When asked, “How do you develop mental toughness in life?” my response might sound negative at first. I answer, “Always be prepared for a surprise. The surprise might be a negative surprise. Something is going to happen in your day, whether you are late because you got stuck behind a train or your car had a flat tire—something is going to happen. And the key is your ability not to take mole hills and look at them as mountains.”

Problems are a normal part of change. Things are changing so rapidly that there are going to be problems you face. So you must look at failure as an event, not as a person. I’m not a failure. Maybe I’ve had a failure or a temporary inconvenience. I’ve had a stumbling block, and the idea is to turn the stumbling block into a steppingstone, and step on it instead of stumble over it. So look at failure as the fertilizer of success.

Fertilizer stinks, it smells. You see that guy putting it on his lawn and you say, “Wow, that guy fertilized his lawn.” You fertilize your mistakes. You don’t wallow in them, lay in them, roll in them; you pick yourself up off your mistakes and learn from them. You try not to repeat that same thing again. But you look at it as a temporary inconvenience, as a detour—a detour in life—not as a failure.

—Denis Waitley

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Creativity is your key to the future. All progress comes about as the result of finding better, faster, cheaper, easier or different ways to do things and this requires the continual honing of your creative thinking skills.

Your Key Job At Work
One of the key functions of the executive is problem solving, which takes up as much as 50 percent of executive time. It can be said with some confidence that your ability to deal with problems creatively and effectively is the key determinant of your success as a manager. It would be hard to imagine an effective executive who could not solve problems and make decisions with a high level of competence.

Step On Your Own Acceleration
I've studied and lectured on creative thinking for years and I've come to the conclusion that there is virtually no problem you cannot solve, no goal you cannot achieve, no obstacle you cannot overcome if you know how to apply the creative powers of your mind, like a laser beam, to cut through every difficulty in your life and your work.

Earn More, Faster
The benefits of functioning with more creativity can be enormous. Each of us wants to earn more money, be promoted faster, and enjoy greater status, prestige and recognition. In most cases however, we can only earn more by producing more or of better quality or cheaper or faster - and this requires doing things differently, using creativity.

Step On Your Own Acceleration
The good news is that creativity is a skill and a talent that can be learned and developed through practice. With this skill, you can dramatically accelerate your personal and professional growth. By sharpening your thinking skills and exercising your natural creative powers, you can multiply the value of your efforts and rapidly increase the quantity and quality of your rewards.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to be more creative.

First, see yourself as a professional problem-solver and look upon every difficulty or challenge as an opportunity to develop your creative powers.

Second, look for problems you can solve and obstacles you can overcome. The more you seek for answers and ideas, the smarter and more creative you become.

-- by : Brian Tracy

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Major surgery requires not only a skilled surgeon, but also a number of skilled assistants to make certain that everything happens as it should. They function as a team. No one person, regardless of how brilliant he or she is, could pull off a major operation alone.

A new head nurse was starting her first assignment in a major medical center. She was in charge of all the nurses on the operating room team. She had full responsibility for performing all the duties nurses perform. When the surgery was complete, the surgeon said, "Okay, it's time to close the incision. I need the sutures."

The new head nurse responded, "Doctor, you used twelve sponges; we've only removed eleven." The surgeon assured her that all of the sponges had been removed and he was ready to suture. She replied, "Doctor, you used twelve sponges; only eleven have been removed."

With a bit of irritation in his voice, the doctor said, "I will accept full responsibility." The nurse's temper flew and she apparently stomped her foot and said, "Doctor, think of the patient!"

When she said that, the doctor smiled, lifted his foot and revealed the twelfth sponge. He looked at the nurse and said, "You'll do." Her integrity had been tested; she passed with flying colors.

The question is, how many of us, under identical circumstances, would have risked offending the surgeon, remembering that there was a possibility we had miscounted? But this nurse felt the patient's life and health were at stake and she, without hesitation, did the right thing. Over the long haul, that's the best way to get to the top and stay there.

-- Zig Ziglar

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Decide What You Stand For
What are your values? What do you stand for? What are the organizing principles of your life? What are your core beliefs? What virtues do you aspire to, and hold in high regard when you see them demonstrated by others? What will you not stand for? What would you sacrifice for, suffer for, and even die for? These are extremely important questions that are only asked by about three percent of the population, and that small minority tends to be the movers and shakers in every society.What are your values? What do you stand for? What are the organizing principles of your life? What are your core beliefs? What virtues do you aspire to, and hold in high regard when you see them demonstrated by others? What will you not stand for? What would you sacrifice for, suffer for, and even die for? These are extremely important questions that are only asked by about three percent of the population, and that small minority tends to be the movers and shakers in every society.

Write Out Your Key Values
When I first began this values clarification exercise some years ago, I wrote out a list of 163 qualities that I aspired to. I think I eventually came up with every virtue, value or positive descriptive adjective that referred to personality and character in the dictionary. And I agreed with all of them. I felt that they were all important and I wanted to incorporate every single one of them into my character.

Focus on Very Few Core Beliefs
But then reality sets in. I realized that it is very hard to learn even one new quality, or to change even one thing about myself, let alone dozens of things. So I scaled down my ambitions and began narrowing the values down to a small number that I could manage and work with. Once I had settled on about five core beliefs, I was then able to get to work on myself and start making some progress in character development.

Select Your Five Key Values
You should do the same. You should write down the five values that you feel are the most important for you to live by. Once you have those five values, you then organize them in order of priority. Which is the most important value in your hierarchy of values? Which would be second? Which would be third, and so on?

Learn to Make Better Decisions
Every choice or decision you make is based on your values. Whenever you decide between alternatives, you invariably choose the alternative that you value the most. Because you can only do one thing at a time, everything you do is a demonstration of what you consider to be the most important at that moment. Therefore, organizing your values in an order of priority is the starting point of personal strategic planning. It is only when you are clear about what you value, and in what order, that you are capable of planning and organizing the other activities of your life.

Action Exercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, clarify your core beliefs and your unifying principles. Write them down and compare your life today with the values that are really important to you. How are you doing?

Second, organize your values in order of their importance to you. Which of your values is most important? Which is second? And so on. Do your current choices reflect this order of values?
by: Brian Tracy

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The worst beliefs you can have are "Self limiting beliefs." These exist whenever you believe yourself to be limited in some way. For example, you may think yourself to be less talented or capable than others. You may think that others are superior to you in some way. You may have fallen into the common trap of selling yourself short and settling for far less than you are truly capable of.

These self-limiting beliefs act like brakes on your potential. They hold you back. They generate the two greatest enemies of personal success - doubt and fear. They paralyze you and cause you to hesitate to take the intelligent risks that are necessary for you to fulfill your true potential.

For you to progress, to move onward and upward in your life and your business, you must continually challenge your self-limiting beliefs. You must reject any thought or suggestion that you are limited in any way. You must accept as a basic principle that you are a “no-limit” person, and that what others have done, you can do as well.

When I was a young man, coming from a difficult upbringing, I fell into the mental trap of concluding that because other people were doing better than I was, they must be better or smarter than I was. I accidentally concluded that they were worth more than I was. I must therefore be worth less. This false belief held me back for years.

The fact is that no one is better than you are and no one is smarter than you are. If they are doing better, it is largely because they have developed their natural talents and abilities more than you have. They have learned the laws of cause and effect that apply to their lives and work before you have. And anything anyone else has done, within reason, you can probably do as well. You just need to learn how.

-- Brian Tracy

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"You cannot speak that which you do not know. You cannot share that which you do not feel. You cannot translate that which you do not have. And you cannot give that which you do not possess. To give it and to share it, and for it to be effective, you first need to have it. Good communication starts with good preparation." -- Jim Rohn

"One of life's most painful moments comes when we must admit that we didn't do our homework, that we are not prepared." -- Merlin Olsen

"It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared." -- Whitney Young, JR.

"The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes." -- Benjamin Disraeli

"The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight." -- Arthur Ashe

"Man must be prepared for every event of life, for there is nothing that is durable." -- Menander of Athens
"The most successful people in every area invariably spend far more time in preparation than the least successful." -- Brian Tracy

"By chance, you will say, but chance only favors the mind which is prepared." -- Louis Pasteur

"What distinguishes winners is the will to prepare to win." -- Tony Jeary

"From product knowledge springs the expertise to work with clients in the effective and professional manner that earns high income. Invest ten minutes daily reviewing your product information or using your product so you know it inside and out." -- Tom Hopkins

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The Most Important Measure of Success
Being respected by others is very important to each of us. A survey done by the Gallup organization found that the most prominent living Americans rated the respect of others as the most important measure of success in life. They worked very hard to earn the respect of their parents, the respect of their spouses and children, the respect of their peers and colleagues, and the respect of mankind at large.

Why You Respect Yourself
It seems that we truly respect ourselves only when we feel that we are respected by others, and we will go to great lengths to earn and keep that respect. When we feel that someone respects us for who we are and what we have accomplished, we tend to be more open to that person's influence.

Two Things You Can Do
We can do two things to put ourselves in a position to be respected by others. The first is to develop our knowledge of our field. The more people perceive you know about your subject, the more they will respect you. The highest-paid people in almost every field are those who know more than the average people. They are recognized as experts, and they develop what is called "expert power." Because of their superior knowledge, they are looked up to and listened to, and they are much more capable of influencing others to act in a particular way than they would be if their knowledge level were just average.

Develop Your Expertise
Another way to put ourselves in a position of being respected by others is to develop your expertise. Expertise is closely tied to knowledge, but it is a little different. Expertise is the ability to do, the ability to perform well in your chosen field. Men and women with expertise are those who practice over and over in whatever they do until they become known far and wide as the very best in their field.

Action Ex ercises
Here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action:

First, study your field in detail. Dedicate at least one hour per day to reading, listening to audio programs, studying to become more and more knowledgeable about what you do.

Second, continually upgrade your knowledge and skills in your field. Identify your weakest important skill and go to work on that.

Knowledge and know-how are the keys to the 21st century.

By: Brian Tracy

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Let's talk about leaving an impact legacy. "What is an impact legacy?" you may ask. It is how you impact people and the world around you. You see, many people glide through life and do not make much of an impact. that is unfortunate. Others, though, those driven by a purpose and passion for living, are continually making the world a better place and making an impact wherever they go. that's what I believe you want to do.

In order to help you reflect on this, I want to ask you a question: What in the world are you doing?

Here is the typical life—typical, though not everbody does it this way. But for the most part, people's lives generally go something like this:

You're born
You eat and sleep
You play with toys
You go to school
You play Little League
You go to school
You leave high school
You go to more school, but you pay for it now
You get a job
You get married
You buy a house
You have kids
You watch your kids eat, sleep, play and go to school
You work, work, and work
You retire
You die

That's the basic life, isn't it? I know there is more to it, but that is about it for most people.

Here is that question again: What in the world are you doing?

I mean, what are you doing besides the typical "enjoying yourself while you are waiting to die" scenario? What kind of impact are you making?

What I believe sets the successful apart is that they don't just live the average life. They don't just pass time. They make an impact. They have something compelling in their life that drives them—something that gives them an answer when they are asked the question: What in the world are you doing?

I'm helping children.
I'm creating a business that supports many families.
I lead a church.
I am defending our liberties.
I am raising great children.
I'm teaching others to improve their lives.
I help people have fun.
I create memories for people.

In other words, successful people always come down to this: I make an impact and help other people by [fill in your purpose here].

What in the world are you doing?

If you want to be successful, you need to be able to answer that by describing how you help others. Because if you aren't helping others—if you aren't making an impact—you are just taking up space, eating food and waiting to die.

If you know, then you are good to go—live it and make an impact!

If you don't know, then maybe you need to reflect on what you are doing, what your life is about, and how you can explode the mundane bubble you may be living in!

The world needs impact makers—so live to be one!

by Chris Widener (excerpted from Jim Rohn's Twelfth Pillar of Success: Legacy, Part Three of the Jim Rohn One-Year Success Plan)

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