Charles Kettering said that you should give a lot of thought to the future because that is where you are going to spend the rest of your life. One of the greatest mistakes that people can make, and the one with the worst long-term consequences, is to think only about the present and give very little thought to what might happen in the months and years ahead.

When our grandfathers started work, it was quite common for them to get a basic education and then go to work for a company and stay with that same company for the rest of their working lives. When our parents went to work, it was more common for them to change jobs three or four times during their lifetime, although it was difficult and disruptive.

Today, with increased turbulence and change in the national and global economy, a person starting work can expect to have five full-time careers between the ages of 21 and 65, and 14 full-time jobs lasting two years or more. According to Fortune Magazine, fully 40 percent of American employees in the 21st Century will be “contingency” workers. This means that they will never work permanently for another company. They will continue to move as needed, from company to company, from job to job, earning less money than full-time employees and accruing very few, if any, benefits in terms of health care and pension plans.

Imagine what your job will look like five years from today. Since knowledge in your field is probably doubling every five years, this means that fully twenty percent of your knowledge and your ability in your field is becoming obsolete each year. In five years, you will be doing a brand new job with brand new skills and abilities. Ask yourself, “What parts of my knowledge, skills and work are becoming obsolete? What am I doing today that is different than what I was doing one year ago and two years ago?” What are you likely to be doing one year, two years, three years, four years and five years from today? What knowledge and skills will you need and how will you acquire them? What is your plan for your economic and financial future?

We are now in the knowledge age. Today, the chief factors of production are knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge to achieving results for other people. Your earning ability today is largely dependent upon your knowledge, skill and your ability to combine that knowledge and skill in such a way that you contribute value for which customers are going to pay.

The Law of Three says that you must contribute three dollars of profit for every dollar that you wish to earn in salary. It costs a company approximately double your salary to employ you in terms of space, benefits, supervision, and investment in furniture, fixtures, and other resources. For a company to hire you, they have to make a profit on what they pay you. Therefore, you must contribute value greatly in excess of the amount you earn in order to stay employed. To put it another way, your earning ability must be considerably greater than the amount you are receiving, or you will find yourself looking for another job.

To position yourself for tomorrow, here is one of the most important rules you will ever learn: “The future belongs to the competent.” The future belongs to those men and women who are very good at what they do. Pat Riley, in his book The Winner Within, wrote that, “If you are not committed to getting better at what you are doing, you are bound to get worse.” To phrase it another way, anything less than a commitment to excellent performance on your part is an unconscious acceptance of mediocrity. It used to be that you needed to be excellent to rise above the competition in your industry.Today, you must be excellent even to keep your job in your industry.

The marketplace is a stern task master. Today, excellence, quality, and value are absolutely essential elements of any product or service, and of the work of any person. Your earning ability is largely determined by the perception of excellence, quality, and value that others have of you and what you do. The market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance. It pays average rewards for average performance, and it pays below average rewards or unemployment for below average performance. Customers today want the very most and the very best for the very least amount of money, and on the best terms. Only the individuals and companies that provide absolutely excellent products and services at absolutely excellent prices will survive. It’s not personal. It’s just the way our economy works.

To earn more, you must learn more. You are maxed out today at your current level of knowledge and skill. However much you are earning at this moment is the maximum you can earn without learning and practicing something new and different.

And here’s the rub. Your accumulated knowledge and experience is becoming obsolete bit by bit, day by day. The knowledge in your field is doubling every three to five years. That means that your knowledge must double every three to five years just for you to stay even.

The solution to the dilemma of unavoidable change and restructuring is continuous self-development. Your personal knowledge and your ability to apply that knowledge are your most valuable assets. To stay on top of your world, you must continually add to your knowledge and your ability. You must continually build up your mental assets if you want to enjoy a continuous return on your investment. And only by building on your current assets do you stop them from deteriorating.

By engaging in continuous self-improvement, you can put yourself behind the wheel of your own life. By dedicating yourself to enhancing your earning ability, you will automatically be engaging in the continuous process of personal development. By learning more, you prepare yourself to earn more. You position yourself for tomorrow by developing the knowledge and skills that you need to be a valuable and productive part of our economy, no matter which direction it goes.
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Goals! Learn how to achieve more, faster than you ever thought possible. The most powerful achievement program ever!
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About Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy is a leading authority on personal and business success. As Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, he is the best-selling author of 17 books and over 300 audio and video learning programs. Copyright © 2001 Brian Tracy International. All Rights Reserved. Webmasters: Add This Article To Your Site.


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3. Modeling Knowledge - Find someone who is doing the things you'd like to do, or achieving the level of success you want, find out what they did to get it, and do exactly what they did. That is without a doubt the fastest way to success. Of course, that doesn't mean it will be easy, but at least you will not have to take the time to figure out how to do it, before you get started. Once Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, it was easy for others to come behind him and duplicate what he had done. Don't be the one to re-invent the wheel. Find someone who has figured out the formula and do what they do.

4. Teaching Knowledge - We get better at anything we do when we have to prepare to teach someone else how to do it, so be sure to take time out to teach others about what you do. You'll be surprised at how much better prepared you become on the subject, and how much more confident you will be in your own capabilities. Your confidence will be apparent to all who interact with you, which by itself will draw more people to you. They say nothing succeeds like success, and that's because people like to be around people they perceive as being successful. One way to project success is to teach others about what you know.

Be sure to keep in mind that life is a continuing learning experience for you. The more ways you find to accumulate knowledge the better armed you will be for success.

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The fact is that luck is created by increasing the frequency of those activities that are most likely to lead to success. For example, if you are in sales, it is almost axiomatic that the sales person who calls on 10 people will almost always be more likely to "get lucky" and find a customer, than one who calls one or two people. Doesn't it make sense that if you called 10 new customers a day, that you would eventually get lucky and land a huge account that others would envy you for? Of course it does, and that happens everyday. But people that don't understand the fact that you "make your breaks", attribute this phenomenon to pure chance, as opposed to hard work. Of course, these are the same people who were sitting on the couch in their living room watching re-runs of of M.A.S.H., while you were out calling on potential clients, because they just didn't see the connection between activity and success.

So, if you want to get lucky, get to work! Knowing that you engaging in the proper behaviors and activities that will eventually land you that successful opportunity will not only put you closer to achieving it, but it will make you feel better mentally, since you are taking control of your destiny instead of just allowing it to happen by chance.

And, the next time someone tells you that you were lucky to get an opportunity, thank them for reminding you to get back to work making your breaks!

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There is something magic about putting your goals on paper, and coming up with a plan to accomplish them. A Harvard Business School revealed that 3% of people are successful, 30% are moderately successful and 67% just exist. The significant difference for the 3% who are successful is that they have written down, specific goals. The 30% who are moderately successful have a general idea of where they are going but don't have any goals formalized. The rest are happy to watch the world go by.

With this overwhelming evidence of the importance of writing down your goals, you might ask yourself why don't more people do it? Like everything else in life, there are many reasons people don't do what makes sense to do, even though the rewards can be great. Take a look at this list and honestly evaluate which of the following reasons have, in the past, contributed to your lack of consistent goal-setting and goal-getting:

• Not making the time.
  
• Don't know how.
  
• Do not believe in own ability to design and create own life.
  
• Wanting to please others and always do what you think others want you to do rather than choosing to do what you want to do.
  
• Too many interests and activities creating an illusion of "busy-ness" but with no real focus and direction.
  
• Fear of failure.
  
• Fear of success.
  

Okay, now that you know why you haven't done proper goal setting and planning, let's talk about why writing your goals down works:

1. Goals help us focus. Life happening around you can cause you to lose the ability to prioritize and keep in mind the things that really matter. Things that really don't advance the ball for you can look urgent or important when you are being confronted with them, and this contributes to "brain clutter", which in turn distracts you from the things that really matter.
Wehn your goals are clearly delineated, your mind is able to focus and work on them all the time, both consciously and subconciously.

2. Goals drive us forward. It's alot easier to enthusiastically move forward on a journey when you have a road map, than when you are just wandering along anywhere the wind may next take you. Having a goal that is clear has the same effect. By writing your goal down, in a clear and concise fashion, you actually begin to visualize yourself achieving the goal. It becomes more than a dream, because you can now see yourself doing, and once you can see yourself achieving your goal, you begin to create a belief system that drives you to it.

3. Planning and Reaching a Goal Increases Self-Confidence. When you have taken the time to set out your goals, and to implement your plan for accomplishing it you will find yourself achieving smaller goals along the way, and these smaller milestones help to increase your confidence, and provide proof that your goals are achieveable. It becomes a cascade effect that will drive you further and further towards implementation of your complete plan. And every step you take will increase the drive as you continue to accomplish the little milestones along the way.

Conclusion

Whatever you do in life, don't underestimate the power of having a clear and concise plan reduced to writing. We have all heard it said that "people don't plan to fail, they simply fail to plan". Don't allow yourself to be a victim of failing to plan. Take the time now to turn a dream into reality.


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I have to confess that I considered myself to be a top networker, but this book has really humbled me to just how inexperienced I was in what it meant to truly build a network. I learned some things about how to build a network, the most effective ways to stay in touch with people (in a meaningful way), and I also was painfully reminded of a number of networking no-no's that I was committing routinely.

The bottom line is that whether you are in business, or just big on keeping in touch with the people who matter to you, this book is a tremendous tool. Imagine if you and everyone in your network were to read it. The power of your personal network would be increased exponentially. So, what are you waiting for? Get yourself a copy and then, let all your friends know about it too!

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