The Major Key to Your Better Future is You
Introduction: The Ultimate Challenge and the Ultimate Promise
Here is the great challenge of life, and within it lies an even greater promise: you can have more than you've got because you can become more than you are. That is the ultimate promise of human potential. But it has a counterpart, an inescapable truth that serves as a constant check on our ambition: unless you change how you are, you'll always have what you got.
I have found in my experience that income does not far exceed personal development. Sometimes, income takes a lucky jump, but unless you grow out to where it is, it'll usually come back to where you are. Life has strange ways. If somebody hands you a million dollars, you best become a millionaire quickly so you get to keep the money. Otherwise, it'll disappear.
This brings us to the central theme of our time together, the principle that changed my life: The Major Key to Your Better Future is You. Personal development is not a side project; it is the primary driver of your success. The major question to ask on the job is not, "What are you getting?" The major question to ask is, "What are you becoming?"
Because true happiness is not contained in what you get. Happiness is contained in what you become.
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1. The Foundational Law: The Economics of Personal Value
To transform your financial and professional future, you must first understand the fundamental economics of the marketplace. For too long, many of us have operated under faulty thinking—that we get paid for our time. It's just not true. The first lesson of economics is simple, but it is profound.
We primarily get paid for value… bringing value to the marketplace… you don't get paid for the time.
It takes time to bring value to the marketplace, but it is the value, not the time, that determines your reward. Once you grasp this, a pivotal question emerges, one that holds the key to unlocking your economic potential: "Is it possible to become twice as valuable at the marketplace and make twice as much money in the same time?"
The answer is an unequivocal yes. The secret was revealed to me by my mentor, Mr. Shoaff, in a piece of advice that changed everything: "learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job."
This is the powerful takeaway. To develop an above-average income, you must first become an above-average person. Develop an above-average handshake. Cultivate an above-average smile, an above-average excitement, and an above-average intensity to win. See, that'll change everything. Probably one of the most frustrating experiences in life is looking for an above-average job with above-average pay without becoming an above-average person. It’s called frustration.
Understanding why you must become more valuable is the first step. Understanding how to navigate the world while you do so is the next.
2. Navigating Your Reality: The Four Major Lessons of Life
Think of life and business not as a straight line, but as a cycle. If you see your journey correctly, you can prepare for its challenges and capitalize on its opportunities. The most accurate metaphor is one we see every year.
"Life and business is like the changing seasons."
"You cannot change the seasons, but you can change yourself."
You cannot get rid of January by tearing it off the calendar. The last six thousand years of recorded history reads like this: opportunity mixed with difficulty. It isn't going to change. The only way life gets better for you is not by chance, but by change—when you get better. Here are the four major lessons to master this reality.
- Learn to Handle the Winters. They come right after fall with regularity. There's all kinds of winters, right? The winter when you can't figure it out, the winter when it all goes smash, the winter when it turns belly up. Personal winters, when your heart is smashed in a thousand pieces and the nights are unusually long and your prayers seem to go no higher than your head. You cannot wish these times away. Before I understood, when it was winter, I used to wish it was summer. Then Mr. Shoaff gave me a part of his very unique philosophy: "Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems, wish for more skills." You get stronger, wiser, and better not by avoiding winter, but by learning to master it.
- Learn to Take Advantage of the Spring. Just as surely as winter comes, spring always follows. Spring is called opportunity. But just because spring rolls around is no sign you’re going to look good come fall. You must learn to take advantage of it. Life is brief. A handful of springs are all we are given, so you must get to work quickly. In fact, you have to get good at one of two things in life: planting in the spring or begging in the fall. Don't just let the seasons pass you by.
- Learn to Protect Your Crops All Summer. Sure enough, as soon as you have planted your garden, the busy bugs and the noxious weeds are out to take it. All good will be attacked. All values must be defended. Every garden will be invaded; not to think so is naive. You must tend to your marriage, your friendships, your business, and your values all summer long, preventing the intruder from taking the good you have started.
- Learn to Reap in the Fall Without Complaint. This is one of the highest forms of human maturity: taking full and complete responsibility for what happens to you. When the harvest comes, you learn to reap it in one of two ways. If you have done well, you reap without apology. If you have not done well, you reap without complaint. This is the day you pass from childhood to adulthood—the day you accept total ownership of your outcomes.
This act of taking absolute ownership is the most profound shift a person can make.
3. The Day You Become an Adult: Taking Full Responsibility
A profound shift occurs the moment an individual moves from blame to responsibility. This is the true rite of passage into adulthood. For years, I had a long list of reasons why I wasn't doing well. I used to blame:
- The government
- The high taxes
- The prices of everything
- The weather
- My negative relatives
- My cynical neighbors
- The economy
One day I put this list on Mr. Shoaff. He was very patient; he let me go through the whole thing. When I finished, he looked my list over very carefully and said, "Mr. Rohn, big problem with your list. You ain't on it."
How brilliant. In that moment, I learned to tear up my list of reasons and got a fresh piece of paper. I put one word on it: "Me." This led me to a philosophy that turned my life around.
It's not what happens that determines the quality… of your life… it's what you do that changes everything.
What happens, happens to about everybody. The rain falls on the rich and the poor alike. Two men wake up one morning to a rainstorm. One looks out his window and says, "Wow, what a storm! With weather like this, they can't expect you to go out and make sales." He stays home. The other guy looks out his window at the same storm and says, "Wow, what a storm! You know what? What a great day to go out and make sales—most everybody will probably be home, especially the salesmen!" It is not the event, but our response to it, that charts our destiny.
Once you have adopted this mindset of responsibility, you need a mechanism to direct it. That mechanism is the power of setting goals.
4. From Wish to Reality: The Power of Setting Goals
Without clearly defined goals, it is easy to let life deteriorate into "making a living" instead of "designing a life." We all have a choice: existence or substance. Breaking free requires a plan. The catalyst for achieving incredible things isn't just knowing what you want, but knowing why you want it. The great secret is that reasons come first, answers come second. Life has a mysterious way of hanging on to all the answers and only gives them up to the people that are inspired by reasons.
Sometimes those reasons are nitty-gritty and hard. Just before I met Mr. Shoaff, I heard a knock at my door. It was a little Girl Scout, selling cookies. She gave me one of the finest sales presentations I'd ever heard. Two dollars. And with a big smile, she asked me to buy. I wanted to. Big problem: I'm broke. I don't have two dollars. I'm a father, a husband, I've been to college, I'm working, and I don't have two dollars. For some reason, I didn't want to tell her that, so I did what I thought was next best: I lied to her. I said, "Look, I've already bought lots of Girl Scout cookies." It seemed to get me off the hook. She said, "That's wonderful!" and went away. When she left, I closed the door and said to myself, "I don't want to live like this anymore." I had it with being broke, and I had it with lying. It was one of those reasons.
Another of my nitty-gritty reasons was Budget Finance. I had fallen for one of those consolidation loans, where you take all your little hard-to-pay bills and put them into one big impossible-to-pay bill. I would get behind, and this one guy used to call me day and night, harass me, threaten me. There was nothing I could do about it, but I never forgot how he treated me. When I met Mr. Shoaff and the money started to flow, that was one of my first projects. I poured it on, day and night, and finally put all the money together. I picked a day for the payoff, put the money in small bills in a big briefcase, and walked into their office. His desk was about three back. I walked right up to it, opened up this briefcase, and dumped this pile of money all over his desk. I said, "Count it. It's all there. I will never be back." That might not be noble, but I’m telling you, it can be the day that turns your life around.
To structure this process, we must understand the core components of effective goal setting.
- The Two Types of Goals
- Long-Range Goals: These are your dreams. What you want to see, do, and become over the next three, five, or ten years. It is a fundamental truth that "without dreams and visions, people perish." You must have something to go for that inspires the heart and soul.
- Short-Range Goals: These are your goals for tomorrow, this week, this month, and this year. We call these your confidence builders. Each short-range goal you accomplish builds the emotional muscle and belief required to pursue your dreams.
- The Three Categories of Goals
- Economic Goals: This is where you meticulously plan your goals for income, business, and profits. Economics plays a major role in everybody's life, and it ought to be well-planned. Success is simply doing what the failures won't do.
- Things: Create a list of all the things you want, both small and large. Part of the fun of having a list is checking it off. When you achieve something major, celebrate it. We grow from two experiences: the pain of losing and the joy of winning. Amplify both.
- Personal Development Goals: This is the most important category. Set goals to become stronger, more decisive, a better speaker, or a more effective leader. Why? Because "the person you become... is what attracts good things to your life."
This structure provides the "what," but the "why"—the true driving force—comes from a deeper, more emotional place.
5. The Emotional Triggers: Igniting the Day That Turns Your Life Around
Logic and planning are the blueprints, but it is powerful human emotion that provides the force for massive change. Human beings are emotional creatures. An entire life can be altered in the single day one of these powerful emotions is ignited.
- Disgust. There is no force for change quite like the moment a person finally says, "I've had it." The man's finally had it with mediocrity. He's had it with those awful, sick feelings inside, knowing his wife is at the grocery store looking at two cans of beans, one marked 37 cents, one marked 39 cents. And the guy is sick inside, knowing his wife is going to buy the 37-cent can to save two cents. The guy finally says, "I've had it being on my knees in the dust looking for pennies. We're not living like this anymore." That could be the day that turns your life around.
- Decision. Decision-making is a profoundly emotional process, sometimes feeling like an "inner Civil War." We wrestle with ourselves, caught in the knots of uncertainty. But for progress, you must decide. The best advice I ever got on this came from a wealthy friend who said: "If it's easy, do it easy. If it's hard, do it hard. Just get it done." Many times, after you've decided, getting on with it is easier than deciding.
- Desire. Desire is a fire that comes from within, but it can be triggered by almost any human experience—a book, a song, a conversation, a setback. You never know which one is going to turn it all on. For this reason, you must welcome every human experience. The same wall that keeps out disappointment also keeps out happiness. Don't let life kill you, but you must let it touch you.
- Resolve. This is the ultimate commitment, embodied by the two most powerful words in the language: "I will." A man says, "I will climb the mountain. They've told me it's too high, it's too far, it's too rocky. But it's my mountain. I will climb it. Pretty soon you'll see me waving from the top or dead on the side, because I ain't coming back." The best definition I ever heard came from a junior high school girl who said resolve means "promising yourself you will never give up."
Once you have made the emotional decision to change, there is one final, non-negotiable ingredient required to make it real.
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Conclusion: The Choice is Yours, The Time is Now
In the final analysis, change is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. A better future does not get better by hope; it gets better by a plan. All the disgust, desire, and resolve in the world are meaningless without the final, critical step.
That step is Action.
You cannot just be a listener of ideas; you must become a doer of deeds. Whatever it takes to get you to try harder, read more, and go for your goals, you must do it.
I leave you with this final, galvanizing challenge.
"If you don't like how it is for you, change it. If it doesn't suit you, change it. If it doesn't please you, change it... I challenge you to do that because you can change. You don't ever have to be the same again after tonight, only by choice. If you don't like your present address, change it. You're not a tree."