Find out how things work.
The first key to doing better is finding out.
To change your life, you need ideas.
There isn't anything an idea can't change.
And Shoaff taught me the major problem is the lack of an idea, not a problem.
At first, I didn't have any money. I said to Mr. Shoaff, I don't have any money.
He said that's not a problem.
Now see you, up until then, I always thought it was.
Right. I was confused.
He said, no, no. The problem is
a lack of an idea of how to create money and wealth.
It isn't a lack of money, it's a lack of ideas.
So, if you get ideas, you can change anything.
Now, to get ideas, you need a constant study finding out.
Shoaff also said that when you find something that works,
put the information in your journal.
Don't use your head for a filing cabinet.
Put it in your journal, so you can do the next best thing, repetition, repetition. Go over it.
And if you repeat it, go over it, sure enough, someday, some mysterious day
the idea takes root, starts to grow, and shows up in your bank account
and your dress and your personality and your lifestyle.
But capture the ideas in your journal.
Find out how things work.
Shoaff gave me this word for my life change, he said, study.
Great word.
If you wish to be successful, study success.
if you wish to be happy, study happiness.
If you wish to be wealthy, study wealth.
Don't leave it to chance.
Make it a study.
Some people just go through the day with their fingers crossed.
See, that won't do it.
You've got to study the things that can change your economic, social, spiritual, and personal life.
Now, here's a qualifying phrase,
and we'll have several of these qualifying phrases throughout the seminar.
Here's the first one.
You may not be able to do all you find out.
I understand that.
You may not be able to do all you find out, but you should find out all you can do.
See, you don't want to wind up at the end of your life
and discover that you've lived only one-tenth of it.
And the other nine-tenths went down the drain,
not for lack of opportunity, for lack of information.
So that's number one. Find out how things work.
Now, here's the best human virtue for finding out, Curiosity.
Make a note of that. Curiosity, be curious.
You might add a word to it that'll help, childish curiosity.
What will kids do if they want to know something bad enough?
Bug you, that's the phrase.
They can ask a thousand questions. Do you think they're through, they got another thousand.
They'll drive you to the brink.
It's a virtue
when you got to know.
Be like a child.
Jesus, the master teacher said, unless you can become like little children,
you might as well forget it if you don't have a prayer.
Excellent advice.
You got to be like children. Four ways, in my opinion, to be like a child.
Number one's curiosity and number two are excitement.
Get excited like a child over your ability to make yourself do anything for a change.
The third is faith.
Have faith like a child. Adults are too skeptical.
And fourth is trust.
Trust is a childish virtue, but the rewards are incredible.
So be like a child.
Now, if you're curious,
let me give you three ways to find out how to change anything.
Any life direction, any dimension.
Here are three ways to find out how to change anything.
Number one is to read.
Become a good reader.
All of the successful people I know and work with around the world, they're good readers.
Curiosity drives them to read.
They got to know.
They just read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read.
Become a good reader.
Now, that's my opinion.
Listen to the other lectures and listen to me and make up your mind.
Don't be a follower, be a student.
Okay. I say, really for life change, you got to read.
One way to learn is from your own experiences.
But another way to learn is from other people's experiences.
See, one book might save you five years, if you read it.
Did you know there are books on how to be stronger,
more decisive, be a speaker, be a leader,
have a better effect on other people, and develop your personality?
Did you know there are books on that?
And people don't read them.
How would you explain that?
And they can read.
Did you know that hundreds of successful people
have written their stories in books
and they wrote down how they did it
and people don't read it?
How would you explain that?
The guy's busy, I guess.
You know you get tied up.
The guy says, well, yeah, you work where I work, by the time you struggle home, it's late.
You got to eat supper, watch a little TV, and get to bed.
You can't sit up half the night reading, reading, reading, reading.
And the guy’s behind on his car payment.
Good worker, hard worker, sincere.
But you got to be better than sincere, and work hard.
Otherwise, at the end of your life, you'll wind up cold, stony broke.
You got to be better than a good worker,
you got to be a good reader.
Get around successful people and listen.
Now, you can also learn from unsuccessful people, take notes on both
negative and positive.
On the negative, the notes are called what not to do,
and you got to learn what not to do as well as what to do.
So, learn from the negative as well as the positive.
Okay!
Find out what poor people read and don't read it.
Right?
That's good information.
Learn from the negative.
But now you can also learn from the positive.
Get around successful people.
Listen to what they say.
Listen to how they say it.
It's important.
We’ve all got about 16 waking hours
to practice listening to those 16 hours.
And I say practice listening because listening isn't easy.
I found out it's easier to talk than it is to listen.
But if you will practice listening to
the 16 hours you're awake, sure enough from surprising sources comes great ideas.
In sales training we teach, if you want to learn sales, listen to the kids.
Kids have got to be the master salespeople of all time.
They have no equal.
Father tells his young son, no, you cannot have an ice cream cone.
Thirty minutes later, he's licking on one.
That'd be 30 minutes worth listening to. They got moves you wouldn't believe.
Persistence runs deep like the ocean,
and the kids never took a class on how to overcome objections.
They already know how they don't need classes.
So, listen and learn.
Now, here's some of the best advice I've got for the whole evening. It won't get any better than this.
This is it.
Poor people ought to take rich people out to dinner and listen.
That's some of the best I got.
If a guy's not doing well, one of the first things he ought to do is find a guy that is doing well,
and offer to buy him his dinner.
Spend fifty, sixty, eighty, or hundred dollars, go for the full nine courses.
Start him on the juices and hors d'oeuvre,
and get him started talking.
The salad takes 15 minutes. Keep it rolling.
The biggest steak in town takes forty-five.
Keep it rolling.
Pour on the desert.
Stretch that meal out for about two hours.
If you get a successful person to eat and talk for two hours,
they're liable to drop ideas in your lap and change your life.
Multiply your income by two, by three, by five.
But you're right.
Poor people don't usually take rich people out to dinner.
That's the problem.
The guy said he's rich and let him buy his dinner, I'm not coming up with any money.
And he says, besides, you work where I work, by the time you struggle home it's late.
You're lucky to get your supper, let alone run around trying to find a rich man to feed.
And the guy’s behind on his house payment.
Good worker, hard worker, sincere.
But you got to be better than sincere, work hard.
You wind up broke. You got to be better than a good worker.
You got to be a good listener.
And remember what you read and what you hear, put the good stuff in your journal.
Now, here's the third way to find out how to change your life.
And that's to observe.
You can pick up a lot of ideas just by watching.
Get around successful people and watch.
Here's why success leaves clues.
Watch how the man shakes hands.
Watch how the lady responds.
People who do well, do certain things over and over and over and over.
And if you're clever, you can pick them up.
Watch it all. If a guy's making ten thousand dollars a month,
I'd watch how he walks.
Maybe that's it.
Copy his funny little walk.
Somebody says, well, that's kind of a silly walk. Say, It's ten thousand.
I haven't got the money yet, but I got the walk.
It's bound to start somewhere.
What I ask you tonight is to be unusual
and be a good observer of what's going on.
You can pick up ideas that can change your life starting tomorrow,
just be a more careful observer.
Now, remember, there are two ways to see.
One is called sight.
See with your eyes.
The other one is called insight.
See with your mind.
See with your eyes, you'll see things. See with your mind, you'll see answers.
Put your eyes and your mind to work.
And the best advice on developing sight and insight is to pay attention.
Don't miss anything.
In the weekend seminar, we teach, one of the greatest fatalities to success is preoccupation.
Lack of concentration.
The guy's mind wanders.
See, you wind up the average.
You've got to learn to zero in and concentrate.
I read a good article one time, Reader's Digest. The title was
“Wherever You Are, Be there.”
Excellent.
Don't miss anything.
Now, we've lingered a little bit long on number one here for personal development,
find out how things work, but it's so very important, to find out.
And I've given you three ways to find out.
Now, here's the second step to personal development.
Okay. Number one was to find out how things work.
Here's number two. Go to work.
You must now take action
on what you found out.
In doing business around the world, we call it a game plan. Put together your game plan.
One of the major things we teach during the weekend seminars is game plans.
How to game plan your office.
If you're in sales, you need a game plan. Kids need a game plan.
You need a home game plan, a social game plan, and a business game plan.
Everybody needs game plans, financial independence
game plans, and your investment game plan.
Don't think in your head, put it on paper.
Don't operate out of your mind, operate from paper.
I often ask somebody, what are you going to do for the next six months?
And somebody starts to tell me, I say, no, don't tell me, show me.
Show me your game plan for the next six months.
Then I can look at things and maybe I can help.
But you got to operate from paper.
Put it on a game plan and take action on what you found out.
Now, here's the best word I know of to go with the action, Massive.
See, that'll change everything.
Massive action is called the cure-all.
If you're going to make calls, make a few thousand.
If you're going to make contacts, make a few thousand.
If you're going to knock on doors, knock on a few thousand.
See that'll change everything.
Here's the language of the poor.
I'll try it a time or two and see what happens.
It's the way poor people talk.
The guy says, well, I'll give it 30 days. 30 days?
You could guess his bank balance.
You've got to have a better game plan.
So, here's one of the major things to do starting tomorrow.
Take a look at your game plan.
If it isn't loaded with massive action, change it tomorrow.
The formula works like this.
Pick up a good idea and take heavy action.
Pick up a couple of good ideas and take heavy action.
That's the formula for success. Heavy action.
It's a good thing we can edit all this, right?
The formula for success,
take heavy action on a good idea.
That's the ratio.
Now, here's the key.
Don't wait till you've learned two or three thousand things,
because that way you’ll use up all the time
and you could wind up smart and broke.
And hey, it's okay to be dumb and broke.
But if a guy's smart and broke, that's pitiful.
Don't let your learning lead to knowledge, you'll become a fool.
Let your learning lead to action, and you can become wealthy.
And there are many kinds of wealth,
I understand that, not just money. Money is one of the least of all values.
I know some people with a lot of money that is very poor.
Evita sings, “As for fortune and as for fame,
they are illusions.
They're not the solutions they promised to be.”
So, there are all kinds of wealth,
But to get a big share coming your way, you've got to have a heavy action game plan.
Now, here's the third step to personal development and we’ll wrap up personal development.
Step number three, it's just a little caution, and all through life we need little caution.
This one simply says
don't try to beat the system.
Find out how it works, work it, but don't try to beat it.
Some people learn just enough to start slicing it,
shading it, thinning it, cutting corners, and looking for cheap answers.
See don't fall for that, you'll wind up with a cheap life.
Find out how it works best and do it that way.
Even though it seems to take a little longer, do it right.
Don't compromise with the right.
Now, under this step, here's another key.
Be a quick learner.
Don't let it take long to teach you.
Learn quick. Don't run at the wall too many times.
Learn quicker.
One guy said he broke his nose seven times in the same place.
Somebody says, looks like you'd stay out of that place.
Learn quicker.
Now, the third point here is don't be stubborn.
See, some people won't change even when a better way comes.
They say, well, I've been doing it this way for 30 years.
Hey, be ready for change if it's a better way. Go for it.
But don't try to beat it.
Or you'll be like the guy that went to Las Vegas. He didn't have much money,
so, he didn't want to risk his money gambling.
But he gets to Las Vegas and the jackpot bells are ringing.
The money's flowing, and the lights are flashing.
And he can't help himself. He's got to gamble.
But instead of gambling with his cash, he decides to play the mental gambling game.
And the brilliant scheme he worked out goes like this.
He'd pick a number like a number three, mentally.
He would bet a certain amount of money on the number
and whether it won or lost,
he would jot down that amount in his little pad.
I would have won five dollars if I‘d made that bet. Just keep track of it, win or lose.
That way come midnight; he can calculate how he's doing.
Winner, loser. How much?
Only not his money, keep his money.
Just play this mental gambling game.
So here he is around the gambling table.
Everybody else shells out their hard-earned cash.
He's got this brilliant scheme.
Instead of betting with his money, he's betting with his mind,
and he lost his mind.
These means don't try to beat the system, I guess.