Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Do you value life? Then waste not time, for that is
the stuff of which life is made.” The value of anything that you obtain or
accomplish can be determined by how much of your time, or your life, that
you spent to acquire it. The amount of yourself that you use up in achieving
the goals that are important to you is a critical factor to consider, even
before you begin. Only by discovering your innate strengths and developing
and exploiting them to their highest degree can you utilize yourself to get the
greatest amount of satisfaction and enjoyment from everything you do.
Deciding what you want to do, what you can do well, and what can give you
the highest rewards for your efforts is the starting point in getting the best
out of yourself.
Strategic Planning
When we do strategic planning for corporations, we begin with the premise
that the whole purpose of the exercise is to reorganize and reallocate people
and resources to increase the rate of return on equity, or capital invested in
the business. Invariably, this is done by emphasizing some areas and deemphasizing others, by allocating more resources to areas with higher
potential return and by taking resources away from those areas that
represent lower potential returns. By developing or promoting newer and
better products and services and by discontinuing those products and
services that are less profitable, the company and all the people in it can
channel their resources to maximize their returns. © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
In doing personal strategic planning, the first thing you want to think about
is increasing your personal “return on energy,” rather than return on equity.
You need to realize that the most essential and valuable thing that you have
to bring to your life and to your work is your ability to think, to act, and to
get results. Your earning ability—which is a function of your education,
knowledge, experience and talents—is your human capital, or your equity.
And the way you use it will largely determine the quality and quantity of your
rewards, both material and psychological, both tangible and intangible.
For example, a young man in one of my seminars came up to me and told
me that he was working as a plumber for a large plumbing-contracting firm.
He made good wages, but he was very envious of the salespeople in his
company who made more money, drove nicer cars, wore nicer clothes and
had much better life-styles. He had completed all his training and had his
journeyman’s certificate, and he was at the top of his wage scale. The only
way he could earn more money was by working longer hours. He realized,
however, that that was not the answer. Instead, he wanted to get into sales,
where his income could be higher and would not be fixed on an hourly basis.
I remember advising him that if he wanted to get into sales, it was up to him
to learn how to sell and then to do everything possible to get his
management to give him a chance at selling plumbing services. His future
was up to him, but he first had to learn how to do the new and higher-paying
job. © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
A little more than a year later, he attended another seminar that I was giving
in that same city, and he told me his story. He had told his management that
he wanted to get into sales. The managers had discouraged him, telling him
that plumbers had very little aptitude for the hard, interpersonal work
involved in selling a complex service. He then asked them what he would
have to do to prove to them that he could sell well. To make a long story
short, they helped him to learn how to sell their company’s services by
having him study manuals and take extra courses on his own time. He
bought books and listened to tapes and began spending time talking to the
salespeople in the organization.
Now a year had passed. He had been a full-fledged salesman for about five
months. He was already earning more than twice as much as the most he
had ever earned as a plumber. But most of all, he was happier. He was more
excited and more enthusiastic about himself and his work than he had ever
been. He loved the field of selling, and he considered his career change to be
one of the best decisions he had ever made.
This story is typical of countless stories that have been related to me over
the years. In each case, the individual had discovered and developed his or
her strengths and, subsequently, improved the quality of his or her life. And
you can do the same. In fact, this may be one of the most important things
you ever do. © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
Define Your Values
This first part of personal strategic planning is called “values clarification.”
You ask yourself, “What values and virtues do I most admire and wish to
practice in my life?” If you wanted to discover your strengths in the work
world, first you would define your values as they apply to employment. The
values that companies settle upon would be similar to the values that you
organize your work life around. Often, both companies and individuals will
choose values such as integrity, quality, respect for others, service,
profitability, innovation, entrepreneurship, market leadership, and so on. For
example, General Electric, as one of its values, is determined to be either
first or second in quality and market share with any product that it offers. If
it cannot achieve a first- or second-place position, it will make every effort to
grow into it, or it will leave the market entirely.
In a similar vein, you could use those values to define your position with
regard to your work. You could decide to plan your work life around the
values of quality, excellence, service, profitability, and innovation. There are
dozens of values that you can pick from, but whichever you choose, and the
order of priority you place on your choices, will determine your approach to
your work.
Your next step is to create your personal mission statement. This is a clear,
written description of the person you intend to be in your work life. I have
often found that this is even more important than setting specific financial or
business or sales goals. Once you have decided how much you want to earn, © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
you need to write out a mission statement that describes the kind of person
you intend to become in order to earn that amount of money.
For example, you might say, “I’m an outstanding salesperson, wellorganized, hardworking, thoroughly prepared, positive, enthusiastic, and
intensely focused on serving my customers better than anyone else can.”
With this as your mission statement, you have a series of organizing
principles that you can use to guide your career choices, your personal- and
professional-development activities, and your work schedule for each day.
This mission statement also tells you the kind of person that you’re going to
be in your interactions with the people whose satisfaction will determine your
career success. A clear mission statement also is a definition of the areas in
which you intend to become stronger in order to achieve your goals.
Define Your Goals
Remember: Your goal is to identify your strengths so that you can deploy
yourself in such a way as to increase your personal return on energy. One of
the best mental techniques that you can use to accomplish this is to see
yourself as a “bundle of resources” that can be applied in a variety of
directions to achieve a variety of objectives. As a bundle of resources, the
amount of time and energy that you have is limited; therefore, your time and
energy must be put to their highest and best use. Stand back and imagine
that you’re looking at yourself objectively, as if through the eyes of another
person, and you’re thinking about how you could apply yourself to bring
about the best results. See yourself as your own employer or boss. What © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
could you do to maximize the output of which you’re capable, and where
could you do it?
Once you have defined your values and written out your mission statement,
the next step is to do what is called a “situational analysis.” Sometimes we
call it a “performance audit.” This is the process of analyzing yourself
thoroughly before you begin setting specific goals and planning certain
activities. You begin your performance audit by asking yourself some key
questions.
One of those questions should be, “What are my marketable skills?” Think
about it. What can you do for which someone else will pay you? What can
you do particularly well? What can you do better than others? What have you
done particularly well in the past?
A wage or a salary is merely an amount of money that is paid to purchase
a certain quality and quantity of labor or output. The results that you’re able
to get by applying your strengths and your energies largely determine your
rewards in life. If you wish to increase the quality and quantity of your
rewards, you have to increase your ability to achieve more and better
results. It’s very simple.
Earl Nightingale said that the amount you’re paid will be determined by three
things: (1) the work you do, (2) how well you do that work, and (3) the
difficulty of replacing you.
The laws of supply and demand also affect the labor market, of which you
are a part. Employers or customers will always seek the very most for the © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
very least. That means that you’ll always be paid the very least that is
necessary to prevent you from moving to another organization.
Abraham Lincoln said that the only security a person can have is the ability
to do a job uncommonly well.
The height of your income will be determined largely by how well you do
your job and the difficulty of replacing you. In areas where workers can be
replaced easily, the workers are paid only the minimum amount necessary to
keep them. In increasing your return on energy, one of your objectives is to
become so good in your chosen field that the cost of replacing you is
extremely high. This is the way to assure that you will always be paid well
because no one can get the kind of results that you can get for the amount
that you charge, or the amount that you’re paid (which are the same).
Take Control
In reality, you’re the president of your own personal-services corporation.
You’re completely in charge of production, quality control, training and
development, marketing, finance, and promotion. Thinking of yourself
passively, as being employed and, therefore, subject to the dictates of
someone else, can be fatal to your long-term success. On the other hand,
seeing yourself as self-employed forces you to see that you also are selfresponsible and self-determining, that everything that happens to you
happens because of your conduct and your behavior. You’re in the driver’s
seat. You’re behind the steering wheel of your life. It’s up to you to decide
how to utilize your talents and abilities in such a way as to bring you the very © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
highest return on investment of your time and energy. No one else is going
to do it for you. You’re the boss. Others can help you, guide you, direct you,
channel you, point you in the right direction and even give you opportunities,
but in the final analysis, no one can make the critical decisions that will
determine your future and your fortune.
Define Your Strengths
Here are four questions that you need to ask yourself on a regular basis: (1)
“What do I most enjoy doing?” (2) “How would I describe my ideal job?” (3)
“If I could have any job at all, anywhere, what would it be?” (4) “If I won a
million dollars in the lottery and I had to pick a job to work at indefinitely,
what would I choose to do with my time?”
In uncovering your strengths, ask yourself, “What are my unique talents and
abilities?” What have you been good at in the past? What things do you do
easily that seem to be difficult for other people? In what areas of work do
you seem to get the best results, and do you derive the most pleasure from?
The answers to those questions all are indications of how you might deploy
yourself to increase your return on energy invested.
As a result of your genetic structure, your education, your experiences, your
background, your interests and proclivities, you’re a unique and rare
combination of talents and abilities. You can be extremely good at
something. You’re responsible for finding out what that something is and
then throwing your whole heart into it, without reservation or holdback. Only © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
when you discover what you really enjoy doing and then commit yourself to
it wholeheartedly do you begin to feel really alive and fully engaged in life.
Find Clarity
Look at your current job and current abilities, and ask yourself, “Where do I
want to be in three to five years?” What kind of work do you want to be
doing? What kind of people do you want to be working with? What level of
responsibility do you desire? What kind of money do you want to be earning?
What part of the country do you want to be living in?
Let your imagination flow freely for a while. Imagine that there are no
limitations on what you can do or be, or where you can do it or be it.
Imagine that all options are open to you.
Look at your work and at your life in general today, and ask yourself, “What
kind of people do I admire the most and want to be like?” Who do you know,
or know about, who is doing the kind of work that you want to do and living
the kind of life that you want to live? What changes would you have to make
in your life to be like that person? Remember: Whatever anyone has done,
someone else can do as well. You’ll never be exactly the same as another
person, but you don’t need to be. You can use the successes and
achievements of other people as examples and guidelines to help you decide
where you want to arrive at the end of your particular journey, but you can
be unique and different and successful in your own way.
Harold Geneen, the former CEO of ITT and one of the most powerful business
executives in American history, always used to say, “Start with the goal and © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
work back.” So decide where you want to end up somewhere down the road,
and then plan back to the present day to determine what you’re going to
have to do to get there. If you can make an honest assessment of your
strengths and weaknesses, your threats and vulnerabilities, your areas of
potential opportunity and the areas that might be holding you back, you’re in
a perfect position to begin looking forward to the future, to decide where you
want to go and what you want to achieve.
Be a Leader
Finally, in personal strategic planning, the aim is always to achieve
leadership in your chosen market niche. Business leaders have the authority
to determine the area of excellence in their business. Analogously, on a
personal level, you can choose the thing at which you’re going to become
absolutely excellent and achieve extraordinary results. So in what areas are
you going to work to achieve results that are far beyond what the average
person could be expected to accomplish?
What can you—and only you—do that, if done well, will make an
extraordinary difference in your life? What can you do now, or can you learn
to do in the future, that will give you the biggest payoff for the amount of
time that you invest in it?
Remember: You were put on this earth with a special combination of talents
and abilities that make you different from anyone who has ever lived.
Whatever you’re doing today, it’s nowhere near what you’re really capable of
doing. The key to a happy and prosperous life is for you to regularly evaluate © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
your strengths and weaknesses, to become very good in the areas you most
enjoy, and then to throw your whole heart into what you’re doing. © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
About the Author:
Brian Tracy is Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, a company
specializing in the training and development of individuals and organizations.
Brian is also a founder of iLearningGlobal, the preeminent online Business
Training portal in the world.
Brian's goal is to help you achieve your personal and business goals faster
and easier than you ever imagined.
Brian Tracy has consulted for more than 1,000 companies and addressed
more than 4,000,000 people in 4,000 talks and seminars throughout the US,
Canada and 40 other countries worldwide. As a Keynote speaker and seminar
leader, he addresses more than 250,000 people each year.
He has studied, researched, written and spoken for 30 years in the fields of
economics, history, business, philosophy and psychology. He is the top
selling author of over 45 books that have been translated into dozens of
languages.
He has written and produced more than 300 audio and video learning
programs, including the worldwide, best-selling Psychology of Achievement,
which has been translated into more than 20 languages.
He speaks to corporate and public audiences on the subjects of Personal and
Professional Development, including the executives and staff of many of
America's largest corporations. His exciting talks and seminars on © Brian Tracy. All rights reserved. The contents, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any
form for any purpose without the written permission of Brian Tracy.
Leadership, Selling, Self-Esteem, Goals, Strategy, Creativity and Success
Psychology bring about immediate changes and long-term results.
Prior to founding his company, Brian Tracy International, Brian was the Chief
Operating Officer of a $265 million dollar development company. He has had
successful careers in sales and marketing, investments, real estate
development and syndication, importation, distribution and management
consulting. He has conducted high level consulting assignments with several
billion-dollar plus corporations in strategic planning and organizational
development.
He has traveled and worked in over 80 countries on six continents, and
speaks four languages. Brian is happily married and has four children. He is
active in community and national affairs, and is the President of three
companies headquartered in Solana Beach, California.
Brian is also the President of Brian Tracy University, a private on-line
University for sales and entrepreneurship.
If you have any questions about Brian Tracy learning programs and services,
please email Support@BrianTracy.com or call 1-858-436-7300.
