The Brilliant Brian Tracy
As a Life Coach and a positive psychology enthusiast, I look for evidence of people living a wholehearted life and I study them. This week I found a man named Brian Tracy. My dyslexia loves to write him as Brain Tracy. I think that is appropriate since the man figured out how to use his brain intentionally, to get the life he wanted and has helped thousands of people do the same.
I found this inspiring documentary on Amazon Prime called Maximum Achievement: The Brian Tracy Story. It tells how Brian is a highly successful businessman, author of over 70s personal success books and a famous motivational speaker of personal growth and development. He is also a dedicated, loyal and loving husband, father of four and grandfather of many. The documentary shows his family life and how tight-knit they are. It is lovely.
I love hearing how successful people get their start and where they come from. It inspires me to think that if they can do it, coming from a hardship background, I should be able to do it too.
Brian Tracy had a hard childhood living in poverty, with parents that didn't tell him he was valuable, unique, gifted, talented or smart. Instead, they taught him limiting beliefs about himself. Despite this negative start in life, when a boss of one of Brian's first jobs told him he was worth something, Brian believed it. He took that mans words to heart and became a super successful person.
Brian's remarkable change after hearing one man's encouragement reminds me how important one positive word can be to a person... it can change their life. I hope I take every oppertunity to lift up people and not tear them down. I wonder if that boss knew how he affected this young man?
Brian was an avid reader and learned most of his wisdom by reading books and applying the knowledge he learned. Since he didn't graduate high school he had to learn on his own. That is how he became such a successful entrepreneur. In fact, he says that the quickest, surest path to success is to study successful people and follow what they do.
"Fail your way to success" is just one of many Brian Tracy teachings.
Brain also teaches you to repeat to yourself, "I can do it" when trying something new. He said it helps eliminate fear and makes achieving the thing you are doing easier.
"I Can Do It!"
Brian also suggests that you write out your goals in handwriting, not typing. (It opens up that prefrontal cortex of yours when you write by hand).
He says to write out your biggest goal every morning in first person, singular, as though it already exists in your life.
Then he says to look on that paper before going to bed each night and review the day with your goals in mind. Notice what you did and didn't do that day to progress toward your goals. Repeat the process daily until you get the goals.
Brian's 7 Ingredients for a Recipe to Success
1. Peace of Mind - Be happy, calm and keep gratitude in your heart.
2. Health & Energy - 85% of our health is about how we handle and process our emotions.
(Create healthy habits like processing emotions, spiritual connections, yoga, meditation, food intake, time in nature and exercise.)
3. Loving Relationships - Family, friends, community, work and with God.
4. Financial Freedom - Successful people spend a lot of time thinking about making money, reading about how to make money, and learning money matters.
Brian says that Becoming a self made millionaire is the real point in the process to success.
"In order to achieve something you never achieved before you have to become the person you have never been before",
Brian stated.
Brian Tracy claims that rich people watch about 1 hour of TV a day and poor people watch about 5-7 hours of TV a day. So slow down the Netflix and Amazon Prime intake if you want to accelerate your process to success.
"Time Management is Life Management" according to Brian Tracy.
He also advices,
"Become more valuable on the inside if you want to help people become more valuable on the outside."
The Law of 7 is that it takes 7 years to become an expert at something. Brian Tracy said it took about 3 years into his speaking engagements before he even started making money. So enjoy the process and know you are on the path to success. Don't be in a hurry.
A practice that success people do, according to Brian Tracy, is idealization. Idealization is when you project your perfect future self in 5 years from now. Visualizing and feeling what it feels like to be your perfect self; your health, business, personal relationships, house, cars, etc. Dream Big Dreams.
5. Worthy Goals and Ideals - Gives you a sense of meaning and purpose. Get out of the job you don't love. Go for the jobs/skills you are interested in and you will find your success.
6. Self knowledge and Self understanding - Learn to sit quiet for a time and ideas will come to you that will change your life.
7. Personal fulfillment and Self actualization - The things you tell yourself about yourself is what you will become.
This doc is full of Brian Tracy's gems of wisdom and that isn't even scratching the surface of all his book teachings. My most favorite take away from Brian Tracy...
Tell yourself, "I like myself, I like myself, I like myself - I'm responsible!" Say it often. You will begin to like yourself and open up possibility and success into your life.
Have a lovely life experience today. Go with the flow my friend,
~ Holly Jo