to be tremendously helpful the major key to your better future is you for a big share of my life now I didn't have this one quite figured out among a lot of things I didn't have quite figured out many things used to puzzle me back in those early days I used to wonder why two people could work for the same company one make twice as much money now see that used to puzzle me and maybe they were the same age graduated from the same school live in the same Community work for the same company with the same products and the same services they've got the same traffic the same problems and one makes a thousand a month the other one makes two thousand a month now that was my puzzling question why would this long list be the same and the money twice as much I asked what's the difference between a thousand a month and two thousand a month and I don't mean a thousand a month right I can figure that out but what what makes the difference why would one person do twice as well three times as well speaking economically now I know there's more than one way to do well I understand that but in this little narrow area called compensation what's the difference well back then with my faulty thinking I'm trying to reason it out I thought well maybe time makes some of the difference right some people do better because they have more time I used to say Harold ought to be able to do well he's got a lot of time if I had all of Harold's time I could do well now that's got to be dumb right number one you can't get somebody else's time a guy says to me one time he says you know if I had some extra time I could make some extra money I said then forget it there isn't any extra time hey when the clock strikes 12 midnight that about wraps it up right I mean you can look around the gongs here for a little more but it's over you say to the guy what are you doing he said I'm looking for extra time see they'll come and take you away right there isn't any more time now if you can't get more time which you can't what could you get more of that would make a difference in economic results and here's the key word make it a part of your notes we're going to consider it tonight the word is value and I have a little phrase for your notes value makes the difference in results value makes the difference you can't get more time but you can create more value now here's the first lesson of Economics everybody should learn it from the time they're old enough to understand what a dollar means how to earn one how to get one how to keep one what to do with it first lesson of Economics we primarily get paid for value that's lesson one bringing value to the marketplace that's how you get paid you don't get paid for the time I know it takes time to bring value to the marketplace but you get paid for the value not the time now since that's true here's one of the key questions of the evening is it possible to become twice as valuable the marketplace and make twice as much money in the same time could you become three times as valuable make three times as much money in the same time is that possible the answer is yes if and it's always if right life is known as the big if Harry Truman once said life is iffy how true and here's the big gift we're going to consider it tonight it's possible to do much better at the marketplace if you go to work primarily on yourself and that's the theme of our seminar tonight learning to work primarily on yourself people have asked me for the last 24 years how do you develop an above average income and the answer is become an above average person develop an above average handshake some people want to be successful they don't even work on their handshake as easy as that would be to start on they let it slide they don't understand develop an above average smile develop an above average excitement develop an above average interest in other people develop an above average intensity to win see that'll change everything probably one of the most frustrating experiences in life is looking for an above average job with above average pay without becoming an above average person it's called frustration and Mrself gave me probably the greatest clue he gave me when I first met him he said Jim if you want to be wealthy and happy the rest of your life just learn this lesson well he said learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job that was it the beginning of the philosophy that helped to change my life work harder on yourself than you do on your job when he said that I suddenly understood why I was broke I was a hard worker on my job if anybody would have asked me age 25 Mronly you a hard worker I'd have said yes I'm a hard worker check my record I work as hard as anybody and that was true I was a hard worker I really was but see that was my problem I was working hard on my job but I wasn't working hard on myself and that was my reason for lack of progress some people look for more money but they look for it in the wrong direction the guy says I need more money I'm gonna go work on my boss well number one bosses are notorious they do not play fast and loose with the company till I've never seen a boss get excited and triple somebody's wages right I mean they don't behave in such an irrational manner so see that's not what you work on some people say well I'll go on strike for more well big deal the problem with that game is once you start it it's never over you'll always have to strike and I'll tell you what you get by demand little bitty pieces barely enough and now inflation beats that game right the guy demands ten percent inflation's 12. he's behind two right I mean it never ends so see that's not the key to success maybe survival but not success the guy in sales says I've got it I'll get me some of those books that teach you the tricky sales and I'll go leap upon my prospects dazzling with my sales footwork grab their money before they know what's happened well you can play those kind of tricks if you want to my observation shows the last 24 years you wind up at the bottom of the economic ladder not the top see it's not what you get by tricks it's not what you get by demand it's what you get by performance that counts so that's one of the key phrases of the evening it's performance that counts and I discovered this performance comes from inside not outside for a share of my life I'm looking for the answers to do well outside found out they were inside then Mrself gave me probably one of the most important Clues among so many things he taught me but this was in those early days Mrself is very kind but he was also very abrupt and he had these interesting questions to ask I'm giving him a little run date run down one day on how things hadn't worked out for me he said MrOwen I've got the answer for you if you will listen carefully and listen carefully I did that day and for the next five years if somebody's wealthy and happy you gotta listen he said Jim I've only known you a short time but he said it's already my honest opinion that for things to change for you got to change that wasn't quite the answer I was looking for but that's the answer he gave me and I pass it along to you on this warm summer evening in Anaheim California 1981.
