LIVING A GREAT LIFE PART F
CHANGE YOUR THINKING CHANGE YOUR LIFE
By Brian Tracy
CHAPTER 12: Living a Great Life
FOCUS ON ADDING VALUE
Honesty means that you accept that your income is totally determined by your ability to contribute value to your company and, through your company, to your customers. An individual must generate three dollars of bottom-line profit for every dollar of salary or income that the person earns from the company. If you are not currently generating three dollars of profit or cost savings to the bottom line for your company, your job is a prime candidate for outsourcing, downsizing, or eliminating. Honesty means that you accept this as a fact and then do everything in your power to maintain and increase your value.
True honesty means that you never expect to get out more than you put in.You never expect to get something for nothing. You don’t gamble or buy lottery tickets, which in a way is an act of dishonesty. It is an attempt to get something that you have not earned. The truly honest person never attempts to get rewards without working, or to get rich quick or easy. In the United States today, millions of people are attracted to the quick fix. If they are employees or executives, they want new and better jobs, and they want them immediately. They are always looking for shortcuts, and as a result they are always frustrated and unhappy.
They hope that problems that have taken many months and years to develop can be solved with a silver bullet of some kind. They are impatient and they want immediate results. But being an honest person requires that you resist the temptation of the quick fix in any part of your life.
TRUST IS THE GLUE
Relationships are central to a happy, healthy, satisfying life. All relationships are based on trust. Trust is the glue that holds relationships together. You can have all kinds of problems and disagreements with another person, but as long as the trust and respect are still there, the relationship can endure. But, if anything ever happens to the trust, the relationship can fall apart quickly, like a house of cards collapsing.
All business relationships are based on trust. All relationships that involve money are dependent on the word of the borrower or the creditor. All relationships with your bankers, your suppliers, your customers, your staff, and everyone else in your financial world are based on that critical element of trust.
Men and women of high integrity are fastidious about the levels of trust that they have built and maintained. They are careful about their credit, and about their financial commitments and arrangements. They always keep their word. They are careful about their banking relationships, their credit cards, their bills, and any money that they owe at any time.
A TALE OF TWO BANKRUPTCIES
Some years ago, two people I knew well, in two different businesses, were forced into bankruptcy because of the economic downturn. But the outcomes of their bankruptcies were completely different. The first of my friends had been meticulously careful about all of his bills and finances throughout his career. He had always paid at least the minimum amounts on his charge cards. If ever he had a financial problem, he went to the person affected and rearranged payments and interest. When he was finally forced into bankruptcy, by a massive and unexpected financial default over which he had no control, he had no choice but to go to court, give up all his assets, and walk away penniless.
But within a week, people were approaching him and offering him money, loans, offices, credit cards, a place to live, and a new car. One of his previous business associates, quite wealthy, mailed him a blank check already signed, saying, “Just fill in the amount you need and let me know for my records; I have complete faith in you.” Aside from removing a great burden of debt from him, his bankruptcy hardly affected him at all. The second businessman, however, had a completely different experience. When he started to have financial problems, he continually misled and deceived his creditors, people who had trusted him. He neglected to make payments he had promised, and wrote checks that he couldn’t cover.
He avoided his creditors when they phoned, and he eventually changed his telephone number. He moved and didn’t tell anyone his new address. He treated people who had trusted him by lending him money as if they were stupid. When he finally went bankrupt, no one wanted anything to do with him. It will take him years to recover, if he ever does. He can’t even get a credit card; he now has to pay cash for everything.
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