Success Secrets
of Self-Made
Millionaires
eduted by Steven Mruma And Isihaka Myanza from
Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and welcome to this program. What you are
about to learn can change your life. These ideas, insights and
strategies have been the springboards to financial success for
millions
of men and women, from every walk of life. These principles are
simple, effective and fairly easy to apply. Each of them is based
on
exhaustive research and interviews with thousands of self-made
millionaires. They have been tested and proven over and over
again,
and they will work for you if you will take them and apply them in
your own life.
We are living at the greatest time in all of human history. More
people are becoming wealthy today, starting from nothing than has
ever been imagined. There are more than five million millionaires
in
America, most of them self-made, and the number is growing by 15%
to 20% each year. We even have self-made ten millionaires, hundred
millionaires and more than two hundred billionaires. We have never
seen this type of rapid wealth creation in all of human history.
Here's the good news. Virtually everyone starts with nothing.
Probably 99% of all financially successful people today started
off
broke or nearly broke. The average self-made millionaire has been
bankrupt or close to bankrupt 3.2 times. Most of them failed over
and
over again before they finally found the right opportunity that
they
were able to leverage into financial success. And what hundreds of
thousands and millions of other people have done, you can do as
well.
The iron law of human destiny is the Law of Cause and Effect. This
law is simple yet very powerful. It says that there is a specific
effect
for every cause. For every action, there is a reaction. This law
says
that success is not an accident. Financial success is the result
of doing
certain, specific things, over and over again, until you get the
effect
that you desire.
Nature is neutral. This means that nature, the marketplace, our
society, does not care who you are or what you are. The law simply
says that if you do what other successful people do, you will get
the
results that other successful people get. And if you don't, you
won't.
When you learn and apply the success secrets of self-made
millionaires in your own life, you will experience results and
rewards
far beyond anything you have ever accomplished in life up until
now.
Here is an important point. Nobody is better than you and nobody
is
smarter than you. Let me repeat that. Nobody is better than you
and
nobody is smarter than you. Get those thoughts out of your mind.
One of the primary reasons for selling yourself short, for
underachievement and lack of financial success is the conviction
that
people who are doing better than you are better than you. This is
simply not the case.
The fact is that most self-made millionaires are average people
with
average educations working at average jobs and living in average
neighborhoods in average houses driving average cars. But they
have
found out what other financially successful people do and they
have
done the same thing over and over again until they got the same
results. It is no miracle and it is no accident. And when you
think the
thoughts and do the things that self-made millionaires do, you
will
begin to get the same results and benefits they do. It is all up
to you.
There are 21 secrets of success of self-made millionaires. Each of
these
is indispensable to your becoming financially independent. The
absence of any one of these factors can, by itself, undermine and
even
destroy your chances for health, happiness and great prosperity.
The
good news is that you can learn every one of these principles by
practice and repetition, over and over again, until they become as
natural to you as breathing in and breathing out. Just as you have
learned to ride a bicycle or drive a car, you can learn the
secrets of
success of self-made millionaires and apply them in your life. And
there are no limits except the limits you place on yourself.
Now, let us begin:
1. The first secret of self-made millionaires is
simple: Dream Big
Dreams! Allow yourself to dream. Allow yourself to imagine and
fantasize about the kind of life you would like to live and the
kind of
money you would like to earn and have in your bank account.
All great men and women begin with a dream of something
wonderful and different from what they have today. You know the
song that says, "You have to have a dream if you want to make
a
dream come true."
Imagine that you have no limitations on what you can be, have or
do
in life. Just for the moment, imagine that you have all the time,
all the
money, all the education, all the experience, all the friends, all
the
contacts, all the resources and everything you need to achieve
anything you want in life. If your potential was completely
unlimited, what kind of a life would you want to create for
yourself
and your family?
Practice "back from the future" thinking. This is a
powerful technique
practiced by high performing men and women that has an amazing
effect on your mind and on your behavior. Project yourself forward
five years. Imagine that five years have passed and that your life
is
now perfect in every respect. What does it look like? What are you
doing? Where are you working? How much money are you earning?
How much do you have in the bank? What kind of a lifestyle do you
have?
Create a vision for yourself for the long-term future. The more clear
your vision of health, happiness and prosperity, the faster you
move
toward it and the faster it moves toward you. When you create a
clear mental picture of where you are going in life, you become
more
positive, more motivated and more determined to make it a reality.
You trigger your natural creativity and come up with idea after
idea
to help make your vision come true.
You always tend to move in the direction of your dominant dreams,
images and visions. The very act of allowing yourself to dream big
dreams actually raises your self-esteem and causes you to like and
respect yourself more. It improves your self-concept and increases
your level of self-confidence. It increases your personal level of
selfrespect
and personal happiness. There is something about dreams
and visions that is exciting and that stimulates you to do and be
better than you ever have before.
Here is a great question for you to ask and answer, over and over
again: "What one thing would you dare to dream if you knew
you
could not fail?" If you were absolutely guaranteed of success
in any
one thing in life, large or small, short-term or long-term, what
would
it be? What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew
you could not fail?
Whatever it is, write it down and begin imagining that you had
achieved this one great goal already. Then, look back to where you
are today. What would you have done to get to where you want to
go? What steps would you have taken? What would you have
changed in your life? What would you have gotten into or gotten
out
of? Who would you be with? Who would you no longer be with? If
your life was perfect in every respect, what would it look like?
Whatever it is that you would do differently, take the first step
today.
Dreaming big dreams is the starting point of achieving your goal
of
financial independence. The number one reason that people never
succeed financially is because it never occurs to them that they
can do
it. As a result, they never try. They never get started. They
continue
to go around in financial circles, spending everything they earn
and a
little bit more besides. But when you begin to dream big dreams
about financial success, you begin to change the way you see
yourself
and your life. You begin to do different things, bit by bit,
gradually,
until the whole direction of your life changes for the better.
Dreaming
big dreams is the starting point of financial success, and
becoming a
self-made millionaire.
2. Secret number two, develop a clear sense of
direction. This is where
you take your dreams out of the air and you crystallize them into
clear, specific written goals. Perhaps the greatest discovery in
human
history is that, "You become what you think about most of the
time."
The two factors that determine what happens to you in life, more
than anything else, are what you think about and how you
think about
it.
Successful people think about their goals most of the time. As a
result, they are continually moving toward their goals and their
goals
are moving toward them. Whatever you think about most of the time
grows and increases in your life. If you are thinking and talking
and
visualizing your goals, you tend to accomplish far, far more than
the
average person who is usually thinking and talking about their
worries and problems most of the time.
Here is an exercise for you. Take a sheet of paper and write the
word
"Goals" at the top with today's date. Then, make a list
of 10 goals that
you would like to achieve over the next 12 months. Write your
goals
in the present tense, as though a year has passed and you have
already achieved them. Begin each goal with the word "I"
to make it
personal to you. By making out a list of 10 goals for yourself for
the
next year, you will have moved yourself into the top 3% of adults
in
our society. The sad fact is that 97% of adults have never made a
list
of goals in their entire lives.
Once you have your list of 10 goals, go back over the list and ask
this
key question: "Which one goal on this list, if I were to
achieve it,
would have the greatest positive impact on my life?"
Whatever your answer to that question, circle that goal and make
that your number one, most important goal for the future. Set a
deadline, make a plan, take action on your plan and do something
every day that moves you toward your goal.
From now on, think and talk about that goal all the time. Think
and
talk about how you can achieve that goal. Think and talk about all
the
different things that you can do to make that goal a reality. This
exercise will stimulate your creativity, increase your energy and
unlock your potential.
3. Success secret number three, see yourself as
self-employed. Accept
complete, 100% responsibility for everything you are and
everything
you will ever be. Refuse to make excuses or to blame other people
for
your problems or short comings. Stop complaining about things in
your life that you are not happy about. Refuse to criticize other
people for anything. You are responsible. If there is something in
your life that you don't like, it is up to you to do something
about it.
But you are in charge.
