What Brian Tracy told me about Jack Canfield’s #1 Success Principle

I met Brian Tracy about fifteen years ago in Milwaukee in my ‘earlier’ days. I had bought this VIP ticket so had a chance to talk to him during the break. Feeling nervous and rather intimidated by being face to face with a ‘famous person’, I blurted out a completely thoughtless question. He’d just spent?ninety?minutes talking about the keys to success and I said, “Your life story is remarkable. How did you do it?” He looked slightly exasperated at my broad question as if to say: “Didn’t you hear anything I just said?” but he quickly composed himself and replied: “If I had to pick just one thing, it’s this: Most people take about a 6/10 responsibility for most areas of their life. If you want to be really successful, you’ve got to that get to a 9 or a 10.”

The mistake I made that day and that I’ve made a lot since then is that I’ve assumed?I wasn’t ‘most people’?and therefore I was?never?a 6/10. That day I reacted to that observation the way I suspect most people do. We say to ourselves: “I’m pretty good (‘above average’) at most things so I am not ‘most people’. I could never be a 6/10 except at things I don’t care about.”

Look harder at your results. In which area of your life do you?not?like the outcomes you’re getting?

1.????Acknowledge areas that are mediocre or not going well and decide if you want to change them for the better.

When I hit my all-time low in January 2019, there were too many areas to mention. Even though I felt quite lost, I did commit to change by focusing on a few of them by doing small things I could control. I knew I needed to clean up my own act and stop expecting anyone or anything else to change. I suspected it would be a slow process, but I had to rebuild my self-respect. It’s been a transformative journey since then and every week I continue to learn and, more importantly,?experiment?by applying new things that help speed up progress because now I know for sure:

Only you can make these improvements and, if you don’t, then things will stay the same. You’re hopefully not at such a low point BUT there is an area or two in your life where your results are causing you some grief.?

You have three choices: accept the situation (and do nothing), work on changing it, or remove yourself from the situation.

2.????If you want to be really successful in your life, then you have to?totally?give up blaming, complaining and making excuses

?They are all a complete waste of time. None of them move you toward your goals.?This is Jack Canfield’s very first principle in?The Success Principles.

You create every outcome in your life.

If there’s a result you don’t like, it is YOU who created or?allowed?it. Not anyone else. YOU.

Until you accept this, the problem will always be ‘out there’ (in your mind) beyond your control and making you the victim.

This is an easy topic to dismiss because you’ve heard it before, and it can be hard to stomach. But the reality is that few people live it. They get worn down and ambivalent or accept mediocre outcomes as ‘what I’m used to’, ‘this is just the way it is’ or, worse, ‘this is just who I am.’ I was alarmed yesterday when I heard my eight-year-old son announce: “I’m not good with change.” I thought to myself, “He’s labelled himself already?!”

?For you, is this really how you want your life to play out if everything continues as it is??If you’re the author of your script, you can write the rest of the script differently.?

Even if an act of nature or an accident affects you, you may well understandably go through the five stages of grief, but at some point, you will still have one life to make the most of.

The best resource on this topic is?Jack Canfield’s?The Success Principles Workbook.?It helps you uncover what you blame your lack of success on and how to take ownership for these thoughts.

For example:

“Instead of blaming?(e.g.) a lack of prospects?for?(e.g.) my slow business growth,

I could do this:?(fill in blank) (e.g.) commit to a 20-point daily prospecting system; join a local networking group; organise bi-monthly business events to expand my network; volunteer on a committee to build relationships with more affluent people etc.

It also gets you to think through what your biggest complaints are and what you can DO instead of pointlessly complaining about them. This is surprisingly helpful because unwittingly we have the same revolving thoughts going through our head and too often these are worries and complaints.

You might say to yourself: “that sounds hard.” Well, it probably won’t be easy to address, but remember:

If you want to be really successful in your life, then you have to give up:

Blaming

Complaining

Making excuses

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3.????Process through the difficult situation?

Canfield points out that:?“Many of the problems that remain unresolved for us are due to one thing: We don’t see that we are part of the problem.”

His workbook contains some incredibly insightful questions to address your troubling situation such as:

How are you creating it or allowing it to happen?

What are you pretending not to know?

What is the payoff for keeping it like it is?

What is the cost for not changing it?

What would you rather be experiencing?

What actions will you take to create that?

By when will you take that action?

My favourite ‘quicker’ solution when I’m stuck on something negative is to grab my journal and I write the question: “How do I solve this?” Sometimes I need to process the frustration or problem first before I feel ready to answer the question.

The solution to whatever is bothering you is public knowledge: you can find the answers. The real question is whether you want to take full responsibility for it or remain on the lower-level prison-like discomfort of what’s ‘normal’ at that moment. I say it this bluntly because I’ve done this to myself for too long with certain things. I know how easy it is to deceive yourself and justify mediocrity.

What muddies the waters is that underlying a lack of action might well be the unconscious thought: “I don’t really deserve that high level of health/wealth/love/joy”.?This is even more reason to get serious and, yes, obsessive about making consistent small changes in your life that build self-respect.

Clint Eastwood said:?“Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.”

Once you start?doing your best?at increasingly more things, you will in time realise that you were wrong to limit your thinking about what you’re capable of accomplishing. It’s not a fast process, but powerful things rarely happen fast. Seeds take time to flower.

The real question is: are YOU going to step up now?

I urge you to face what’s not working and decide to get really proactive about addressing it. You are going to get knocked down as you do. This is life testing your resolve. If it were an easy challenge, you would have figured it out already. But you do want better for yourself and are far more capable than you might think today. The very fact that others have done it is proof you can too.

Let me know if I can help you or your company with training, coaching or resources to address these things.

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Own it!

Matt

Copyright Matt Anderson, 2022