Make Things Happen

Take charge of you life and Make Things Happen. Learn the skills needed to move you toward success. Be inspired to keep you motivated along the way.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Where do You Go For Your Intellectual Feast? by Jim Rohn

I've posted here and mention often when speaking that I am an avid reader. Here is a great little article and some additional quotes about books and reading that I firmly believe in. Take Jim Rohn's advice! - Alain


Where do You Go For Your Intellectual Feast? by Jim Rohn (excerpted from Leading an Inspired Life)

Pity the man who has a favorite restaurant, but not a favorite author. He's picked out a favorite place to feed his body, but he doesn't have a favorite place to feed his mind!

Why would this be? Have you heard about the accelerated learning curve? From birth, up until the time we are about eighteen, our learning curve is dramatic, and our capacity to learn during this period is just staggering. We learn a tremendous amount very fast. We learn language, culture, history, science, mathematics... everything!

For some people, the accelerated learning process will continue on. But for most, it levels off when they get their first job. If there are no more exams to take, if there's no demand to get out paper and pencil, why read any more books? Of course, you will learn some things through experience. Just getting out there - sometimes doing it wrong and sometimes doing it right - you will learn.

Can you imagine what would happen if you kept up an accelerated learning curve all the rest of your life? Can you imagine what you could learn to do, the skills you could develop, the capacities you could have? Here's what I'm asking you to do: be that unusual person who keeps up his learning curve and develops an appetite for always trying to find good ideas.

One way to feed your mind and educate your philosophy is through the writings of influential people. Maybe you can't meet the person, but you can read his or her books. Churchill is gone, but we still have his books. Aristotle is gone, but we still have his ideas. Search libraries for books and programs. Search magazines. Search documentaries. They are full of opportunities for intellectual feasting.

In addition to reading and listening, you also need a chance to do some talking and sharing. I have some people in my life who help me with important life questions, who assist me in refining my own philosophy, weighing my values and pondering questions about success and lifestyle.

We all need association with people of substance to provide influence concerning major issues such as society, money, enterprise, family, government, love, friendship, culture, taste, opportunity, and community. Philosophy is mostly influenced by ideas, ideas are mostly influenced by education, and education is mostly influenced by the people with whom we associate.

One of the great fortunes of my life was to be around Mr. Shoaff those five years. During that time he shared with me at dinner, during airline flights, at business conferences, in private conversations and in groups. He gave me many ideas that enabled me to make small daily adjustments in my philosophy and activities. Those daily changes, some very slight, but very important, soon added up to weighty sums.

A big part of the lesson was having Mr. Shoaff repeat the ideas over and over. You just can't hear the fundamentals of life philosophy too often. They are the greatest form of nutrition, the building blocks for a well-developed mind.

I'm asking that you feed your mind just as you do your body. Feed it with good ideas, wherever they can be found. Always be on the lookout for a good idea - a business idea, a product idea, a service idea, an idea for personal improvement. Every new idea will help to refine your philosophy. Your philosophy will guide your life, and your life will unfold with distinction and pleasure.

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn

Vitamins for the Mind by Jim Rohn
Books/Library/Reading


Miss a meal if you have to, but don't miss a book.

Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way.

Most homes valued at over $250,000 have a library. That should tell us something.

Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written. And guess what? It's all available. All you have to do is go to the library. And there's probably a library in every neighborhood.

Some people read so little they have rickets of the mind.

I now have one of the better libraries. I admit that I haven't read everything in my library, but I feel smarter just walking in it.

Don't just read the easy stuff. You may entertained by it, but you will never grow from it.

The book you don't read won't help.

Books are easy to find and easy to buy. A paperback these days only costs six or seven dollars. You can borrow that from your kids!

It isn't what the book costs; it's what it will cost if you don't read it.

Reproduced with permission from the Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine. For more of Jim Rohn's great wisdom, check out his link in the blog links.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Time Quotes

"Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it , but you can spend it. Once you've lost it, you can never get it back."
- Harvey Mackay

"Time has a way of getting away from us, because we never have a grip on it during the day..."
- Doug Firebaugh

"Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time."
- Jim Rohn

"When you kill time, you kill your opportunities for success."
- Denis Waitley

"Time is a finite resource and we all place infinite demands on it. I view time as an opportunity, as a chance to make choices about how I spend that resource -- because it is our choice. And that's something people often forget."
- Maggie Wilderotter

"The quality of life is the quality of your time management."
- Brian Tracy

"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."
- Earl Nightingale

Use your time to Make Things Happen! - Alain

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Goals

Setting goals is one of the very best ways to help you achieve what you want. To motivate us, goals must have purpose and direction. Sometimes people set goals without thinking about their reasons for wanting to attain them. So to ensure our goals have purpose and direction, we need to also look at our intentions. One way to think about this would be to look at goals as the plans you pencil in each day and intentions as the reason you pull out the pencil in the first place.

So when setting goals we want to set goals that take us in the direction of our intentions. Therefore, we must set specific goals. Take exercise for an example. Rather than just saying you want to look better or feel better, determine what you specifically want to accomplish. Do you want to lose 10 pounds? 20 pounds? Do you want to run a six minute mile? A five minute mile? An eight minute mile? Do you want to bench press 300 pounds? 350 pounds? What is the specific result you want to achieve?

There are many goal-setting resources available. There are books, tape and CD programs, on-line courses, and live seminars that focus on goal setting. Many of them are very similar. It is not so important as to which program of goal setting you follow as it is that you set goals and achieve them.

If you want to make things happen, you must determine what you want to make happen, set that goal, and go for it!

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

New Negotiation Articles

I have posted five new Negotiation Articles in the articles section under Make Things Happen at www.burrese.com

The new articles are from my monthly columms for The Montana Lawyer magazine and include:

Negotiation Success is in the Planning

Listen Up

Assumptions

What Makes a Good Negotiator?

Strategy vs. Tactics


I hope you enjoy the articles and that they help with your negotiations and making things happen.

All the best,

Alain