MAXIMUM ACHIEVEMENT

Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your

Hidden Powers to Succeed
BRIAN TRACY
MAIN IDEA
There is a direct link between the quality of your thoughts and the quality of your life. In particular, your external circumstances
and achievements are an accurate reflection of whatever you think about most of the time.
By exercising control over those things you think about consistently, you can experience a greater sense of power, purpose and
direction. Individual levels of achievement are based on accessing the normally hidden reservoirs of potential that lie deep within
every member of the human race.
The way to be happy and successful (by any definition you set for yourself) lies in finding the right combination of thoughts and
actions and then integrating those thoughts and accomplishing those actions in your own life. When you can do this on a
consistent and regular basis, you will be happy and successful.

1. THE 7 LAWS OF MENTAL MASTERY 6. THE MASTER DECISION

By using the seven laws of mental mastery, you can create
in reality whatever life you can imagine. The 7 laws are:
1. The Law of Control
2. The Law of Cause and Effect
3. The Law of Belief
4. The Law of Expectations
5. The Law of Attraction
6. The Law of Correspondence
7. The Law of Mental Equivalency
2. THE MASTER PROGRAM
Your Master Program controls all aspects of how you think
and feel about your life. Significantly, you can reprogram
your Master Program to more accurately align it with where
you want to go and what you want to achieve.
The Master Program of your subconscious mind is your
self-concept - the bundle of beliefs about yourself and your
life. You always act consistent with your inner beliefs.
Therefore, to change how you act, first change what you
believe and your external actions will soon fall into
alignment.
3. THE MASTER MIND
It is possible to harness your mental powers in the quest for
maximum achievement. Do this by using the Master Mind
methods and techniques.
4. THE MASTER SKILL
The Master Skill of success is to set goals and then make
specific and concrete plans for achieving those goals.
5. THE MASTER POWER
Use of the superconscious mind enables a person to
accomplish virtually any goal that can be imagined.
Before you can activate your higher powers for personal
and business success, you must decide to accept
complete and total responsibility for who you now are,
where you are and for everything you will become.
7. THE MASTER GOAL
The Master Goal of any person’s life is to achieve inner
peace. This is done by organizing every aspect of your life
to generate the greatest happiness for yourself and for the
people closest to you.
8. MASTERING HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
At least 85-percent of your success in life is going to be
determined by your ability to get along with other people in
a personal or business context. Therefore, mastering
human relations is essential to long-term success.
9. MASTERING PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
The most important thing in life is love and developing close
personal relationships with your husband or wife. These
relationships are essential to your self-esteem and
happiness, and ultimately reflect in anything you endeavour
to achieve in your business career.
10. MASTERING THE ART OF PARENTING
The most enduring relationship in life is that of a parent and
a child. Being a good parent can literally impact on
everything else you set out to accomplish with your life.
11. MASTERY: THE POWER OF LOVE
The happiest achievers in the world are those people who
continually and habitually look for ways to show love,
kindness and affection to the people around them. Love is
the most powerful force in the universe and the key to
fulfilling your greatest potential.

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 Maximum Achievement - Page 2 -
MAKE YOUR LIFE A MASTERPIECE
Main Idea
The quality of your thinking ultimately determines the quality of
your life. Your external circumstances will unerringly reflect
whatever you spend the majority of your time thinking about.
Supporting Ideas
The seven ingredients of success, encompassing every quality
a person can include in their definition of success, are:
1. Peace of mind.
Peace of mind is the natural result of living a life which is
closely aligned with those values and convictions you
consider to be most important. When your actions are in total
harmony with your inner beliefs, you feel good about yourself
and your life’s labours and you experience happiness and
peace of mind.
2. Health and energy.
The body has a natural bias towards good health and high
levels of energy. In many cases, people simply need to stop
doing those things that are detrimental and they will become
healthy with no further effort.
3. Loving relationships.
Without other people being involved, anything you achieve
can seem hollow. Creating an environment in which you feel
fulfilled through forming long-term friendships and close
associations with other people is an important and vital
dimension of success.
4. Financial freedom.
When you have enough capital reserves or investment
income to no longer worry day-in and day-out about how to
pay your bills, you’ve achieved true financial freedom. The
amount of money it takes to achieve this goal varies from
person to person.
5. Worthy goals and ideals.
To achieve inner happiness, you need a clear sense of
direction and the feeling of achieving something meaningful
with your business career.
6. Self-knowledge and self-awareness.
When you understand the experiences and situations that
have shaped your attitudes towards life, you have the key to
achieving even more in the future.
7. A sense of personal fulfillment.
A deep sense of personal fulfillment comes from achieving
everything of which you are capable. By realizing your full
potential in life, you will feel happiest and healthiest.
Each of these ingredients suggest individual targets which can
set the parameters of a successful and happy business life. By
incorporating these elements in a description of where you would
like to end up, you begin the process of achieving these goals.
Key Thoughts
‘‘You can’t help the poor by becoming one of them.’’
-- Abraham Lincoln
‘‘Nature understands no jesting; she is always true, always
serious, always severe; she is always right, and the errors and
faults are always those of man. The man incapable of
appreciating her, she despises and only to the apt, the pure and
the true, does she resign herself and reveal her secrets.’’
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-- Goethe
‘‘Happiness has been defined as the "progressive realization of
a worthy ideal". You can only be happy when you are working
step by step toward something that is really important to you.’’
-- Brian Tracy
‘‘W. Clement Stone, the multimillionaire, is famous for being an
"inverse paranoid". This is someone who believes the universe
is conspiring to do him good. An inverse paranoid sees every
situation as being heaven sent either to confer some benefit or
teach some valuable lesson to help make him successful. This
form of inverse paranoia is the foundation of a positive mental
attitude. This is the most outwardly identifiable quality of a
high-performing man or woman.’’
-- Brian Tracy
‘‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’’
-- Shakespeare
‘‘If I see myself today as I was in the past, my past must resurrect
itself and become my future.’’
-- William James
‘‘A man becomes what he thinks about most of the time.’’
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
‘‘Within every adversity is the seed of an equal or greater
opportunity or advantage.’’
-- Napoleon Hill
‘‘We didn’t lose. We just ran out of time.’’
-- Vince Lombardi
‘‘A man can bear any what if he has a big enough why.’’
-- Nietzsche
‘‘There are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic deadlines.’’
-- Don Hutson
‘‘In England during the darkest days of World War II, in the fall
of 1941, Prime Minister Winston Churchill was urged by
members of his cabinet to make peace, to seek some kind of
accommodation with Hitler. Churchill refused. He said
something would happen to bring America into the war, and that
would change the entire equation. When he was pressed on this
point and asked how he could be so confident, he replied,
"Because I study history and history shows that if you hold on
long enough, something always happens".’’
-- Brain Tracy
‘‘One must be something to be able to do something.’’
-- Goethe
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1. THE 7 LAWS OF MENTAL MASTERY
Main Idea
By using the seven laws of mental mastery, you can create in
reality whatever life you can imagine.
Supporting Ideas
Today, there is more information available on the subject of
achieving success in any field than at any other time in history.
Yet despite that, less than 5-percent of the general population
are financially independent by the end of their working lives. In
other words, most people don’t understand how to get the most
out of their lives.
High levels of achievement are directly dependent on following
the seven laws of mastering your mental state. These laws are:
1. The Law of Control
You feel positive about your life whenever you feel you are
in control of your own life, and negative when you feel other
people or external forces control your life.
2. The Law of Cause and Effect
We live in an orderly universe governed by law. Whatever
happens in your life has a specific cause.
3. The Law of Belief
Whatever you passionately believe to be true eventually
becomes your reality.
4. The Law of Expectations
What you get out of life is not necessarily what you want but
what you expect. Life works out as you anticipated.
5. The Law of Attraction
You attract into your life all those people and situations which
are in synch with your most dominant thoughts.
6. The Law of Correspondence
Your physical outer world is a direct reflection of your
personal inner world of thoughts and emotions.
7. The Law of Mental Equivalency
Anything you consistently think about vividly, repeatedly and
with intense emotion eventually become your reality.
A person takes control of their life by feeling positive and
confident about their future prospects. That confidence is
reflected in a determination to understand what causes will
generate the greatest levels of happiness. As you understand
the causes more fully, you begin to believe in yourself more
intensely and expect more out of life.
Those positive expectations attract people and situations which
are in line with your chosen goals. Within a short period, your
external circumstances will begin to match your inner thoughts
and expectations. By changing your thinking, you have changed
your life’s circumstances, and created the physical equivalent of
your mental goal.
Key Thoughts
‘‘The greatest revolution of my life is the discovery that
individuals can change the outer aspects of their lives by
changing the inner attitudes of their minds.’’
-- William James
‘‘If you believe that you can do a thing, or if you believe you
cannot, in either case, you are right.’’
-- Henry Ford
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‘‘Do what you can, with what you have, right where you are.’’
-- Theodore Roosevelt
2. THE MASTER PROGRAM
Main Idea
Your Master Program controls all aspects of how you think and
feel about your life. But more importantly, you can reprogram
your Master Program to more accurately align it with where you
want to go and what you want to achieve.
Supporting Ideas
The Master Program of your subconscious mind is your
self-concept - the bundle of beliefs about yourself and your life.
You always act consistent with your inner beliefs. Therefore, to
change how you act, first change what you believe and the
external actions will soon fall into alignment.
A person’s self-concept has three parts:
1. A self-ideal - the description of how you would like to be.
2. The self-image - how a person sees and thinks about
themselves at present.
3. Self-esteem - how you feel about yourself.
To reprogram your self-concept and develop a more powerful
Master Program, you should:
1. Frequently visualize vivid mental images of achieving future
events, positive goals and intense positive emotions. If you
can clearly visualize something and describe exactly how
you will feel you can achieve it. The subconscious mind
cannot tell any difference between a real experience and
something that is vividly imagined.
2. Use positive affirmations - present tense and personal
statements which override old information and install new
and positive trains of thought.
3. Verbalize your affirmations out loud with conviction and
enthusiasm to strengthen their impact and effect.
4. Act as if you have already accomplished the goals you’re
working towards. That will reinforce your inner feelings and
strengthen your positive behaviour.
5. Feed your mind with words and images which are consistent
with the direction in which you wish to move.
6. Associate with people who are winners. Identify with people
who are achievers and successes in their own right.
7. Teach other people what you’ve learnt. You learn more by
attempting to explain a new concept to another person than
you can absorb personally.
Attitude is one of the best indicators of a powerful self-concept.
As a general rule:
P = (IA + AA) x A
That is, a person’s performance (P) is equal to their inborn
attributes (IA) plus their acquired attributes (AA) multiplied by
their attitude (A). By reprogramming your personal acquired
attributes, your performance improves, but the effect of your
attitude is even more important.
A positive attitude comes from having positive expectations.
When you expect good things to happen and to meet people who
can help you move forward, you’re more optimistic and
constantly searching for the good. Your beliefs determine the
quality of your personality and your eventual standard of
performance.
‘‘Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him
to himself.’’
-- Epictetus
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3. THE MASTER MIND
Main Idea
It is possible to harness your mental powers in the quest for
maximum achievement. Do this by using the Master Mind
methods and techniques.
Supporting Ideas
High achievers all share one common characteristic - they have
developed an unshakable faith in their own ability to overcome
obstacles and achieve greatness in their chosen field.
Most people acknowledge they only use a small percentage of
their capacities in every day life. The key to achieving more is to
access the hidden potential of the subconscious mind.
While the conscious mind gathers information through the
senses, the subconscious stores all information. The
subconscious cannot distinguish between reality and thoughts.
Laws of the subconscious mind include:
1. The Law of Subconscious Activity
The subconscious mind will accept as true anything your
conscious mind accepts.
2. The Law of Concentration
The more you think about something and dwell on it, the more
likely that thing will become reality. You literally become what
you think about most of the time.
3. The Law of Substitution
Your conscious mind can only hold one thought at a time.
Therefore, by replacing a negative thought with a positive
thought, you literally take control of your emotions.
4. The Law of Reversibility
In developing mental thought patterns, effort defeats itself.
That is, the more you relax and avoid worry, the faster you
will develop new patterns of thought.
Your outer world is an unerring reflection of your subconscious
world. To develop strong patterns of thought in your
subconscious or master mind, you should:
1. Verbally state out loud your desired outcome and affirm this
is your ultimate objective.
2. Visualize yourself achieving your goal.
3. Add emotion to your visualization by creating the feelings you
will experience when that achievement is realized.
4. Once you’ve planted the seed in your subconscious, free
yourself from worry. Trust your subconscious to do its job.
Turn your mind to other things.
5. Be prepared for realization - the appearance in your physical
world of people and events which are directly aligned with
the goal you set.
To accelerate the process:
1. Try writing out a detailed present-tense description of the
major goals you would like to realize each day. Then put
down your pen, close your eyes and mentally visualize that
goal as accomplished. Then carry on with your day
2. Have your goal written in present-tense on 3x5 cards. Spend
time each morning and night reading and visualizing.
3. Take a couple of minutes before any critical meeting or other
situation to visualize the best possible outcome for that
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meeting. Then release the thought and go to it.
4. Set aside a 24-hour period on a regular basis during which
you think about nothing except your goals and objectives.
4. THE MASTER SKILL
Main Idea
The Master Skill of success is to set goals and then make specific
and concrete plans for achieving those goals.
Supporting Ideas
To identify your goals, frequently write down your answers to
these questions:
1. What are your five most important values in life?
2. What are your three most important goals in life at present?
3. What would you do and how would you spend your time if
you had just six months to live?
4. What would you do if you won a million dollars in cash, tax
free, in lotto this weekend?
5. What have you wanted to do but been afraid to attempt?
6. What do you most intensely enjoy doing? What activities
generate the greatest amounts of personal satisfaction?
7. What one great thing would you attempt to do if you knew
you could not fail?
Once you’ve identified your goals, you need a program to
achieve those goals. The steps to goal achievement are:
1. Develop an intense, burning desire which will serve as a
motivational force propelling you onwards.
2. Develop an absolutely unshakable belief that you can
accomplish your goal once you pay the price.
3. Write your goal down clearly, vividly and in sufficient detail
to allow you to visualize it in reality.
4. Make a list of all the benefits (tangible and intangible) you
will receive by achieving this goal.
5. Accurately analyze where you are starting from at present so
you have a base-line from which to measure progress.
6. Set a deadline for achieving your goal in order to focus your
subconscious mind on that goal.
7. Make a list of all the obstacles standing between you and
your goal, and ideas on ways to overcome these obstacles.
8. Identify the additional information or new skills you will need
to achieve your goal.
9. Make a list of the people from whom you will need help and
cooperation in achieving your goal.
10. Develop a detailed, personal plan of the specific things you
need to do (in sequence or by priority) to achieve that goal.
11. Use visualization to create a clear mental picture of how
things will be once the goal has been achieved.
12. Make the decision now that you will never, never give up
despite any obstacles or difficulties that might arise.
Once you know exactly where you’re going, make a commitment
to take some action on your goal every day you are alive. Build
and then maintain forward momentum.
Key Thoughts
‘‘Success equals goals, and all else is commentary.’’
-- Brian Tracy
‘‘A man with a half volition goes back and forth and makes no
progress on even the smoothest road, whereas a person with a
full volition moves ahead steadily no matter how difficult the
path.’’
-- Thomas Carlyle
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5. THE MASTER POWER
Main Idea
Use of the superconscious mind enables a person to accomplish
virtually any goal that can be imagined.
Supporting Ideas
The key to wealth, happiness and prosperity lies in fully utilizing
the superconscious mind.
The superconscious mind is a large pool of knowledge and
intelligence which is available to the entire human race. It is
sometimes referred to as ‘‘infinite intelligence’’, ‘‘the universal
sub-conscious mind’’ or the ‘‘collective intelligence’’. In essence,
it is the source of human creativity and inspiration.
To access the power of the superconscious mind:
1. Define your problem or goal clearly in writing.
2. Gather as much information as you can.
3. Consciously review the information at hand from the
perspective of solving the problem.
4. Turn the problem over to your subconscious to finish.
5. Get your conscious mind busy elsewhere.
Answers from the superconscious mind will come by:
1. Intuition - an inner voice will make you know what the correct
course of action is.
2. Unexpected encounters with other people or sources of
information which are the exact answer to your question.
3. An unpredictable event will turn out differently to the way you
expected, but in such a way that it solves the question at hand
completely and fully.
Superconscious solutions are:
1. 100 percent complete and all inclusive.
2. Blindingly obvious when you think about them afterwards.
3. Always accompanied by an intense burst of energy and
elation which identifies the solution to your problem.
The Law of Superconscious Activity states that any goal or
thought which you hold continuously and confidently in your
conscious mind must be bought into reality by the
superconscious, whether positive or negative. That is, you
literally select the world in which you live by the choice you make
of what to think about.
Key Thoughts
‘‘We lie in the lap of an immense intelligence that responds to
our every need.’’
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
‘‘Whenever God wants to send you a gift, he wraps it up in a
problem. The bigger the problem, the bigger the gift.’’
-- Norman Vincent Peale
‘‘Pete r Drucke r write s in hi s book Innovatio n and
Entrepreneurship that the primary source of innovation in
business is the unexpected success or the unexpected failure.
It is often the completely unanticipated event that contains the
superconscious solution that you are seeking. And the
unexpected event that contains the answer you need can often
appear to be a major setback or failure.’’
-- Brian Tracy
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6. THE MASTER DECISION
Main Idea
Before you can activate your higher powers for personal and
business success, you must decide to accept complete and total
responsibility for who you now are, where you are and for
everything you will become.
Supporting Ideas
Personal responsibility means that in the final analysis, you are
the captain of your own ship and nobody else can ever decide
for you what you will become or achieve. It also means realizing
your traditional excuses to avoid setting clear goals and making
total commitments are self-limiting.
Negative emotions are the main cause of under performance.
The main causes of negative emotions are:
1. When you attempt to justify why you are entitled to feel
negative about some event.
2. When you take something personally by setting yourself up
as judge and jury.
3. When you feel someone else does not respect you.
4. When you blame someone else or something else for making
you unhappy.
The person who accepts total and complete responsibility for all
facets of his life refuses to entertain negative emotions. By
accepting responsibility for the future, you release the mental
brakes of past events and move forward with confidence and
enthusiasm.
The most widespread negative emotion of the current age is
guilt. When a person feel’s guilty, they feel inferior, inadequate
and undeserving of success. Guilt is also commonly used to try
and influence your actions. To avoid having guilt interrupt your
forward progress:
1. Eliminate any and all self-criticism from your thoughts and
conversations. Dwell on what you do well.
2. Refuse to blame anyone else. Accept total and complete
responsibility for everything that happens in your life.
3. Politely but firmly refuse to let any other person attempt to
influence your actions by the use of guilt, whether directly or
implied.
4. Refuse to discuss the guilt of any other person. Treat
everyone in their absence as you would in their presence.
5. Freely forgive and forget anyone who has hurt you in any
way. Let go of any anger and resentment you might feel and
concentrate on achieving more with your own life rather than
extracting revenge.
Take a sheet of paper and write down a list of everybody who
has hurt you in any way. The go down the list, and for each name
say to yourself, ‘‘I forgive him or her for everything. I now let it
go.’’ Whenever the urge arises to think negatively about that
person, remember forgiving them and then get your mind busy
elsewhere.
Key Thoughts
‘‘There is no such thing as mental illness; there are merely
varying degrees of irresponsibility.’’
-- Thomas Szasz
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7. THE MASTER GOAL
Main Idea
The Master Goal of any person’s life is to achieve inner peace.
This is done by organizing every aspect of your life to generate
the greatest happiness for yourself and the people closest to you.
Supporting Ideas
The greatest cause of people failing to feel inner peace comes
from stress and negative emotions. The causes of negative
emotions are:
1. Worry
Worrying about past events, possible future events and
unforeseen events. The best way to overcome worry is to
work purposefully. Try and write down what it is that worries
you and how you would handle it if the worst case scenario
eventuates. Then go to work on solving your problems.
2. Having no clear goals
When you’re unclear on where you are headed, you worry
that every action might inadvertently take you in the wrong
direction. Sit down and make a simple list of what you want
to accomplish and go to it.
3. Leaving a job half done
Having a number of unfinished tasks adds to your stress
level. Either mentally or physically finish your tasks so you
can then move on to new fields with a clear mind and
increased self-esteem.
4. The fear of failure
This is actually a conditioned response learned in childhood.
Overcome by doing whatever it is you fear the most. Fear
then becomes a challenge rather than a hindrance. Balance
the answer to: ‘‘What is the worst possible thing that can
happen?’’ with the answer to: ‘‘What is the best possible
result if I am successful?’’
5. The fear of rejection
Comes from being over concerned with what other people
are thinking. Overcome by taking pleasure from your
accomplishments irrespective of whether or not anyone else
is aware of them.
6. Denial - the refusal to face an unpleasant reality
Overcome this by consistently and honestly asking: ‘‘What is
it in my life that I’m not facing?’’ Go through each area of your
life, and be willing to pay the price to change whatever is
causing the stress and negative emotions.
7. Anger
Anger is a response you choose to a particular situation.
Overcome by making a rational decision not to become
angry, or by playing an active sport to rid yourself of those
intense emotions.
The goal is to become a low-stress high-performance person.
Key Thoughts
‘‘In every business deal or transaction, identify the worst thing
that can possibly go wrong, and then make sure it doesn’t
happen.’’
-- John Paul Getty
‘‘Do you want to succeed? Then, double your rate of failure.
Success lies on the far side of failure.’’
-- Thomas J. Watson Jr.
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‘‘Failure is another opportunity to more intelligently begin again.’’
-- Henry Ford
8. MASTERING HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS
Main Idea
At least 85-percent of your success in life is going to be
determined by your ability to get along with other people in a
personal or business context. Therefore, mastering human
relations is essential to long-term success.
Supporting Ideas
The best way to improve and enhance your own social
personality is to work towards improving the personalities of
those you come into contact with. When you make others feel
more important, they enjoy being around you. The seven
behaviours you can use to achieve this are:
1. Be agreeable
People like to be around someone who has an agreeable
mind-set, even if their own personal beliefs are different.
Being easy-going raises the self-esteem of others.
2. Accept other people as they are
People feel more relaxed when they feel accepted. Use this
to your advantage by feeling good about everyone you come
into contact with, irrespective of any other factors.
3. Express appreciation
The happiest people are those who go through life being
genuinely appreciative for the things other people do to help
them in their business careers and personal lives.
4. Make others feel important by expressing approval
Giving sincere praise and recognition measurably raises the
self-esteem of the other person. It reinforces whatever they
did correctly, and renews their enthusiasm to earn more
praise.
5. Admiration
When you compliment people on their achievements, their
personality traits or even their choice of attire, they feel
important. The trick is to be honest at all times.
6. Give your full and undivided attention
This conveys that you consider what they have to say is
valuable and important. Being attentive, letting the other
person speak without interruption and pausing before
replying all show you value their input. It builds both trust and
self-esteem in the other person.
7. The boomerang principle
Acknowledge that whatever emotion you express towards
another person will eventually be reflected back to you. If you
speak highly of another person, the listener tends to think
highly of you as well. If you speak negatively about another,
invariably that negativity will be reflected back to you at some
time in the future.
Since human relations are developed primarily in conversations,
some good rules to follow are:
1. Always mould the subject of your conversation to the
interests of your listener rather than to your own preferences.
2. Don’t turn a conversation into a monologue. Take your turn,
but allow others to participate.
3. Always think before you speak. Respect the other person’s
viewpoint and the reality that anything is possible, even those
things you’re uncomfortable about.
4. Be natural. Let your personality shine through easily and
spontaneously.
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9. MASTERING PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
Main Idea
The most important thing in life is love and developing close
personal relationships with your husband or wife. These
relationships are essential to your self-esteem and happiness,
and ultimately reflect in anything you endeavour to achieve in
your business career.
Supporting Ideas
The six rules for success in personal relationships are:
1. Similarities attract
You will always be happiest and most secure with another
person who has tastes and values which are similar to your
own.
2. Opposites attract - but only in temperaments
A strong relationship needs balance, with each party
comfortable about the amount they give and take. This is
most successfully achieved by two people whose
temperaments compliment each other rather than being very
similar.
3. Total commitment
A determination to make the pairing work cuts off any
avenues of escape when things don’t go as planned.
4. Liking each other
The best test of whether the relationship is strong is this: ‘‘Is
your mate your best friend in the world?’’ When you’re with
someone you genuinely like, everything else follows. The
amount of laughter in a relationship is an excellent indicator
of whether or not you are good friends.
5. Similar self-concepts attract
You generally tend to feel most comfortable with a person
who is about as happy or as unhappy as you feel.
6. Good communications
Communicating requires extended periods of speaking and
listening, and forms the foundation of building a personal
relationship which will endure.
The major reasons relationships fail are:
1. Lack of commitment
2. One person is trying to change the other person rather than
accepting them the way they are
3. Jealousy
4. Self-pity and low self-esteem
5. Negative expectations
6. Incompatibility - growing in different directions
The most important thing in life is love. You should do everything
possible to build and maintain a personal relationship with close
family members based on love. It will not only enable your
business performance level to increase, but it is also statistically
the best way to guarantee a long and happy life.
Key Thoughts
‘‘No success in public life can compensate for failure in the
home.’’
-- Benjamin Disraeli
‘‘Love is the total commitment to the full development of the
potential of the other.’’
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-- W. Scott Peck
10. MASTERING THE ART OF PARENTING
Main Idea
The most enduring relationship in life is that of a parent and a
child. Being a good parent can literally impact on everything else
you set out to accomplish with your life.
Supporting Ideas
In an academic study, it was determined that there were three
characteristics of households which produced high achievers:
1. Both the household and the parenting style is democratic -
children’s opinions are solicited and respected and the house
is run by a set of rules which are consistent and realistic.
2. The children were imbued with a sense of positive
expectations - the children were told they could achieve
much with their lives.
3. The children were expected to complete all their homework
assignments on time and to a very high standard. Parents
became closely interested in and involved with their
children’s education.
In addition, the following principles should be used in raising
children:
1. Children need to be taught positive self-esteem. They need
to understand what they’re doing correctly, and why they
should feel terrific about themselves and their future
prospects.
2. Children need to feel unconditional love and acceptance.
They need an environment in which they know they will
always be loved, even if their behaviour is occasionally
unacceptable.
3. The most important role of parents is to build self-confidence.
Children need to be eager to go out and experience life’s
challenges that lie ahead. They need a healthy personality
to do this effectively.
The best way to raise children who are happy, healthy,
self-confident and with high levels of self-esteem is to be a good
example of those qualities yourself. In the final analysis, children
always learn by imitating what they see at home. You have to be
a good role model if you want your children to grow up to be high
achievers.
For example, your children will feel love to the same degree that
you express your love for your husband or wife. If you can
apologize for mistakes you make along the way, your children
will grow up to be easy-going and willing to accept complete
responsibility for their own lives.
Spending time with your children and expressing your love and
appreciation should be a way of life rather than an occasional
performance. Nothing conveys importance more than spending
time.
Key Thoughts
‘‘Your children are not your children. They are the sons and
daughters of life’s longing for itself. They come through you but
not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not
to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for
they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but
not their souls, for their souls dwell in the House of Tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive
to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes
not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from
which your children, as living arrows, are sent forth.’’
-- Kahlil Gibran
 Maximum Achievement - Page 8 -

11. MASTERY: THE POWER OF LOVE The happiest people are those who continuously look for
opportunities to demonstrate love, kindness and affection
Main Idea towards the people who are close to them.
The happiest achievers in the world are those people who Love is actually an active verb - that is, it is something you do
continually and habitually look for ways to show love, kindness and not just something you feel. In fact, love intensifies the more
and affection to the people around them. Love is the most you give it away to other people. The more you show to other
powerful force in the universe and the key to fulfilling your people, the more you’ll feel personally.
greatest potential. The best cure for feelings of inadequacy is to go out and help
Supporting Ideas someone else who has bigger problems than your own. That will
provide an entirely new perspective on your current challenges,
Love is an integral component in achieving success in your life. as well as providing positive and constructive benefits to those
It forms an integral part of each of the ingredients of success. you help.
A successful person will only have peace of mind to the degree The wisdom of the ages has repeatedly confirmed that in the final
to which they love themselves and others. Love is the foundation analysis, nothing is more important than love. Every time you
of health and energy, and the central force behind lasting and express love, the world is enriched and enhanced. The quality
meaningful relationships. All highly successful business people of your life is improved through the amplifying benefits and
are doing what they absolutely love to do. You will only set high effects of love.
goals for yourself if you love your life and what you’re doing. Love
also helps every person understand and achieve more, as well The true foundation of a happy and successful business career
as generating high levels of self-fulfillment and happiness. and well rounded life is to fill your mind with thoughts of love,
compassion and forgiveness. This is at the very core of any
To increase the amount of love you feel towards your own life system for success in any human endeavour. And, most
and towards others: significantly, it lies within the reach of any person who decides
1. Resolve to accept and like yourself, irrespective of any areas to commit their lives to this principle.
in which your past performance may have been below No matter what the question, love is the answer. It always has
expectations. been, and always will be.
2. Accept complete and total responsibility for every aspect of
your life. Instead of apportioning blame, be totally self-reliant.
3. Set worthwhile goals which will raise your self esteem. The
very act of setting exciting goals lifts the quality of life.
4. Take good care of yourself physically. You can’t treat others
very well if you feel bad about your lifestyle.
5. Implant the message ‘‘I like myself’’ into your subconscious
mind by repeating that statement out loud frequently every
day. You’ll soon feel and act more purposefully and more
positively.
The people who are most respected for their accomplishments
in the history of the world are the people who have shown the
greatest amount of love. For example, Jesus of Nazareth,
Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Dr. Albert Schweitzer and Mother
Teresa have had a tremendous impact on the lives of millions of
people throughout the world. Yet none of these people were
actively involved in the business world.

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