Personal development

Articles about personal development.

Personal Philosophy

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Personal Philosophy

Economic disaster begins with a philosophy of doing less and wanting more.

 

If you want to amend your errors, you must begin by amending your philosophy.

 

The only thing worse than not reading a book in the last ninety days is not reading a book in the last ninety days and thinking that it doesn’t matter.

 

Your personal philosophy is the greatest determining factor in how your life works out.

 

Initial response illustrates a great deal about someone’s personal philosophy.

 

Only human beings can reorder their lives any day they choose by refining their philosophy.

 

The key factor that will determine your financial future is not the economy; the key factor is your philosophy.

 

Don’t borrow someone else’s plan. Develop your own philosophy and it will lead you to unique places.

 

If you learn to set a good sail, the wind that blows will always take you to the dreams you want, the income you want, and the treasures of mind, purse, and soul you want.

 

Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.

 

Philosophy is the sum total of all that you know and what you decide is valuable.

 

"Vitamins for the Mind" is a weekly sampling of original quotes on a specific topic taken from The Treasury of Quotes by Jim Rohn (TTOQ). TTOQ, a beautiful, burgundy hardbound book with gold-foil lettering, is a collection of over 365 quotes on 60 topics gathered from Jim’s personal journals, seminars and books spanning over 39 years. To order the TTOQ by Jim Rohn or Excerpts from TTOQ by Jim Rohn or Brian Tracy, please go to Jim Rohn’s Online Catalog.

 

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No Room for Excuses by Ron White

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“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” You have heard it a million times. However, my guess is that you have never heard it from the mouth of the “rich.” Instead, this echo has most likely bounced to your ear with its origins being an excuse. That’s right… an excuse. Excuses are what many use to pacify their guilt of not accomplishing what they are capable of.

 

I am not suggesting that wealth is success. My inference is that success is the progressive realization of predetermined worthwhile goals. It may be something as simple as raising a family.

 

What do these names have in common?
Richard Nixon
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton

 

They were all President of the United States, right? They were all the most powerful man in the world at one point. However, I am looking for something else.

 

Richard Nixon was born in the home his father built. He won an award from Harvard his senior year of high school. However, his family was unable to afford his leaving home for college. He instead attended Whittier College.

 

Gerald Ford was born as Leslie Lynch King, Jr. In 1913 his mother left her abusive husband and took her son to live with her parents. She met Gerald R. Ford, whom she married and gave her child his name Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. He was the only President to be adopted. Ford worked in his stepfather’s paint and varnish store growing up. He coached boxing during college to afford his tuition.

 

Jimmy Carter was the first member of his family ever to go to college and his father was a peanut farmer.

 

Ronald Reagan was the son of an alcoholic traveling shoe salesman. He worked his way into show business by broadcasting baseball games. At the age of 40, he was divorced and his career was at a dead end.

 

Bill Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe IV. His father (a traveling salesmen) died in an automobile accident three months before he was born. His mother married Roger Clinton and Bill took that name. Clinton grew up in a turbulent family. His stepfather was a gambler and alcoholic who regularly abused his wife, and sometimes Clinton’s half brother Roger.

 

None of these men were born into wealth and prosperity, yet they each achieved the rank of most powerful person in the world by working hard and not making excuses. These five presidents were born into normal families who struggled. Yet, they refused to use that as an excuse.

 

Life is too short to make excuses. Set your goals and pursue them. If you have been dealt a “worse” hand than another, it may indeed be a gift that teaches you the value of hard work. Your story will be richer and your success sweeter when you achieve your dreams. Maybe one day I will cast a vote for you as President of The United States!

 

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Nine Things More Important than Capital by Jim Rohn

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When starting any enterprise or business, whether it is full-time or part-time, we all know the value of having plenty of capital (money). But I bet we both know or at least have heard of people who started with no capital who went on to make fortunes. How? You may ask.

 

Well, I believe there are actually some things that are more valuable than capital that can lead to your entrepreneurial success. Let me give you the list.

 

1. Time
Time is more valuable than capital. The time you set aside not to be wasted, not to be given away. Time you set aside to be invested in an enterprise that brings value to the marketplace with the hope of making a profit. Now we have capital time.

How valuable is time? Time properly invested is worth a fortune. Time wasted can be devastation. Time invested can perform miracles, so you invest your time.

 

2. Desperation
I have a friend, Lydia, whose first major investment in her new enterprise was desperation. She said, "My kids are hungry, I’ve gotta make this work. If this doesn’t work, what will I do?" So she invested $1 in her enterprise selling a product she believed in. The $1 was to buy a few flyers so she could make a sale at retail, collect the money and then buy the product wholesale to deliver back to the customer.

My friend Bill Bailey went to Chicago as a teenager after he got out of high school. And the first job he got was as a night janitor. Someone said, "Bill, why would you settle for night janitor?" He said, "Malnutrition." You work at whatever you can possibly get when you get hungry. You go to work somewhere—night janitor, it doesn’t matter where it is. Years later now, Bill is a recipient of the Horatio Alger award, rich and powerful and one of the great examples of lifestyle that I know. But, his first job—night janitor. Desperation can be a powerful incentive. When you say, “I must.”

 

3. Determination
Determination says I will. First Lydia said, "I must find a customer." Desperation. Second, she said, "I will find someone before this first day is over." Sure enough, she found someone. She said, "If it works once, it will work again." But then the next person said, "No." Now what must you invest?

 

4. Courage
Courage is more valuable than capital. If you’ve only got $1 and a lot of courage, I’m telling you, you’ve got a good future ahead of you. Courage in spite of the circumstances. Humans can do the most incredible things no matter what happens. Haven’t we heard the stories? There are some recent ones from Kosovo that are some of the most classic, unbelievable stories of being in the depths of hell and finally making it out. It’s humans. You can’t sell humans short. Courage in spite of, not because of, but in spite of. Now once Lydia has made 3 or 4 sales and gotten going, here’s what now takes over.

 

5. Ambition
"Wow! If I can sell 3, I can sell 33. If I can sell 33, I can sell 103." Wow. Lydia is now dazzled by her own dreams of the future.

 

6. Faith
Now she begins to believe she’s got a good product. This is probably a good company. And she then starts to believe in herself. Lydia, single mother, 2 kids, no job. "My gosh, I’m going to pull it off!" Her self-esteem starts to soar. These are investments that are unmatched. Money can’t touch it. What if you had a million dollars and no faith? You’d be poor. You wouldn’t be rich. Now here is the next one, the reason why she’s a millionaire today.

 

7. Ingenuity
Putting your brains to work. Probably up until now, you’ve put about 1/10 of your brainpower to work. What if you employed the other 9/10? You can’t believe what can happen. Humans can come up with the most intriguing things to do. Ingenuity. What’s ingenuity worth? A fortune. It is more valuable than money. All you need is a $1 and plenty of ingenuity. Figuring out a way to make it work, make it work, make it work.

 

8. Heart and Soul
What is a substitute for heart and soul? It’s not money. Money can’t buy heart and soul. Heart and soul is more valuable than a million dollars. A million dollars without heart and soul, you have no life. You are ineffective. But, heart and soul is like the unseen magic that moves people, moves people to buy, moves people to make decisions, moves people to act, moves people to respond.

 

9. Personality
You’ve just got to spruce up and sharpen up your own personality. You’ve got plenty of personality. Just get it developed to where it is effective every day, effective no matter who you talk to, whether it is a child or whether it is a business person, whether it is a rich person or a poor person. A unique personality that is at home anywhere. One of my mentors, Bill Bailey, taught me, "You’ve got to learn to be just as comfortable, Mr. Rohn, whether it is in a little shack in Kentucky having a beer and watching the fights with Winfred, my old friend or in a Georgian mansion in Washington, DC as the Senator’s guest." Move with ease whether it is with the rich or whether it is with the poor. And it makes no difference to you who is rich or who is poor. A chance to have a unique relationship with whomever. The kind of personality that’s comfortable. The kind of personality that’s not bent out of shape.

And lastly, let’s not forget charisma and sophistication. Charisma with a touch of humility. This entire list is more valuable than money. With one dollar and the list I just gave you, the world is yours. It belongs to you, whatever piece of it you desire whatever development you wish for your life. I’ve given you the secret. Capital. The kind of capital that is more valuable than money and that can secure your future and fortune. Remember that you lack not the resources.

 

 

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CHALLENGE OF THE MONTH

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Don´t you have a hero?

Why not, what’s really wrong with admiring other, to look up to another human being? Things have proved wrong, because here in our small country people have to think long before they could name a hero. 

 

Many don´t think it is necessary to admire others. I wonder why? It is healthy for you to know who you admire, to knowing your personal hero because it inspires you and because it is a mirror of your own qualities.

 

Do you have difficulty seeing up to another human being? 

 

So, your challenge this month is to do it anyway.

 

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Eva Longoria Parker

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Hardly Desperate as Actress, Producer and Restaurateur

The Desperate Housewives star is a businesswoman, philanthropist and positioning herself to become CEO.

 
 
Interview by: Mike  Zimmerman  February 1, 2010 
 
Sometimes the most successful people hide in plain sight, not necessarily underestimated—they have serious achievements, after all—but definitely thought of as successful only in a certain way. That’s Eva Longoria Parker.
 
Most folks think of her as Gabrielle Solis on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, one of the funniest and sauciest characters in a show full of them. (A choice quote from Gaby: “It’s an elevator, silly. It has an emergency stop button. And I don’t.”) After that, what else? Yes, people might see her in celeb magazines with her husband, NBA star Tony Parker, or in her L’Oreal commercials.
 
That’s about, oh, half of her story.

To read the whole, very interesting story, klick here:

 

www.successmagazine.com/eva-longoria-parker-hardly-desperate/PARAMS/article/984

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Responding, Not Reacting, to Life by Zig Ziglar

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When you respond to life, that’s positive; when you react to life, that’s negative. Example: You get sick and go to the doctor. Chances are good that after an examination, she would give you a prescription with instructions to return in several days.

 

If, when you walk back in the door, the doctor starts shaking her head and says, “It looks like your body is reacting to the medicine; we’re going to have to change it,” you probably would get a little nervous.

 

However, if the doctor smiles and says, “You’re looking great! Your body is responding to the medication,” you would feel relieved. Yes, responding to life is good.

 

A few years ago, there was much turmoil in the U.S. job market. People were losing their jobs through downsizing, mergers, and takeovers. This created some unusual opportunities for many people. For example, the Wall Street Journal reported that in a five-year period, more than 15 million new businesses were created, well over half of them by women. Very few of the women had any marketable skills, and all of them had great financial need.

 

Most of the new businesses were “trust” businesses, meaning that the women collected the money before they delivered the goods or services. Many, possibly most, of those new businesses would never have been started had not an unfortunate event occurred in the people’s lives. When those events did occur, and needs became obvious, the women chose to respond, and there is little doubt that many of them are better off now than they were before.

 

The message is clear: If you respond to life instead of react to it, then you’ve got a much better chance of achieving success.

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Vitamins for the Mind by Jim Rohn

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Shortly after Jim Rohn met his mentor he asked him, “Mr. Rohn, how much money have you saved and invested over the last six years?” And he said, “None.” He then asked, “Who sold you on that plan?"

 

It is better to be a lender than a spender.

 

 

To become financially independent you must turn part of your income into capital; turn capital into enterprise; turn enterprise into profit; turn profit into investment; and turn investment into financial independence.

 

Financial independence is the ability to live from the income of your own personal resources.

 

If you depend on your company to take care of your retirement, your future income will be divided by five. Take care of it yourself, and you can multiply your future income by five.

 

He remembered saying to his mentor, “If I had more money, I would have a better plan.” He quickly responded, “I would suggest that if you had a better plan, you would have more money.” You see, it’s not the amount that counts; it’s the plan that counts.

 

If you were to show me your current financial plan, would I get so excited by it that I would go across the country and lecture on it? If the answer is no, then here’s my question: “Why not”? Why wouldn’t you have a superior financial plan that is taking you to the places you want to go?

 

He used to say, “Things cost too much.” Then his teacher straightened him out on that by saying, “The problem isn’t that things cost too much. The problem is that you can’t afford it.” That’s when I finally understood that the problem wasn’t “it”—the problem was “me.”

 

The Bible says that it is hard for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It doesn’t say that it is impossible!

 

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