Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (12 page)

The boss said nothing for several weeks. Finally, after work one evening, his boss came over to his desk and asked him why he always seemed to be there, even though all his co-workers had left.

The young man said it was because he was really determined to be successful in this company, and he knew he couldn’t be successful unless he was willing to work harder than anyone else.

The boss smiled and nodded and went on his way. Soon after that, the boss asked him to do something that was not part of his job description. He did it quickly and well, delivered it to his boss, and went back to his desk. Soon after, he was given another assignment, which he also completed quickly. Within a year, the young man had been given several additional responsibilities, each one of which he accepted and fulfilled immediately.

In his second year, he was promoted to a higher position. He studied, upgraded his skills, and continued to work hard. Within a couple of years he had surpassed all of his rivals. He had earned the respect and esteem of the other managers. They soon promoted him ccc_tracy_4_52-76.qxd 6/23/03 2:47 PM Page 67

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so that he was one of them, rather than one of the staff. His career took off. Eventually he became a vice president of the company.

This is a simple strategy that works for anyone who is willing to do more than is expected of him or her. It works for almost anyone, anywhere, over and over again, year after year.

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LOOK FOR WAYS TO ADD VALUE

If your goal is to become wealthy, you have to know how wealth is created. The answer is contained in two words: “add value.” All wealth comes from adding value in some way. All wealth comes from serving and satisfying your customers better than they could be served and satisfied by someone else. Wealth is the result of adding value to them in a way that no one else can match.

In your job, you should be looking for ways every day and every week to add value and to become more valuable than you were before. Throughout your career, your main focus must be to constantly seek out ways that you can add value to your boss, to your co-workers, to your customers, to your suppliers, and to everyone else and anyone upon whom you rely for your success. This should become your motto:
“Add value, add value, add value!”

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THE NEW PARADIGM OF WORK

One of the major revolutions in thought that has taken place in the world of work in the past few years is the idea that you must justify your position anew every day.

It used to be that a person would work hard for a few years until he had achieved a certain level in his job. He could then coast along at that level for many years, if not for the rest of his career. His attitude was, “Well, I’ve paid my dues. I earned my position. I did a great job. Now I am entitled to this job indefinitely.” But this is no longer good enough. Today, everybody wants to know,
“What have you accomplished lately?”
In the fast-moving, highly competitive business world of today, your boss wants to know what you have done to add value recently. You have already ccc_tracy_4_52-76.qxd 6/23/03 2:47 PM Page 68

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been paid for what you did last year, last month, and even last week.

Now you must earn and justify your paycheck anew. There is a race on and you are in it, whether you know it or not.

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TWO SOURCES OF VALUE

There are two major sources of value in the world of work today.

The first is
time
and the second is
knowledge
. Today, time is the currency of modern business. Everyone must be focused on reducing the amount of time that it takes to get the same results.

Customers will pay dearly for anyone who can reduce the time needed to get them the products and services they want. People will pay more for someone who can satisfy their needs faster than someone else. This is why most of the major improvements in modern management are those that reduce the amount of time that it takes to get the job done.

The most important measure of time is
speed
. The most important quality that you can develop with regard to time is a “sense of urgency.” This is the habit of moving fast when opportunity presents itself to you. Develop a bias for action. Fast tempo is essential to success. All successful people not only work hard, hard, hard, but they work fast, fast, fast!

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DO IT NOW!

Procrastination is not only the thief of time; it is the thief of life. To outperform your competition, both inside and outside your organization, you must develop the habit of moving
quickly
when something needs to be done. You must develop a reputation for speed and dependability. Study after study shows that those individuals with the best reputations for speed and dependability are the most valued in any organization. They are very quickly promoted onto the fast track in their careers.

The wonderful advantage of developing the habit of moving fast is that the faster you move, the
better
you get. This is because the faster you move, the more experience you get. The faster you move, the more you learn and the more competent you become. The faster you move, the more energy and enthusiasm you have. People who ccc_tracy_4_52-76.qxd 6/23/03 2:47 PM Page 69

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move fast as a way of life soon develop a totally different tempera-ment and personality than people who move slowly or who take a casual attitude toward their work.

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WORK IN REAL TIME

Whenever possible, do your work in “real time,” as soon as it comes up. Do it now. It is amazing how much time you can waste by picking up a task, looking at it or starting it, and then putting it down and coming back to it again and again. As a general rule, small tasks should be done immediately, as soon as they appear.This habit of taking action quickly will enable you to get through an enormous amount of work in a day. It will earn you a reputation for being the kind of person to give jobs to when someone needs them done quickly.

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SUCCESS COMES

FROM GOOD HABITS

Fully 95 percent of everything you do throughout your day is based on habit. Successful people are those who have developed the habits of success. Successful people form good habits and ensure that those habits govern their behaviors. Unsuccessful people allow bad habits to form, and these bad habits then lead to frustration and failure.

My friend Ed Foreman says,
“Good habits are hard to form but
easy to live with. Bad habits, on the other hand, are easy to form but hard
to live with.”

A habit is defined as “a conditioned response to stimuli.” It is an automatic way of responding or reacting in a particular situation.

You develop a habit by repeating a specific act or way of thinking and reacting. Once it becomes a habit, it becomes easier to do it that way than to do it some other way. What kind of habits do you have?

Successful people are simply those who developed successful habits. They have trained themselves, like athletes, to do certain things in a certain way, over and over again, until they do them automatically, without even thinking about them.You may have heard the old saying:

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Sow a thought and you reap an action;
Sow an action and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and you reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny.

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A KEY SUCCESS HABIT

One of the habits of success is that of
early rising
. Successful people get up a little bit earlier, read and prepare, plan and organize their day on paper in advance, and get going before the average person has even started. Thomas Jefferson said, “The sun has never caught me in my bed.”

A woman in one of my seminars some years ago told me that she discovered the magic of early rising. She had found that by going to bed early she could get up at four o’clock in the morning. She could then do the equivalent of a full day’s work by seven or eight o’clock, before the average person even got started. In no time at all, she was producing and earning double the amount of her co-workers. She was continually promoted and paid more money because she was getting far more done than anyone else.

Successful people make a habit of getting up early, usually by 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning, sometimes earlier, and then getting going immediately. This gives them a great jump on the day.

The average person, on the other hand, takes a full hour to get up and get going in the morning. Then they drag themselves off to work, thinking about lunchtime, and what they are going to do in the evening.

When
your
alarm clock goes off, get up immediately and get going right away. Start moving. Develop the habit of rising early and starting right to work on your most important task. This habit can do as much to assure your success as any other habit you develop.

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PRACTICE LOMBARDI TIME

When Vince Lombardi took over the Green Bay Packers, the players had developed the habit of not showing up until the last moment for games or buses. Often they were late, and everyone had to wait.

So Lombardi introduced “Lombardi time.” This was defined as 15

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minutes earlier than the scheduled time. Eventually everyone began arriving early, and the problem was solved.

You should go onto Lombardi time as well. Make a habit of punctuality by resolving to be on time, and then practicing it over and over until is natural and easy. Less than 2 percent of people are punctual, and everybody notices it, one way or the other. Make it a game to be on time—or better yet,
early
—for every appointment.

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MAKE EVERY MINUTE COUNT

Get into work before anyone else gets there, and when you do arrive, begin working immediately. Don’t waste time reading the newspaper, drinking coffee, or socializing with co-workers. Develop a reputation for being the kind of person who is always working, and always working on high-priority tasks.

Work all the time you work. Discipline yourself to keep yourself focused on the most valuable use of your time. Don’t allow other people to put you “off your game.” When you have coffee breaks or lunches, have them when they best suit you, not when they best suit the clock.

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DOUBLE YOUR PRODUCTIVITY

Here is a powerful three-step formula you can use to double your productivity and perhaps even double your income over the next 12 months. It is simple and powerful, and it works for anyone who uses it.

First, make a decision to come into work an hour earlier. This does not take very much effort, and it allows you to beat the traffic.

Have your work planned out for the day so that when you get into work you can then put your head down and go full blast.You will be amazed at how much you can get done before anyone else comes in.

Research proves that you can do three hours of office work in one hour of uninterrupted time.

Second, work through lunch, using the hour when your co-workers are all off together eating to get ahead of your work. Resist the tendency to take an hour off at “lunchtime” or to go for lunch with whoever is standing there.

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Third, work one hour later, after everyone has left. This third uninterrupted hour will enable you to wrap up your work from the day and plan the next day in detail. Also, by working later, you will miss the rush hour traffic.

By starting one hour early, working through the usual lunch hour, and staying one hour later, you will double your productive working time each day. When you combine this with working all the time you work and focusing on high-value tasks, you will more than double the amount of work you get done. You will quickly become one of the most valuable people in your organization.

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SCHEDULE YOUR FIRST

APPOINTMENT EARLY

If you are in sales, schedule your first appointment as early as possible. Many of the most important people you could want to see get into the office at 7:00 and 7:30 in the morning. Arrange to meet them at that time.

A salesman friend of mine, who is at the top of his field, found that the key to getting appointments with the key decision makers was to call their offices at 7:00 or 7:30 in the morning or 6:30 or 7:00 in the evening. He discovered that at these times all the staff either weren’t in yet or had gone home. The only people working were the key people. They would answer the phone personally and he would get an opportunity to talk to them and arrange to see them later.

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CREATE YOUR OWN OPPORTUNITIES

Develop the habit of moving fast. Successful people in every field have a sense of urgency. Only a small percentage of the population moves quickly when opportunity or responsibility presents itself.

You must be a member of this small percentage.

When I was younger, I used to think that when my opportunity came along I would take advantage of it at that time. I soon learned that your opportunity never does just come along.

Russell Conwell made this point in his famous story,
Acres of
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Diamonds
(Berkley, 1986). In summary, it says that in most cases your greatest opportunities lie under your own feet. They are right where you are. They lie within your current talents, skills, ability, and experience. They lie within your own business or industry.

They lie within your own background or career. Your acres of diamonds are very close at hand, and that is where you should begin your search.