Getting Rich Your Own Way Lee Milteer Interviews Brian Tracy Getting Rich Your Own Way We are blessed this month with one of the biggest names in the professional speaker s world, Brian Tracy as my interview of the month. I have been a huge fan of Brian Tracy since I started in sales years ago. I had the honor of sharing the platform with Brian a few years back and he made a lasting impression on me on what a fine human being he is on and off the stage. Brian has a new book that was just published called: GETTING RICH YOUR OWN WAY and he has granted us permission to use small sections of his book to remind you as entrepreneurs to get rich your own way. Think and Grow Rich There is a direct relationship between how much of your creativity you use and how wealthy you become. Your goal is to learn how to use your creative mind to achieve any goal, overcome any obstacle, and solve every problem on the path to becoming a self-made millionaire. If you want financial success badly enough, and you are willing to work hard enough, nothing can stop you. Your mind will show you the way. There are three main reasons why creativity is important in building your fortune. First, solving problems and making decisions are the key functions of the entrepreneur. As much as 50% to 60% of your time in business and in life is spent solving problems of some kind. The better you become at thinking up creative ways to solve the inevitable and unavoidable problems of daily life and work, and making effective decisions, the more successful you will be. Second, each of us wants to make more money. We all want to be more successful, and enjoy greater status, esteem and recognition. Your problem solving ability is a key determinant of how much money you earn, and how successful you become. Third, you can only earn more by producing more. You can only become wealthy by doing things faster, better or cheaper, and by becoming more productive. You can only move to the top by performing higher value tasks, and this requires that you use more of your intelligence and creativity. Use More of Your Intelligence The fact is that most people function with very little creativity at all. The average person has enormous reserves of intelligence, which he habitually fails to use. Everything you are, or ever will be, is the direct result of the way you think. Your outer world is a reflection
of your inner world. If you improve the quality of your thinking, you must very quickly improve the quality of your life. There is no other sure way of achieving your goals. And there are no limits except the limits you impose on yourself with your own doubts about how smart you really are. There are physical foods that are better for you than others, in that they give you greater health, vitality and energy. In the same way, there are mental foods as well that stimulate your thinking and enable you to make better decisions, get better results, and achieve your goals of wealth and financial independence faster and easier. Just as with physical exercise, the more of these mental exercises you practice, the sharper and more alert you become. You will release more of your natural creativity and trigger better insights and ideas to achieve your financial goals. 1. Think Positively The first stimulant to creativity is a positive mental attitude. It is a decision in advance to look on the bright side of every situation. This is why a positive mental attitude has been well defined as, a constructive response to stress. The most creative people tend to be optimists. They think and talk about what they want, and the steps they can take to achieve their goals most of the time. They look for the good in every situation. They look for the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty. They confidently expect to gain something from every problem or disappointment. Thinking positively is very much a choice you make. And the payoff is extraordinary. As you develop the habit of positive thinking, you will experience higher levels of selfconfidence and self-assurance. The more positive you become toward yourself and your future, the more willing you will be to try new and different things, and to sound or appear foolish. Resolve today to become a possibility thinker in your own life. Think in terms of I can rather then I can t. Think continually about all the different ways that your goals can be achieved, rather than thinking about the obstacles and problems that may be holding you back right now. 2. Set Clear Goals and Objectives Think on paper. Sit down and write out clear goals and objectives to which you are committed. Nothing stimulates your creativity more rapidly and predictably then your making a clear decision about exactly what you want and then making a plan to achieve it. Remember, You become what you think about most of the time. Think about your goals continually. Dwell upon them throughout the day. Think about them the last thing before you go to sleep at night and first thing when you wake up in the morning. The very act of thinking about your goals, and how you might achieve them, makes you a more positive and creative person. The more often you think about your goals, the more often you activate your mind to bring you ideas and insights, and the energy necessary to implement them. Thinking about your goals activates the Law of Attraction, and begins
attracting into your life people and circumstances that can help you achieve them in ways that you cannot even imagine today. 3. Stimulate Your Curiosity Develop a questioning, curious attitude toward your life and work. One of the hallmarks of intelligence is curiosity, and curiosity often leads to innovative approaches to solving problems and achieving goals. Whatever you are doing, don t be afraid to ask questions about what is being done, and why. Asking why or why not, and how things work, not only increases your knowledge, but also gives you insights and ideas that you can use to improve the situation. Whenever you see a customer need unmet, or a problem unsolved, ask as many questions you can to find out why this is occurring, or not occurring. Asking questions about what is going on around you can give you information and insights that can lead to ideas for new products and services, new businesses, and may even lead to the beginning of your fortune. 4. Stimulate Your Mind Feed yourself on a stimulating mental diet. Continually bombard your mind with books, courses, audio programs, different magazines, seminars, people and alternate forms of information. The more you stimulate your mind with new and different ideas, people, and view points, the more likely you are to come up with ideas that will lead to solving your problems and overcoming your obstacles. There seems to be a direct relationship between the number of new ideas you expose yourself to and the likelihood that you will come across exactly the right idea at exactly the right time for you. The fact is that most new ideas don t work, at least not in their original form. But sometimes when two or more ideas are combined, a breakthrough occurs that can change your financial life. Keep your mind open at all times. 5. Practice Creative Visualization A wonderful way to stimulate your thinking, and release the genius within you, is to continually imagine and visualize your goal as if it were already achieved. The greater clarity you can create in your mind of the goal that you desire, the more you will come up with ideas to help make your goal a reality. In addition, once you are clear about exactly what it is you want, create clear mental pictures of yourself actually doing those things that you will have to do to achieve the goal. If you need to make a sales presentation, negotiate a loan, or gain the cooperation or assistance of someone else, practice mental rehearsal. Just as if you were trying out for a stage play, rehearse the upcoming event in your mind. Go through the entire meeting or presentation mentally, from beginning to end, and imagine every detail in the situation. Visualize and see yourself as calm, confident and relaxed. See the other person responding to you in a positive, open and helpful way. Replay this scene over and over until you feel
comfortable and confident about your ability to perform at your best. This is an amazing way of stimulating your creativity. 6. Learn to Laugh At Yourself One of the best ways to remain positive and creative is for you to develop a sense of humor about yourself and your life. The greater your sense of humor, the more ideas you will have. Make it a habit to look on the bright side, and to see the funny side of people, situations and experiences. Don t take yourself too seriously. There is a direct relationship how much you laugh, your sense of humor, and how creative you are. Each time you laugh, you release endorphins and dopamines in your brain, which simulates your creativity and gives you a greater sense of well-being. People who laugh a lot tend to be far more creative then people who do not. When we take business groups through brain storming exercises, we encourage them to come up with the most ridiculous ideas possible. Everyone can laugh or comment, but no one is allowed to criticize or ridicule. Often, the best solutions to complex problems emerge as the result of a group of people laughing together and throwing ridiculous ideas onto the table. The more people laugh together; the better seems to be the quality and quantity of ideas they come up with. 7. Get Physically Active A great way to trigger creativity is through vigorous physical exercise. When you engage in aerobic exercises, such as running, cycling, swimming or any other activity that increases your heart rate and makes you perspire, you accelerate the flow of highly oxygenated blood to your brain. After 20-25 minutes of vigorous exercise, you begin to experience the exercise effect. Your brain releases endorphins, which gives you a heightened feeling of self-awareness, increases your intelligence and makes you feel happier and more relaxed. In study after study, researchers have found that people who exercise aerobically in the morning are more creative and intelligent all day long then people who do not. They are brighter, sharper and more alert. They grasp new information faster and have better memories. They even get better grades on standardized tests. Their I.Q. s actually improve. The fitter and healthier you are as the result of daily exercise, the brighter and sharper you will be in solving problems, making decisions and coming up with creative, innovative solutions to help you achieve your goals. Vigorous physical fitness can give you the winning edge in business and in life. 8. Practice Intense Concentration An excellent way to improve your creativity is by the deliberate practice of intense concentration. Your mind is like a muscle. When you work out physically with weights, you pump large amounts of blood into your muscles, which cause them to grow and become stronger. When you work out mentally, you drive large amounts of blood into your brain, stimulating the growth and activation of additional neurons, ganglia and dendrites.
The key to activating more of your mental powers through concentration is for you to focus intently on one thing at a time. You can concentrate on information gathering for example, on assembling every bit of data available on a particular problem or project. This will often generate insights, ideas and solutions. You can concentrate on formulating the problem clearly, and on defining it in several different ways. This exercise can lead to new approaches and different ways of solving it. You can concentrate on generating multiple solutions to a single problem, rather than settling for the first idea you come up with. The more you concentrate, the smarter you become. The more you concentrate, the more of your intelligence becomes available to you. The more you concentrate, the more and better creative solutions you discover. 9. Expect the Best The ninth way to stimulate your creativity is to develop an attitude of positive expectancy, or confident expectations. The more confidently you expect to be successful and to get the results you desire, the more optimistic and cheerful you will be. When you confidently expect that there is an ideal solution or answer to any problem you face, you will almost always find it. The most creative people make it a habit to approach any problem with a confident belief that there is a logical, workable solution just waiting to be found. No matter how many difficulties they experience, they proceed as if a successful outcome was pre-ordained. They remain calm, positive and cheerful. Surprisingly enough, this attitude almost always enables them to find a solution, to find something good in every problem, or learn a valuable lesson from every difficulty. 10. Take Charge of Your Life The tenth key to stimulating creativity is one of the most important of all. It is the acceptance of 100% responsibility for yourself and for the problem, whatever it is. Whenever you have a difficulty of any kind, immediately seize mental control of the situation by saying, I am responsible. When you accept responsibility, you immediately take control over your mind and the situation. With this sense of control, your self-confidence and selfesteem will increase. You will feel more powerful and confident. You will feel more capable of making the right decisions and taking the right actions. Most of all, you will activate your higher mental powers and use more of your creative faculties. The root cause of almost all negative emotions is the tendency that many people have to blame others for their problems, both past and present. Unfortunately, when you blame another person, you unwittingly position yourself as a victim. Instead of feeling powerful and capable of dealing with whatever life throws at you, the act of blaming someone else for a problem or difficulty makes you feel angry and powerless. The best parts of your brain shut down, and all your emotions become channeled toward rationalizing and justifying your negative feelings. But when you accept complete responsibility for achieving a goal, or solving a problem, you immediate feel stronger and more confident. You switch from anger and negativity to optimism and positive thinking. The instant that you accept responsibility for
your situation, your creative mind goes to work to generate insights and ideas you can use to solve the problem or improve the situation. 11. Develop a Burning Desire The eleventh key to stimulating your creativity is the quality of desire. You must have a burning desire to achieve a particular goal as well as an intense desire to realize your full potential as a person. You must really want to become everything that you are capable of becoming. Ambition is the driving force that causes you to strive continually toward being all you can be. With sufficient ambition, and a burning desire, you can break out of your comfort zone, take risks and move forward. The more ambitious you are the more likely it is that you will generate the creative breakthrough ideas you need to achieve all your goals. 2004 Brian Tracy, Getting Rich Your Own Way: Achieve Your Financial Goals Faster than you ever thought possible Think Rich! Lee Lee Milteer Professional Speaker, Executive Coach & Author 757 363-5800