improves and your income increases. Audio listening affects certain parts of
your brain in a remarkable way. You actually become more intelligent. Try
it and see.
18. Attend Seminars and Courses Regularly
Attend seminars and courses given by people with practical experience and
successful track records. In a seminar or workshop given by an expert, you
can learn a tremendous amount of practical information in a short period of
time. This is because of the way seminars and workshops are developed.
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When I conduct a full day seminar on sales, leadership, management or
strategic planning that lasts six or seven hours, I will usually invest several
hundred hours of reading, study, research, consulting and practice to get the
information that goes into it. I will read anywhere from 20 to 100 books,
underlining and taking notes. When I design the seminar, I will take the very
best ideas that I have learned on that subject from every source. I will
organize the seminar around the key concepts that can be immediately
applied to get better results.
Most people in the field of professional speaking and training follow the
same procedures in designing seminars. What you learn in 3-6 hours when
you attend one of these seminars may have taken the facilitator 10 or 20
years of hard work to learn and condense. And the pressure is always on the
speaker to include more value in a seminar by seeking out even more helpful
ideas.
So by all means, attend every seminar you can find. Be willing to travel
across the country if necessary to spend several hours with an expert in his
or her field. Your attendance at one seminar, if it is the right one for you, at
the right time, on the right subject, can save you years of hard work in your
field.
19. Join the Professional Associations in Your Field
Join professional associations where you can associate with other people in
your field. Join the organization or association that represents your business,
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or that the top people in your field belong to. Join the Chamber of
Commerce and attend their regular meetings. Join business groups that
contain people who are in the same field as you, or who work in similar
fields. Attend every meeting you possibly can. As Woody Allen once said,
“80% of success is just showing up.”
Business associations are designed to be “self-help” groups. Everyone who
belongs to these associations is there because they are looking for ways and
opportunities to improve their businesses and their results. They join
professional associations because they know that, the very best way to help
yourself, is to look for ways to help other people.
At each meeting of your professional association, you will meet people who
can help you, and whom you can help, to achieve your business goals. In my
experience over the years, having addressed hundreds of business and
association meetings, I have found that the very best people in every
industry belong to these groups, and attend regularly.
Get Involved and Offer to Help
When you join your local association, resist the temptation to simply show
up for meetings. Instead, decide to get involved in some way. Offer to help.
Offer to serve on a committee. Offer to do something that needs to be done
on a voluntary basis. Again, the most important and respected people in
every business association are those who actively contribute to the activities
and success of that organization. Make sure that you are one of them.
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Almost everything that you accomplish in life will be determined by the
people you know, and the people who know you. When you offer to serve
on the committee of your professional association, you get a chance to meet
and work with some of the best people in your industry. They get a chance
to meet and work with you, as well. Over the years, your willingness to
volunteer your time and effort will enable you to build a wider and wider
network of contacts that you will be able to draw upon to help you to
achieve your business and personal goals.
There is a rule that says, “The more you give of yourself without expectation
of return, the more that will come back to you from the most unexpected
sources.”
20. Network with the Top People in Your Business
Make it a habit to network regularly with people in your business and in
your community. Get around people who can help you, and who you can
help in return. The most successful people in any business or organizations
are those who network the most effectively on a day-to-day, week-to-week,
month-to-month basis. Your success in life will always be determined by the
quality and quantity of the people who know you and think of you in a
positive and favorable way.
The more people you know, and who know you, the more successful you
will be, holding constant for everything else. People like to deal with people
that they know. When you network, join organizations and introduce
yourself to people who can help you, and who you can help in return.
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Trigger the Law of Reciprocity
The key to networking, and to building a wide range of contacts is called
“The Law of Reciprocity.” This law says that people are always looking for
opportunities to return favors to people who have done favors for them. You
should therefore always be looking for ways to help or to do favors for
people who can be helpful to you sometime in the future.
In a recent study, the found that the most successful managers, those who
were promoted the most regularly, spent as much as 50% of their time
interacting and networking with other people, both within their business and
industry, and outside. As a result, more people knew them, and more doors
opened up to them as a result.
The Success Formula that Never Fails
Here is a simple formula that you can use to save an enormous amount of
time in achieving your career goals. It is simply this: “T x R = P.” In this
formula, “T” stands for Talent. These are the talents, abilities, skills,
knowledge and experience that you bring to your work. “R” stands for
Relationships. These are the number of people you know, and the number of
people you can affect or influence in some way. “P” stands for Productivity.
Your productivity is the quality and quantity of your results, what you
produce and get paid for. “T x R = P”
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Constantly work to become better at what you do. Continuously network to
expand your number of contacts and relationships, and your productivity or
value will continue to increase.
21. Take a Course in Public Speaking
One of the most helpful career decisions you will ever make is to take a
course in public speaking. Take the Dale Carnegie course or join a local
chapter of Toastmasters. Attend each week and follow the directions they
give you to learn how to speak on your feet.
As you overcome your fear of public speaking, by learning how to prepare
and deliver a talk, you will attract into your life opportunities to speak in
front of small groups, and then larger groups. When you do your homework
and become more knowledgeable on your subject, and then express yourself
clearly and effectively to others in public forums, you will attract to yourself
the attention of people who can help you.
One of the most admired skills in the world of work is the ability to speak
well on your feet. As you develop this skill, new doors will open for you.
You will feel more courageous and confident. You will have higher self-
esteem. People will respect you and admire you. You will be given
opportunities to use your developing skills at higher and higher levels.
22. Invest the Golden Hour in Yourself
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One of the very best ways to get ahead in your field is to arise early, by 5:30
or 6:00 am, and invest the first hour in yourself. This is often called the
“Golden Hour.” It sets the tone for your entire day. If you get up and read
something uplifting or educational for one hour each morning, you will start
off your day mentally prepared to perform at your best in the hours ahead.
One hour each morning reading in your chosen field, educating, motivating
and inspiring yourself, will improve your performance in everything you do.
Three Keys to the Future
Here are three final points for keeping up and getting ahead. They are
repeated throughout this book because they are the pivotal points of high
productivity and personal success.
First, plan every day in advance. Start off every day with a written plan,
clearly organized with tasks, activities and priorities. Always begin work
with your most important task.
Second, listen to audio programs in your car. Always have your audio player
on when you are driving. Take every opportunity to learn new ideas that can
help you in your life and work.
Third, commit yourself to lifelong personal and professional development.
Reading, learning, listening and growing can save you many years of hard
working achieving your career goals and your desired income.
Sometimes, one new piece of information, at the right time, can change the
whole direction of your career.
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Become a No Limit Person
There are no limits on what you can become except for the limits that you
place on yourself. There is nothing that you cannot do if you are willing to
prepare yourself long enough and hard enough in advance.
Your decision to keep up, and keep ahead of what is going on in your field,
will assure that you reach your full potential more than any other decision
you can make. By becoming the best at what you do, you will become
everything that you are capable of becoming. Never stop learning and
growing.
“I kept six honest serving men. They taught me all I knew. Their names are
What and Why and When, and How and Where and Who.” (Rudyard
Kipling)
Action Exercises:
1.
Resolve today to dedicate yourself to lifelong learning; decide to pay
any price, invest any amount of time required, to be the best at what
you do.
2.
Build your own personal library of books that can help you to be even
more effective at what you do; take time each day to learn something
new.
3.
Listen to audio programs in your car from now on; this alone can
make you one of the best educated and highest paid people in your
field.
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4.
Take a course in public speaking and learn how to be both effective
and persuasive on your feet. This skill can open countless doors for
you.
5.
Learn to both speed read and also to read more efficiently. These are
both basic skills that you can acquire and use for the rest of your life.
6.
Join the business groups and associations that contain members of
your profession or business; get involved and offer to help.
7.
Arise at least one hour earlier than you need to and invest the “Golden
Hour” in yourself; read something uplifting or educational that
prepares you for the day.
Chapter Ten
Saving Time with Others
“Nothing is so powerful as an insight into human nature. What compulsions
drive a man, what instincts dominate his action? If you know these things
about a person, you can touch him at the core of his being.” (William
Bernbach)
Your interactions with others consume as much, if not more time, than any
other part of your day. Even technical workers spend up to 75% of their time
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communicating with coworkers. You can greatly increase the efficiency of
your interactions by improving the quality of your communications.
Some of the biggest time wasters in life are people. These people problems
can be broken down into a few critical categories.
1. Common Misunderstandings
A major waste of time is caused by misunderstandings between people about
roles, goals, and responsibilities. People do not know what they are expected
to do, and how, and by what time. Misunderstandings lead to inefficiencies,
anger, frustration and unhappiness. They often require an enormous amount
of time to clear up in order to get back to normal.
Most of your problems in life talk back. They come with hair on top.
Perhaps 85% of your happiness or unhappiness in life involves other people
in some way. Miscommunications with other people are a major source of
time wastage.
2. Unclear Priorities
Misunderstandings with regard to priorities often lead to your working at the
wrong job, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, and perhaps aiming at
the wrong level of quality, and for the wrong person.
Some of the most stressful times of your life are caused by
misunderstandings at work, especially miscommunications with your boss.
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The most important single cause of positive feelings and high levels of
motivation in work is defined as “knowing exactly what is expected.” On the
other hand, the number one complaint, or demotivator of employees, is “not
knowing what’s expected.”
In order to perform at your best, you need absolute clarity about your job,
and what you are expected to do. You need clarity with regard to results
required and standards of performance. You need clarity with regard to
schedules and deadlines. You need clarity with regard to the rewards and
consequences of doing a good job, or not. Clarity is everything.
3. Poor Delegation
Poor delegation to others, or from others, leads to mistakes and frustration
on the part of both the boss and the employee. It is a major time waster.
One of the rules for success in life and work is to “assume the best intentions
of everyone.” You can generally assume that each person does the very best
he can at the job he thinks he is supposed to do. But poor delegation causes
even the most sincere and talented people to do poor work, or to do the
wrong jobs and therefore to end up feeling frustrated and unhappy.
4. Unclear Lines of Authority
Unclear lines of authority and responsibility lead to time wastage. People do
