The people who dream
and those people who dream big
have a different kind of life
than the people who don't dream.
And most people are just satisfied with ad.
There's always a next level.
Your definition of greatness
and what you wanna achieve could be totally
different than somebody else's.
You know, we always say
no one wants to be first.
Okay, because they're afraid of the consequences
that come with doing something first.
If you're not getting the results you want
from your dream, then examine your motivation.
Give yourself something to work towards constantly.
Take charge of your emotions.
Don't let someone else choose them for you.
If you are not gonna do everything that is necessary
to get where you want to be in your life,
why even bother?
Sounds harsh, doesn't it?
Makes you wonder, why am I saying exactly what I just said?
Because the time is now for you to recognize
that there is no time to be feeling pity
about your discussions
and what it is that you having inside yourself.
You have got to have a different type of conversation
within yourself
and stop doing the word can't
and start doing the word try.
Dreams will remind you
that even if the situation isn't temporary.
Dreams still give you
a purpose to live a bigger life,
despite what you're dealing with.
Because they will help you move through the chapter
of the life that you're in
more powerfully,
more grounded and more fulfilled.
Now, believing in yourself is simply an attitude.
Believing in yourself is a choice.
You have to choose to believe
that you can do anything
you set your mind to.
Anything at all because in fact, you can.
Those who succeed, don't believe in limits.
They study until they understand.
They don't give up
when they experience doubt.
They don't give up when it's hard,
They do not give up full stop.
They keep working hard
even if they've been rejected, they keep at it.
They keep searching for new opportunities.
That's exactly how you have to be.
Life is hard and you'll never get far
If you limit yourself in anything you do.
Stop wasting your time making excuses
and blaming other people.
You need to set goals and pursue them.
But you gotta set goals and create pressure
and get some support until you get there.
And the worst thing you can do is let yourself off the hook.
And that's what excuses do.
You let yourself off the hook
when you set a goal,
when you have a dream, you have a vision.
Don't you ever let yourself off the hook.
And start now.
Start believing.
Start dreaming.
And create the life
and the person
that you really want to see.
Most people go through life never discovering what their talents are.
Most people never develop their talents.
They have skills and abilities, but if you don't nurture them,
if you don't develop them, they will never serve you.
Your gifts can take you many places if you develop your gifts.
Most of us don't like to do those things that come easy to us.
I've always loved to talk to people.
I decided taking this advice to develop my skills as a speaker,
and my gift
has developed and developed and has taken me many places.
You have something that you brought to the universe
and that if you decide that my life deserves
my developing this what I do well
and becoming the best at it, and mastering myself
and seeing what I have within me.
If you decide to drop your buckets where you are
and develop your gifts,
I grant you you'll never, ever be without.
I grant you that your gifts will take
you places that will literally amaze you.
I grant you that if you begin to work
to develop your gifts,
you'll develop a strong sense of happiness.
You'll get a larger vision of yourself
because part of beginning to get a larger vision of yourself.
All of us need some area of our lives
where we can have a feeling of competence.
That people know when they think about this area,
that's something you do,
that you eat and sleep that
and that you do that, you do that.
And people know it,
and you know it, and you know, that you know that you know this.
If you don't know anything else, you know this.
Can you tell, I know I know what I'm doing.
Oh, hell no.
You know this.
So you've got to work on it
when other folk are having a good time.
You've got to have the strength of character
to concentrate, to read, to digest information.
If you decide
any particular area that you're concerned about
to make a conscious, liberate determined effort to read one book
a month in that area,
in five years, you'll be among the top 5% experts in the world.
I read a minimum of two books a week.
The average American reads only one book a year.
If you deside, that area that you love,
that you are going to master that particular area
in this era of accelerated change, overwhelming complexity, and tremendous competition.
As you begin to develop and expand your skills and your talents and your vision of yourself,
you will always be in control of your destiny.
It is in the nature of things that some people
will be more successful and happier than others.
Some people will make more money,
have better lives, enjoy greater fulfillment
and satisfaction, have happier relationships,
and contribute more to their communities.
Others will not.
The most important single quality that you can develop,
in a time of rapid change, is the quality of “flexibility.”
The opposite of flexible thinking is fixed or mechanical thinking.
The opposite of approaching life with an open mind is to react automatically and predictably in every situation.
The opposite of flexibility is an unwillingness to change
in the face of new information or circumstances.
The quality of flexibility is therefore essential if you want to be,
do and have more than the average person.
Today, perhaps the most important factor affecting your life is the speed of change.
We are living in an age where change is taking place at a faster rate than ever before in human history.
And if anything, the rate of change is increasing, year-by-year.
Change today is not only faster, but it is also discontinuous,
not following a straight line but starting, stopping and going off in unpredictable directions.
Change is coming at us from all sides
and in so many different ways that it is often impossible to anticipate what might happen next.
By its very nature, change is unpredictable, often forcing us to scrap our very best plans and ideas overnight
as the result of a completely new and unexpected development
coming from a new and unexpected direction.
As a result, we have to remain flexible in our thinking and in our possible courses of action.
You must learn to say to remain flexible is, “I made a mistake.”
It is amazing how much time, energy and money is wasted
because someone’s ego is so large
that they will not admit they have made a mistake,
even one that is obvious to everyone around them.
Once you say, “I was wrong” or “I made a mistake,” the issue is largely over.
From then on, everybody can get on with resolving the problem or achieving the goal.
But as long as a key person is unwilling to admit
that he or she has taken the wrong course,
everything comes to a stop.
We have seen this repeatedly in national politics where the failure of a single person to admit
a mistake or blunder has led to tremendous waste of time and energy for everyone involved,
and often, for the entire nation.
Here is the most important rule of flexibility:
“Be clear about your goal but be flexible about the process of achieving it.
” Always be open to the influence of your superconscious mind.
Remain sensitive to the possibility of serendipitous and synchronous events.
Be open to ideas, inspirations and inputs from other people.
In the New Testament, Jesus said,
“You must become like a little child if you would enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
One interpretation of these words is that you must remain open minded, flexible, calm,
confident and curious if you want to be able to recognize new opportunities and possibilities
as they open up around you on your journey toward your goal.
Resolve to remain flexible and open, no matter what happens.
Remember, there is almost always a better way to accomplish any task, or to achieve any goal.
Your aim should be to be alert and aware to what it might be,
to find it and then to take action in that new direction as quickly as possible.
This will insure that you inevitably reach your goal,
sometimes in the most unexpected and surprising ways.
You see, you can have anything you want in life
if you want it badly enough,
and are willing to pay the price.
Now, the rules regarding the price of success are simple.
There's just two of them.
Number one is you always have to pay full price for success,
and number two
is you always have to pay in advance.
Now, here's some key points on goals,
and please remember these.
The first key point is that your ability to set goals
and to make plans for their accomplishment is the master skill of success.
The development of this skill requires continual practice
and serious personal work,
something that only the top 5% will discipline themselves to do.
You see, setting goals is hard.
Setting goals requires delaying gratification.
Setting goals means taking some time aside and sitting down
and really thinking through what it is you want in each area of your life.
And because this is difficult,
most people won't do it.
Number two,
your goals must be congruent with your basic values.
Your self-esteem comes from engaging in activities
and working toward goals
that are consistent with what you believe to be good and right and important.
Take some time to think through what you believe in
and then structure your goals in harmony
with your innermost convictions.
What are your basic values in life?
What would you live for?
What would you fight for?
What would you sacrifice for?
What would you die for?
What are the most important things to you in life?
And are your goals, are your daily activities
congruent with those values?
Now, one of the things we know about high achieving men and women
is that they're very clear about what it is they believe in.
And one of the things that we know about underachievers and failures
is that they're very vague about what it is they believe in.
Because when you know what your values are,
then it's quite easy for you to make the critical decisions in your life.
But if you don't know what your values are
or if you've never taken the time to think them through,
then you will toss with he wind and you'll go whichever way the wind blows
on almost any area of decision.
Fourth point in goal setting, you must have
a major definite purpose.
One goal that is more important than any other.
You can have many different goals, but you
must have one goal, which is number one.
And many people ask me this question,
they say, Brian, well, can I have two major definite purposes?
And the answer to that is no.
There's a line in the Bible that says
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
And what it means is if you're trying to do two things at once,
or you have two goals with equal priority, you'll end up doing
neither and doing neither of them very well.
The way you choose your major definite purpose
is once you've listed all your goals, you ask yourself,
which is the one goal, the accomplishment
of which would move me more rapidly toward
the accomplishment of all my other goals than
anyone on this list.