If you think the way successful people think and adopt their success habits, you too can be successful. Here are seven qualities of the top 1% of successful people.

1) They are Ambitious.
They see themselves capable of being the best. They see themselves with the capacity of being really good at what they do. This was a really big thought for me. It held me back for many years. When I saw people who were doing better than I was, I naturally assumed they were better than I was. And if they were better than I was, then I must be worse than them, so that would mean they were superior and I was inferior. That is a big problem in our society. We have feelings of inferiority, and these feelings of inferiority are often translated into feelings of undeservedness. We don't feel we deserve to be a big success. The word "deserve" comes from two Latin words meaning "from service." You deserve 100% of everything you make and enjoy as long as you get it from serving other people. Your rewards are in direct proportion to your service. If you serve better and serve more and serve at a higher level and serve more enthusiastically and serve a higher quality, then you'll have a wonderful income you'll deserve every penny of it. You must see yourself capable of being the best.

2) They are Courageous.
They work to confront the fears that hold most people back. The two biggest enemies to yours and my success is fear and doubt. Eliminating fear and doubt is the key. The key to eliminating fear: If you want to develop courage, then simply act courageously when it's called for. When you do something repeatedly, you develop a habit. Make a habit throughout your life of doing the things you fear. If you do the thing you fear, the death of fear is certain. To overcome fear of rejection in prospecting, you must realize that rejection in selling is not personal. Top salespeople do not fear prospecting. Face your fear. Do the things you fear. The ability to confront your fear is the mark of the superior person. If you have high ambition and you decide to be in the top 10%, and you can confront your fears and do the things that are holding you back, those two things alone will make you a great success.


3) They are Committed.
The top people in every field, especially the top salespeople, are completely committed. They believe in themselves; they believe in their companies; they believe in their products and services; they believe in their customers; they have an intense belief. We know that there is a one-to-one relationship between the depth of your belief and what happens in your reality. And if you absolutely believe in the rightness and the goodness of what you're doing, you become like a catalyst. You create what is called a transfer, like an electrical transfer of enthusiasm. People like to buy from people who truly believe in what they are doing. People who are not committed to what they do lead very empty lives. The second part is that caring is the critical element in modern selling. Caring is a critical element in life, as well. All men and women who enjoy great lives care about what they do! They have passion about what they do. They love what they do.

4) They are Professional.
Top salespeople see themselves as consultants rather than as salespeople. When you think of the word "consultant," what words come to mind? When do you call a consultant? A consultant is a problem-solver. What word does not appear when you think of a consultant--the word "salesperson". We don't think of consultants as salespeople. The most successful consultants in America are the very best salespeople of their services. When a person is positioned as a consultant in the mind and heart of the customer, he is not seen as a salesperson. Do people like to be sold? Do people like to be helped to improve their lives and work? So they look upon a salesperson as someone who sells them. Selling is something you do "to" someone, and people don't like to be done "to". So when you think of being a consultant, here is the key. How do you position yourself as a consultant with your customers? Of course, you act like a consultant, but even before you get the chance to act like a consultant, you build a rapport. And the most simple answer of all, and this is the most profound principle: People accept you at your own evaluation of yourself. Consultants come in and have a cup of coffee. Salespeople wait in the waiting room and have a glass of water. If you say you're a consultant, your customer will accept you as a consultant. >From now on, position yourself as a consultant. Think of yourself as a consultant. Remember, 80% of what you accomplish on the outside is determined by who you are on the inside. How you see yourself determines how the customer responds to you. The customer's perception of you determines how much they buy and how much they recommend you to other customers.

5) They are Prepared.
They review every detail in advance. To be in the top 10% requires additional efforts. It requires doing things that the average person is not willing to do. It requires making sacrifices the average person is not willing to make. It requires reviewing every detail of every call or situation before every business meeting. But the difference it makes is extraordinary. Before you go into a meeting, do your homework. Successful people are more concerned about pleasing results than they are about pleasing methods. When you sit down with a client, there is nothing more complimentary to a client than the feeling that you have prepared for the meeting.

6) They are Continuous Learners.
They recognize that if they're not continually getting better, they're getting worse. They read, they listen to CDs and they take additional training. The professional never stops learning. So read, listen to CDs, take continuous training.

7) They are Responsible.
They see themselves as President of their own personal services corporation. The top people in our society have an attitude of self-employed. 100% of us are self-employed. We are presidents of our own personal services corporation. You work for yourself. The biggest mistake we can ever make is to think we work for anyone else. We work for ourselves. The person who signs our paycheck may change; our jobs may change, but we are always the same. We are the one constant--we are always self-employed. The fact of the matter is -- this is not optional, it is mandatory -- you are the president of your own company, you're the president of your own career, your own life, your own finances, your own body, your own family, your own health. You are totally responsible. We are responsible. No one will ever do it for us. It's the most liberating and exhilarating thought of all, to think that you're the president of your own life.

-- Brian Tracy (excerpted from The Success Mastery Academy)

Continue reading...

While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily working at building and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. And here sits the much larger group, wondering how life can be so unfair, so complicated and unjust. What's the major difference between the little group with so much and the larger group with so little?

Despite all of the factors that affect our lives - like the kind of parents we have, the schools we attended, the part of the country we grew up in - none has as much potential power for affecting our futures as our ability to dream.

Dreams are a projection of the kind of life you want to lead. Dreams can drive you. Dreams can make you skip over obstacles. When you allow your dreams to pull you, they unleash a creative force that can overpower any obstacle in your path. To unleash this power, though, your dreams must be well defined. A fuzzy future has little pulling power. Well-defined dreams are not fuzzy. Wishes are fuzzy. To really achieve your dreams, to really have your future plans pull you forward, your dreams must be vivid.

If you've ever hiked a fourteen thousand-foot peak in the Rocky Mountains, one thought has surely come to mind "How did the settlers of this country do it?" How did they get from the East Coast to the West Coast? Carrying one day's supply of food and water is hard enough. Can you imagine hauling all of your worldly goods with you... mile after mile, day after day, month after month? These people had big dreams. They had ambition. They didn't focus on the hardship of getting up the mountain.

In their minds, they were already on the other side – their bodies just hadn't gotten them there yet! Despite all of their pains and struggles, all of the births and deaths along the way, those who made it to the other side had a single vision: to reach the land of continuous sunshine and extraordinary wealth. To start over where anything and everything was possible. Their dreams were stronger than the obstacles in their way.

You've got to be a dreamer. You've got to envision the future. You've got to see California while you're climbing fourteen thousand-foot peaks. You've got to see the finish line while you're running the race. You've got to hear the cheers when you're in the middle of a monster project. And you've got to be willing to put yourself through the paces of doing the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. Because that's how you realize your dreams.

Continue reading...

Success in anything you want to accomplish in life begins with your thinking. The problem with too many people is that they don't think about what they're thinking. I once heard a speaker say, "You will become that which you think about most of the time." Those words have had a tremendous impact on me and on those with whom I've shared them. I heard that statement at a time when I was just beginning to understand what self-improvement was all about. The basis of all self-help materials is that you must have a healthy self-image, or attitude about yourself, in order to succeed.

You see, your thoughts are reflected in your attitude. If you think about failure, rejection and pain, your attitude will be negative. You'll even have a tough time getting out of bed in the morning. How many prospects do you think will want to get involved with your product if you cannot express a positive attitude about what you do to earn your living? I guarantee you it won't be many.

In fact, if you think about those negatives frequently enough, that's probably what you'll become comfortable with. Then, it won't bother you to fail. You'll be thinking, "Yep, that's just what I expected to happen." And, as crazy as it may sound, acceptance of failure will become an accepted fact in your subconscious. At this point, I would suggest making a career adjustment because you won't be selling enough to keep food on your table.

To counteract acceptance of negativity, you must begin by consciously stopping those thoughts. Whenever you realize you're thinking negatively, worrying or feeling anxiety about facing rejection, think to yourself, "Hey, that's not what's going to happen." Then, force yourself to turn those thoughts around. Come up with a positive thought for each negative thought. You'll have to concentrate on this for a while, but eventually, those negative thoughts will have to face too tough a battle to stay in your mind and they'll go away.

At that point, you will be free to become one of the high achievers in your field. The training and support offered by your organization will become more valuable to you. You'll think more about giving service than receiving income. And, as I've stated many times before, the income you earn is little more than a scoreboard reflection of the service you give.

If you have any doubts about that statement, take notice of the top producers in your industry. They think achievement, service and professionalism. You can see it in their eyes. You can feel it when you meet them. They are comfortable only with achievement, recognition and acceptance. They are so uncomfortable with failure, that it, too, has become a motivator for them.

Once you have achieved a state of thinking positively you will believe more strongly in what you are doing, take the steps necessary to practice, drill and rehearse, and receive the tremendous rewards for doing so.

Salespeople are often confronted with spontaneous situations. And, selling is a very emotional business. So, when faced with the unexpected, the untrained, unpracticed ones throw all their training out the window and act on reflex. If your reflexes aren't aimed at serving clients and closing sales, you're sunk. The great ones practice thinking success so much that their attitude and knowledge carry them through situations that may not have been covered in training. Thinking success will help you, too, continue to radiate warmth, pride and knowledge during those spontaneous moments.

-- Tom Hopkins

Continue reading...

"Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory." -- J. Donald Walters

"Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch—what makes you go beyond the norm." -- Cicely Tyson

"When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure." -- Peter Marshal

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it." -- Margaret Thatcher

Continue reading...

Pity the man who has a favorite restaurant, but not a favorite author. He's picked out a favorite place to feed his body, but he doesn't have a favorite place to feed his mind!

Why would this be? Have you heard about the accelerated learning curve? From birth, up until the time we are about eighteen, our learning curve is dramatic, and our capacity to learn during this period is just staggering. We learn a tremendous amount very fast. We learn language, culture, history, science, mathematics... everything!

For some people, the accelerated learning process will continue on. But for most, it levels off when they get their first job. If there are no more exams to take, if there's no demand to get out paper and pencil, why read any more books? Of course, you will learn some things through experience. Just getting out there – sometimes doing it wrong and sometimes doing it right - you will learn.

Can you imagine what would happen if you kept up an accelerated learning curve all the rest of your life? Can you imagine what you could learn to do, the skills you could develop, the capacities you could have? Here's what I'm asking you to do: be that unusual person who keeps up his learning curve and develops an appetite for always trying to find good ideas.

One way to feed your mind and educate your philosophy is through the writings of influential people. Maybe you can't meet the person, but you can read his or her books. Churchill is gone, but we still have his books. Aristotle is gone, but we still have his ideas. Search libraries for books and programs. Search magazines. Search documentaries. They are full of opportunities for intellectual feasting.

In addition to reading and listening, you also need a chance to do some talking and sharing. I have some people in my life who help me with important life questions, who assist me in refining my own philosophy, weighing my values and pondering questions about success and lifestyle.

We all need association with people of substance to provide influence concerning major issues such as society, money, enterprise, family, government, love, friendship, culture, taste, opportunity, and community. Philosophy is mostly influenced by ideas, ideas are mostly influenced by education, and education is mostly influenced by the people with whom we associate.

One of the great fortunes of my life was to be around Mr. Shoaff those five years. During that time he shared with me at dinner, during airline flights, at business conferences, in private conversations and in groups. He gave me many ideas that enabled me to make small daily adjustments in my philosophy and activities. Those daily changes, some very slight, but very important, soon added up to weighty sums.

A big part of the lesson was having Mr. Shoaff repeat the ideas over and over. You just can't hear the fundamentals of life philosophy too often. They are the greatest form of nutrition, the building blocks for a well-developed mind.

I'm asking that you feed your mind just as you do your body. Feed it with good ideas, wherever they can be found. Always be on the lookout for a good idea - a business idea, a product idea, a service idea, an idea for personal improvement. Every new idea will help to refine your philosophy. Your philosophy will guide your life, and your life will unfold with distinction and pleasure.

-- Jim Rohn

(excerpted from Leading an Inspired Life)

Continue reading...

Regardless of the profession, employees and employers in every industry desire the same thing: recognition and appreciation for their daily efforts. Employees want to be assured on a consistent basis that they have made a positive difference in the organization. Likewise, employers want their workers to realize and recognize the effort it takes to lead a group efficiently and to provide a comfortable and nurturing environment.

Think about your own performance for a moment. Could your employer enclose a note thanking you for your contributions, support, positive attitude, willingness to accept change, communication skills, commitment to working hard, leadership capabilities, and respectful attitude and mean every word? If not, what changes do you need to make in your attitude and behavior?

Perhaps one of the most unfortunate commentaries on management today is its reluctance, fear, or lack of courage to let employees honestly know where they stand within the organization. It used to be that getting a paycheck meant you were doing a good job. That is no longer the case. Many employees mistakenly assume that since no one has reprimanded, counseled, or criticized their work or behavior, they are doing a satisfactory job. However, this assumption could very well put their jobs in jeopardy, because many managers have a difficult time honestly expressing their concerns and doubts about an employee's performance-even at evaluation time. Therefore, you must make a concerted effort to identify for yourself where you stand within your organization. One good way to do that is to ask yourself, "Could my employer write a thank you note to me commending me for my work performance?"

By the same token, think about your current employer for a moment. Could you give your employer a note thanking him/her for creating a team environment, being a positive leader, providing adequate training, sharing the organization's mission statement, identifying and embracing change, listening to your opinions, treating you with dignity and respect, and communicating openly and assertively? If you honestly feel you are not being treated well or compensated fairly, then you must address the problem immediately.

Many employees reveal that they dislike what they do and where they work. Yet they have done nothing for years but complain and gripe. Not once have they made the effort to move up, on, or out. Perhaps they think that all they have to do is stick it out a few more years before retirement. They tell themselves that they'll survive somehow. If you've ever told yourself this, ask yourself, "Is mere survival all I want out of my job?" Are you really willing to give up precious years of your life simply because you don't want to make the changes necessary to find a more rewarding job?

Most people want a job that is meaningful and worthwhile. People instinctively have a need to make some sort of significant contribution and to take pride in their accomplishments. Are you proud of what you do? Do you believe your work, your skills, and your talents are making a worthwhile contribution? Often employees will answer no to these questions because they believe that to do meaningful work you must discover a new vaccine, compose a symphony, or save a life. However, the fact is that there is inherent value in any job done well and with a sense of pride. Meaningful employment does not refer to what your job is, but to how you do that job in terms of your commitment to quality service, honesty, dependability, integrity, and treating others with dignity and respect.

Because today's workplace is continually evolving and more competitive than ever before, now is the time to evaluate your circumstances and your strengths and weaknesses and decide where you need to make improvements to get the recognition and appreciation you deserve. The more pride you show in your work, the better your chances for staying employed. While there are no guarantees in today's job market, employees who place a high value on their work and their environment fare much better. In the end, your future employability and job satisfaction are up to you. You and you alone are in charge of your career-and the rest of your life.

-- Connie Podesta

Continue reading...