No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline (22 page)
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Authors: Brian Tracy
Tags: #Self Help, #Business, #Non-Fiction, #Psychology, #Inspirational
BOOK: No Excuses!: The Power of Self-Discipline
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Discipline yourself to make your first call early in the morning, by 7:00 or 8:00 A.M. When you start your day with a face-to-face sales call, you will be more energized and motivated to continue selling all day long.
Discipline yourself to
cluster
your calls in a small geo - graphical area so that you can get face to face with more people in a shorter amount of time. Many salespeople, because of their fear of rejection, spread their calls out over a large geographical area and then convince themselves that they are actually working when they are really simply driving from call to call.
cluster
your calls in a small geo - graphical area so that you can get face to face with more people in a shorter amount of time. Many salespeople, because of their fear of rejection, spread their calls out over a large geographical area and then convince themselves that they are actually working when they are really simply driving from call to call.
Remember: You are working
only
when you are ear to ear or face to face with someone who can and will buy within a reasonable period of time. At all other times, you are “unemployed.”
only
when you are ear to ear or face to face with someone who can and will buy within a reasonable period of time. At all other times, you are “unemployed.”
Discipline yourself to act every minute of the day as if everyone were watching you. Outside salespeople require a higher level of discipline than people who work in the office where everyone can see them. Because salespeople are on their own, like guerilla fighters in the sales jungle, the temptation is never ending to slack off, to take it easy, or to go for coffee or lunch rather than to make sales calls.
To perform at your best, you must
discipline
yourself to work throughout the day—as though your sales manager was doing a “ride-along.” Imagine that your sales manager is sitting next to you all day long. How would you work differently if someone were accompanying you and observing everything you did throughout the day? Whatever your answer, that is how you should work—even when no one else is around.
discipline
yourself to work throughout the day—as though your sales manager was doing a “ride-along.” Imagine that your sales manager is sitting next to you all day long. How would you work differently if someone were accompanying you and observing everything you did throughout the day? Whatever your answer, that is how you should work—even when no one else is around.
To become one of the highest paid salespeople in your industry, you must discipline yourself to practice continuous personal and professional development. Read in your field every day. Listen to educational audio programs in your car as you drive along. Attend every sales seminar you can, whether sponsored by your company or not. Dedicate yourself to continuous learning as if your future depends on it—because it does.
The turning point in my life when I was a young salesman—frustrated and unhappy, going in circles, and barely making a living—was when I learned the Law of Cause and Effect. I learned that “if you do what the most successful salespeople do, over and over, there is nothing that can stop you from eventually achieving the same results and rewards that they do.”
I learned that every salesperson in the top 10 percent started in the bottom 10 percent. Everyone who is doing well today was at one time doing poorly. Every person at the top of your field was at one time not in your field at all and did not know that it existed.
I learned that all sales skills are
learnable
. You can learn any sales skill you need to learn to achieve any sales goal you can set for yourself. There are no limits except the limits you place on yourself with your own thinking.
learnable
. You can learn any sales skill you need to learn to achieve any sales goal you can set for yourself. There are no limits except the limits you place on yourself with your own thinking.
When you discipline yourself to become one of the top salespeople in your field, you will find that you will have turned an important corner in your career. Most salespeople do only what they have to do to keep their jobs. But those people who resolve to become the best in their fields accomplish far more than anyone else. Your job is to be one of them.
In the next chapter, we will talk about
money
and how the practice of self-discipline in this area can dramatically increase your likelihood of achieving all your financial goals.
money
and how the practice of self-discipline in this area can dramatically increase your likelihood of achieving all your financial goals.
Action Exercises:1. See yourself as the president of your own personal sales corporation, completely responsible for sales results. This is the attitude of the highest paid salespeople.2. Set clear, written income goals for yourself for the next twelve months as well as goals for each month of the year.3. Determine exactly how much of your product or service you will have to sell in order to earn that desired income.4. Determine how many individual sales you will have to make, based on your average size of sale and amount of commission earned.5. Determine how many prospects you will have to call on, based on your current experience, to make this number of sales.6. Dedicate yourself to continuous improvement in sales by reading each day, listening to audios in your car, and attending sales seminars.7. Spend every minute of every sales day getting face to face with people who can and will buy from you in the near future.
Chapter 12
Self-Discipline and Money
“In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves; self discipline with all of them came first.”
—HARRY S. TRUMAN
A
ccording to insurance industry statistics, of one hundred people who start work at age twenty-one, by age sixty-five, one will be rich, four will be financially independent, fifteen will have some money put aside, and the other eighty will be still working, broke, dependent on pensions, or dead.
ccording to insurance industry statistics, of one hundred people who start work at age twenty-one, by age sixty-five, one will be rich, four will be financially independent, fifteen will have some money put aside, and the other eighty will be still working, broke, dependent on pensions, or dead.
Most baby boomers today are planning to work into their seventies. Why is this? It is because they don’t have enough money put aside so they can stop working.
The primary reason for financial problems in life is lack of self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control. It is the inability to delay gratification in the short term. It is the tendency for people to spend everything they earn and a little more besides, usually supplemented by loans and credit card debt.
Today, the savings rate in America is too low to achieve financial independence. After a lifetime of work, the average American family has a net worth of only about $8,000. People continue to spend and borrow as if there is no tomorrow.
The good news is that we are living in the most affluent time in all of human history. There are more opportunities to achieve wealth and prosperity today for more people and in more different ways than have ever existed in the history of man. It has never been more possible for you to achieve financial independence than right now. But
you must make a resolution
to do it, and then you must follow through on your resolution.
you must make a resolution
to do it, and then you must follow through on your resolution.
The primary reason why most adults have financial problems is not low earnings. In their book
The Millionaire Next Door,
Thomas Stanley and William Danko show that two families living on the same street, in the same size of house, and working at the same job can have completely different financial situations. By the age of forty-five or fifty, the couple in one house will be financially independent while the couple next door is deeply in debt and having trouble making the minimum payments on their credit cards.
The Millionaire Next Door,
Thomas Stanley and William Danko show that two families living on the same street, in the same size of house, and working at the same job can have completely different financial situations. By the age of forty-five or fifty, the couple in one house will be financially independent while the couple next door is deeply in debt and having trouble making the minimum payments on their credit cards.
The reason for this is
not
the amount of money that they earn. The reason is
lack of self-discipline
and the
inability to delay gratification.
Why is this weakness of character so prevalent among the majority of adults in society today? It goes back to early childhood.
not
the amount of money that they earn. The reason is
lack of self-discipline
and the
inability to delay gratification.
Why is this weakness of character so prevalent among the majority of adults in society today? It goes back to early childhood.
When you were a child and you received money (whether it was your allowance or a gift from a friend or relative), the first thing you thought of doing was to
spend
that money on candy. Candy is sweet. Candy is delicious. Candy fills your mouth with a wonderful, sugary flavor. You liked candy when you were a child, and you probably could seldom get enough of it. Many children will eat candy until they become physically ill because it tastes so good.
spend
that money on candy. Candy is sweet. Candy is delicious. Candy fills your mouth with a wonderful, sugary flavor. You liked candy when you were a child, and you probably could seldom get enough of it. Many children will eat candy until they become physically ill because it tastes so good.
As you grew older, you developed what psychologists call a “conditioned response” to receiving money from any source. Like Pavlov’s dog, when you receive money, you mentally salivate at the thought of spending this money on something that makes you happy, at least temporarily.
When you become an adult and you earn or receive money, this automatic reaction continues. Your first thought is, “How can I spend this money to achieve immediate pleasure?”
When you get your first job, the very first thing you think about is how you can spend not only the money you earn, but also every penny you can borrow on a credit card on clothes, cars, cosmetics, socializing, entertainment, travel, and everything else. Your mental equation is money = enjoyment.
When you go on vacation to a resort of any kind, you find that the hotels and streets are lined with shops selling useless trinkets, bobbles, and trash, plus clothes, artwork, and other items that you would never think of buying at home. Why is this? Simple. When you are on vacation, you feel happy. You have a conditioned response to associate happiness with spending money. The happier you are, the more unconsciously compelled you are to go out and spend money on something—or, rather, on
anything
.
anything
.
It is quite common for many people, when they are unhappy or frustrated for any reason, to go shopping. They unconsciously associate buying something with being happy. When it doesn’t work as they expected, they buy something else. Sometimes, unhappy people go on shopping sprees. They buy lots of things they don’t particularly need because they unconsciously associate spending with happiness.
As an adult, whenever you receive your paycheck, a bonus, a commission, an IRS refund, a prize, or an inheritance, the very first thing you think about is how you can spend this money as quickly as possible and on as many pleasures as possible.
The starting point of achieving financial independence is to discipline yourself to
rewire
your attitude toward money. You need to reach into your subconscious mind and disconnect the wire linking “spending” and “happiness.” You need to then reconnect that “happiness” wire to the “saving and investing” wire.
rewire
your attitude toward money. You need to reach into your subconscious mind and disconnect the wire linking “spending” and “happiness.” You need to then reconnect that “happiness” wire to the “saving and investing” wire.
From that moment on, instead of saying, “I feel happy when I spend money,” you will say, “I feel happy when I
save
money.”
save
money.”
To reinforce this shift in thinking, open up a “financial freedom account” at your local bank. This is the account in which you deposit money for the long term. Once your money goes into this account, you resolve that you will never spend it on anything except the achievement of financial freedom.
If you want to save money to buy a boat or a car, you open up a separate account solely for that purpose. But your financial freedom account is inviolable. You never touch it except to invest those funds so that they can yield a higher rate of return.
When you begin saving in this way, something miraculous happens within you. You start to feel happy about the idea of having money in the bank. Even if you open your account with only $10, this action gives you a feeling of greater self-control and personal power. You feel happier about yourself. The very act of disciplining yourself to save money makes you feel stronger and more in control of your destiny.
Each time you get some extra money, you put it into your financial freedom account. Eventually, your financial freedom account will begin to grow. Then, as it grows, you activate two laws: the Law of Attraction and the Law of Accumulation.
Because the money in your account is
emotionalized
by your own thoughts and feelings, it sets up a force field of energy that begins to attract more money into it. If you save $10 a month for a year, you will be astonished to find that with the extra bits of money that you have put into that account, you will probably have more than $200 rather than just $120. If you save $100 per month, you will probably have more than $2,000.
emotionalized
by your own thoughts and feelings, it sets up a force field of energy that begins to attract more money into it. If you save $10 a month for a year, you will be astonished to find that with the extra bits of money that you have put into that account, you will probably have more than $200 rather than just $120. If you save $100 per month, you will probably have more than $2,000.
The Law of Accumulation says that “every great achievement is an accumulation of many small achievements.” The Law of Attraction says that “you attract into your life those things that are in harmony with your dominant thoughts.” Because of these laws, your financial freedom account begins to grow with
the miracle of compound interest.
the miracle of compound interest.
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