Mind Power

By Brian Tracy

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. Every successful entrepreneur or business person has been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before someone else did. Here are the five rules for success.

1. Find a Need and Fill It
Human needs and wants are unlimited. Therefore, the opportunities for entrepreneurship and financial success are unlimited as well. The only constraint on the business opportunities available to you are the limits you place on your own imagination.

2. Find a Problem and Solve It
Wherever there is a widespread and unsolved customer problem, there is an opportunity for you to start and build a successful business.

Once upon a time, before photocopies, the only way to type multiple copies of a letter was with carbon paper places between sheets of stationary. But a single mistake would require the typist to go through and erase the mistakes on every single copy. This was enormously clumsy and time consuming.

Then a secretary working for small company in Minneapolis began mixing flour with nail varnish in order to white out the mistake she was making in her typing. Soon, people in other offices began asking for it. The demand became so great that she quit her job and began working full-time manufacturing what she called “Liquid Paper.” A few years later, the Gillette Corporation came along and bought her out for $47 million cash.

“Rapidly Increase Sales, Cut Costs and Boost Your Profits!” Just like you, I’ve laid awake worrying about money…I’ve started businesses with an idea and borrowed cash…I’ve made mistakes and had to try again to succeed. Believe it or not, profitability in any market is predictable—and I want to show you how to cash in year after year. Click for more >>

3. Unlimited Opportunities
There are problems everywhere. Your job is to find one of these problems and solve it better than it has been solved in the past. Find a problem that everyone has and see if you can’t come up with a solution for it. Find a way to supply a product or service better, cheaper, faster, or easier. Use your imagination.

4. Focus on the Customer
The key to success in business is to focus on the customer. Become obsessed with your customer. Become fixated on your customer’s wants, needs, and desires. Think of your customer all the time. Think of what your customer is willing to pay for. Think about your customer’s problems. See yourself as if you were working for your customer.

5. Bootstrap Your Way to Success
Once you have come up with a problem or idea, resolve to invest your time, talent, and energy instead of your money to get started. Most great personal fortunes in the United States were started with an idea and with the sale of personal services.

Most great fortunes were started by people with no money, resources, or backing. They were started by individuals who came up with an idea and who then put their whole heart into producing a product or service that someone else would buy.

Action Exercise
Look for business opportunities everywhere, develop, an entrepreneurial mind-set, and continually be open and curious about the needs not satisfied and problems not solved.

One idea is all you need to make your first million.

“How You Can Start, Build, Manage, or Turnaround Any Business” Most people who start or manage a business simply don’t have the skills needed to make their business profitable. It’s not their fault. They just haven’t learned HOW to build a profitable business. What you will learn in this program will give you the essential tools for creating a business that can flourish in any market. Click for more >>

By Brian Tracy

The future belongs to the risk takers, not the security seekers. Life is perverse in the sense that the more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.

Action is Everything

If learning about success was all that it took to do great things with your life, then your success would be guaranteed. The bookstores are full of self-help books, each one of them loaded with ideas that you can use to be more successful. The fact is, however, that all the best advice in the world will only help you if you can motivate yourself to take persistent, continuous action in the direction of your goals until you succeed.

Self-Discipline is the Core Quality

The single most important quality of success is self-discipline. Self-discipline means that you have the ability, within yourself, based on your strength of character and willpower, to do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. Character is the ability to follow through on a resolution after the enthusiasm with which the resolution was made has passed. It is not what you learn that is decisive for your future. It is whether or not you can discipline yourself to pay the price, over and over, until you finally obtain your objective.

“Accomplish More in a Month Than Most People Accomplish in a Year” Your ability to discipline yourself “to do what you should, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not,” is the key to becoming a great person and living a great life. When you develop the habits of self-discipline, you will accomplish more in a month than most people accomplish in a year. Click for more >>

Persisitence is Self-Discipline in Action

Perhaps the most important demonstration of self-discipline is your level of persistence when the going gets tough. Persistence is self-discipline in action. Persistence is the true measure of individual human character. Your persistence is, in fact, the real measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed.

The Common Quality of Success in History

The history of the human race is the story of the triumph of persistence. Every great man or women has had to endure tremendous trials and tribulations before reaching the heights of success and achievement. The endurance and perseverance is what made them great.

Your Guarantee of Eventual Success

Calvin Coolidge, a president who was so reluctant to speak in public that he was given the nickname of “Silent Cal,” will go down in history for his simple but memorable words on success. He wrote, “Press on. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”

Action Exercise

Identify the biggest challenge or problem facing you today on the way to achieving your biggest goal. Imagine that it has been sent to test your resolve and desire. Decide that you will never give up.

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“Easy life, early exit”, was the final conviction that I had when I discovered that, the butterfly’s life span is just a day or so. It bids my imagination why this beautiful and graceful creature with free access to a sweet and blissful lifestyle have such a  limited life span.

Everyone would have expected the butterfly to live longer after the end of it challenging phases of formation. Yet the adult butterfly which flies with ease to its destination and has access to nectar as food, dies very quickly due to the kind of life it lives-easy life, early exit.

Easy and spontaneous success always leads to doom and oblivion. This sudden success lacks character which is the paramount factor for a lasting and enduring success. This easy rise extinct the individual of the chance to develop his skills, talents and character in order for him to remain at the top. Growth is nature’s design for life which is the very reality of an individual’s summation of efficiency, maturity and increase over time.

The above truth implies that an easy and spontaneous success-success devoid of time and opportunity for character pruning, and the development of skills and talents-can not increase and endure. The easy success trend should be avoided by anyone who desires a worthwhile future. Like the butterfly’s experience, the  reality of the easy life’s success will always lead to an early and regretful exit.

Together we will celebrate at the top.

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As I sat up last night around 11:33pm thinking of people’s response to the articles on my site, I was forced to make this confession. The beautiful side of it is; I am not in a court room neither was I called upon to make it. My confession may set someone’s passion free, yes! I know what I’m talking about. It never made sense to me when Richard Branson said, “Follow after your passion and the money will come!” .Now I can join his queue to make such a statement: FOLLOW YOUR PASSION…

My confession is that in 2001, I almost quit writing articles. You may ask why? Sometime in school when I had an all night preparation for an exams an inspiration came to write an article like the once you’ve seen on this blog. Yet I had an automobile engineering test to write the next morning. Faced with this dilemma, despite the odds, I kept writing articles and sending them only to my friends, roommates and relatives through their emails. After some months I got discouraged and decided to quit. Why? Because not even one person acknowledged receiving any email from me. In my mind, I felt I was just a pest to others. Worst was that the only guy who acknowledged seeing the article was my roommate and his comment was like a stab to my passion. Listen, no matter how people try (consciously or not) to make you feel bad about your passion, I have come to know they are people in their millions that would celebrate you for it.

My dear roommate told me that; he has just seen one of my long articles that he has never had time to read them. To me this was like a confirmation that nobody needs what I was writing. For you that has not gotten any pat on the back or at least not even a worst comment from a roommate. The fact is that though you think nobody wants what you are doing, many are blessed and look forward to hear or see you again.  Guess what? I stopped sending the mails. Though I was discouraged I could not stop writing the articles. Technically I quit my passion.

Are you currently in this state or about to quit your passion? An enthusiast force, something you love doing, whether you are paid or not is one thing you must not give up. Picture a fish deciding not to swim anymore because nobody watches it. Imagine if it decides to come out of the water to stay on land. Friend, it will not take long, the fish will die. You die faster than normal when you quit your passion; or tread in another person’s habitat.

In our three weeks entrepreneurship training with Dr. Sunny Ojeabase, he confessed that what he is doing in SADC is all he will be doing for the remaining days of this life. This is staying in passion’s atmosphere. People with passion don’t have the word, retirement in their dictionary. If you are counting the remaining years where you will not have to work again, simple! You are working where you do not have passion for. Can you ask the fish when it will retire from the water?

As I stayed for weeks without sending any article and sharing inspiration, a friend sent me a long e-mail to know how I was doing. She even wished me well incase I was not feeling fine. She finally let the cat out of the bag, by reminding me, that she had not received her articles for weeks now. She added on the e-mail that I should send all the once I did not sent for weeks. What she did not know was that I had stopped sending mails. No matter what happens pursue your dreams with passion because there lies your fulfillment in life.

You know I get calls and comment about the articles I have been posting on my blog. It just occurred to me that if I had quit because I could not see the rainbow you would not be reading this article. It just dawned on me that the woman who was once the richest woman (Oprah Winfrey) does nothing else than follow her passion which is organizing shows. Follow your passion no matter whether people are applauding you now or not. Sooner or later, you will be celebrated like Oprah Winfrey.

Follow Your Passion

Together We will get to the Top.

…then go with the mindset of Soichiro Honda

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“Believing deeply in something allows all of us to find tremendous inner strength and to surpass our limitations.”

Soichiro Honda

For a young man that was fascinated by motors at a tender age, what do you think will be his approach to school? This young man stated once that; he was vividly impressed by the sight, but especially the sound, of rice – husking machine on a neighborhood farm. He loved the smell of fuel oil that; stank up in the air, the fire cracker – like noises, the smoke belching out. He called the noise waking from his neighbor’s rice machine a delightful music. I know such sound would have annoyed some of us. With all the passion Soichiro Honda had for engines, he got poor grades in school but this is what he had to say;

“It didn’t upset me very much. My universe revolved elsewhere, around engines, motors and bicycles.”

The man who made this statement is a Japanese engineer and industrialist, and founder of Honda Motor Co., Ltd. The same man who in 1937 began producing piston rings for small engines which lead to the manufacturing of small engines used in motorcycles, and then in 1948 he started producing complete motorcycles as president of the Honda Motor Company. You may know someone else by name Honda but this one turned the company into a billion-dollar multinational that produced the best-selling motorcycles and cars in the world. Today, the company manufactures automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, scooters, robots, jets and jet engines, ATV, water craft, electrical generators, marine engines, lawn and garden equipment, and aeronautical and other mobile technologies.

All these were possible for Soichiro Honda because he knew on time where his passion was. Do you know where your universe revolves round? Poor grades in school did not also upset Jay Jay Okocha much because his universe revolved around the round leather object that twenty two players pursue in a football pitch. But the grades did upset Ben Carson because he must understand what is taught in class to be able to build a universe around neurosurgery. Train your mind to search for relevant facts in the area you want to build your universe around. I have found out that; all these great men never pursued any school’s certificate, they were pursuing their passion. Today you can not name car brands worldwide and not mention Honda; neither can you talk of Neurosurgery and exclude Ben Carson.

But when Honda discovered that even with all his determination he lacked the technical – know – how to go any further he decided to go back to school. He enrolled in some university courses to complete his engineering training. He would be in school in the morning and as soon as the classes were over, he will race to his workshop and try to put what he had learnt into practice. He stayed in school for two years and was finally thrown out. Why?

“The problem was that Honda as stubborn as ever, skipped all of his classes except those dealing with manufacturing parts.”

He did every thing possible to make the director see, he did not need the diploma but the knowledge. Yet the director considered it a slap on him. With the facts he has already acquired he returned to his factory and produced a better piston. Before I continue, why sincerely do you go to school? Or let’s say for those who had finished and our working why did you go to school? Only those with the mindset of Soichiro Honda can gain from school. You must know the universe you desire to build your life around and pour you time, energy and resources to study it. This mindset required for greatness has not changed till date. Today especially in Nigeria Honda cars are every where even my mentor uses one. Go to school with the mindset of Honda and you will become a global figure to reckon with.

…with the mindset of Honda.

Together we will celebrate at the top.

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“The greatest revolution of my generation is the discovery that individuals, by changing their inner attitude of minds can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

William James

There is a mind set and strategy adopted by all gold medalist or award winners including Nobel Prize winners. I have a role to play, if I must be enlisted in the list of gold medalist or award winners. Is it possible for an undergraduate or SSCE candidate whose grades in chemistry were never better than 25% to go on and get to the top marks in the toughest course in organic chemistry or quantum mechanics, or can a near high school drop out become a Nobel Price winner?

Yes it is possible and Papa Ikechukwu also proved it. All he did was to model Albert Einstein’s success story. He was a teenager growing up in Okwuohia Obowo born to an acclaimed and well herald academic. He had nothing going for him as far as academics was concerned. Below represents his record before and after he modeled Albert Einstein

-    Poor pass, the best grade ever obtained, till class five.
-    Never scored more than 27% in any mathematics examination.
-    Certified by most teachers as good – for – nothing in academics.
-    Failed W.A.E.C and G.C.E twice with 8 straight F’s and 1 P8 Igbo language
-    Branded an imbecile by an imbecile teacher
-    Lost both teachers and parents confidence

You may think that something is certainly wrong with his brain when you consider the above records but wait a minute, this same man who had the record later;

-    Obtained six straight A’s and two credit passes after a period of Nine months of practicing two of the many strategies you are about to learn.
-    Came out of the University as one of the best graduating student (Award Winner)
-    Became a lecturer and his former teacher who was then teaching with N.C.E certificate now as an undergraduate student sat under him for lectures.
-    Invented what will certainly transform the machine of national development in Nigeria.
-    Has authored two best selling book

It is important to state here that Papa Ikechukwu could have remained a failure but he saw Albert Einstein’s record and he decided to model it.
The record of Albert Einstein he saw were two sided and he said to himself; I have already seen all the failures Albert saw, its time to see Albert’s Success story become my story. That is the mind set that can bomb down your failure skyscraper. I know you want to see the record he saw, how here is it:

Before he was known,
-    His father thought him stupid
-    Almost decided he was a dunce.
-    Failed common entrance examination.
-    Could not complete his undergraduate thesis (Call him a drop out).
-    His Greek teacher said to him “You will never amount to anything.”.
-    Was expelled from High School.
-    Flunked his college entrance exam.
-    Failed to attain either an academic appointment or a recommendation from his professors.
-    Forced to accept a lowly job in the Swiss patent office.
-    In his mid twenties, seemed destined for a life of mediocrity

But within a space of 3 years after modeling another person’s success had this record;
-     Wrote papers that have changed our understanding of the universe.
-    In his twenty-sixth year, published his special theory of relativity which contained his popular formula E=MC2.
-    His name a synonym for super normal intelligence.
-    Was begged to accept a professorial seat without any years of post teaching experience.
-    Became a Nobel price winner.
-    Became a world figure with the discovery of what later gave rise to the utilization of atomic energy (Bomb)

All I am saying is this; the shortest route to success in any sphere of endeavour is MODELLING. Papa modeled Albert Einstein and became an award winner.

The question you are asking now is;
What are the steps to modeling success?
1.    Find a true life story of success you admire.
2.    Study failures of that story you have in common.
3.    Picture in your mind the person’s success  as your success.
4.    Most importantly, find out what they did.
5.    Do what they did.

For papa Ikechukwu or Albert Einstein, there was no change of brain. It was the same brain but their mindset and actions had changed. And guess what!, their result did not have the permission to remain the same. The rudder of your life is now in your hand; will you turn it to the success direction?

…YOU CAN MODEL SUCCESS

… Together we will celebrate at the top

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Dear reader,

Be my informer today. I have an article very dear to my heart on modelling success. I know you will like it. But first, tell me, what do you think happens, if you can model; on your mind a successful life you have seen around you ?

I will love to read your comment and tomorrow you are sure to read my side of the story. One thing I can guarantee you is; this article you are expecting will inspire you.

Your friend

Mind genius

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Have you grown downwards enough…

There are principles that stand the test of time.  One of such principles I know is the principle of growing downwards first before growing upwards. Where I come from, every farmer or anyone with a small piece of land loves to seize the opportunity of planting corn, when its season comes. During this season expect to see corn springing up almost every way you go.  As numerous as, you will find them; in 3 months time every where returns back to its normal state. Maize has been planted and harvested and there is no trace that it existed. Let your mind travel back a little and you will remember some individuals or products that were like corn from my place. The shined and blossomed for few months or years and today they are no way to be found. They violated this timeless principle.

But we also have palm fruits. It stubbornly grows downwards for years before shooting out. The palm tree survives the storms and all kinds of weather. One tree successfully planted, can produce its fruit for more than 15 years. Let me speak about the one in my compound you can be sure of fruits twice a year. It brings out up to four gigantic bulks of fruits each time. I almost forgot although crude the palm fronts is used in making broom. I don’t water it. No fertilizer is added to the soil but I keep expecting it to produce unlike the corn. Why? The palm tree grew downwards enough.

I know you have a big dream. I am sure there are powerful fits you are dreaming of accomplishing before you greet the earth good bye but please ask yourself a honest question. Have I grown downwards enough to show up? So many parts of your body had to be formed only in the womb before you ever showed up on earth. In his book, Cash flow quadrant, Robert Kiyosaki starts with a powerful story of two men given the same opportunity to provide water to a village. One took off and started hauling water with buckets while the other man disappeared for more than six months. When he re-emerged he made in a day what the other man has been making in six months. He then asked a question, are you hauling water in bucket or laying pipes to your account. So much noise has been made the past few years and my mentor will always say “reduce the noise and increase the impact.”

Beware! Of advertisers words such as quick, suddenly, instantly. My mentor Richard Usoro will always say “Suddenly could mean as sudden as 20years” and I believe him. You must grow downwards enough in the area you desire to grow upwards and be outstanding. Give yourself this assignment I gave myself. There are books, movies, speeches, companies etc. that has not seize to inspire you, find out how sudden their suddenly was. Please don’t fail to drop your discovery on my comments corner. I will love to read you discovery. I also did my home work about the book called Think and grow rich a book that has not sized to put me thinking and asking questions. It is a master piece by American born Napoleon Hill who is considered to have influenced more people into success than any other person in history. Millions! if not billions by now have be transformed from rags to riches by the application of this classic book written 1937.

Wait! Subtract 20 from 1937 and you will arrive at 1917. The book that; suddenly shook the world in 1937 till date grew solidly downwards for 20 years. 20 years of research and more, was put into this master piece with interview to over 500 successful individuals. This route to enduring success in any endeavour has not changed. If you do not want your labour to be lost in the crowd grow downwards first. If what you are planning to give the world  is a master piece then grow must downwards first.

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For years the world’s noise makers suggested to the minds of people that the mile race can only be done in 4 minutes until 1954, the last time was 4:01 by Gunder Haegg in 1945. Medical Experts held a conventional theory that the heart just could not survive an added stress of running any faster. Suddenly Roger Bannister proved it could be done. He made it in 3.59 seconds breaking the 4 pointer theory. It became an old news as twenty six different men broke the four minute mile record  several months later. Yes it can be done.

Rising from

the Arabian Gulf on a man-made island 280 meters from the shores of the renowned Jumeirah Beach and the enchanting city of Dubai, stands the iconic Burj Al Arab, a masterpiece of contemporary architecture. This building was possible because a man decided to make Dubai one of the most exclusive holiday destinations, a playground for the rich in the Arabian golf coast. The sheik needed a luxurious center piece to launch his country into highest tourism.

“I had the dream to put Dubai in the map of the world” Sheik

No one has ever pulled out such a tower on an artificial island but the Sheik said it can be done. Not even engineering could stop him from dreaming such a daring dream. Today it is the second tallest hotel in the world and true to his dream, it is a holiday destination for the ultra rich. Also this structure that was once the tallest hotel in the world gave Dubai a place in the map of the wourld.

No one else can explain this better than Victor Frankl. A great study was done on the Concentration camp survivors. What kept them alive against all odds of torture, disease, and starvation? Victor Frankl was a living answer to that question. He was a successful Viennese psychiatrist before the Nazis threw him into such a camp. There is only one reason, he said in a speech, “why I am here today. What kept me alive was you. Others gave up hope. I dreamed. I dreamed I dreamed that someday I would be here telling you how I, Victor Frankl had survived the Nazi concentration camps. I’ve never been here before, I’ve never seen any of you before, and I’ve never given this speech before. But in my dreams I have stood before you and said these words a thousand times.

One word from each of these three men;

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…that is greatly pursued.

I had an appointment in Access bank plc last week Friday. While waiting for the operators to process the document, my eyes saw the banks newsletter on a desk before me and I picked it up to read its content. They call it customer’s digest and it was their May-June 2009 Volume 7 No. 5 edition.

On the newsletter I thought I saw a model of an Access Bank building to be but I was wrong. It was a cake designed and baked in the shape of an Access Bank building for the bank on its 20th Anniversary displayed at a La Scala Restaurant, Onikan Lagos. A cake?
Yes I confirmed it was a cake.

Whoever created that cake has a great profession but I also know that profession was greatly pursued. I know some people who make cakes around my neighbourhood, I also know that they complain, the business is not moving and that they lack customers. Yet you will agree with me that Access bank has paid a fortune to get that cake into the restaurant where

the celebration took place. It is not the profession; but how it is pursued. What is on his mind of the person? Where is he planning to stop? What is the highest point he sees himself reaching?

Today handbills, newsletters, magazine etc are increasingly on demand. Again I have equally seen many graphic artists but very few are on demand by the multinational in Nigeria. When you enter any city of Nigeria, chances are that you will see a big billboard by MTN or Glo or even Celtel. These are big multinational telecommunication companies in the country. Those bill boards are always excellent works and I wonder how many graphic artists get concerned to know what is missing in their list for excellence. During our 3 weeks all expenses paid seminar with Dr. Sunny Ojeagbase he made a profound statement “I found out what I missed was marketing and for seven years I studied this course and today blessed be God it shows”. He discovered what was missing and paid the price to study; today he picks up award all around the globe. It is not the profession but how you pursue it.