Brian Tracy's speech in South Korea(4)

Section06 

Now what I learned was this. What I learnedwas the oldest law in human philosophy, the oldest law in human history whichis the law of cause and effect. The law of cause and effect says everythinghappens for a reason. It says the success is not an accident, failure is not anaccident. I learned later that my friend who was earning 10 times as much asanybody else had worked for a large company some years before. The largecompany has been one year training him in professional selling. As a result, hecould go anywhere and any country he could sell any products. Because he hadthe formula, he had a recipe, he had a system. And once he shares the recipewith me, I could sell as much as I wanted, anywhere I went. Once I share itwith another people, they can sell as much as they wanted.

Today when I travel around the world tocountries that I've worked in before where I recruit sales people, I meet themagain. And they're millionaires, they're wealthy, they all own their ownbusinesses, they own property, they have large bank accounts. These are peoplethat I recruited new off the street who had no money, had no jobs and had nosales skills. And I trained them in the method of selling. And today they'rewealthy, all over the world they're rich. I sat down with a gentle man whoworked for me many years ago last year. He is now worth about 25milliondollars. And when he came to work for me, he had only old clothes and no money.He had not eaten for about 2 or 3 days. And I took him in and I gave him foodand I got him clothes and I taught him how to sell. And today he's a verywealthy and powerful man. He owns many businesses. And I said to him I said,"You know, I'm very proud of what you have made of your life of what youhave accomplished." And he said "Yes." He said, "And Istill remember where I started when you taught me how to sell so many yearsago."

So is it possible? I have some news for you.Nobody is better than you and nobody is smarter than you. No one is better andno one is smarter. This is the major problem that we have in adult life. Whenyou are growing up, you compare yourself with other people, other people getbetter grades than you. You work hard but still other people get better gradesthan you. When I was going to school, I got terrible grades at school. In fact,there're people in this room who got poor grades in school. Yes, and we knowwho you are. You may be sitting next to one of those people right now.

This is what happens. If somebody getsbetter grades than you, you think, 'Well, this person is smarter than me. Sotherefore, if this person is smarter then I must be dumber. So therefore, whatshould I try? Because he's smarter and I'm dumber.' Then we go to the nextstep. We think, 'Well, if he's smarter than me, he's probably better than me.But if he's better than me, then I'm worse than his.' So then we think, 'Well,he must be worth more than me, so I must be worthless.' And this is the bigproblem we have is we are always looking at ourselves as being less than otherpeople.

What changed my life was when I discoveredthat nobody is better than you and nobody is smarter than you. People are justsmarter in different ways. People have different talents and abilities. When Iwas going to school there was a boy who got top grades in every class. He gotscholarships to the best universities and he never worked. He was very friendlyand he never worked. He always got top grades. If he got 99% in anyexamination, he would be angry with himself because he always got 100%. Todayhe sells used cars on a small car lot in a small town. And that's what he'sbeen doing for 20 years selling used cars. Me? I didn't even graduate fromschool and I'm doing better than he is.

Here's my point. Here's my point. Nobody isbetter than you and nobody is smarter than you. He just had figured out he hadlearned how to study. And studying is a skill. You can actually take its coursein study skills. And if you take the course in study skills, you'll getstraight 'A's from then on. If nobody ever gave you a course in study skillsthen you may have gotten poor grades in schools. And even today 20 or 30 yearslater, you'll still thinking, 'Well, I'm not very smart because I didn't getgood grades in school.' And what that does it cause you to put your foot onyour own brakes and hold yourself back. Instead of big goals, you set littlegoals. Instead of persisting, you quit. Instead of becoming really successful,you think of excuses and reasons why it's not possible. 'Oh, I'm too young.''Oh, I'm too old.' 'I didn't go to college or university,' or 'I didn't comefrom a rich home,' or 'I'm not handsome,' or 'I'm not beautiful,' or something.We always think of reasons to hold ourselves back. I would like to tell youthat there are no reasons. All of the reasons exist in your own mind. Theydon't exist in reality.

Section07

Well, so I've traveled and I began to learnthis law of cause and effect. I would apply it in every business I ever wentinto. The first question I asked is, "How do you succeed in thisbusiness?" And I would go to the top people in the business and I wouldsay ask for their advice, "How do you succeed in this business?" andthey told me and I did it and I achieved success. I would go to the library andI would check out all the books on real estate, importation and distribution,management, sales, sales management, business building, entrepreneurial ship. Iwould check out all the books and I would read and read and read and read andthen I would go and practice.

And I said asked before "Who is themost important person in this room?" And you're right. You are the mostimportant person. What is the most important part of this day of this time wespend together? The answer is the actions you take afterwards. The mostimportant part of what you learned is not the content of what you learned, isthe actions that you'll take. All successful people are action-oriented.They're constantly taking action on new ideas. Now if you take action on a newidea, only two things can happen. What are they? Well, you can succeed or youcan fail. If you succeed, you do more of that. If you fail, you learn andbecome smarter which makes it more likely you will succeed next time. So youcannot lose by taking action. You can only lose by not acting at all. And themajority of people don't take action. The majority of people will hear goodideas. But then they'll always have an excuse for not taking action today.

Many years ago, I spoke with Rich Devos,founder Amway Corporation. And we were talking about these subjects. And hesaid to me, he said that we have determent in our business that there's adirect relationship between how quickly a person takes action on a new idea andhow likely it is that they'll ever be successful at any things. What we find isthat people who hear a new idea and take action within 24 hours will takeaction on other ideas as well. But if a person hears a new idea and doesn't doanything with it for a few days, the chances are nothing will ever happen. Hesaid action-orientation is the key.

The best studies have been done in the last50 years looking at successful people whose lives are going better and betterand unsuccessful people whose lives have flattened out. They find thesuccessful people have one quality, they're always taking action, they'realways doing more things. So if you hear something good tonight, be sure totake action on it. And take action as fast as you can because that soon becomesa habit. And when you develop the habit of action-orientation, you'llaccomplish more in the next 2 or 3 years than the other person who accomplishesin 10 or 20 years. Action-orientation transforms your life.