Take Back Control of Your Life: Jim Rohn

Showing posts with label Jim Rohn. Show all posts

Thursday, 9 November 2017

What Does It Take to Live Your Dreams?

Each and every day, people are living their dreams. Millionaires are created. Families form and create tremendous relationships. Individuals get healthier day by day. Life-long learners grow intellectually and improve their lives daily. Let it be you!

The fact is, living the life of your dreams is possible. People prove that every day.

Have you ever looked at someone who has money and wished that it could be you? People think about getting wealthy all of the time, when only a small percentage actually does. But any of the masses could. Someone is going to start a business. Someone is going to make a great investment. Why not let it be you?

Someone is going to decide to improve their relationships. Someone is going to enjoy love with their family. Someone is going to schedule some meaningful time with their friends. Why not let it be you?

Someone is going to become a life-long learner. Someone is going to go back to school. Someone is going to set a goal to read a book each week for the next year. Why not let it be you?

Someone is going to make the decision to become healthy. Someone will run their first marathon. Someone will join an aerobics class. Someone will start eating better. Why not let it be you?

You get the point. Everyday people are improving their lives. It is simply a matter of a decision being made. Let it be you!

But how? By following these very simple actions:

1. Commit to working on yourself.

Are you going to improve or stay the same? No matter what you have achieved, you are at a certain point right now. What you have achieved in the past is fine, but it doesn’t make a difference for the future. The decision about what you will become is made each day and every day.

Each day someone is making the decision to better him or herself. Let it be you.

2. Make a plan.

Once you have decided to become better, you will have to have a plan. It doesn’t have to be a long, intricate plan. It can be simple. Save a dollar a day. Walk a mile a day. Read an article a day. That is a simple plan with achievable goals.

Someone is going to develop a plan that will take them into the future of their dreams. Let it be you.

3. Begin to act.

All of the great ideas, without action, become stale and useless. The key to turning dreams into reality is action. People who have great ideas are a dime a dozen. People who act on their dreams and ideas are the select few, but they are the ones who gain the wealth, health and wisdom that is available.

Someone will act today. Let it be you.

Stop looking at others who live the good life, wishing that you were as well, and instead begin to commit to your improvement, develop a plan and act on it. Someone is going to. Let it be you!

This post originally appeared on SUCCESS.com.

Monday, 9 October 2017

9 Things More Important Than Money

by Jim Rohn

“It’s hard to get rich fast. It’s easy to get rich slowly.”

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We all know the value of having plenty of money, especially as entrepreneurs. But we also know there are people who started enterprises with no money, who went on to make fortunes. So how did they do it?

Jim Rohn believes there are nine things that are more valuable than capital, things that can lead straight to your success:

1. Time

Time is a treasure—the time you set aside not to be wasted, not to be given away. The time you set aside to be invested in something that brings value to the marketplace with the hope of making a profit, that’s capital time.

How valuable is time? Time properly invested is worth a fortune; time wasted can be devastation. Time invested can perform miracles—so invest yours.

2. Desperation

My friend and mentor Bill Bailey went to Chicago as a teenager after he got out of high school. And the first job he got was as a night janitor. Someone said, "Bill, why would you settle for night janitor?" He said, "Malnutrition." His first job might have been night janitor, but he went on to receive the Horatio Alger award and become rich and powerful—one of the great examples of lifestyle that I know.

Desperation can be a powerful incentive when you say I must. You work at whatever you can possibly get when you get hungry. You go to work somewhere—it doesn't matter where.

3. Determination

I have another friend, Lydia, whose first major investment in her new enterprise was also desperation. She needed to feed her kids—so she invested $1 in something she believed in. That $1 was used to buy a few flyers so she could make a sale at retail, collect the money and then buy the product wholesale to deliver back to the customer.

First Lydia said, "I must find a customer”—desperation. Second she said, "I will find someone before this first day is over"—determination. And sure enough, she found someone. Determination says I will.

4. Courage

If you've only got $1 and a lot of courage, you've got a good future ahead of you. Because humans can do the most incredible things no matter what happens—courage in spite of, not because of, circumstances.

5. Ambition

With courage, Lydia made three or four more sales. And once she got going, ambition took over. She thought, If I can sell three, I can sell 33. If I can sell 33, I can sell 103. Lydia was dazzled by her own dreams of the future.

6. Faith

At this point, Lydia began to believe she had a good product, a good company. And then she started to believe in herself—Lydia, a single mother, two kids, no job. My gosh, I'm going to pull it off! Her self-esteem started to soar.

Faith is an investment that cannot be matched. Money can't touch it. What if you had a million dollars and no faith? You'd be poor. You wouldn't be rich.

7. Ingenuity

The reason Lydia is a millionaire today is because of her ingenuity—she put her brains to work.

Probably up until now, you've put about 1/10 of your brainpower to work. What if you employed the other 9/10? You can't believe what can happen. Humans can come up with the most intriguing things to do.

What's ingenuity worth? A fortune. All you need is a $1 and plenty of ingenuity. Figuring out a way to make it work, make it work, make it work.

8. Heart and Soul

Heart and soul is like the unseen magic that moves people—moves people to make decisions, moves people to act, moves people to respond.

What is a substitute for heart and soul? It's not money, because heart and soul is more valuable than a million dollars. A million dollars without heart and soul? You have no life. You are ineffective.

9. Personality

My mentor Bill Bailey taught me, "You've got to learn to be just as comfortable, Mr. Rohn, whether it is in a little shack in Kentucky having a beer and watching the fights with my friend Winfred, or in a Georgian mansion in Washington, D.C., as the senator's guest."

You've got plenty of personality. You've just got to spruce up and sharpen up it, develop it to where it is effective every day, at home anywhere, no matter who you talk to—whether it is a child or a businessperson, a rich person or a poor person. It makes no difference to you who is rich or who is poor. It’s about the chance to have a unique relationship with whomever. Have the kind of personality that's comfortable, the kind of personality that's never bent out of shape. Move with ease, with charisma and sophistication and humility.

With $1 and this list, the world is yours. It belongs to you, whatever piece of it you desire, whatever development you wish for your life. It’s the kind of capital that is more valuable than money and that can secure your future and fortune. Remember that you lack not the resources.

Get more SUCCESS.com articles by Jim Rohn in his free weekly newsletter.

Tuesday, 12 September 2017

7 Tips for Developing Your Personal Philosophy

by Jim Rohn

Jim Rohn was broke at 25 and a millionaire by 31. How does an Idaho farm boy make it to Beverly Hills? This is how…

At 25, there was nothing in my bank and I needed to provide for my family. As I was considering what to do, I met John Earl Shoaff, a wealthy entrepreneur who became my employer for the next five years. He revolutionized my life and taught me the importance of developing my personal philosophy, to look for those few things that make the most difference and to spend most of my time doing those things. It isn’t a complex or mystical process but a principle that can make a difference in how your life turns out.

While there are many puzzle pieces for success, without developing a sound philosophy, the other pieces are of little value. So as you go forward on this journey toward success, remember to:

1. Set your sail.

The winds of circumstance blow upon all of us. We all have experienced the winds of disappointment, despair and heartbreak, but why do people arrive at such different places at the end of the journey? Have we not all sailed upon the same sea?

The major difference isn’t circumstance; it’s the set of the sail, or the way we think—it’s what we do after we’ve set our sails and the wind decides to change direction. When the winds change, we must change. We have to struggle to our feet and reset the sail in a manner that will steer us in the direction of our own deliberate choice. The set of the sail, or how we think and how we respond, has a far greater capacity to destroy our lives than any challenges we face. How quickly we respond to adversity is far more important than adversity itself.

The great challenge of life is to control the process of our own thinking.

2. Learn from success and failure.

The best way to establish a new and powerful personal philosophy is to objectively review the conclusions you’ve drawn about life. Any conclusion you’ve drawn that isn’t working for you could be working against you. The best way to counteract misinformation and wrong data is to input new and accurate information. Gather information from personal experience. If you’re doing something wrong, evaluate what you did wrong and change things.

Seek an objective, outside voice about how you are and what you’re doing. An objective opinion from someone you respect can lead you to early and accurate information about your decision-making process. Listen to the freshness of an outside voice—someone who can see the forest and isn’t lost in the trees.

Observe the successes and failures of other people. If people who failed were to give seminars, it would be helpful. You could see how people mess up and you wouldn’t do what they did. Past failures and errors prompt us to amend current conduct so we don’t replicate the past.

Study from people who do well. Each of us should be in a constant search for people we admire and respect and whose behavior we can model. It’s far better to deliberately choose the people we will permit to influence us than to allow bad influences to affect us without our conscious choice.

3. Read all you can.

People from all walks of life who’ve had some of the most incredible experiences have taken the time to write of these experiences so we can be instructed and amend our philosophies.

The contributions of other people enable us to reset our sails based upon their experiences. Books offer treasures of information that can change our lives, fortunes, relationships, health and careers for the better.

There are two books you need to read to build your philosophy: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason.

4. Keep a journal.

A journal is a gathering place for all of our observations and discoveries about life. It’s our own handwritten transcript that captures our experiences, ideas, desires and conclusions about the people and the events that have touched our lives. The past, when properly documented, is one of the best guides for making good decisions.

The very act of writing about our lives helps us think more objectively about our actions. Writing tends to slow down the flow of information and gives us time to analyze and ponder the experience. The intense scrutiny of journal writing can enable us to make refinements in our philosophy that are truly life-changing.

Jot down what you learn and be a buyer of empty books. It’s the small disciplines that lead to great accomplishments.

5. Observe and listen.

Pay attention during your day, watch what’s going on. Surround yourself with people you respect and admire. Find people whose personalities and achievements stimulate, fascinate and inspire you, and then strive to assimilate their best qualities. This is called the skill of selecting. Don’t waste your time on the silly and the shallow.

One of the major reasons people don’t do well is because they keep trying to get through the day while a more worthy cause is to get from the day. We must become sensitive enough to observe and ponder what is happening around us. Be alert. Be awake. Often the most extraordinary opportunities are hidden among seemingly insignificant events.

Be a good listener. Find a voice of value and stay for a while. With so many voices vying for your attention, you need to develop the skill of selective listening and only dial into the radio station that appeals to you. If a voice is not leading to the achievement of your goals, exercise caution in how long you listen.

6. Be disciplined.

Every day is filled with dozens of personal crossroads, moments when we’re called upon to make a decision regarding minor as well as major questions. These decisions chart a path to a future destination. With careful mental preparation, we can make wise choices.

The development of a sound philosophy prepares us for making sound decisions. When we eat healthy foods, we experience positive results in a short time. When we start exercising, we feel a new vitality almost immediately. When we begin reading, we experience a growing awareness and a new level of self-confidence.

New disciplines practiced daily will produce exciting results. The magic of new disciplines causes us to amend our thinking.

7. Don’t neglect.

Neglect is the major reason people don’t have what they want. If you don’t take care of things in your life, neglect becomes a disease. If you neglect to do good things with your money, you probably neglect to do good things with your time. If you don’t know what’s going on with your health or your bank account, you could be at risk.

Set up new disciplines to change your life. Don’t neglect. Everything is within our reach if we will read books, use journals, practice the disciplines and wage a new and vigorous battle against neglect.

Build your philosophy. Commit yourself to a new journey and say, I’m going to change my life. Once you do, you’ll never look back.

Taken from http://www.success.com/article/rohn-7-tips-for-developing-your-personal-philosophy