Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement (16 page)

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In personal strategic planning, you view yourself as a business organization. With this perspective, you make more detailed, long-range plans for your goals and activities in every part of your life.

Today, you must spend far more time thinking about your future than ever before. You must invest more energy and effort analyzing and planning the steps you need to take to translate your future dreams into present realities. You must
manage
yourself better than ever before. You have to take complete control over everything that happens to you.

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AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION

Sometimes I ask my audiences, “How many people here are self-employed?” Usually, about 10 to 15 percent of the audience will raise their hands. I then stop the seminar and ask them again, “How many people here are
really
self-employed?” And then I wait.

It doesn’t take them very long. People look at each other and then back at me and then at each other again. Soon, one hand after another begins to go up. Eventually, everyone has his or her hands raised. Everyone realizes that they are
all
self-employed.

The biggest mistake that you can make is to think that you ever
work for anyone else but yourself.
The fact is that you are always self-employed, from the time you take your first job until the time you retire. No matter who signs your paycheck, you are working for
yourself
. You are the president of an entrepreneurial personal services company with one employee—
yourself
. In the long run, as a result of the things that you do or fail to do, you determine how much you earn. If you want an increase in pay, you can go to the nearest mirror and negotiate with your “boss.”

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YOU DETERMINE YOUR OWN INCOME

People sometimes argue with me about this. They say that the pay structures in their business or industry are determined by factors over which they have no control. But then I point out to them that it was
they
who decided to go to work in that business or industry.

And it is they who decide to stay there. They are in charge. They are on their own payroll.

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If you are not happy with any part of your work, it is up to you to change it. Benjamin Disraeli said, “Never complain and never explain.” If there is a part of your work or personal life that you don’t like, don’t waste your time complaining about it. Instead, take action. As Shakespeare’s Hamlet expresses it, “take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them.” Seeing yourself as the president of your own personal services corporation requires that you accept total responsibility for everything you are, and everything you ever will be. This is an enormous thought for many people. It is both scary and exhilarating.

Just imagine! You are where you are and what you are because
you
have decided to be there. Everything you accomplish, for the rest of your life, will be largely determined by the actions that you take, or fail to take.You are responsible.You are in charge.You are in control. You are your own boss. And there are no limits except the limits that you allow the outside world to place on yourself and on your thinking.

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THE AIM OF STRATEGY

When you begin thinking of yourself as a
personal services corporation
, you separate yourself from all those people who think they work for someone else. When you take charge of your career, you begin thinking in terms of personal strategic planning, just like a large business.You begin making plans for the long term.

The parallels between corporate planning and personal planning are very similar. The purpose of strategic planning in a business is to achieve the highest
return on equity
(ROE) invested in the business. All strategic plans and tactics are aimed at reorganizing the resources and activities of the company in such a way that it achieves a higher rate of financial return on its resources than it was achieving before.

In its simplest terms, strategic planning is aimed at increasing the ratio of outputs to inputs. All of the management practices popular today, such as
restructuring
,
reorganizing
,
reengineering
, and
reinventing
, are aimed at improving the functioning of the organization so that it earns more money. They are aimed at increasing outputs and rates of return on equity.

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INCREASING YOUR

RETURN ON ENERGY

If return on financial capital is called return on equity, your personal ROE is your
return on energy
. Personal strategic planning is focused on organizing and reorganizing your life, restructuring and reengineering your activities, to increase the quality and quantity of rewards you get from the investment of the hours and days of your life in what you do.

Let us say, for example, that you have decided that you want to double your income in the next three to five years. This is a reasonable goal that many people around you are already achieving. It is not that difficult to achieve. Simply put, to double your income, you merely have to double the value of your output relative to your input.You have to double the value of your contribution.

Financial results come as the result of performing a function or producing valuable goods and services that someone is willing to pay for. If you want to increase the amount you get out, you have to make a plan to increase the amount you put in.

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YOUR AREA OF EXCELLENCE

What is the critical factor that determines the success or failure of any company? It is its
competitive advantage
, or “area of excellence.” Every company comes into being and survives because it has a unique capacity to offer the market something that is better in some way than anything being offered by its competitors. It stays in business as long as it continues to satisfy its customers in a particular area better than anyone else.

The competitive advantage or
unique selling proposition
of a company determines its rate of growth, its level of sales, its profitability, and its very survival. Companies without a competitive advantage soon disappear from the marketplace, to be replaced by other companies with clear, unmistakable, competitive advantages that customers can and will pay for.

You are no different. As the president of a company of
one
, you, too, must develop and maintain meaningful competitive advantage.

You must develop an area of uniqueness.You must be absolutely ex-ccc_tracy_6_90-117.qxd 6/23/03 2:48 PM Page 99

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cellent in the work that you do so that you can rise to the top of your field. Your choices and decisions about what your competitive advantage is, and will be, are the critical determinants of your financial success in your life and career.

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SUCCEEDING THE HARD WAY

Some years ago, a friend of mine went to work for a stock brokerage firm. The recruiting and training program was highly technical and the sales training was virtually nonexistent. When he finally got his brokerage license, he was given the yellow pages and told to begin

“dialing for dollars,” phoning anybody he could get on the other end of the line and pitching them on his products. He soon learned that this was one of the hardest ways in the world to crack the professional sales field and make a living.

One day he had a sudden insight that changed his career, and eventually made him one of the top financial advisers in the country. He realized that his entire career, and everything that happened to him—his family lifestyle, his bank account, and his future—

would be determined by how good he was on the telephone. So he made a decision to become absolutely outstanding at using the telephone as a prospecting and selling tool.

He read every book he could find on effective telephone techniques. He took every course and studied every piece of information on the subject. He became so good at using the telephone that he could recognize 19 different kinds of hesitancy in the voice of the person he was calling. He developed appropriate responses to each one so that he could reassure his prospects and clients that what he was recommending was the right thing for them.

Today, he earns more than five million dollars per year buying and selling investments for his clients over the phone on straight commission. Fully 99 percent of his business is done by telephone and now by computer, e-mail, and fax. He seldom meets his clients personally. But on the phone, he is a master communicator. He definitely and specifically identified and developed a competitive advantage that he used to move to the top of his field. What could it be for you?

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BECOME A

DO-IT-TO-YOURSELF PROJECT

Here is an exercise: Complete this sentence: “If I could _______ really well, I could make all the money I wanted.” Your job is to fill in the blank.

What one skill, if you developed and did it consistently in an excellent
fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on your income?
If you could wave a magic wand and be absolutely outstanding in any one part of your work, which part of your work would you choose?

Whatever your answer, this is the key result area that you need to begin work on right away.

All lasting success in your business or career will come as a result of your doing something extremely well, something that others value and are willing to pay for. And anything that anyone else can do in an excellent fashion, you can learn to do as well.

Remember, everyone in the top 10 percent started in the bottom 10 percent.

Everyone who is doing well today was once doing poorly. All of the people at the top of your field were at one time in some other field altogether. The way to get to the front of the buffet line of life, where all the good things are to be found, is simple. First,
get in line
.

Make a decision to join the top 10 percent, no matter how long it takes. Second,
stay in line
. Once you start moving toward personal excellence, keep learning and practicing until you get there.

Here’s the good news. The buffet line of life is moving! It never closes. It is open 24 hours per day. Everyone who gets in line and
stays
in line eventually gets to the front. Nothing can stop you from getting into the top 10 percent except yourself.You are responsible.

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CLARIFY YOUR

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

One of the first questions you ask of yourself is,
“What is my competitive advantage?”
What are you absolutely excellent at doing? What is it that you do better than almost anyone else in your business? What unique set of skills do you have that accounts for most of your success to date? Where are you
really
good?

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Your second question is, “Looking at the trends in my industry, what will my competitive advantage be in three to five years?” If things continue on the way they are and you could project yourself three to five years into the future and look around, what will you need to be doing in an excellent fashion at that time?

Many people have trouble answering both of these questions.

They are not sure what their competitive advantage is today, and as a result they have no idea what their competitive advantage will be in the future. If you are in this situation, you are in great danger of underachieving and even failing in your career.

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YOUR POTENTIAL

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Here is the next question: “What
should
your competitive advantage be?” If you could be absolutely outstanding in any one area, what should it be? If you’re not sure, go and ask your boss or your co-workers. Ask them,
“If I was really, really good in any one skill, what
one skill would have the greatest positive impact on my results?”
You usually know the answer to this question as soon as you ask it. If you are in doubt about the one skill that could help you the most, ask for advice and input from others. The people around you, especially your boss, can usually tell you quite quickly the answer to this question.

Once you have the answer, you set the development of that skill as your new goal or target to aim at. You change your thinking in a very positive way in that area, and you begin to imagine that you have the ability to be absolutely outstanding in that one area. You write it down, set a deadline, make a plan, and go to work on improving yourself in that area. In no time at all, you will begin to develop the winning edge in your job that will enable you to move ahead of the crowd.

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FIRE THE STAFF

Some companies today are taking their people through an exercise that can be quite traumatic to their employees. They call everyone together, and then they
fire
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are going to be rehiring someone for each job, and that each person can
reapply
for their job as though they were outside contractors presenting a proposal.

This proposal for their jobs would include a description of
what
they intend to do,
how
they intend to do it,
how much
they would charge for their work, and
how much
the company would gain or save by paying them the salaries they are requesting for what they are proposing to do.