The True Secrets Of A Self-Made Millionaire
By SaiF on Mar 16, 2008 in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
This is part 3 of the “21 Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires Unveiled” series. In today’s video, we watch part 2 of the 20/20 special with the real Chris Gardner. This part of the 20/20 special is really a joy to watch as we follow Chris’ trail of success. By the way, watch out for the passionate message Mrs. Smith had to say somewhere around 3 minutes.
The next few secrets are very basic.However, understanding it’s significance and applying them to our daily lives is pivotal to our sucess. To be honest with you, I have struggled and am struggling with half of them as we speak.
11. Be Impeccably Honest With Yourself And Others.
In my experience, being honest with others is the easy part - and that quality alone brings you places. If you want to know how honest and trustworthy I am, I’m that guy every girl turns to and tells secrets to. (And the scary part is that sometimes guys tell me stuff too!)
The Internals
Being honest with yourself on the other hand is a rather complicated matter. I find that sometimes I tend to put some “cushion” to break my falls. And sometimes I even find myself not being able to see the reality that I’m not really good at something. I keep on trying and trying and in the end, I fall.
For instance, I took part in a Nike Soccer Freestyle competition once. It’s the one where you do tricks with the soccer ball by juggling the ball with your legs and other parts of the body. I trained for two months and if you know how determined I am, you’d know that I got reaaaally good at it even without prior experience.
Competition day. Semi-finals. I stepped onto the stage, looked forward and got nervous at how many hundred people were in front of me. They rang the siren. I tried to keep the ball up in the air for the first minute and failed desperately. I only had 2 minutes left. I finally got the ball up and started my routine. Then it kept dropping to the ground, and I got frustrated and used my hands to pick up the ball and tossed it in the air to start my routine again. Before I knew it, they rang the siren again.
It was over, and I didn’t get a call-back. It was horrendous. In the end, a friend of mine who didn’t really have the fancy tricks but had the basic ones got into the Top 10. It crushed my heart, really. So you see, had I been more honest with myself and chosen to see that I wasn’t good at the basic skills, I would have practised that - and maybe even be in the Top 10, who knows?
Brian Tracy defines being true to yourself as being true to the best that is in you and doing things in an excellent fashion. Like I said, had I been true to myself and admit that I was bad at juggling, maybe things would have turned out differently.
The Externals
Personally, I think I’m very fortunate in that I’ve been brought up to never tell a lie.. Not even a white lie.. But I tell them once in a while.. GASP! Hey, a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.
Brian Tracy gives a good tip for this one:
“Act as though your every word and action were to become a universal law. Carry yourself as though everyone were watching you and patterning their behavior after yours.”
I think this is great in two ways:
1) When you think that others will model after you, you can’t help but think that you have an elevated status. This will do a lot of good to your self-esteem.
2) This will give a totally new meaning to the the adage,”What goes around comes around” because if you were to do something bad, it will eventually come to bite you in the arse since everyone’s patterning their behavior after yours.
Come to think of it, I have been unconsciously practising the second one.
12. Set Priorities On Your Activities And Concentrate Single Mindedly On One Thing At A Time.
Upon reading the second part of that sentence, you might think,”Yeah, that makes sense.” But are you practising it? If you’re like me i.e. the typical teenager (well, now that I’ve turned 20 I don’t think I can call myself that anymore) you probably have some music blasted into your ears as the TV is turned on in front of you while you’re working on the computer.
And to make things worse, there’s the MSN Messenger! As you can tell, I’m very well accustomed to this. And that’s because I’m guilty of it at times. But I try to keep it at a minimum.
For instance, as I’m typing this I have a pair of earphones stuffed into my ears but I’ve turned off my music. I found that doing this helps because 1) My mom won’t disturb me because she thinks I can’t hear her anyways 2) It really helps me think without someone shouting, “Shut up!!!” into my ears. That’s Linkin Park by the way…
After reading and re-reading this chapter, I truly believe this is one of the 3 secrets we really need to work on if we’re to become millionaires, my friend. Why?
Because if we set our priorities right, we’re carrying out high-value tasks. And when we concentrate on one thing at a time, we’re increasing our productivity.
I know “prioritise” is a rather vague word, so I’m going to outline the steps you need to take in order to set your priorities straight as taught by Brian Tracy.
Prioritising The Millionaire Way
- Make a list of all the things you have to do today.
- Ask yourself, “What are my highest value activities?â€
- “Why am I on the payroll?” This question really hit a nerve for me because I’ve found that I will do something really well only if I’m doing it for someone else. I don’t know why but if I ask myself this question my mindset would be, “Ok, I’ve been paid to do this by someone else. What is the end result that they want me to get? I must find a way no matter what because I want to get paid”
The underlying mindset here is that “I have to get the result! I either have to find a way or make a way. I will go under,above or through any obstacles I face” and that’s what successful people are made of. - “What can I and only I do that, if done well, will make a real difference?” This might sound familiar if you’ve been with me every step of the way, but if you’re new to SaiF Improvement this was one of the tips from my most popular post on 10 Time Management Tips Everyone Should Practise The main idea is to either do it, delegate it or dump it according to the value it adds to your life.
- “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?†Take note of the keywords “right now”. There’s a difference between urgent and important.
- Lastly, make a commitment to concentrate and give your attention solely on the task at hand. Persevere to work on it without any distractions and push yourself to give your best until it is done.
13. Develop A Reputation For Speed And Dependability.
I shall take a different slant on this one from Mr Tracy. I’ve learnt one thing over the course of the few months that I’ve been consciously evoking the Law of Attraction to work for me. This one thing could change the magnitude and speed of your success.
Have you ever had this experience where you’ve been thinking of implementing this great idea but someone does it first and gets crazily successful with it?
Let me give you an example of this and at the same time give you evidence why the successful are definitely not successful because they’re the smartest people around:
I’m an Internet Marketing fan and I was brain-storming ideas late last year about how to get my website go viral and I thought of combining Mike Filsaime’s Butterfly Marketing with the “Import Address Book” function. (I know this is flying above your head right now) 2 Days ago I got an E-mail from Mike Filsaime promoting that very product for $97!
And knowing that Mike is one of the top Internet Marketers, he’ll probably make like a few million dollars from that launch.
Where am I going with all this? I believe that the Universe plants the same seeds or ideas in a few people. The one who acts upon them the fastest wins. It’s as simple as that.
If you need a “real world” example, have you ever notices that the buziest workers are the ones who get promoted first? No matter how busy they may be, when the boss asks them to do something, they get it done.
It shows the boss that you’re reliable, efficient and productive. He gives you more responsibilities and you still do as well. And finally, the opportunity arrives - the promotion!
14. Be Prepared To Climb From Peak To Peak In Your Life And In Your Career.
When I read this chapter, it brought me back to my primary school classroom in 1998 when my Malay teacher told the rest of the 10 year-olds that life’s like a wheel.
“Imagine yourself today at the top of the wheel”, he told us.
“Observe what happens as the wheel spins over time…” he continues.
“This is life, children. Sometimes, you’re up and at others you’re down.”
Little did I know at that time that he was actually explaining the Law of Polarity rather succinctly. The truth is we’re always going to operate in cycles. Think about it.
What’s important is that we don’t get too caught up in the times when we are in the pits. I once read about this study where they put two rats into a basin of water and made them paddle to stay alive. One was put into a room that was in total darkness and another was put into a room where there was a small beam of light coming from a hole.
The rat that “saw the light” kept on paddling 7 times longer than the one that was in pitch darkness. Seven times longer. Again, another vague reference to something very important but seriously, where am I going with this?
Follow me here. Develop long-term perspective. Take comfort in the fact that as long as you have clearly set and written down goals and are working towards CANI, the general trend of your life would be going upwards.
“Be calm, confident and relaxed with short term fluctuations in your fortune.”
15. Practise Self-Discipline In All Things.
“If you can discipline yourself to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not, your success is virtually guaranteed.”
When I first read the above, I thought,”Are you sure….?” but then I remember one of my friends who’s now somewhere in London.
Natasha is one of my good friends. However, when the tests or exams arrive she’s rarely with the rest of the group. When we are out having fun or watching plays, she’ll be at home studying for tests. I remember asking her to go with me to the “Wade Robson” concert once and although she’s a fan, she declined since the ‘A’ levels were coming.
I’ve always thought there was no use to being so up-tight about studying. However, when we got back our ‘A’ level results last year, my whole perspective changed. Natasha attained a perfect score. Perfect Today, she’s attending one of the best colleges around, the London School of Economics. Simply amazing!
What Brian Tracy had to say about this topic was simple yet eye-opening.
He said,”Successful people make a habit of doing things that failures do not like to do.”
You should read the above sentence again. Think about it. I’m quite sure Natasha didn’t really enjoy cooping herself at home on Friday nights but she had to because she was focused on the results, not the process.
Let me try to capture the differences in focus of successful people and failures.
Successful people: Pleasing Results
Failures: Pleasing Methods
Successful people: Goal Achieving
Failures: Tension Relieving
Successful people: Hard, Necessary and Important
Failures: Fun, Easy and Instant Gratification
You see, I’ve come to realise that being successful is rather easy. You simply do more of what works n less of what doesn’t, as fast as you can and as much as you can and you’ll succeed.
The challenge is in the discipline of not going for the easy ways out and keeping the eye on the grand prize. The challenge comes when you realise that, “HEY! There really is no such thing as a free lunch!”
You either pay the price of success and discipline or you pay the price of regret.
A Parting Thought
“The test is to see whether you can make yourself do the things that are most important and stay with them until they are complete.
The test is whether or not you can keep your mind on what you want and where you are going.
And as long as you keep passing the test, you keep moving onward and upward in your life.”
– Brian Tracy
“Success is commitment to completion”
– Anthony Robbins
What’s next?
Read Part 1 of “The 21 Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires Unveiled” Series
Read Part 2 of “The 21 Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires Unveiled” Series
Read Part 4 of “The 21 Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires Unveiled” Series
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