JIM ROHN REVEALS THE PRINCIPLES FOR SUCCESSFUL LIFE
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| Jin Rohn, | | |
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Mike: When you talk
about reasons, Jim, don’t many of those strong reasons come out of a pain in
one’s life?
Jim: Sure.
Mike: Okay. Because
I know from my own life that it can come
from necessity and it can come
out of pain and trying to get
away from that.
Jim: The pain of not
having $2.00 was pain enough.
Nobody else witnessed it, but me and
the Girl
Scout. Of course, I’m sure she didn’t
notice it
because she accepted my lie and moved
on.
But, I said, “I don’t want this to
happen anymore.”
It was such an incredible resolve and
it was only
over $2.00. But it doesn’t matter what
it is. If it’s
something you want to correct,
something you never
want to happen again, that’s the
beginning.
Mike: You’re well
known internationally about the power of
goals, the key formula for
success. Can you tell us about goals? The importance of goals, but more
specifically, how do you set them? Do you think them? Do you write them down?
Can you walk us through the
power and the process of goal
setting?
Jim: In my two-day
leadership seminar, I go through a
little workshop. It’s called Designing
The Next Ten
Years.
It’s really a simple process.
Start making lists of what you want.
I teach the simple, simple ways.
Others have got
some complicated ways of setting goals
and deadlines and all that stuff. I don’t do that.
I just say to make a list of the books
you want to
read. Make a list of the places you
want to go. Start
making a list of the things you wish
to acquire.
What kind of education do you want for
your
family? Make a list. Where are the
place you want to visit? Make a list.
What kind of experiences do you want
to have?
Make a list.
Decide what you want. Then write it
all down.
Put a lot of little things on there so
you can start
checking some things off. Because part
of the fun of
having the list is checking it off. No
matter how small
it is.
My first list had a little revenge.
Some of the
people who said I couldn’t do well.
They went on my
list. I couldn’t wait to get my new
car and drive it up
on their lawn. A few little things on
revenge.
It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s
your personal list.
You can tear it up and throw it away
if you want and
then get started on it.
Later you can say as you look back, “I
was all hot
on this idea. Now, here’s something I
know that is
much better. I’m going to forget about
that other
thing.” So, it’s an ongoing, continual
process.
But, I have discovered that if you
think about the
things you want” for you, your family,
some goals are
individual, some are collective, some
are family,some are business, just start with that. Rearrange it
any way you want to. You don’t have to
have any
deadlines. You can look at the list
after you’ve made
it and start putting a 1, 3, 5 or 10
number beside
each item. You know, “I think I can
accomplish that
in about a year. I think I can
accomplish that in about
three years. I think I can accomplish
that in about
five years.” Something like that. But,
it’s easy.
Success is easy. Especially in America
it’s easy.
Bangladesh, it’s hard. Cambodia, it’s
hard. America,
it’s easy.
If you don’t believe that, if you
think easy is hard,
then you are in trouble all your life.
We’ve got to teach our kids. Some of
them have
the concept that America is hard. They
don’t
understand the difference between
Bangladesh and
America.
The average income in Bangladesh is
about
$100 a year. That’s what’s hard.
If you understand what’s hard and
what’s easy,
you can say, “Wow, it ought to be easy
here.”
The only reason for not doing well
here, is not
applying yourself for some information
to learn, and
then start to practice right away.
You’ve got to practice. You have to do
the deal.
You read this book on good health,
right? It talks
about nutrition and it talks about
exercise Then in the
middle of the book the author says,
“Now reader, set
this book aside. Fall on the floor and
see how many
push ups you can do.” Then, of course,
you don’t do
that. So, you read on and the author
says, “If you
didn’t set this book aside and if you
didn’t fall on the
floor to see how many push ups you can
do, why
don’t you just give this book away?
Why bother
yourself with reading if you’re not
going to pick an
idea and try it?”
That’s such great advice.
Mike: Ok, I want to
bring something up and see if you agree
with me on it.We’re talking about
taking action. We’re talking about
planning, ambition, and taking
those baby steps.
It seems to me, in my own
personal life, when you start
taking the steps, start changing
your thinking, start moving
forward toward a dream or vision,
it almost seems like the
universe conspires with you to
help you. Do you see that as
well?
Jim: Absolutely!
A phrase in the Bible seems to
indicate that
whatever you move towards, moves
towards you.
It mentions that God said, ‘if you
make a move
toward me, I’ll make a move toward
you.’
If you move toward education, it seems
like the
possibilities of education start
moving your way.
If you move toward good health, the
ideas for
better health, the information starts
moving toward
you.
That’s good advice.
If you’ll just start the process of
moving toward
what you want, it is true,
mysteriously, by some
unique process, life loves to reward
its benefactors.
If you start taking care of something,
it wants to
reward you by producing and looking
well.
If you take care of flowers, they seem
to bloom
especially for you and say, “Look how
pretty we are.
You have taken such good care of us.
Now we want
to give back to you by giving you our
beauty.”
I taught my two girls how to swim and
dive. Of
course, like all kids, they’d say,
“Daddy, watch me.
Watch me do this dive.” It’s almost
like they’re
saying, ‘You’re the one that taught
me. You’re the
one that had patience with me. You
invested part of
your life in this process. Now watch
me. Watch how
good I am.’
All of life wishes to do that. All
life wishes to
reward its benefactor.
It could be something like a garden
that grows
because you took the time to cultivate
it, to pull out
the weeds, and take care of the bugs.
Now, the
garden does extremely well for you as
a reflection
back to you Because you are the one
that invested
time, energy, effort, and a piece of
your life.
Mike: Let’s stay
here, Jim. Talk about the power of giving and
the word “tithing”. Can we talk
about giving and what
happens when someone gives?
I teach a little formula for kids
called seventy, ten,
ten, and ten.
This formula is about never spending
more than
70 cents out of every dollar you earn.
The way it works is that ten cents is
for active
capital, ten cents is for passive
capital, and then ten
cents is to give away.
Whether it’s to your church, a benevolent
organization, or whether you let
someone else
manage it, or you manage it yourself.
We’ve got to teach generosity right
from the
beginning. I teach that ten percent is
a good figure
to start with.
You know when you become rich and
wealthy, it
can be 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90.
Whatever.
But, ten cents is the start.
If you teach generosity, I’m telling
you, kids will
give you a dime out of every dollar to
help someone
that can’t help themselves.
It’s about what it does for you
spiritually. Do it for
what it brings back to you in terms of
self-esteem.
Help to enrich the world by giving,
and not only
10 percent of your money, but maybe
some
percentage of your time as well.
That investment is a smart investment.
It may bring returns to you immediately
in ways
you don’t even know. It can do amazing
things for
your character, your reputation, and
your inner spirit.
It’s all worth it!
Someone might say, “Well, I gave to
this
organization and they misused it.”
It doesn’t matter to you whether they misused
it
or not. The key for you is that you
gave.
They’ve got to be responsible on there
own side.
No matter what though, giving is a major
piece.
Then, the next step is giving somebody
your ideas.
This mentor, I met when I was 25, Earl
Schoff is
someone I have to thank for the rest
of my life for
taking the time to share with me a bit
of his
philosophy that revolutionized my
life.
I was never the same again after the
first year.
No one has ever had to say to me after
the first year
I was with him, ‘when are you going to
get going?
When are you going to get off the
dime?’
I’ve never heard that since that first
year that I
met this man who gave me his ideas and
he did it
freely.
He did it with great excitement.
Because he knew
that if he invested in me, I would
probably invest in
someone else.
Sure enough, that turned out to be
true.
Mike: Ok. It’s been
38 years or so. You’re entering your second
decade of doing this.
Where does the continuous passion
and inspiration come
from for you? Why are you still
doing this?
Jim: It’s very exciting
because it’s made me several
fortunes and continues to do so.
But, part of the greatest excitement
is when your
name appears in somebody’s
testimonial.
You know, someone says something like,
“I was
at a certain place in my life and I
listened to this
person and it changed my life.
Mark Hughes, the founder of
HerbalLife, used to
say that because he attended my
seminar when he
was 19 it changed his life. He said,
“I attended Jim
Rohn’s seminar and he was the first
person that
gave me the idea that in spite of my
background I
could make changes and become
successful.”
You can imagine how that made me feel.
It’s
amazing for me to have my name
appearing in his
testimonial.
But, whether it’s Mark Hughes or
someone else,
it doesn’t matter. Imagine this
scenario: You’ve got someone who
says, “let me introduce you to the
person that
changed my life five years ago. We
were sitting at
Denny’s five years ago and he
recommended this
book to me. He told me that it has
really helped him.
SO, he recommended it to me. Well, as
I look back
on it now, that was the beginning of
some incredible
life changes for me. Look where I am
today. I’m
telling you, it started five years ago
at Denny’s on a
Tuesday morning when this person
introduced me to
this book.”
So, you don’t have to give seminars.
You don’t
have to give lectures. You don’t even
have to write
books to affect someone’s life and to
do it so well
that your name appears in their
testimonial someday.
You know, someone says, “Here’s the
person
who believed in me until I could
believe in myself.
Someone who saw more in me than I
could see at
the beginning.”
Mike: Let’s stay
here, Jim. Because there’s something I want to
get across to people. It’s such a
powerful a statement that
you talk about. I’ve heard you
talk about the concept of sure,
we want to reach our destination.
We want to reach our
goals. But, more importantly,
Jim, can you talk about the
power in the being and the
becoming?
Jim: Well, true. What we
acquire of course is valuable.
But, the greatest value is not what we
acquire. The
greatest value is what we become.
My mentor had an interesting way of
teaching it.
When I was 25 years old he said, “I
suggest, Mr.
Rohn, that you set a goal to become a
millionaire.”
I was all intrigued by that. You know,
it’s got a
nice ring to it - millionaire.
Then he said, “here’s why…” I thought
to myself,
‘gosh, he doesn’t need to teach me
why. Wouldn’t it
be great to have a million dollars.’
Then he said, “no
then you’ll never acquire it. Here’s
why. Set a goal to
become
millionaire for what it makes of you to
achieve it.”
Mike; Can you say
that again please?
“Set a goal to become
millionaire for what it
makes of you to
achieve it.”
He said, “Do it for the skills you
have to learn and
the person you have to become. Do it
for what you’ll
end up knowing about the marketplace,
what you’ll
learn about the management of time and
working
with people. Do it for the ability of
discovering how to
keep your ego in check. For what you
have to learn
about being benevolent. Being kind as
well as being
strong. What you have to learn about
society and
business and government and taxes and
becoming
an accomplished person to reach the
status of
millionaire.
All
that you have learned and all that you’ve
become
to reach the status of millionaire is what’s
valuable.
Not the million dollars.
If you do it that way, then once you
become a
millionaire, you can give all the
money away.
Because it’s not the money that’s
really important.
What’s
important is the person you have become.”
That was one of the best pieces of
philosophy I
have ever heard in my life.
Nobody ever shared it with me like
that before.
Another thing he said was, “beware of what you
become
in pursuit of what you want. Don’t sell out.
Don’t
sell out your principles. Don’t compromise your
values.
Because you might acquire something by
doing
so, but it won’t taste good.”
An old prophet said, “sometimes what
tastes
good in the mouth finally turns bitter
in the belly.”
Then,
later we regret that we compromised or that
we did
something incredibly wrong to acquire
something.
It’s not worth it. If we do that, then what
we get
is worthless.
If you use something like that to
challenge
yourself to grow, to reach a certain
level, I think it’s
wise. Because then you know where the
true value is
and that is in the person you become.
Mike: I want to
reverse back to about 90 seconds ago when you
were talking about your great
mentor, Earl Nightingale. You
talked about the ability to
express gratitude. To express
thanks. I feel, in my own life,
an aspect of gratitude is very
important. So, number one, do you
agree with that, and two, can you
talk about the power of that word
- gratitude?
Jim: Well, it absolutely
is very important.
I made a little list the other day as
I reminisced
about the things that really made such
an incredible
contribution to my life.
Number one on my list, of course, was
my
parents. I was an only child. They
spoiled me. They laid a
foundation for me that has kept me
steady all these
years.
The more I thought about it, I
thought, ‘what a
contribution they’ve made to my life.‘
A lot of it, at the moment, I couldn’t
see. I didn’t
realize. But, as the years began to
unfold, I realized
that what they taught me, the care
they gave me, the
love they shared with me, that no
matter what
happened to me, I always had a place I
could always
go home to.
They provided that kind of unique
stability.
They didn’t just say, ‘son, you can do
it.’ It was
also the advice they gave me and the
prayers they
sent me, no matter where I went around
the world,
cause I believe in that, the power of
prayer.
Every once in awhile I get a letter
and someone
says, “Mr. Rohn, we are praying for
you.” I read it
and think, ‘Wow. This is some kind of
letter when
someone takes the time to say a
prayer.”
My gratitude for that is just
unending.
Mike: Talk about the
power of prayer.
Jim: Who knows, you
know, the mystery of prayer and
God.
In the Declaration of Independence it
says, we
are created equal. But it says also
that, we are
endowed by our creator with gifts and
rights.
It’s a philosophy America believes in
that we are
a special creation. That we have these
gifts based
on a creator.
We open the Senate with prayer. We put
on our
money “In God We Trust.” We are that
kind a nation
really.
When I travel the world, people ask
me, “how
come America does so well?” I say,
“read the
money.” I think that is probably part
of it. That kind of
trust, that kind of In God We Trust, implies
prayer
and I think that it is so vital.
It doesn’t have to be in a church,
synagogue,
mosque, or anywhere else. It doesn’t
have to be in a
formal place. But, I think it’s a
tremendous power.
Mike: We’re talking
about the power of thankfulness, of
gratitude. Jim, I want to put on
my world famous, internationally renowned, two-minute warning with you. All
that means is
we have about ten minutes left to
rock n roll, and shake and
bake.
Let’s talk about the best kept
secret of the rich, time
management. Tell me about the
importance of it and how we
become effective time managers.
Jim: Well, first is to
realize how precious time is.
There’s not an unending supply of
years in your
life. My father lived to be 93 and it
still seemed very
short. I kept asking for another ten
years, another ten
years, another five years.
Surely, Papa can live to be 100 I’d
think.
I’d love to have him see the 21st
Century, which
was not to be. But, ninety-three years
still seems
short.
The Beatles wrote, “life is very short.”
For John
Lennon it was extra short.
There
is not an unending supply of the days and
the
moments. The key is to utilize them to the best of your
ability.
Don’t just let them slip away. Capture them,
like we
capture the seasons.
There is only so many.
In ninety years you have ninety spring
times. If
some guy says, you know, “I got twenty
more years.”
You say, “no. You got twenty more
times.”
If you go fishing once a year you only
have
twenty more times to go fishing. Now
that starts to
make it a bit more critical. Not that
I have a whole
twenty more years, but just twenty
more times. How
valuable do I want to make these
twenty times?
It doesn’t matter whether it’s going
to the concert
or sitting down with your family, or
taking a vacation.
There is only so many.
It’s easy not to plan and do the
details necessary
to make them the best possible.
Then I
have other little ideas like, ‘don’t start the
day,
until you have it finished.’
Mike: Say that
again, Jim.
Jim: Don’t start the day until you have it finished.
It’s a
key for executives, a key for leadership. But
it’s
also a key for a mother at home. It doesn’t
matter,
whoever.
Plan
the day to the best of your abilities.
There will be plenty of room for
surprises and
innovations and whatever.
Give a good plan, a good schedule for
the day.
Because each day is a piece of the
mosaic of
your life.
You can
either just cross your fingers and say, “I
hope it
will work out okay,” or you can give it some
attention
and say, “here’s what I would like to
accomplish
in the next twenty four hours.”
Just look at it that way and do a lot
of it up front
or maybe the night before. Start the
day after you
finished it.
It’s like building a house. If I asked
you, “when
should you start building the house
that you want to
build?” and you say to me, “well,
that’s a good
question. When should I start building
the house?”
I’ve got an excellent answer for you.
The answer is,
you start building it as soon as you
have it finished.
You know, someone might say, “is it
possible to
finish a house before you start it?”
The answer is,
yes. It would be foolish to start it
until you had it
finished.
Imagine if you just started laying
bricks.
Somebody could come by and ask, “what
are you
building here?” You say, “I have no
idea. I’m just
laying bricks and well see how it
works out.” They
would call you foolish and maybe take
you away to a
safe place.
The key is that it’s possible to
finish a day before
you start it. It’s possible to finish
a month before you
start it.
I do business around the world with
colleagues in
about 50 countries. To do business
around the world
in 50 countries you can’t imagine all
of the
preparatory planning that has to be
done. Some
things are three years, five years,
two years, one
year ahead in order to do that kind of
global
business.
But, if you just learned to be
disciplined enough
to start with the day plan, the month
plan, your good
health plan, I’m telling you, you will
take advantage
of time like you can’t believe.
Mike: Jim, let’s
bring up a few topics and go 30 to 45 seconds
on each, if we can. You’re one of
the most effective communicators of the last 50 years or so. You’ve talked in
front of 4 million people
and you’ve influenced millions
beyond that through your
books and tapes. What’s the most
important communication tip you can
give us right now?
Jim: You just need a
desire to be a great
communicator and keep improving the
art every day.
It’s easy to be careless with your
language in
social areas, but that’s going to
affect your business.
You
just have to start practicing the art of better
language,
whether it’s social, personal, home, or
family.
You can’t say, “oh, it’s with my
family, so my
language doesn’t really matter.” It
really does matter
because it’s so valuable for them.
But, also because
it’s so valuable for you to practice
the art.
It’s like this telephone conversation.
If I thought,
‘well, I don’t have 35,000 people to
talk to. So, I’ll
treat this conversation carelessly.’ I
just learn not to
do that.
I want to give the most concise and best
information I can, even though it’s a
telephone
conversation and not a big audience in
some
auditorium.
Mike: So, we’re
talking here about being on purpose, about
changing language, changing your
mindset. When a person
goes for something, there are
roadblocks to steer away from
There are adversities. Talk about
the power of resilience.
Jim: You’ve just got to
be able to come back. Come
back from a disappointment. It takes a
bit of courage.
If you
start a sales career and the first person
you
approach says, “no”, you’ve got to have the
courage
to talk to the second person.
If you
start a little business, set up the first
meeting,
and nobody joins, you’ve got to have the
courage
to say, “I’ll set up another meeting. Because
if one
person says no it doesn’t mean everybody’s
going
to say no.”
You’ve
just got to have that ability to come back.
You’ve
got to understand the law of averages.
Not
everybody is going to be interested in your
project.
Not everybody is going to buy your product.
You
can’t take it personally.
Then, if you get hit by poor health,
you’ve just got
to do everything within your power to
get well.
If you face a disappointment, you’ve
got to come
back. From a divorce, you’ve got to
come back. It’s
going to hurt for awhile, you’ve got
to let it linger and
do whatever it’s going to do. But,
then you’ve got to
build back.
That’s part of the game of life.
It’s no different for you, me, or
anyone else.
Resilience,
we all need it. Whether it’s health,
marriage,
family, business, social, or personal.
Mike: Talk about the
power of enlightened self-interest.
Jim: Yes, life doesn’t
give us what we need. Life gives
us what we deserve.
If you want wealth, it’s okay to wish
for wealth if
you pay the proper price for wealth.
Mike: So, there is a
price to be paid.
Jim: You can pay the
proper price without diminishing
anyone else. Once I learned that, I
got excited about
being wealthy in my own self-interest.
Everybody
wins.
Mike: What we’re talking
about here is coming from a position
of integrity and creating wealth
for the benefit of others.
I ask this question to a lot of
the people, Mark Victor
Hansen, Robert Allen, and a lot
of the people I have
interviewed. I always thought it
was a melancholy question,
but they have told me it isn’t.
We’re all going to pass on
some day. What do you want the
world to say about Jim
Rohn when that day does come?
Jim: That he invested
his life wisely and as best he
could to help as many people to change
their lives as
possible and that he blessed his own
life. That’s
really it.
Mike: You talk about
self-education. You talk about how it’s
the seed of fortune. Are there
any books out there, in
addition to your own at
jimrohn.com, that you can
recommend to my audience?
Jim: Well, sure. Schoff
recommended Think and Grow
Rich to me when I first
started learning.
Mike: What was the
most powerful thing you took out of Think
and Grow Rich?
Jim: Desire,
determination, preset plans, never give
up, persistence, it’s got a wealth of
information in it.
Mike: Anything else
come to mind?
Jim: The Richest Man in
Babylon helped
me to
become a millionaire by age 32. Simple
little book.
Easy to follow. Inspiring. The
Richest Man in
Babylon, by George Clason.
Mike: Jim, we’re
wrapping down the show tonight. Jim, it’s
been an absolute goldmine and a
pleasure to share you with
my audience. Jim Rohn, thank you
very much for appearing
on The Mike Litman Show.
Jim: It’s been a
pleasure, Mike. We’ll do it again
sometime
To order the book, CONVERSATION WITH MILLIONAIRES by Mike Liman and other related books please visit www.successstrategies.com.ng
