An evening with Jim Rohn…

Education is a critical part of staying on top and in front in business. We all have to make the effort to learn from others. Jim’s topic for the evening was the five pieces of life’s jigsaw.

Jim started the evening by sharing with his background. A country boy from Idaho, where they grow all the potatoes. He had a normal upbringing, by the time he was 25 he had a wife and family, no money and not much to look forward to. (Sound familiar?)

Jim was fortunate to meet a mentor, who taught him the rules of life.  Here is what 25 year old Jim Rohn learned from his mentor.

1) It’s easy to be successful.

2) It’s equally easy not to be successful.

He also learned you can be anything you want to be and there are just a few things which made a big difference. BUT you must put MOST of your efforts into making those few things which make a difference WORK for you. Then Jim went on to introduce the five pieces of life’s jig saw.

Philosophy

Jim explained to us how each person’s personal philosophy is the major factor in how their life will work out. Too many people spend all their lives blaming. They blame the government, the boss, the system, the other driver, their spouse, their parents, their kids. They spend their whole life looking outside to place the blame. But who is really to blame? If you get your pay packet at the end of the week and there isn’t much in it, whose fault is it?

Basically we all get what we are worth. The people who are  worth more, get paid more. Jim explained it like this: There is a big ladder of success and there are people working for $25 an hour, and there are people working  for $100 an hour, and others for $1,000 a hour. Where are you on that ladder of life’s pay scale?

Question…Where is the greatest amount of space – at the bottom of the ladder, or at the top?

Question… What can you do to make yourself worth more to the marketplace?

One really great aspect of the free enterprise system is that the marketplace sets our pay rate. If we are highly valuable, we get paid more, if we’re not – we don’t. One great comment from Jim was about people who are broke. He suggested there couldn’t be anything worse than people who are broke, then he went on.

“Well there is” he suggested. “Sick and broke!”

Although, this is worse:

“Being sick, broke and stupid.”

Then again, there is something even worse than that.

“Sick, broke, stupid and ugly.”

Another idea Jim put forward was to change some of our old beliefs.

Instead of saying “What you don’t know can’t hurt you”, how about “What you don’t know can hurt you and it WILL hurt you”. 

Think about this… What do the rich people know that you don’t? If all it took to be successful was to know something rich people know, what should you do about it? Shouldn’t you try to learn it? Jim suggests you take a rich person to lunch and grill them about what they did to get rich. One of the greatest ways to learn is through personal experience. Your own, or other peoples!

What have you learned in the past that is useful now? How can you use that to help you reach your current goals? How can you use that information to help others?

Here’s a priceless little gem Jim Rohn threw into the audience:

Profits are better than wages. Wages make you a living, but profits make you rich!

One of his best comments of the whole evening was:

“It’s just so easy to do something. – however small. But it’s also very easy to do nothing “

Attitude

That’s the second part of the jigsaw. Our attitudes control every aspect of our lives. You can decide every day if you’re going to have a good day or not. It’s up to you, no one else. As I am writing this, there is a woman on the local talk back radio station. She is saying something really profound.

“People’s attitude is related to the weather. If it’s a sunny day, they will have a good attitude, if it is raining, they will have a bad day.”

What do you think? Is your attitude related to the weather?

Education starts a significant change point in our lives.

Erold says: “Every time (without fail) I invest in my own education, my business gets better.

So what education have you put yourself through lately? And more importantly, what have you done with what you learned? All the education in the world is useless unless it’s put to work. You do have to DO SOMETHING!

Activity

It is the third piece of the Jim Rohn jigsaw. You actually have to get off your tail and DO SOMETHING!

“That is where 99% of people fail. They don’t do anything. Or if they do make a start, and it gets a bit hard, they give up. Many times I’ve seen people give up just before the gold appears. Just before the big breakthrough” says Rohn.

Erold:

“I was advising on a situation recently where a small business was in trouble. It had taken on too many commitments.

“The owner tried to grow it too quickly without thinking it out or planning it.

Towards the end the owner was offered a golden opportunity. This opportunity would have paid all the bills. It would have put money in the bank for months to come. But, it was too late. The original owners had given up on the business and someone else took the opportunity and won the gold.

The most amazing aspect of life is that when you actually do something, you get results.

Results

Once you get results, you get more excited. You keep moving  forward. You keep winning. The only thing that really matters in business today is the results you’re getting. Are your results good or bad? If they are bad, what are you  going to do to change them? What can you do to change? If you don’t change, things will stay the same. If you don’t change, why expect any different results in the future?

And finally…

Lifestyle

It is the fifth and most  important jigsaw piece. This is what you get from your efforts. You should be able to do what you want, when you want  to do it.

Quick Quiz.

1) Are you really happy with where you live?

2) Are you really happy with what you do for work?                         

3) Are you really happy with your life and lifestyle?

4) Do you have everything you want?

Only you can answer these questions. If your answers are not 100% positive, then you don’t have the lifestyle you want and deserve.

“Ah yes,” I hear you answer, “but you see, it’s the government’s fault. When we get a new government, things will get better.”

Dream on…

Maybe your clients don’t spend enough, or your boss doesn’t pay you enough to get you excited about your job. If that’s the case – and you really believe it – then you have just missed the whole point of Jim Rohn’s talk !

Yes, you can do something to make your life fully rewarding. If you’re don’t, you’ll either learn to be happy with your restricted situation, or you’ll change. Get the picture?