No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline (5 page)

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Authors: Brian Tracy

Tags: #Self Help, #Business, #Non-Fiction, #Psychology, #Inspirational

BOOK: No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline
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Join the Top 20 Percent
 
In our society, the top 20 percent of people earn 80 percent of the money and enjoy 80 percent of the riches and rewards. This “Pareto Principle” has been proven over and over again since it was first formulated in 1895 by Vilfredo Pareto. Your first goal in your career should be to get into the top 20 percent in your chosen field.
 
In the twenty-first century, there is a premium on knowledge and skill. The more knowledge you acquire and the greater skill that you apply, the more competent and valuable you become. As you get better at what you do, your income-earning ability increases—like compound interest.
 
Unfortunately, the majority of people—the bottom 80 percent—make little or no effort to upgrade their skills. Most people, according to Geoffrey Colvin’s 2009 book
Talent Is Overrated,
learn their jobs in the first year of their employment, and then they never get any better. It is only the top people in every field who are committed to continuous improvement.
 
Because of this increasing disparity of productive ability, based on knowledge, skill, and hard work, the top 1 percent of people in American today control as much as 33 percent of the financial assets.
 
Starting with Nothing
 
Interestingly, almost everyone starts out the same in life—with little or nothing. Almost all fortunes in America (and worldwide) are
first
generation. This means that most individuals started with little or nothing and earned everything they own in their current lifetime.
 
The wealthiest people in America are almost all first-generation multibillionaires. This is the case with wealthy Americans such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell, and Paul Allen. Fully 80 percent of millionaires and multimillionaires started with little money, often penniless, and sometimes deeply in debt and with few advantages, such as Sam Walton, who died worth more than $100 billion. Why have these people been able to achieve so much when so many have achieved so little?
 
In their book,
The Millionaire Next Door,
Thomas Stanley and William Danko interviewed more than 500 millionaires and surveyed 11,000 more over a twenty-five-year period. They asked them why they felt they had been able to achieve financial independence when most of the people around them, who started at the same place, were still struggling. Fully 85 percent of this new generation of millionaires replied by saying something like “I didn’t have a better education or more intelligence, but I was willing to work
harder
than anyone else.”
 
Hard Work Is the Key
 
The indispensable requirement for hard work is self-discipline. Success is possible only when you can overcome the natural tendency to cut corners and take the easy way. Lasting success is possible only when you can discipline yourself to work hard for a long, long time.
 
As I mentioned in the Introduction, I started my own life with no money or advantages. For years, I worked at laboring jobs, at which I earned just enough to get from paycheck to paycheck. I stumbled into sales when I could no longer find a laboring job, where I spun my wheels for many months before I began asking that question: “Why is it that some people are more successful in selling than others?”
 
One day, a top salesman then told me that the top 20 percent of salespeople earn 80 percent of the money. I had never heard that before. This meant that the bottom 80 percent of salespeople had to be satisfied with the remaining 20 percent, with what was left over after the top people had taken the lion’s share. I decided then and there that I was going to be in the top 20 percent. This decision changed my life.
 
The Great Law
 
Then I learned the “Iron Law of the Universe,” which made getting into the top 20 percent possible. It was the Law of Cause and Effect, or sowing and reaping. This law says that “for every effect, there is a specific cause or series of causes.”
 
This law says that if you want to achieve success in any area, you must determine how success is achieved in that area and then practice those skills and activities repeatedly until you achieve the same results.
 
Here’s the rule: “If you
do
what other successful people do, over and over again, nothing can stop you from eventually enjoying the same rewards that they do. But if you
don’t
do what successful people do, nothing can help you.”
 
The law of sowing and reaping, from the Old Testament, is a variation of The Law of Cause and Effect. It says that “whatsoever a man soweth, that also shall he reap.” This law says that whatever you put in, you get out. It also says that whatever you are reaping today is a result of what you have sown in the past. So if you are not happy with your current “crop,” it is up to you, starting today, to plant a
new
crop, to begin doing more of those things that lead to success—and to stop engaging in those activities that lead nowhere.
 
Success Is Predictable
 
Success is not an accident. Sadly, failure is not an accident either. You succeed when you do what other successful people do, over and over, until these behaviors become a habit. Likewise, you fail if you don’t do what successful people do. In either case, nature is
neutral
. Nature does not take sides. Nature doesn’t care. What happens to you is simply a matter of law—the law of cause and effect.
 
You can look at yourself as a machine with a
default
mechanism. Your default mechanism is the almost irresistible attraction of the expediency factor and the path of least resistance that I described in the Introduction. In the absence of self-discipline, your default mechanism goes off automatically. This is the main cause of underachievement and the failure to realize your true potential.
 
When you are not working
deliberately, consciously,
and
continuously
to do, be, and have those things that constitute success for you, your default mechanism is at work. You end up doing those fun, easy, and low-value things in the short term that lead to frustration, financial worries, and failure in the long term.
 
The Secrets of Success
 
The great oil man, H. L. Hunt, who was at one time the richest self-made billionaire in the world, was once asked by a television journalist for his “secrets of success.” He replied: “There are only three requirements for success. First, decide exactly what it is you want in life. Second, determine the price that you are going to have to pay to get the things you want. And third, and this is most important, resolve to pay that price.”
 
One of the most important requirements for success, once you have decided what it is that you want, is the quality of
willingness.
Successful people are willing to pay the price, whatever it is and for as long as it takes, until they achieve the results they desire.
 
Everyone wants to be successful. Everyone wants to be healthy, happy, thin, and rich. But most people are not willing to pay the price. Occasionally, they may be willing to pay
part
of the price, but they are not willing to pay the
whole
price. They always hold back. They always have some excuse or rationalization for not disciplining themselves to do everything that they need to do to achieve their goals.
 
Pay the Price
 
How can you tell when you have paid the full price of success? It’s simple: Look around you. There it is! You can always tell how much of the price of success you have paid by looking at your current lifestyle and your bank account. By the Law of Correspondence, your outer world will, like a mirror, always reflect the person you are and the price you have paid on the
inside
.
 
There is an interesting point about the price of success: It must always be paid in full—and
in advance
. Success, however you define it, is not like a restaurant where you pay
after
you have enjoyed your meal. Instead it is like a cafeteria, where you can choose whatever you want, but you must pay for it before you eat it.
 
Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar says, “The elevator to success is out of order, but the stairs are always open.”
 
Learn from the Experts
 
Kop Kopmeyer, who I mentioned in the Introduction, also told me that the second most important success principle, after self-discipline, is that you must “learn from the experts. You will never live long enough to learn it all for yourself.”
 
If you want to be successful, your first job is to learn what you need to learn in order to achieve the success you desire. Learn from the experts. Read their books. Listen to their audio programs. Attend their seminars. Write to them or approach them directly and ask them for advice. Sometimes, one idea is all you need to change the direction of your life. Let me give you an example of what I mean:
Some years ago, I was referred by a friend to an excellent dentist. I learned later that he had a superb reputation. He was called the “dentist’s dentist.” He was the dentist that the other dentists went to when they needed excellent dental work. He told me that he attended every major dental conference that he could. When he was there, he attended every session, listening to dentists from all the over the country, and all over the world, discuss the latest breakthroughs in dental technology.
 
One week, at great sacrifice in time and money, he attended an international dental conference in Hong Kong. At that conference, he sat in on a session given by a Japanese dentist who had discovered a new technology in cosmetic surgery that improved the appearance of teeth and enabled people to look handsome or beautiful indefinitely.
 
He returned to San Diego and immediately began using the new technique in his practice. Soon, he became excellent in this area and developed a national reputation. Within a couple of years, people were coming to him from all over southwestern United States for this treatment. Because he had developed this expertise, he could raise his fees again and again. Eventually, he had made so much money that he was able to retire at the age of fifty-five, financially independent and able to spend the rest of his life with his family, traveling and fulfilling his dreams.
 
 
 
The point of this story is that, by continually seeking out ideas and advice from other experts in his field, he came across a new technology that helped him become the leader in his field and saved him ten years of hard work in order to reach the same level of financial success. This could happen to you as well, but only if you become a lifelong student of your craft.
 
Mental and Physical Fitness Need to Be
Ongoing
 
Achieving success is like achieving physical fitness. It is like bathing, brushing your teeth, and eating. It is something that you need to do continuously, every day. Once you begin, you never stop until your life and career are over and you have achieved all the success you desire.
 
Not long ago, I was giving a seminar in Seattle. Just before the break, I encouraged people to buy and listen to my audio programs on sales, time management, and personal success. At the break, several people came up to me to ask me questions about the seminar content. One salesman pushed his way forward and said, “When you encourage people to buy your programs, you should tell them the whole truth.”
 
I asked, “How do you mean?”
 
He went on to say, “You are not telling the whole truth about your programs. You should tell people that they only work for a certain period of time, and then they stop working.”
 
Again, I asked, “How do you mean?”
 
He said, “Well, I came to your seminar about five years ago, and I was completely convinced by your presentation. I bought all your programs and began listening to them. I read every day in sales. And you were right, over the next three years, I tripled my income and became the top seller in my company. But then my income flattened out and has not increased at all over the last two years. The fact is that your materials stop working after a certain point.”
 
I then asked him, “What happened to you two years ago, when your income flattened out and stopped increasing?”
 
He searched his memory, thought for a while and then said, “Well, I was selling so much that I was hired away by another company. Ever since I started my new job, my income has remained flat.”
 
I asked him, “What did you do differently in your new job in comparison with your previous job?”
 
He started to answer. He then stopped. A shocked look came over his face. Finally he replied, “Oh my gosh! I stopped doing it. When I changed jobs, I stopped reading in sales. I stopped listening to audio programs. I stopped attending seminars. I stopped doing it!”
 
He walked away shaking his head, muttering to himself, “I stopped doing it. I stopped doing it. I stopped doing it.”
 

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