Jim Rohn: It All Starts With A Decision To Make A Change In Your Life (Transcript)

Because that’s how you realize your dreams.

Our great country was founded with dreams. They’ve always been important. Dreams are what caused thousands of people to leave their homes and families and start over in a land where anything was possible.

To this day, dreams continue to bring people to our land of opportunity, to a country where you can start with little and end up with a lot. To America.

Don’t you sometimes wonder why so many immigrants who come to America can build a new life and a fortune, while many of the people who were born here are barely surviving?

They have a dream, a defined goal. Ambition. Aside from the pioneers that crossed the prairies and the mountains to reach their vision of hope and future promises, there are other amazing examples of how ambition has shaped America.

Take Ben Franklin, for instance. When most people think of Ben Franklin, they remember the kite and the lightning bolt and the discovery of electricity. What a lot of people may not know is that Ben Franklin was one of the first writers to address self-making.

When Franklin started Poor Richard’s Almanack in 1732, he used the blank spaces between the crop data and the weather information to insert clever bits of moral and practical advice.

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying fish and companies start to stink in three days. Well, that was one of hundreds of Ben Franklin’s comments on life.

Another was Diligence is the mother of Good luck.

You know, it’s amazing how hard working, smart working people have all the luck. We sometimes hear of a brand new musical group and overnight success. They must have been in the right place at the right time. Knew the right people, had a friend to help them out.

But if you’ve ever watched an interview with some of these folks, you’ll probably hear that their overnight success took several years.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

Now, in addition to these witticisms, Ben Franklin gave us three principles of success and ambition that have withstood the test of time.

Number one: Happiness doesn’t come from big pieces of great success, but from small advantages hammered out day by day.

What Mr. Franklin is saying here is that we must be happy with what we’ve got when we’re in pursuit of what we want.

Too often we say, Oh, I’ll be happy when I just get that promotion.

‘I’ll be happy when I just land that contract.’

‘I’ll be happy when I just have more money.’

‘I’ll be happy when I just…’

Just what? you won’t be any happier when you reach your goals than you are right now. It just doesn’t work that way.

Abraham Lincoln said it best. He said:

“You’ll be as happy as you make up your mind to be.”

Right now, whether you’re on your way, whether you’ve already gotten there, you’ll be as happy as you make up your mind to be now, right now.

Being happy on the way doesn’t mean you can’t aim for great things after all. Look at everything Franklin accomplished in his lifetime. It means that big achievements come one small advantage at a time.

It means that you’ve got to enjoy the journey. It means that you must enjoy and take pride in your little accomplishments.

It means enjoying who you are becoming in pursuit of your eager desire. Every day. Every single day.

Ben Franklin’s second principle said that life is plastic.

Within each of us is the power to mold, mold ourselves and mold our environment. It is up to each of us to begin this molding process with a final product in mind, and it is within our power to work it and form it every minute, every day, every month, and every year.

By using your mind and your abilities and your attitude to work a little each day on molding your life, you’ll soon see how magnificent your power is to gain those small advantages each day. The little steps it takes to build up to success.

Principle number three: Success is a pleasure.

Success is a pleasure. If what you are doing today isn’t satisfying, gratifying. Guess what? You’re really not successful.

If you are not fulfilled with what you are doing today, you cannot possibly be successful. It doesn’t matter how many worldly possessions you may have. How many cars? How many toys. How much money, if you’re not happy with your life as it is, you cannot be successful.

Now, I know that success is a relative term. It means different things to different people.

To a school kid, success may mean a star on top of his latest test. To a homemaker, it probably means that she has a well-run household and a wonderful family.

To an outside professional, it’s most likely the thrill of closing a major contract. Or the pride in accepting a performance bonus or being named the top producing salesperson.

But the one thing you will hear from everyone who is successful is that they are happy with who they are and what they are doing. They are happy, content, satisfied.

Success is a pleasure.

What have you done today that makes this day successful?

Think about it and write it down. If at the end of the day, you can jot down the things that have made it a good day, you will soon see patterns forming.

This really is a good habit to get into. When you can see a pattern of pleasure, you’ll know you’re on the road to success.

So take note of Mr. Franklin’s three principles of success and ambition.

Number one: Big achievements come one small advantage at a time. One step at a time, one day at a time.

Number two: You have the power to mold your life, to make it whatever you want, to shape it and reshape it.

And number three: Success is measured through pleasure. This is the key one. Success is measured through pleasure.

You’ve got to be happy along the way. You’ve got to learn to give yourself a pat on the back. Good job. You need to tell yourself I’m proud of me today.

You’ve got to be happy. You’ve got to learn to enjoy the process.

These are really common sense ideas. They’re practical. And William James agreed. He’s another American great, one of the most notable philosophers and psychologists in our history. And he founded a philosophy called pragmatism.

To be pragmatic is to be practical. To test the validity of a concept by its practical results, to actually question something and rate its usefulness by what it can do for you. To hear a method of doing something and figuring out if it’s even worth your while.

One of the issues Mr. James dealt with in his lifetime was- What does it mean to be a success, a significant person?

After years of pondering this question, William James described success as a combination of two things.

Number one, an inner ideal which is followed persistently with courage.

And number two, outer achievement related to that ideal.

Let’s go back to number one, an inner ideal which is followed persistently with courage. I take that to mean defining a goal and having the resolve to complete it no matter what, ‘I’ll do it or die.’

Promise yourself you’ll read the books until your skills change. Go to the seminars until you get a handle on it. Do it until it makes sense. Practice it until you’ve got it right. Don’t give up until you get where you want to be. However long that is. Step by step. Piece by piece. Book by book. Seminar by seminar. Do it until… Go for it.

Until is a very important word. It’s magic. It means that you’ll never give up. Don’t miss the chance to grow, to pay the price until you learn, change, grow. You’ll discover some of life’s great treasures when you pay that price.

William James’ second part to success, dealt with the outer achievement related to that ideal.

You need both aspects to really be a success. But what Dr. James realized about his philosophy of success was that the first part is indeed more important than the second.

Going for it, as long as you’re working toward your inner goal, your dream, then success is possible. But once you give up your inner vision, then you can never become successful. You never will become successful. ‘Until’ doesn’t even matter.

Now, maybe the person who’s been working on a project for 10 years can be successful in his own right. If he’s honestly working toward it, doing everything to make himself worthy of reaching the dream. Really happy with where he is, doing it until, then maybe he is a success. It’s a personal thing.

Going for it one step at a time. Going for small accomplishments along the way for however long it takes.

So let’s think about this for a moment.

What outside evidence or results or proof can be seen when you accomplish your goals one step at a time?

You’ll start to see things change around you. Little things. Not major things, but little everyday things. Things you may not even notice unless you are paying attention.

If you’re one of those who’d rather stay up late and get up late, only to discover that your workplace doesn’t fit your schedule and you roll out of bed cursing the alarm clock every morning, maybe you could start with the little change of going to bed half an hour earlier than normal.

And maybe you will see in time, of course, you can’t train your body overnight. Maybe you’ll find out that you jump out of bed in a better mood and that your day will start better. And that you’ll get more done and that the people around you that caused you problems aren’t so hard to work with after all.

It all starts by making one little change and adding to it every day.

You see, you can’t change what’s going on around you without first changing what’s going on within you. Start changing how you look at mornings. And sure enough, people will start changing how they look at you.

When you start changing how you think, how you act, how you treat others, how you treat yourself, when you start responding instead of reacting to life, life will start responding to you.

I’m telling you that you can do it with your lifestyle. You can do it with your sales career. You can do it with your management career. You can do it with any part of your life. If you are looking for equities unmatched, don’t curse the only thing you have. Seed and soils, sunshine and rain, miracle and seasons.

But start processing things like recovering in this program and change will take off for you. You cannot believe what can happen in such a short period of time.

So you ask yourself: What small changes can I start making today?

Well, you can start in your car on your way to work. If you’re sitting on the highway, stop and go traffic, moving at about 15 miles per hour, tops. Look at the guy or the lady sitting next to you and give them a smile or thumbs up or even wave.

Now, some people might think you’re a little strange, but, hey, you’ll feel better.

And tomorrow, when you get into the office, how about a big cheery hello to the people at the front desk and everyone you see on the way to your office. And when you get home tonight, how about giving your wife or husband and kids big hugs instead of collapsing on the sofa?

When you start with the little things that make others happy, improve their day, you’ll find that these little things add up to big ones.

 So what happens when you start taking charge of your own personal happiness, your own life?

 Do you think that these little things will somehow make a difference in meeting your goals?

You bet, they will. You can’t do it alone. You can’t be successful by yourself. It’s hard to find a rich hermit. The ambitious person realizes that each of us needs all of us.

You all by yourself may have finalized the company’s marketing plan or finished up the sales projections or even wrote the mission statement for the year to come. Even if you did this all by yourself, you really had the help of all of those around you who tolerated and supported your need to be undisturbed or provided service to you during the project.

Maybe you should thank those people every once in a while with a dinner certificate or a bouquet of flowers or 18 holes of golf.

Even a thank you note, thank you notes are so important. After all, without your support team, you probably wouldn’t be where you are today.

You can’t be successful by yourself. So thank them. Thank those around you. And let them know just how important they are to you. Be at your office personnel or your family or your friends.

A thank you sure goes a long way.

So is it important to do a little extra for these people as you are working your way toward your goals?

I think so. I’m sure you do, too.

Once you’ve decided that you’re going to set sail. Go for it and let loose on your new charted course. You don’t have to worry about the winds that will most certainly blow around you.

The obstacles, the negativity that will stand in your way. you don’t have to worry about what other people will say. You just have to keep your mind on your course. Those winds may blow fast and furious.

But if you know your path, if you know where you are going, they will help push you toward the dreams and goals and treasures that you have already decided you’re going after. Your goals will push you forward ahead of the stormy weather.

There are some amazing people around that we can learn from today, people who have already braved the storms and come out on top. People who are still alive today.

People who started with nothing and ended up with something great. Famous people, not so famous people; maybe even people you know, but don’t know their stories.

People who had an early vision and ambition. People who turned their focus dreams into the reality of success.

One of my friends tells this story about her dad. She thinks he’s cheap. She gives him a hard time every time they go to one of those all you can eat places because he eats all he can eat. Until he can’t move, until he needs to take something for indigestion.

But she knows where he came from, his history, and understands just why he is the way he is. He eats all he can eat because he was raised in an orphanage, a place where you had to grab all you could or you’d be hungry.

But the real story behind her father is that he made himself a millionaire, with nothing more than a dream. He watched his own father drown when he was four. He was taken away from his mother a few years later and put into an orphanage because he was so bad.

Raised by other people, strangers, after growing up in foster homes, he decided to go out on his own. He barely finished high school, but he found a job as a vacuum cleaner salesman. He did well, really well.

But the woman he loved didn’t want to marry a vacuum cleaner salesman. And he really didn’t want to be one. So he went to college, went on to medical school, prospered, really prospered. Led a tremendously successful life as a radiologist and is now retired, goes fishing, rides his Harley.

Stories of success are all around us everywhere. Take the time to talk to these people or read their stories, you might learn something, you might find out that they have already traveled the path you are now on.

You know, when most of us think of Jesse Jackson, we think of the political Jesse Jackson. But what most of us don’t realize is that before Jesse Jackson went to the streets to gain votes, he went to the ghettos with a message for inner-city youth.

During his rallies, he would have the street kids repeat after him – “I am somebody.”

Jesse Jackson’s message to these kids was that ambition is a moral imperative. To be a good person, you have to have ambition. You have to try to do something good with your life. You have to try to get out of where you are today or make where you are a better place tomorrow. You have to or anything else is a waste.

Mr. Jackson knew that his contribution to life began with America’s youth, where he could make a difference before bad attitudes and bad habits took over for good. He went to make a difference with the disadvantaged youth of America. What an admirable mission.

I’m sure you know that the same principles he teaches apply to you. When you get up tomorrow morning and are standing in front of the mirror getting ready for the day, remind yourself that you are somebody… that you are important… and that you can make the changes that will move you closer to your ideal future.

Listening to the words of people like Jesse Jackson are of total importance because motivation, lasting motivation, is backed with education.

Many of these people have written books on their journeys. These books tell the stories and give the secrets that we can all learn from.

Let’s say you decided to take a trip, just a short one, maybe for a weekend. Let’s say you want to go away to a place you’ve never been before.

Wouldn’t you want to find someone who had been there? Ask them a few questions. What’s the best way to get there? The safest route. The quickest route.

What do I need to bring to be totally prepared? What fun things should I look for on the way? What dangers do I need to avoid?

By talking with someone who has already been there, it’ll make your trip that much more enjoyable.

It’s the same thing with life by listening to those who are farther along in the journey, the journey you are interested in taking and learning from their successes and failures, you just might pick up something that will make your journey that much better.

Listening to the stories of others can be motivating, captivating. They can provide that extra push you’ve been looking for. They can demonstrate what the power of ambition is truly all about. They’ve been there. Their knowledge is valuable.

And when you use that knowledge and motivation to take action, you’ll gain momentum. Eventually, you will find that the key to motivation, true motivation, is right there inside you.

You won’t have to look elsewhere to get pumped up, turned on, charged up. With the right knowledge behind you, you will learn how to motivate yourself. With the right knowledge, you will find yourself becoming inspired on your own, by your own learning, by your own discovering.

You won’t have to hope that somebody comes along to turn you on in the morning. They might not show up. You’ll find that your journey of pursuit is the best alarm clock in the world.

Joseph Epstein wrote a book called ‘Ambition’. In his book, Epstein defines ambition as the fuel of achievement. He says that everybody has a need for achievement to do well, to get somewhere in life, to be better, to achieve.

Achievement means moving forward. And in order to move forward, you must be motivated, inspired, and ambitious. You must have dreams and goals that create ambition, good ambition, positive ambition.

Now, ambition does not mean being greedy. It does not mean being selfish. It does not mean getting ahead at the expense of others. Ambition is not greed, ambition is not avarice, an all-consuming desire for wealth. Ambition is not hoping you can win at the expense of others.

Do you suppose Judas was ambitious? He ended up with 30 pieces of silver, a fortune in those days, was Judas successful because he had all that money. No, Judas sold out.

Was Judas happy when it was all over with? No, the money didn’t make him happy. What he did to get the money certainly didn’t make him happy. What Judas became in the pursuit of his fortune caused him to end his own life.

What drove him was not ambition. Ambition is not greed, ambition is an eager desire to achieve. An eager desire to get ahead in life, to do more for your family to prosper in health, wealth and relationships.

Now, desire does not always translate into ambition. Desire is what you want for yourself- A bigger house, a better car, a fatter bank account, a better life.

I desire to have these things. Ambition is how you get there.

Desire is sometimes healthy, desire is sometimes unhealthy. Desire might say, I want the tallest building in town. The destructive side of desire might urge you to tear all of the other buildings down. I guess that’s one way to do it.

You might get away with tearing down the first one and maybe the second one, but in your desire to tear them all down, sooner or later, some guy is going to be standing out in front of his building saying, “I’m on to you. Get out of here.” And pretty soon, you’re no longer known as a builder. You’re known as a destroyer.

Now, the second way to have the tallest building in town is to see it. Dream it. And plan it. And put your team on it. Work on it. Go through all of the steps to get there. Do it right?

Have the ambition to be the owner of the tallest building in town and go through all of the right steps to get there. If you really want it and have the skills to do it and the patience to weather all of the storms, your ambition will lead you there.

Having the ambition to do what it takes to get you where you want to go is good. Ambition is creative and constructive. Ambition is an expression. It’s something inside of you. You want to express in a positive way.

I’m sure you have dreams of accomplishing great things.

   Are you ambitious enough to realize these dreams?

  Are your dreams strong enough to pull you toward your future?

  Are they vivid enough to see the end result now?

 Are they worthy of doing until you get there?

 What are your reasons for creating these dreams?

Reasons vary from person to person. I bet if you did a little soul searching, you could come up with a fairly strong list; the list of reasons.

Why is it so important to achieve these dreams? What are you trying to express?

These reasons for accomplishing great things are different for everybody. There are personal reasons, sometimes uniquely personal reasons. Some people do well for the recognition. Some people do well because of the way it makes them feel. They love the feeling of being a winner. And that is one of the best reasons.

Once in a while, I hear someone say, if I had a million dollars, I’d never work another day in my life. Hey, that’s probably why the good Lord sees to it that he doesn’t get his million, because he would just quit.

Family is another reason, a motivator for doing well. Some people do extremely well because of other people. And that’s a powerful reason. Sometimes we will do something for someone else that we would not do for ourselves.

I know a lady who is getting back on track from financial disaster. Even though she didn’t have much of anything left, her primary motivator was to keep her daughter in private school, an expensive one; one of the best in the country.

Although her goal was to financially surpass where she was before her economic fall, her main reason to work all of those extra hours was to give her little girl the best possible education.

As you can well imagine, wanting to do something for someone else led her to all sorts of other accomplishments as well.

How fortunate are the people who find themselves greatly affected by someone else? It’s powerful.

What has you getting up early, hitting it hard all day and staying up late? What has you inspired? What are your reasons for doing well? What’s at the core of your quest? What is the power behind your ambition?

Think about it.

Jot it down… Do some soul searching. Define your reasons so they will work better for you. So now we have determined that it’s in your best self-interest to be ambitious.

Self-interest, self-preservation… As human beings, we can’t help but be interested in our own self-preservation. We can’t help but be self-interested.

It’s one of the strongest urges we have: interested in our preservation, interested in our development, interested in our success. There’s certainly nothing wrong with self-interest.

But here’s the clue. Self-interest must be enlightened as to what truly serves us best. When I found out that self-interest was OKAY, that was a big relief to me.

Now, we’re not talking about selfish. We’re talking about self-interest. Self-interest needs to be educated, enlightened. Self-interest is willing to be benefited by service to others. Not at the expense of others.

Self-interest at the expense of others starts to be greed, evil, hoping you go up as someone goes down, hoping to attain while someone else loses.

I win, you lose. We call that the beginnings of evil; the dark side of our nature. Wishing to benefit at the expense of others.

Enlightened self-interest wishes to benefit at the service of others. A friend of mine tells this little story about a person she hears from about every three months or so. This guy calls to solicit money for food baskets for homeless families. She’s happy to give her money to them.

She was unfortunately homeless for a short period of time and she knows the position these people are in. This group is legit. She checked them out.

But after the second or third time, this guy called same guy after the second or third time he called, she started talking to him about other stuff.

Turns out this guy is broke, living in a hotel, looking for any construction job he can find, any job at all. But what’s unique about this guy is that he donates two or three hours a night every night to call people and get money to feed the homeless, every night from his hotel room.

Now, most people would say this guy should use those hours every night to work a second job or a third job. But while he’s way down on the ladder of success, he feels it’s important to help those less fortunate than he is.

He has a roof over his head. He makes enough to feed himself and my friend says that every time she talks to this guy, every two or three months, he’s doing better. He’s digging himself out of debt. He’s starting to save money. He thinks he’ll be able to move into an apartment in another month or two.

Now, recently, an interesting thing happened. My friend was talking with an associate of hers. She’s single, lives in a big house. Needs to find a handy man to help her out on a regular basis. Someone who can build an addition onto her house. So my friend told her about this guy.

The only reason this guy ended up being hired was that my friend’s associate was touched by his dedication to service while he himself was down and out.

Service. Success at the service of others. Now, this guy is enriched by any stretch, but through my friend’s network, he now has constant work doing things around several people’s houses. And now he’s in a place of his own.

And guess what he does every night. He’s still making phone calls to get money to feed the homeless. What great character this man has.

Enlightened self-interest leads to wealth, self-preservation leads to poverty.

Somebody says, ‘Well, I can’t be concerned about other people, I have to pay attention to myself.”

Well, then you’ll always have to.

Somebody says, “I can’t be concerned about other people’s bills. I’ve got enough worries trying to pay my own.”

Well, then you’ll have to worry about them for the rest of your life.

The best way to get that monkey off your back is to turn your attention around. Once I understood some of this stuff, I’m telling you, it revolutionized my whole life.

Now, self-interest is OK. Yes. But here’s what self-interest must be, if you truly want to be happy, it must be enlightened.

It says, don’t keep your attention on yourself if you want your life to work out well. Turn your attention to others. In your own self-interest, be enlightened. Truly act in your own self-interest by making an investment in service to others.

Next, if you wish to receive, now there’s nothing wrong with wishing to receive, it’s part of self-interest.

But here’s the enlightened part. If you wish to receive, you must give. Some people say if you give, it’s gone. No, no, not if you’re educated. If you’re stupid. Yes, it’s gone. But if you’re enlightened, chances are if you give, you’ve invested.

And what do we expect an investment to do? Return. Get back what you put out. No, we expect it to return multiplied. Bigger, greater, better.

My father taught me way back, “Son, always do more than what you get paid for.”

Now, some individuals might argue with that. They’d say, ‘No, you’re going to mess up the whole program.’ I know they’re wrong. In my own self-interest, I did what my father taught me to always do more than I got paid for.

Why?

To make an investment in my future.

Do more than you get paid for it, to make an investment in your future, and it’s paid off for me.

If you’re wanting that big promotion, are you going to go up to your boss and say, “Just give it to me, I’ll work harder if you just give me that promotion? “

No, it doesn’t work that way.

You’ve got to do more in your current position so that you get noticed. So you stand out from everybody else.

So the boss says, “Hey, we’ve got this position opening up. And I think we should give it to Nancy. She does so much more than we expect. Just imagine what she’ll do if we give her this promotion.”

You’ve got to do more than you’re paid for. You’ve got to. It’s an investment in your future.

It’s one thing to make a sale. I’m telling you, if you make a sale, you will make a living. If you go beyond making the sale and serve people by keeping in touch, calling them before they call you, writing a thank you note. Sales will lead to multiple sales. You can make a fortune if the customer is well taken care of. People who are well taken care of will open doors. You can’t get through by yourself.

All of us have found ways to make a living. What got interesting for me early on was to figure out ways to make a fortune.

You’d say, “Well, Mr. Rohn, how would I deserve to make a fortune?”

It’s easy. Render fortunes of service. People will do things you cannot believe for people who give them good service.

Here’s one of the greatest gifts you can give anybody: the gift of attention. In return, they will do extraordinary things for your career, take you by the hand and lead you to more people than you could meet by yourself. Always do more than you get paid for.

Next, an enlightened self-interest. Life responds to deserve, not need.

Life responds to deserve, not need. Life was not designed to give us what we need. Life was designed to give us what we deserve.

What we deserve, once you understand that little life principle in your own self-interest, I’m telling you, it’s life changing.

The ancient law does not go like this. If you need, you will reap. No, it doesn’t work that way. A lot of people out there are hoping it works that way. But no, it doesn’t.

The ancient law goes like this: “If you plant, you will reap… If you sow, you will reap.”

Somebody says, ‘Well, I really need to reap.’

Well, then you really need to plant in your own self-interest. Your own self-interest needs to be educated in how to plant. How to do it so everybody wins because life doesn’t respond to need. You can’t go to the soil and say, I need a crop. The soil just smiles at you.

And here’s what the soil says:

“Don’t bring me your need, bring me some seed. Bring me some effort. Bring me some discipline. Bring me some interest. Bring me some service. Bring me these things and I’ll return to you, multiplied by two times. Five times. 10 times.”

You can’t come with need. You’ve got to come with seed. You’ve got to come with willingness. You’ve got to come with skills. You’ve got to be willing to learn, willing to change, willing to grow, willing to put yourself out.

Willing to stand up to the bad weather. Willing to pull out the weeds. Willing to nurture. That’s the only way you get a return.

Once you understand these principles, self-interest, now truly becomes an exciting challenge, making sure everybody wins. Enlightened self-interest makes sure that everybody wins.

Now, here’s another one: If you want to find, you must search. And if you search, you will find.

In order to find, you must search, you must go to church. You must go to the seminar. You must go to the library. You’ve got to go to the bookstore. You’ve got to go to the class. You’ve got to go to the training. You’ve got to go searching.

Why?

If you search, you will find. You’ll find ideas. You’ll find inspiration. You’ll find hope. You’ll find contacts. But you’ve got to be out there on the search; on the look.

Life reserves its treasures for those who deserve it, not those who need it.

Enlightened self-interest giving so that you will receive, searching so that you will find, making sure that everybody wins. All the way around.

Enlightened self-interest needs to be educated, enlightened self-interest says I will learn that life is not just the passing of time.

I will learn that life is the collection of experiences, ups and downs, highs and lows, laughter and tears.

You must decide to act. You must have the discipline to act. Now here’s what’s important about discipline. One discipline affects another discipline. All disciplines affect each other.

In fact, here’s a good philosophical phrase: Everything affects everything else.

Nothing stands alone. Don’t be naive and say this doesn’t matter. Of course it matters. It all matters. Some things may matter more than others, but everything matters.

If you’d rather sleep in than go for a walk around the neighborhood, pretty soon it will matter. If you’d rather spend your money instead of saving it, pretty soon it will matter.

If you’d rather put off a letter to an old friend instead of corresponding regularly, pretty soon it will matter. If you’d rather work late every night instead of going home and spending time with your family, pretty soon it will matter.

It all matters. Every let down affects the rest. If you won’t walk around the block, you probably won’t eat, right? And you probably won’t buy the books and you probably won’t attend the seminars and you probably won’t spend your money wisely. And after years of this, it all adds up.

So the key to reversing this process is to start picking up the disciplines. It does matter. It all matters.

Now, here’s the positive side:

Every new discipline affects the rest. Every new discipline makes a difference. That’s why action is so important. The smallest action, the least action, the action that you won’t think will matter, it all matters.

Take it, because when you start accomplishing and the value starts to return, you’ll find inspiration to do the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

If you start walking around the block, it’ll inspire you to start eating right.

You start eating right, it’ll inspire you to get a book. You get a book. And it’ll inspire you to get a journal. You get a journal and it’ll inspire you to develop some skills.

Disciplines affect each other. Lack affects the rest of your life. The key is to diminish the lack.

One of our greatest temptations is to just ease up a bit. To do just a little bit less than you’re capable of. To take a little break, somebody says, “It’ll just affect my sales.”

No, it’ll affect your consciousness. It’ll affect your philosophies. It’ll affect your home life. It’ll affect everything.

No, you can’t ease up a bit. That’s what vacations are for. When you’re at work, work. When you’re on vacation, rest. Wherever you are, be there.

If you think about vacation when you’re at work, you’ll surely think about work when you’re on vacation. You’ll just mess it all up.

So be disciplined. Get involved. Do all that it takes to get the job done. Get your health back. Get your bank account where it’s supposed to be.

Get your family in order, get disciplined, be disciplined every day. When you set up the disciplines that give your life structure, miracles can happen, multiplied.

And I’m telling you, anybody who wants to make a drastic change in their income can do it.

I was broke at age 25 and a millionaire at age 31. Everything around me was the same. I changed. I refined my philosophy. I read the books. I took the classes, started looking at life a little differently.

I’m telling you, it works.

Resources for Further Reading:

Full Transcript: Conor Neill on The Discipline of Finishing at TEDxUniversidaddeNavarra

Doers, Dreamers, and the Differences between Them: Joshua York (Transcript)

Planting Seeds of Happiness The Danish Way: Malene Rydahl (Transcript)

The Diseases of Attitude: Jim Rohn (Full Transcript)

[/read]

Related Posts

• Neil deGrasse Tyson on UFO Files, Trump & Alien Existence (Transcript)
• Professor John Lennox: AI Is Humanity’s Attempt to Make God (Transcript)
• What’s Changing, What Kids Must Learn w/ Sinead Bovell @ SXSW (Transcript)
• How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain – Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett (Transcript)
• The AI-Generated Intimacy Crisis – Bryony Cole (Transcript)