Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (32 page)

Napoleon personally felt that his thoroughness and depth of preparation, carefully considering every detail, were his key to victory. This quality was demonstrated by his phenomenal ability to arrive onto the field of a potential battle and then to think through every single possible twist and turn of the battle to its logical conclusion—before the first shot was fired.

Once he had completed his preparations, he could take his position at his command center to direct the battle. No matter what news he received from any part of the battlefield, he was always ready with an immediate response. Many people thought that his quickness of response under fire was because he was a brilliant thinker, which he was, but that was not the secret of his success. His secret was that he had thought through every possible eventuality, in advance.

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EXTRAPOLATE FROM THE PRESENT

This ability, to think through every major situation in your life in advance, is a way of thinking that you can learn with practice. The better you become at anticipating future events based on current facts, the better your life will be. You will be able to minimize reversals and maximize opportunities. Thinking this way will give you an edge over others who simply react and respond to whatever happens.

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If you work for a company, you should be thinking through the worst possible things that could happen in the next six months to a year that could affect your job and your security. If you own the company, you should identify the worst possible things that could affect the survival and health of your enterprise. You and your spouse should discuss possible problems and difficulties that might occur in your family life, and then make plans to guard against them.

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TAKE NECESSARY

FINANCIAL PRECAUTIONS

You often read about people who failed to insure properly and consequently lost their cars, their homes, and sometimes all of their possessions. They failed to look into the future and ask what the consequences to their life would be if a fire occurred in their home or if they had a traffic accident and they were not sufficiently insured.

One of the smartest things that you can do to preserve your financial well-being is to develop a regular savings program.Your goal should be to save 10 percent and more of your income, off the top, each month, from each paycheck or income source. There are few things that will give a greater sense of confidence and control than for you to know that you have a cash reserve set aside in the event of an unexpected emergency. In contrast, there is nothing that will cause you more stress and tension than to be living on the edge of your financial resources, unable to deal with a financial emergency or a need of any kind.

W. Clement Stone once said,
“If you cannot save money, then the
seeds of greatness are not in you.”

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LIVE WITHIN YOUR INCOME

Your ability to save money and to discipline yourself to live within your income is a key measure of your ability to succeed in life. If you do not have the
internal
self-control to refrain from spending everything you earn, this suggests that you probably don’t have the discipline necessary to succeed in other areas of your life. Although ccc_tracy_11_201-221.qxd 6/23/03 3:38 PM Page 211

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the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil, it is far more likely that the
lack
of money is the root of all evil.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of saving your money and building up a cash reserve is that it enables you to take advantage of opportunities when they arise, as they always do. In the movie
Field of
Dreams
, a profound idea was expressed:
“If you build it, they will
come.”
In the financial world, this means that if you accumulate money through hard work and saving, you will attract into your life opportunities to invest that money to earn even more.

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BECOMING A MONEY MAGNET

The Law of Attraction is very powerful in monetary matters. When you save even a small amount of money and put it in a bank account or a carefully chosen mutual fund, you create a certain force field of energy around that money. This energy somehow begins to attract even more money into your life. As your savings and investments grow, the magnetic power of your money grows even stronger. The more money you accumulate, the more money that will be attracted to you, and the more opportunities you will have to accumulate even more.

When you think about your money and the pleasure it gives you to have money in the bank, you increase the energy field around your money and you attract even more. This force field becomes even more powerful when you love your money. When you think about your growing financial reserves with intense happiness, you intensify the energy around your money and you attract even more.

When people say that
it takes money to make money
, they are right in two special ways. First, your ability to save money and build up a nest egg is a measure of whether you have the ability to earn even more money and whether you can be trusted with money. Second, when you put together even a small amount of money, you will attract opportunities to accumulate an even larger amount.

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A SUCCESS STORY

A participant came up to me at a seminar recently and asked if I remembered him. I told him that unfortunately I spoke to too many ccc_tracy_11_201-221.qxd 6/23/03 3:38 PM Page 212

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people each year to remember all of them. He reminded me that he had attended my two-day seminar about six years before. He was quite shy so he waited at the lunch break until everyone had left. He then told me about a most remarkable series of events that had happened to him since the seminar.

When he came to my seminar, he was a used car salesman. He had two children and was in his early thirties. He was earning an average income and was up to his neck in debt. He was living in a rented house with his family.

At the seminar, he decided that his biggest source of worry was the fact that he was in debt and had no money in the bank. So he set a goal to get out of debt and to save $30,000 over the next five years. This was a huge goal for him, considering his circumstances and his past. He had not been out of debt since his teens.

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TAKING ACTION

Nonetheless, in faith, he wrote down his goal, made a plan, and began working on it every day. This decision activated his mental powers. Because of the Law of Correspondence, the Law of Attraction, and the Law of Subconscious Activity, among others, things began to change for him far faster than he had imagined. He actually achieved his financial goal in only three years. He was out of debt and had $30,000 in the bank.

One day, his boss, the owner of the dealership, called him in and asked him if he was interested in a business opportunity. He was quite flattered and asked his boss to explain. His boss said that he had observed how much better he had become as a salesman, and he had also heard that he had saved up some money from his income.

This salesman was shy and cautious, and asked his boss what he had in mind. His boss told him that he had been approached by the automobile manufacturer in Detroit and asked to recommend someone who would be interested in opening a new car dealership in the same city in a growing part of town. The boss said he was willing to recommend him, and back him in this dealership. He would go in with him as a full partner if he were willing to put in his money as well.

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The final outcome of this story was that his boss helped him set up the new dealership; he helped him with all the purchasing, in-ventory, parts, service department decisions, and staffing. After two years, his boss sold the half share back to him, so he ended up own-ing the dealership 100 percent.

Then he said to me, “And today, I’m a millionaire.” He said,

“Six years ago I was a used car salesman, and today I am a millionaire.” He was one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. He said if he had not taken that advice from the seminar and begun saving his money and getting out of debt, he would not have been in a position to take advantage of that opportunity when it came along. He said,

“Taking your seminar probably saved me 20 years of hard work, and maybe even a lifetime.”

This story applies to your life as well. One of the most important actions that you can take to remain positive and optimistic is to prepare mentally, financially, and physically in advance. Think through what might possibly happen and make plans to prepare for opportunities. Make plans and put aside reserves to minimize or escape the consequences of a financial setback. This way of thinking, of planning ahead in every area, is a mark of the superior individual.

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TWO MAGIC QUESTIONS

Here are two questions that you can ask to turn failure into success.

I call these the magic questions because of the incredible power they have to improve your life. You can ask them and benefit from them after every experience.

The first question is,
“What did I do right?”
No matter what you do, or how it turns out, whether it is a success or a failure, you should do an instant mental replay of the event and assess everything that you did right in that situation.

Even if it turns out badly, or was a complete failure, there were always things that you did that were
correct
. If you can isolate the positive parts of your performance and write them down, you will be preprogramming your mind to repeat the things that you did right in the next similar situation.

The second magic question is,
“What would I do differently?”
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about what happened and how you could do better. Ask yourself, if you had to do it over again, how would you
change
or
improve
your performance or behavior in that situation? What would you do more of or less of?

Be sure to write down your answers. This ensures that you capture them before you forget. Each time you try something new or different, immediately sit down with a pad of paper and answer those two questions: “What did I do right?” and “What would I do differently?” Both of these questions are positive and they both require positive responses.Your answers prepare you, consciously and unconsciously, to do even better next time. Both sets of answers keep you focused on improvement rather than regret.

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POSITIVE VERSUS

NEGATIVE THINKING

Both winners and losers examine how they performed after an important event. But underachievers almost invariably rehash the
mistakes
they have made, the expenses they have incurred, and the failures they have experienced. High achievers, in contrast, those who think positively about themselves and their lives, are constantly reviewing the
best parts
of their performance and making plans to repeat those actions the next time.

When you think about what you did right and what you could do differently next time, your mind will be completely positive.Your creativity will be stimulated. You will see all kinds of opportunities and possibilities for improvement that you would have missed completely if you allowed yourself to feel sorry for yourself after an unsuccessful event.

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BUSINESS AND SALES

If you are in
business
, you should ask these questions regularly of yourself and your key staff:
“What did we do right?”
and
“What
would we do differently next time?”
Remember, most things you try will be unsuccessful the first few times. By asking these questions, you extract the greatest value possible from the situation. Treat ccc_tracy_11_201-221.qxd 6/23/03 3:38 PM Page 215

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every experience as an opportunity to learn something that can help you next time.

If you are in
sales
, use this method after every sale. Immediately after a sales call, successful or not, ask the magic questions. This quick review will dramatically increase the speed at which you learn and grow as a sales professional.

Make this instant replay a part of your life. Use this method repeatedly so that it becomes automatic. No matter how disappoint-ing the setback or difficulty may be,

you will soon be

preprogrammed to learn the most from the situation and to extract every kernel of good that you can possibly get from it.

When you combine this method with mindstorming—forcing yourself to generate 20 answers to each question—you will be absolutely astonished at the number of great ideas and insights for growth and improvement you will come up with. These ideas will dramatically increase the speed at which you become one of the best in your field.

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THE EDISON APPROACH

Thomas Edison, the greatest inventor of the modern age, was convinced that experimentation was simply a
process of elimination
. He therefore kept accurate records of every experiment. Once he had decided that an invention was possible, he dedicated himself to eliminating the ways that wouldn’t work until the only method left standing was the
one way
that would work. As a result, he became the greatest inventor of the modern age and one of the wealthiest businessmen in the country.You should do the same.

From now on, each time you try and fail, shrug it off as a
learning experience
that just moved you one step closer to success. As Henry Ford once said,
“Failure is merely an opportunity to more intelligently begin again.”