Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (22 page)

place at a speed that is virtually unimaginable. In 1900, 50 percent of the American population lived on farms raising food for the other 50 percent who lived in towns and cities. Today, less than 3 percent of the population lives on farms, and they produce not only enough food for all Americans, but huge surpluses as well that are exported or even given away to the entire world.

We have moved from the agricultural age to the industrial age to the service age to the information age, and we are now entering the
communications
age. The primary source of value today is not land, labor, and other hard assets, but knowledge, information, and ideas.

The greatest wealth you could possibly possess is between your ears.You can create an unlimited future for yourself by tapping into your brainpower and channeling it, like a powerful current, to energize your life and get you anything you really want.

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TRUE WEALTH TODAY

The richest American today, and perhaps the richest person in the world, is Bill Gates. The net worth of his company, Microsoft, is greater than the net worth of IBM, which has been in business many years longer. Microsoft is based entirely on
brainpower
. It creates wealth by making it easier to process information digitally within computers, and from computer to computer by telephone lines, wireless systems, and satellites.

If you own a company, your chief assets walk out the door every night at quitting time. Your building could burn to the ground, but as long as your people got out safely, you could walk across the street and start your business again. The chief assets of any organization, and of any individual, are contained in the ability to think and to apply that thinking to getting results that other people will pay for. The ability to create wealth is determined by
mental
strength rather than
physical
strength.

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STARTING CAPITAL

In generations past, it may have taken many years for a person to accumulate enough capital to start and build a successful business in manufacturing or services. Today, such a large investment in ccc_tracy_8_136-153.qxd 6/23/03 2:48 PM Page 138

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physical assets can actually be a liability. A change in technology on the other side of the world can render a $100 million manufacturing plant obsolete in a few months.

But what you have between your ears can be invaluable. It is capable of countless applications and uses. It is completely portable.

It is versatile. It is flexible, and can be increased almost without limits, if you learn how.

An immigrant could arrive at a U.S. airport with the ability to create a billion-dollar industry in his head. He could walk up to customs; open his hands and say, “Nothing to declare;” and walk on through. His assets are all in his knowledge and skill. Many of the most successful and respected entrepreneurs and businesspeople in America arrived this way.

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KNOWLEDGE IS THE

GREAT RESOURCE

The primary source of value today is
knowledge
. Since there is no limit to the amount of knowledge you can acquire, there is no limit to the amount of value that you can create.You can start from wherever you are, no matter what your background, and begin to increase your mental assets. You can start work today on improving your ability to perform and get results for which others will pay.

The wonderful thing about knowledge is that it can be reproduced hundreds of thousands, even millions of times without losing its value. It is the one commodity that can actually be infinite in its application. If you or someone else comes up with a new idea to do something faster or better, that idea can be spread around the world in no time at all, and be in the hands of millions of other people who can also use it to improve their lives and work. And you have lost nothing. The idea still has its original value to you. This is absolutely incredible.

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HARD ASSETS VERSUS BRAINPOWER

Today, our banking and financial industries are struggling to make the shift to knowledge as an asset. Banks, for example, will lend money today only against
hard assets
, things that can be seized as ccc_tracy_8_136-153.qxd 6/23/03 2:48 PM Page 139

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collateral and sold to repay the loan. However, the real assets of a company are not the tangible items at all. They are the thinking ability of the people who work there. They are contained in the combined brainpower of teams of experts working together to solve problems, create innovations, and produce goods and services for the competitive marketplace.

Your ability to utilize your brainpower and unlock your creative abilities is absolutely essential to your success. Today, we know more about how you can become smarter than we ever have before.

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SMALL DIFFERENCES

LEAD TO BIG RESULTS

Often small improvements in the way you think and perform can lead to significant improvements in your performance. It is not necessary for you to attend university and get years of education to bring your knowledge up to the level where it can pay off for you.

Sometimes very small changes in what you are doing right now, right where you are, can bring about amazing results.

Here’s an example. If a horse runs in a horse race and wins by a nose, it earns 10 times the prize money of a horse that comes in second. Does this mean that the horse that comes in first is 10 times faster? Is it twice as fast? Ten percent faster? No, the horse that wins is only a
nose
faster.

By the same token, your possession of one small piece of information at the right time and in the right place can enable you to make an extraordinary difference in a particular situation. Often a single idea or insight can change your whole life or career.

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AVOID THE INTELLIGENCE TRAP

The most successful people today are those who are continually investing in learning and expanding their intellectual asset base. They are wide open to new ideas and new approaches. A major mistake made by many people, especially those who have graduated from a university, is that they conclude that everything they know at the moment is all that there is to know about a particular subject.

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Sometimes they think that what they know is all they
need
to know about a subject as well.

This is called the “intelligence trap” of the poor performer, the
unconscious incompetent
. This is a person who does not know, and does not know that he does not know. This person cannot be helped, because he is closed to new information. This is why the beginning of all wisdom is often the awareness of how ignorant you really are, of how little you really know.

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DON’T BE IMPRESSED

I have traveled in many countries and met countless highly intelligent and successful people. I have spoken with many millionaires, multimillionaires, and even billionaires. I have worked at the highest level of government with some of the smartest men and women who have ever lived. And the one thing that these people seem to have in common is that they never become impressed by their own intelligence. In fact, the smarter they get, the humbler they become and the less they look upon themselves as experts in any way.

Over 700 years ago, Roger Bacon of England was considered to be the last
universal
man. He was thought to be current with all the knowledge and science of the day. He, in his day, knew almost everything there was to know about everything that was taught academically.

Of course, at that time, the amount of available knowledge was limited. There were very few books. There were fewer scientists, philosophers, and researchers writing and teaching.

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KNOWLEDGE

GROWS EXPONENTIALLY

Today, however, it is impossible for one person to know everything about even one small subject. Just look at modern medicine. There are great minds who spend their entire lives studying the workings of the inner ear or the trachea or one of the other organs of the body. And even though these highly intelligent and dedicated professionals spend their whole careers specializing in a particular part ccc_tracy_8_136-153.qxd 6/23/03 2:48 PM Page 141

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of the body, they never learn everything there is to know about even that one organ.

Sometimes I ask audiences, “Is there anyone here who is a know-it-all?” Of course, no one raises his or her hand. Then I go on to explain what I mean by a know-it-all.

A know-it-all is a person who feels that he knows everything that he needs to know about a subject. How can you tell if you have become a know-it-all? It is easy. You have stopped learning and growing in your area of specialization.You have stopped reading, listening to audio programs, and taking additional courses.

The very fact that you fail to regularly seek out new knowledge in your field means that you have unconsciously, accidentally, slipped into the intelligence trap of the low performer.You have un-wittingly become a know-it-all by the very act of not continuing to learn and grow.

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THE ANSWERS ARE CHANGING

After giving an advanced test to a graduate class of physics students at Princeton University, Albert Einstein was on the way back to his office when one of his graduate assistants asked the famous professor, “Dr. Einstein, wasn’t that the same exam that you gave to this physics class last year?”

Dr. Einstein nodded and said, “Yes, it was the same exam as last year.”

The graduate assistant summoned up his courage to ask the great Nobel prizewinning physicist, “But, Dr. Einstein, how could you give the same test two years in a row?”

“Because,” Einstein replied, “in the last year, the answers have changed.”

In the same way, your answers are changing today at a more rapid rate than ever before. The answers in your field are changing as you sit there. What was true a year ago may not be true today, and what is true today may not be true a year from now. The only way that you can be assured of staying on top of your field is by continually taking in new ideas and knowledge to compare it with what you know today.

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THE SOURCES OF INNOVATION

Peter Drucker, in his book
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
(HarperBusiness, 1985), writes that the greatest business breakthroughs take place as the result of “either the unexpected success or the unexpected failure.”

He explains that when something unusual or unexpected happens in any field, the average person dismisses it as a ran-dom event or as an accident. The superior person, however, studies each unexpected result as if it were a sign of an underlying trend or an indication of a fundamental change in the nature of things.

When an experiment in growing bacteria failed because a mold had blown across the laboratory and landed on the petri dish, killing the bacteria, the lab assistants were about to throw it out.

However, a bacteriologist, Alexander Fleming, became curious about a mold that was so powerful that it could kill such strong bacteria. His research led to the discovery and development of peni-cillin, which saved millions of lives in World War II and won him both a knighthood and the Nobel prize.

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KEEP YOUR MIND OPEN

In 1975, IBM commissioned consultants to study the market potential of the personal computer. They came back with the conclusion that the market for personal computers was only a few hundred in the entire world, at best. Based on this information, IBM decided to concentrate its efforts on mainframes, where it was already the world leader, and ignore the personal computer market, leaving it to a little upstart company in Cupertino, California, called Apple Computer.

When the Apple computers hit the market and began to sell by the hundreds, and then thousands, IBM got smart fast. IBM did an about-face and decided to plunge into the small computer business.

And the company did. IBM came out with a PC that within four years captured more than 50 percent of the world market for smaller computers.

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WATCH FOR THE TRENDS

But IBM failed to notice that a major trend to smaller computers had taken place. Ignoring its initial success in PCs, IBM continued to concentrate on the development and sale of mainframes. While IBM’s attention was focused on mainframes, more and more competitors rushed into the personal computer field, and eventually IBM was displaced as the world leader.

IBM failed to see that its success in capturing 50 percent of the personal computer market was indicative of a sweeping trend in computers that would change the entire world. Today IBM is scrambling to catch up, competing with companies like Dell Computer, Hewlett-Packard/Compaq, Toshiba, and others. Because IBM missed the trend, it is unlikely that it will ever recover its position in the personal computer market.

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THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE

Keep your eyes open. There are more changes taking place all around you today than ever before. Any one of these changes may be indicative of a trend that could lead on to fortune and success for you. You must be open, awake, and alert to these changes. Nothing remains the same for very long. All your best opportunities will come from applying your knowledge and brainpower to new products and new services in the future.

All you need to start a fortune is an idea that is 10 percent new.

All you need is a product or service innovation that is a little better, faster, or cheaper than something else, and you can quickly move to the front of the line.

Many of the great fortunes being made today in the United States and throughout the world are being created by people who started with nothing. One day, they came up with a breakthrough idea that revolutionized or transformed their industry.What could it be for you?