read it and write things to implement SECRET
Develop a
Reputation for
Speed and
Dependability
Do your work; not just your work
and no more, but a little bit more for
the lavishings sake, that little more
which is worth more than all the rest.
—DEAN BRIGGS
TIME IS THE currency of the 21st century. Everyone today is
in a tremendous hurry. Customers who did not even know
that they wanted a product or service now want it yesterday.
People are less and less patient for anything. Loyal customers
will change suppliers overnight if someone else can serve them
faster than 45
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The 2 1 S u cce s s S e c re t s o f S e l f - M a d e M i
l l i o n a i re s the people they are already dealing with.
Instant gratification is no longer fast enough.
Your job is to develop a reputation for speed. Develop a
“sense of urgency.” Develop a bias for action.
Move fast on opportunities. Move fast when people want or
need something. Move quickly when you see something that
needs to be done.
When your boss or your customers ask you to do something,
drop everything else and do it so fast that they are amazed.
You have heard it said that “Whenever you want to get
something done, give it to a busy person.” People who have a
reputation for moving quickly attract more opportunities and
possibilities to them. They get more chances to do more and
more things faster than other people who just do a job when
they get around to it.
When you can combine your ability to select your highest
priority task with the commitment to getting it done quickly and
well, you will find yourself moving to the front. More doors
and opportunities will open for you than you can even imagine
today.
D e ve l o p a R e p u t a t i o n fo r S p e e d a n d
D e p e n d a b i l i t y 47
◆
ACTION EXERCISE
Select just one key task that you have been procrastinating
on starting, or bringing to completion, and resolve to take
action on it immediately. Keep repeating to yourself these
magic motivating words: “Do it now! Do it now!
Do it now!”
◆
SUCCESS
14
SECRET
Be Prepared
to Climb from
Peak to Peak
Winning is not a sometime thing;
it’s an all the time thing.
—VINCE LOMBARDI
JUST AS A mountain climber who has reached one peak must
go down into the valley before climbing to another peak, your
life and career will be a series of ups and downs. As you’ve
heard, “Life is a process of two steps forward and one step
back.”
All business life is made up of cycles and trends.
There are up cycles and down cycles. Often, trends in business
can lead to a complete change in the industry. We see this
today with the Internet and the ex-pansion of technology in all
directions, which are changing many of our fixed ideas and
beliefs about the way business is done.
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B e P re p a re d t o C l i m b f ro m Pe a k t o Pe a k
49
Develop a long-time perspective. Take the long view in
everything you do. Plan two, three, four, and five years into
the future and don’t allow yourself to get onto an emotional
roller coaster with the short-term ups and downs of daily life.
Keep reminding yourself that everything in your life moves in
cycles and trends. Be calm, confident, and relaxed with
short-term fluctuations in your for-tune. When you have clear
goals and plans that you are working on every day, the
general trend line of your life will tend to be onward and
upward over the years.
◆
ACTION EXERCISE
Identify the key cycles and trends
in your business. Where is the market going? What is
changing and how will you have to adapt to these changes?
What steps should you be taking today to be ready to take
advantage of the new world of tomorrow? Whatever
your answer, take those steps now!
◆
SUCCESS
15
SECRET
Practice
Self-Discipline
in All Things
Self-discipline is the ability to
make yourself do what you should do,
when you should do it,
whether you feel like it or not.
—ELBERT HUBBARD
SELF-DISCIPLINE IS the most important single quality for
success in life and in becoming a self-made millionaire. If you
can discipline yourself to do what you should do, when you
should do it, whether you feel like it or not, your success is
virtually guaranteed.
The key to becoming a self-made millionaire is hav-ing a
long-time perspective combined with an ability 50
P ra c t i ce S e l f - D i s c i p l i n e i n A l l T h i n
g s 51
to delay gratification in the short term. It is your ability to set
a long-term goal of becoming financially independent and then
to discipline yourself, every single day and with every single
expenditure, to do only those things that will guarantee that
you ultimately achieve your long-term goal.
Self-discipline requires self-mastery, self-control, self-responsibility,
and self-direction. The difference between successful people and
failures is that successful people make a habit of doing the
things that failures do not like to do. And what are those
things?
The things that failures don’t like to do are the same things
that successful people don’t like to do either.
But successful people do them anyway because they realize that
this is the price they must pay for the success they desire.
Successful people are more concerned with pleasing results.
Failures are more concerned with pleasing methods. Successful
people take actions that are goal achieving. Unsuccessful people
take actions that are tension relieving. Successful people do the
things that are hard and necessary and important. Unsuccessful
people, on the other hand, prefer to do the things that are fun
and easy and that give them immediate enjoyment.
The good news is that every act of self-discipline strengthens
your other disciplines as well. Every time you practice
self-discipline, your self-esteem goes up.
You like and respect yourself even more. And the
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The 2 1 S u cce s s S e c re t s o f S e l f - M a d e M i
l l i o n a i re s more you practice discipline in small things,
the more capable you become of the great disciplines required
for the great opportunities, experiences, and challenges of life.
Remember that everything in life is a test. Every day, every
hour, and sometimes every minute, you are taking a test—of
self-mastery, self-control, and self-discipline. The test is to see
whether you can make yourself do the things that are most
important and stay with them until they are complete. The test
is whether you can keep your mind on what you want and
where you are going rather than thinking and talking about
things you don’t want or problems you have had in the past.
When you pass the test, you move onward and upward to the
next “grade.” And as long as you keep passing the tests, you
keep moving onward and upward in your life. Success requires
tons of discipline. As Jim Rohn says, “Discipline weighs ounces;
failure weighs tons.”
P ra c t ice S e l f - D i s c i p l i n e i n A l l T h i n g
s 53
◆
ACTION EXERCISE
Change one thing at a time. Identify one area of your life
where lack of discipline is interfering with your success.
Decide today to develop discipline in that area. Launch
strongly. Tell others about your decision. Never allow
exceptions until the new habit is firmly entrenched. This
decision alone could change your life.