People who earn a lot—the top 20% in any field—make a greater contribution and get better results than people who earn a little-the bottom 80%.
Your work and earning life is very much like a marathon. All the runners assemble from different places at the starting line. The gun goes off! The runners begin to run, at different speeds. Some people sprint to take the lead quickly. Others go a little slower, preferring to run steadily over the long course. Others start off slowly and fall further back in the pack throughout the race, finally coming in so far behind that almost everyone has gone home by the time they cross the finish line.
In life, we all start off at the same place. When we get out of high school or college, we have few, if any, marketable skills. We take the first job that we can get and go to work. At that point, most people settle into the hum-drum of work life, doing what they are told to do, coming in at nine and leaving at five, and going home and watching television in the evenings.
But this is not for you. The race is on! The good news is that most people do not know that they are in a race so they are easy to beat.
From the time you take your first job until the time you retire, you are the president of your own personal services corporation. You are the president of an entrepreneurial company with one employee: yourself! You have one product to sell in the competitive marketplace: your personal services.
Throughout the history of economics, there has been only one way to increase your income, and that is to "add value." Every day in every way, you must be looking for ways to add value to your work, to yourself, your employer, and your customers.
Perhaps the greatest question you can ask repeatedly is: "What can I do to increase the value of my service to my customers today?"
Successful people never rest. They read continually in their field, looking for ideas and insights that will help them to add greater value. They listen to audio programs in their cars, seeking ways to contribute more to their business and to their customers. They attend seminars, and plug into the preeminent source of continuous learning in the world.
One of the most important qualities of successful people is that they are highly responsible. They do not make excuses or blame others. They do not criticize or complain. They say, "If it’s to be, it’s up to me."
But responsible for what? They are, first of all, responsible for setting goals and writing down how they will achieve them. They are responsible for working on those goals every hour of every day. But they are also responsible to themselves, to earn the very most of which they are capable throughout their working lives. In this sense, they are responsible to their spouses and children, who depend upon them to earn a good living and to provide a good life.
Don’t Waste Your Potential
Perhaps the greatest tragedy in our society is that of "wasted potential." Many people have the ability to earn two or three times the amount of income they are presently enjoying by simply adding one or two new skills to their skill set.
Over the years, I have trained more than 5 million people in 47 countries. Many thousands of those people have told me and written to me giving examples of how one new skill enabled them to increase their income by 500% and even 1,000%. Many people go from rags to riches with one additional skill. Many people go from living in rented accommodation, worrying about money, to living in big houses on the hill, driving new cars and putting their children in private schools with one additional skill.
The terrible tragedy would be for you to go through your life with the ability to earn three times, four times, five times what you are earning today by simply dedicating yourself to continuous learning, and upgrading your skill set on a regular basis.
The greatest miracle of success is continuous learning, continuous personal and professional development. And just like physical fitness, you have to work at mental fitness every day. "If you don’t use it, you lose it."
The wonderful thing is that all the answers have been found. Every skill that you need to learn to increase your income radically and permanently has already been discovered and is already being taught somewhere.
Perhaps the best investment you could ever make is to buy stock in yourself. Realize that you are your most valuable asset. Your ability to earn money is the most precious thing you have. Everything that you do to increase your ability to add value and to serve other people increases the amount of money you earn and the quality of life you enjoy.
Go for it!
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