Chapter 1: What reasons does Jim Rohn give for not doing well in life?
I used to have that long list of reasons why I wasn't doing well. To explain. You got to explain, right? Otherwise you're going to look bad. I used to have this funny list called reasons for not looking good. I used to blame the government. I mean, you can believe that or not. It was at the top of my list. I had a lecture second to none. The government. That was on my list.
I used to blame taxes. Look what you got left after they take everything. And they expect you to do well. That was on my list there. Prices, that one's easy, right? You walk into the supermarket with $20, come out with a little half bag. I had that on the list. I used to blame the weather. I blamed the traffic. I used to blame my car. I blamed the manufacturers. I used to blame the company.
I blamed company policy. I used to blame the training program. I blame my negative relatives. They were always putting me down. I blame my cynical neighbors. They're just selfish, looking out for themselves. Won't loan you money?
They were on my list.
I used to blame the economy. I blame the community. That's a pretty good list for not doing well, isn't it? I thought it was good. I'll never forget one day, Mr. Shope was very kind, but he was also very blunt. And this was no exception. And I'm glad he was blunt. There's a lot of things I'd have missed if he hadn't have been blunt.
One day with sort of a curious look on his face, he said, Jim, just out of curiosity, tell me, how come you haven't done well up until now? Excellent question. I thought, well, so I won't look too bad, I'll go through my list. And this list I just gave you, I put that on him. And he was very patient. He let me go through the whole thing, the government, the weather.
I went through this whole thing. When I finished, he looked my list over very carefully. He said, Mr. Rohn, big problem with your list. You ain't on it. How brilliant. When I went to work for him a few months later, I learned very quickly to tear up my list, reasons for not doing well, and I threw it away. And I got me a fresh piece of paper. And I put one word on it. Me.
There's a black heritage spiritual that says it's not my mother, nor my father, nor my brother, nor my sister, but it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer. See, I used to blame everything outside. And then let me give you a little philosophy that helped turn my life around. For your notes, here it is. It's not what happens. that determines the quality or the quantity of your life.
It's not what happens. And the reason is because what happens, happens to about everybody. No different. The sun went down on all of us last night. A common event, a happening. And I found out that the same things can happen to two different people. One gets rich and one stays poor. Why is that? It's because it's not what happens, but rather... It's what you do that changes everything.
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Chapter 2: How did Jim Rohn's mentor challenge his excuses for failure?
Of course, it used to be a long time ago, right? When you ran out of money, got to zero, you were all through. Heck, now you can whistle right on by zero, right? They will bury you. That's what they will do.
But see, those are the happenings, right?
Everything can happen. Anything can happen. But it's not the happenings, it's what you do about it. Somebody says, yeah, but you don't understand the disappointments I've had. Come on, everybody's had their share. Disappointments are not special gifts reserved for the poor. Everybody has them. The difference is what you do about it. It's not the weather.
I used to blame the weather, and I discovered it rains on the rich. So see, that won't help. Two men wake up one morning, there's a rainstorm on. One of them looks out his window, sees the rainstorm, and he says, wow, what a storm. With weather like this, they can't expect you to go out and make sales. He stays home.
Same morning, the other guy looks out his window, sees the same storm, says, wow, what a storm. But he says, you know what, with weather like this, what a great day to go out and make sales. Most everybody will probably be home, especially the salesman. See, that's the difference in how your life works out. It's not what happens, it's what you do.
So here's one of the key questions of the evening. Starting tomorrow, what are you going to do that'll make a change in your life's direction? Good question. What are you gonna do starting tomorrow that'll make a difference? Now see, if you don't do something starting tomorrow that'll make a difference, guess what? It's gonna be the same.
And see, that way you can guess what the next five years are gonna be like. Look at the last five. Because the next five are gonna be like the last five, unless you, major key, tomorrow, change it all. or change a little, or change something, or don't change. It's choice time, you can do whatever you want. But it's nice to know any day you wish you can change your whole life.
What can you do starting tomorrow that'll make a difference? Good question. What can you do with economic chaos, massive disappointment? What can you do with a broken heart? What can you do when it won't work? Good question.
So if I had a word with you tonight, one on one, just you and me, I think my personal advice to you would be this year, 1981, reach down inside of you and come up with some more of those remarkable human gifts. They're there waiting to be utilized. And then change anything for you you want to change. And I challenge you to do that because you can change.
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Chapter 3: What philosophy did Jim Rohn adopt to change his life?
Get excited over your ability to make yourself do the necessary things. What could you make yourself do starting tomorrow that would change it off? No telling. Now see, that's exciting. On any given day, you can massively change the direction of your life. Murder is a clear example that any one person on any given day can forever alter the course of their life.
It just happens to be a negative act. But just as sure as you can commit a negative act, you can also commit a positive act and forever alter your life whenever you wish. Now that's exciting. And whatever that act might be that changes your life, The guy finally takes a shotgun to his car and blows out every window, destroys every tire, puts a hundred rounds in this shabby old thing.
And he says, I have driven this embarrassing thing for the last time. And not only will I never drive it again, nobody else will ever drive it again. And he lets that shuddering thing stand there for a while as a monument to the day he said, the day my life changes. Now who can do that? Anybody. When can you do it? Whatever day you pick. Now here's the key to discipline.
Start with the little disciplines, get excited over the little disciplines and get right on those because those will lead to the big ones. You can't handle the big challenges in life unless you take on the little ones. Make a list of all the things you can do, get right on those, discipline yourself for those, both for the results and for the muscle and for the practice.
So that when life hands you some big challenges, you'll be ready, you'll have the muscle. But see, if you don't handle the small ones, you can't take care of the big ones Okay, here's what else it takes for life change. Self-motivation. Key phrase, self-motivation. I don't know why we call it self-motivation. It's really the only kind there is. You've got to motivate yourself.
Because I found out you can't change people. They can change themselves, but you can't change them. Lord knows some I've tried. But see, it won't work. People have to change themselves. I learned some of those lessons early. I built a little sales organization way back in those early days. I'm 25 and I had some nice people. I said, I'm gonna make these people successful if it kills me.
I almost died. I mean, you can't do that. See, I discovered this. Good people are not trained, they're found. You find good people. You don't make them good. You find them good. Training really is for the purpose of finding good people. You don't need much instruction for a good person. But too much training probably means you got the wrong. So you've got to find the right people.
That's the key to getting a good job done. One of the major things we learn in management, lesson one, don't send your ducks to eagle school. Because it won't help. I mean, I'm telling you, it won't help no matter how good your school is. And the little eagle badge and little eagle hat, I'm telling you, it won't help. It won't help. You can tell whether your school's done any good, right?
Is when it's over, right? The duck goes for his first rabbit and makes him a friend. You say, no, no, no. Anyway, so it takes self-motivation to really alter your life. And you don't want to give self-motivation away to somebody else and make it somebody else motivating you. The guy says, boy, if somebody just come by and turn me on, what if they don't show up?
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Chapter 4: What key question should you ask to change your life's direction?
They come from the Bible. Now, again, I'm an amateur. OK, when it comes to the Bible, I'm not a pro. So you'll sort of have to take my way of putting it. But here they are. The first one is the law of use. The law of use. And it goes something like this. Whatever you don't use, you lose. Lack of use causes loss. On this planet, maybe not the next one, but on this one.
If you tie your arm to your body, leave it there long enough, you'll never use it again. It's over for the arm. Now it may not be over, but it's over for the arm. The only way to keep the use of this arm is what? Keep using it. If you quit, you lose automatically. They don't bring it up for a vote. You lose automatically when you quit.
Now the same thing that goes for your arm goes for your brain, mentality. The same thing goes for all the human virtues. Ambition, unused, declines. Strong feelings, unused, diminish. It doesn't grow. It diminishes. Faith unused decreases. It's a law. Vitality unused diminishes. Energy unused decreases. The guy says, well, I'm going to save up my energy. You can't do that.
That's like trying to save today, put it on the end of the year. See, you can't do that. They'll come take you away. If you don't use today, what? It's lost. The guy says, well, I work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for it. See, that's foolish. You could have done that anyway. Today unused is lost. A talent unused is lost. An ability unused is lost.
So here's one of the key expressions of the evening. Take a new inventory of yourself. Starting tomorrow, new project. Take a new inventory. And make sure that all of your talent and ability and mentality and ingenuity and vitality and strong feelings, faith, courage, make sure that all you've got is being used. Otherwise you lose.
Now, one of the best illustrations of the law of use is a Bible story called the parable of the talents. The talent story, interesting story if you haven't read it in a while, just review it. It's a good story. An ancient story says there was a master with three servants. He got them together one day and he said to the three, I've got these talents.
And in those ancient days, a talent was a measure of gold. And he said to the three servants, take these talents and see what you can do with them while I'm gone. He said, I'm taking a journey and I'll be gone for a while. When I come back, we'll get together, go over the book, see how you did. He said, here's five of these talents for you. Five. Here's two of them for you. Two.
And here's one for you. One. The master said, take those talents, see what you can do with them. When I come back, we'll get together, we'll go over it all. The servant said, okay, master takes off. According to the ancient story, the master comes back from his trip. When he gets back, he gets the three servants together. And as he said he would, he asks, how did it go with those talents?
You were five, what happened? That servant said, well, I took the five talents you gave me and I put them to work. A little shaky at first, but he said things finally got rolling. And he said, I poured it on. And he said, my talents grew to 7, 8, 9, 10. He said, I doubled my talents from 5 to 10. Books will show. Master said, one heck of a job. Or something like that.
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Chapter 5: What are the three steps to personal development suggested by Jim Rohn?
Remember me with the funny list? I thought those are the reasons why it isn't working out well. And then Mr. Shoaff gave me the clue that helped me figure it all out. He said, Mr. Owen, I have another answer for you. There's another way to quote this law that'll show you where the problem is so you can go to work on it right away.
All you need to know is where the problem is, then you can go to work on it. So he quoted me the law another way and I found out what my problem was. Here's the way you quote the law. Whatever you reap is what you've sown. Now I knew what my problem was. Whatever you reap is what you've sown. If you don't like the crop, who do you look up? Answer, whoever planted it.
And where do you find who planted your crop? Answer, in the mirror. Thank you for listening. Continue strengthening your mind by subscribing and listening to our other episodes.