Once upon a time when I started my career, I sat down at the end of the year and my tax
returns were $14,400.
12 years later, I sat down, did my tax returns and my tax returns were $1,440,000.
I'd increased my income by 100 times in 12 years.
And I went back and I started to look at that and I realised that I'd used a formula
which I gradually articulated into what I call the 1000% formula.
And it's very simple, it's based on the law of incremental improvement.
Japanese call it the Kaizen principle, the principle of continuous betterment.
It's getting a little bit better every day.
So I asked the question if you could increase your productivity performance
and output by 1/10th of 1% per day, could you do that?
Could you increase your productivity performance and output by 1/1000th in a day?
And the answer is of course.
If you were the tiniest bit more efficient or you worked a little bit harder on a more
important task, you could become a 10th of a percent better
in a day.
Well, if you did that every single day for a week,
you would be 1/10th of 1% times five,
you'd be one half of 1% more productive in a week,
is that possible?
Of course, you would say.
Anybody can become that small amount more productive.
So I said, if you did that every week for four weeks,
you'd be 2% more productive over the course of a month.
If you did that every day for 13 four week months in a year,
52 weeks, you would be 26% more productive, is that
possible?
And the answer is yes because there is a thing at success called the momentum principle.
That means that once you start going, it becomes easier and easier to keep going
and to go faster and faster.
So, once you become 26% more productive in the course of a year,
your overall output, your results, your income will go up by 26%,
what happens is you start to get into the swing of it.
You start to be more effective, more efficient, you get more things done,
you start earlier, you work harder, you stay later, you set better priorities
and so on.
So, if you do this 26% each year for 10 years,
you will be 1004% better.
And what I did personally, is I used it once and increased my income
10 times and then I used it again and increased my
income 10 times more, 100 times in 12 years and so can you.
And here's what it consists of, it's very simply this.
Each morning, get up, first thing, at least two hours before
you have to be somewhere, so you can invest the first hour, what we
call the golden hour into yourself.
And you invest the golden hour by reading something that is
uplifting, educational, motivational, spiritual, it doesn't matter.
But they say, "reading is to the mind as exercise is to the body."
Instead of reading newspapers or magazines or watching television,
what you do is you just read something that is uplifting.
If you're in sales, read something in selling.
If you’re in spiritually oriented, read something spiritual.
If you want motivation, read something motivational, but read one hour every morning.
That will thoroughly prepare your mind for the rest of the day.
One of the great speakers said that the first hour is the rudder
of the day, it's called the golden hour.
So you invest the golden hour in yourself.
And just like if you got up in the morning and worked out for an hour,
you'd be feeling great all day long, if you get up in the morning and read for
an hour, you'll be feeling mentally great all day long.