The Power of Personal Development

Jeffrey Gitomer March 4, 2008

When I say Think and Grow Rich, what comes to your mind?
Almost everyone in sales and those interested in personal development have read this classic by Napoleon Hill at least once. And almost everyone who's read it has a positive comment. Many (like me) will say, "Turning point in my life."

Everyone has a turning point in their quest for lifelong learning. Everyone has their Aha! In your personal development, it's what you choose to listen to, watch or read that enhances your understanding of your life and teaches you what you need to do to succeed.

Napoleon Hill's 1937 quote sets the standard. "Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

And once you have the information, it's all about what you are willing to do to take advantage of it.

Most people know Napoleon Hill was the author of Think and Grow Rich. The person Hill emulated and studied was Orison Swett Marden. Not many know that. Marden was the leading positive-attitude genius of the 20th century. Well-known before 1930-almost unknown today. He was a founding father of personal development and positive thought. Aha!

Author of more than 40 books, Marden also was the founder of SUCCESS magazine. Here are a few of his words of wisdom from the book he wrote in 1908, He Who Thinks He Can. "Every child should be taught to expect success."
"The man who has learned the art of seeing things looks with his brain."
"The best educated people are those who are always learning, always absorbing knowledge from every possible source and at every opportunity."
"People do not realize the immense value of utilizing spare minutes."
"No substitute has ever yet been discovered for honesty."
"Poverty is of no value except as a vantage ground for a starting point."
These are quotes worth learning and passing on to others. One hundred years old!
"Learn More about Orison Swett Marden."

Based on my personal experience and personal Ahas!, I'd like to challenge you with the rules of personal development and give you some examples of what I have learned so you might make your own plan to succeed or enhance the one you have.

1.Expose yourself to knowledge.At the end of a seminar I gave on positive attitude, I received an evaluation from a woman named Mary with a comment that read, "I wish I would have heard this 30 years ago." I got goose bumps of sadness and thought of a Jim Rohn quote: "All the information you need to succeed already exists; the only problem is you're not exposing yourself to it." This information existed 30 years ago. Mary just hadn't exposed herself to it.
Jim Rohn is known as America's leading business philosopher. His CD, The Art of Exceptional Living, is among the modern classics of personal development. Jim Rohn is the current master of inspiration and Aha! He imparts wisdom in every sentence. Between Marden and Rohn, there is a long list of valuable books. I owe my career success to these books and to personal development information to which I have exposed myself. Most of the books are more than 50 years old. Many with religious connotations-but still preaching the right words and thoughts. One of the most notable is The Power of Positive Thinking by NormanVincent Peale. Biblical and brilliant.

2. Simple is powerful.If you read it and it seems too easy or too hokey, reread it. It's probably part of your personal development foundation. One of my early Aha! moments of personal development was the simplicity of the message. Sometimes it's so simple, you go right past it without understanding the impact it can make. A classic example is the eternal How to Win Friends and InfluencePeople by Dale Carnegie. In 1936 he wrote, "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." How many salespeople could benefi t from that single Aha!? I think all of them. Interesting to note that Dale Carnegie's lessons still are being taught in the classroom 70 years later!

3. Think and apply to improve.In As a Man Thinketh, published in 1902, James Allen says, "A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts." Thinking what can be done is at the core of your personal development. About 54 years later, in the million-seller, The Strangest Secret, Earl Nightingale writes, "We become what we think about all day long." Get it? In 1969, I listened to Glenn W. Turner on a cassette tape: "Act as though you have already begun to achieve. Not fake it-live it."

4. Take a daily dose.Think about the time-worn expression, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." Apply that to personal development, and it means learn and apply one new thing every day. At the end of a year you will have 365 new pieces of information.

5. The older the better.If you want a new idea, read a book that's 100 years old. "The best educated people are those who are always learning, always absorbing knowledge from every possible source and at every opportunity." -Marden, 1908. Or, "History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats." -B.C. Forbes, 1919.

6. Personal development and positive attitude are joined at the hip-and at the brain. And there is another component-being of service."There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative." -Clement Stone, 1946. Add that to the 5000-year-old Chinese proverb, "To Serve is to Rule."

7. Do it even as your butt falls off.In 1898, Elbert Hubbard wrote an essay titled, Message to Garcia. Deliver the message, get the job done, complete the task-no matter what. Many have read that essay. Few have emulated it. Personal development challenges you to think forward. "Greater than the tread of mighty armies is an idea whose time has come." -Victor Hugo, 1874.
Personal development challenges you to be your best. "You cannot mandate productivity; you must provide the tools to let people become their best." -Steve Jobs, 1988.
"I am the greatest of all time." -Muhammad Ali, 1963.
Personal development challenges you to make decisions based on the person you seek to become. "The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it." -John Ruskin, 1869.

Wondering where you can "find more time" to devote to your own success? "It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste." -Henry Ford, 1901. Just a thought.

The key word is not development; the key word is personal. Do it for yourself, in your own way, and make your own time for it-or not.

The biggest Aha! of personal development is from Russell Conwell's Acres of Diamonds. Considered to be one of the finest speeches ever written, Acres of Diamonds offers a multitude of lessons about the rewards of work, education and finding the riches of life in your own back yard-or your own library. Aha!

Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Little Red Book of Selling and The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude. President of Charlotte-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts Internet training programs on selling and customer loyalty at www.trainone.com. He can be reached at 704/333-1112 or at salesman@gitomer.com.

Prospering in Today's Economy

Andy Andrews June 30, 2009

“The times, they are a-changing.” Bob Dylan wrote those words more than a half century ago, but they are at least as accurate now as they were then.

“The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.” That was Bob Dylan, too, at about the same time. In today’s economy, that one is more true.

We are no longer a Western economy or even an American one. We are truly connected to each other in a global way. Meteorologists tell us that the wind blowing through the California Redwoods one day is the same wind blowing across the plains of Siberia the next. So go on and get used to it. Take a big, deep breath of Siberian air. We are all in this together.

Let’s go back a few years before Dylan. Try this, from Hamlet:
“To be, or not to be, that is the question:Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troublesAnd by opposing… end them.”

When situations change (as they always do), the rules are sometimes changed as well. What was red one day might be green the next. What was down is up, right is left, and we can become so discouraged and confused that we are tempted to simply lie down, cry, and resign ourselves to a lifetime of slings and arrows.

Truth, on the other hand, never changes. Life’s principles remain steadfast in good times and bad. Therefore, I am reminding us all that now is not the time for fear or inaction; now is the time to “take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing… end them.”

Yes, you will need to act. But first… think.

Prospering in today’s economy will require an extraordinary examination of your personal commitment to “the truth” as it relates to your industry in general and your own business or job in particular. In dealing with clients from many different backgrounds, I have noticed that, quite often, we do not make decisions according to what is true. Rather, we make decisions according to what we want to be true. Or what we wish were true. This is usually a recipe for disaster.

Remember the eleventh commandment: Thou shalt not kid thyself. Simply put, in today’s global economy, what is your value? How much are you worth? The question is worth the time you might take to get an accurate answer. Most folks are subconsciously asking the questions “How much can I get?” or “What can I persuade someone to pay me?” or “How much can I charge?” or “How much do people like me traditionally make?”

The question that will lead you to the best decisions, however, is “What is my value to this situation, to this person, to this business?”

Know this: The only people who will never fail—even in bad economic times—are the people who accurately discern their value or the value of their product and can prove that value to their customers. Yes, sometimes value is a perception, but even perceived value can be agreed upon by millions of people at once.

As an author and speaker, I am tasked with the dual responsibility of knowing the value of a specific product (a book) and of a service (a speaking engagement). To find the answers blowing in my financial wind, I need to be certain that I know the truth about my value in these areas. Can a person pay the price of The Traveler’s Gift and, after reading it, feel happy in the knowledge that he or she got their money’s worth? Was the value there? Was what they learned and were able to apply in their life and business worth $20? If so, the books will continue to sell.
If a company pays a certain amount for me to speak or do a seminar and they can track the production and profit that occurred after I spoke, does that benefit me or is it a harbinger of bleak times to come in my career? Did they ultimately make more money with my information and direction than they paid me to speak? Was the value there? If so, I will continue to be booked.

In tough economic times, I suspect there are few corporations who can afford to have a speaker merely as entertainment or “because we’ve always had a speaker.” Therefore, I must honestly ask the question, “What is my service worth? Am I providing value well beyond cost?”
We want to provide value in all areas of our lives. We should strive to provide value as a neighbor and friend, as a member of our church or civic organization, and to our families. I want to provide value to you. That is a primary motivation for me as I post these blogs. I must continue to show value to my wife. So far, she has stayed with me for almost 20 years and seems to be happy. So there must be value to her in our relationship beyond the vows we took.

(Frankly, I am thrilled with the value Polly continues to show me!)

Obviously, in a correspondence of this sort, we are all working together. I don’t know enough about your life’s situation to guide the specific questions you must ask in our current economic climate. I only know that you must ask questions. Seek the truth about yourself, your products, your service…. The quality of your answers can only be determined by the quality of your questions. Do you want good answers in your life? Ask good questions.

And start with this one: How much am I worth?

Breaking News - Monthly Income Record Smashed!

2 Associates from Australia, are the latest to break the monthly income record with our companuy,an eight year old personal development direct sales company based out of Scottsdale, Arizona.

To date they have received $232,000 in profits for themonth of June from the sales of three powerful personal development products.

The previous record of $181,000 was set last year. It’s fair to say Australia is the current hot spot!!

“We just stayed focused on our goals”, said Sue, who was interviewed by company co-founder. “We’ve actually felt more relaxed this month than we have in a long time”. Sue and Jerry had been involved with various MLM opportunities over the years, and were heavily in debt. When Sue saw a newspaper ad about a business opportunity that was not MLM, and one could make a “CEO” income at it, she knew she had stumbled upon something big.

This year’s Summit, a 5-day personal development conference, will be held in July on the Big Island of Hawaii. Jerry says “people are just getting the big picture and buying all three products at once.” This year’s conference is sure to be a sold out event.

"Our sales growth is well over 60% above last years growth so far this year," says top earner John. John has been an associate for 7 years now and has watched the company grow from a small start up in Arizona to representation in 156 countries.

“This is the company of the future”, says co-founder Shane. The company vision is to see associates filling stadiums. With leaders like Sue and Jerry, we are well on the way to achieving that goal – something every associate ours learns how to do.

How to join:
Free information: http://www.freedomwithapurpose.com/
508-456-1586