This is a major gamechanger for me and has actually been directly responsible for the creation of this blog.
Jim Rohn talks about the day that turns your life around and puts you on the road to having your best year ever.
This is a long seminar – about 4.5 hours long, filmed before a live audience, and jam-packed full of information that you’ll never hear in quite the same way again (unless your listening to Jim Rohn, that is).
What you’ll find in this post is my own notes, taken whilst watching the seminar for what seems to be the 20th time.
I keep learning new things that I missed the first times.
You’ll discover in this page, the keys to success in life and solid strategies to help you accomplish your goals.
Everyone wants to get more out of life, but few of us are actually willing to do anything about it.
In “How to Have Your Best Year Ever,” Jim Rohn will show you how simple it is to make your dreams real and start transforming your life so that it’s better than all the years before it so far.
This will be an ongoing project as it’s not easy taking down notes and I don’t always have the time to really sit down and do it. Often, I listen on the go so adding to these notes can be very difficult.
What I’ll do though is publish this first set of notes and just keep adding to it as I go along.
In fact, you’ll find this to be true for all the notes that I’ll be taking and publishing on this blog.
This will be a real journey for me and if you join me, for you too.
Enjoy!
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Jim Rohn’s two major responsibilities:
1. Make sure you get your money’s worth. I want you to be able to say, “It was worth my money.”
2. Make sure you get your time’s worth. This is a more pressing responsibility for Jim Rohn because “time is more valuable than money. You can get more money but unfortunately, you can’t get more time.”
Good fortune
Who can explain good fortune – remarkable things that happen to you at a particular time? Sometimes, it’s just unexplainable how those things happen.
One of my friends says, “Things don’t just happen. Things happen just.”
Sincerity
Above all else today, I hope you’ll find me sincere.
The best place for people to start to communicate is sincerely on both sides.
Sincerity is not a test of truth. We must not make the mistake of saying, “He must be right, he’s so sincere.”
And here’s why.
It’s possible to be sincerely wrong.
So, we don’t mistake sincerity for truth. Sincerity is only a test of sincerity. Truth has to yet be tested by truth.
Ideas + Inspiration
The combination of things I wish you’ll find here today.
Ideas
Business ideas, social ideas, personal ideas.
We all need ideas, right?
How to have a good day ideas.
How to have a good year ideas.
How to have your best year ever ideas.
Good health ideas.
Personal relationship ideas.
How to deal with your familiy ideas.
Sales, management ideas.
Financial freedom for the future ideas.
We all need good ideas. So, today, I hope you gather up by notes and by what you can remember a lot of ideas. I want to share as many with you as I possibly can in the time constraints we have. Today’s gonna go very rapidly.
Here’s why.
Ideas can be life-changing. And sometimes all you need is just one more in a series of good ideas.
It’s like dialling the numbers into the lock. You’ve got 5 or 6 numbers dialled into the lock, the lock still won’t open. But you don’t need 5 or 6 more numbers. Maybe you just need one more.
And maybe a seminar like this could do it.
That one last piece you need. Dial it into the lock. That’s it. Lock comes open. There’s the door for you to walk through.
Inspiration
Who knows the mystery of inspiration?
Why some people are inspired and some are not.
I don’t know.
Here’s what I call it: mysteries of the mind.
And I just leave it at that.
Some things I don’t try to figure out. I keep the simple approach now.
Some buy and some don’t. Some go for it and some don’t. Some change and some don’t.
And if you’ve been around for a while, you can usually work out the numbers, right?
Out of 10, 3 do and 7 don’t.
Whatever your business you’re involved in, pretty soon you’ve got this ratio going: the ones that do, the ones that don’t.
The Sermon – The Bible
This sermon was given to a lot of people.
But it was interesting, the account gives us, the record says: When the sermon was finished, there was a variety of reaction to the same sermon.
I find it fascinating.
It said some that heard this presentation were perplexed.
And I read the presentation. Sounded pretty straightforward to me. Why would somebody be perplexed with a good, sincere, straightforward presentation?
Best answer I got: they are the perplexed.
It said some that heard this presentation, mocked and laughed. Made fun of the presentation.
I thought, hey, this sounds pretty sincere to me.
If you give a sincere, honest presentation, why would somebody mock and laugh?
Answer: they are the mockers and the laughers.
What else would you expect them to do?
It said some that heard this magnificent presentation didn’t know what was going on.
And they’re usually easy to spot. They’re usually going, “What’s going on?”
But interesting, right? A variety of reactions to the same sincere, honest presentation.
Now, it also says in wrapping it up, some that heard the presentation believed. And I think, that’s who the speaker was looking for – the believers.
And that’s about as close as we can come to understanding the mystery. And you just have to leave it that way.
Why?
Because that’s the way it’s gonna be.
The way to be brilliant is to find out how it’s gonna be and then say, “Here’s how it should be.”
To get the most out of today
Jim Rohn lists the attitudes you need in order to get the most out of the seminar. And in my opinion, these are what you need to get the most out of anything else (books, experience, audio, people etc).
Be thankful.
It’s a good way to capture the most of a day like this: Be thankful for what you already have.
He emphasises that this shouldn’t be a problem in America as it has so many things going for it and has so many blessings, so many good things to offer its citizens.
Thanksgiving does this: opens up the doors, opens up the windows, opens up the channels.
Thanksgiving for what you already have.
Jim Rohn tells a short anecdote of how hugely successful people still go to seminars that teach them how to do better.
They don’t stop.
And I think he wanted to emphasise that personal development is a never-ending journey. And this isn’t meant to discourage you because the journey can be quite an adventure, depending on how you go about it.
Here’s what locks up the doors and the channels to receive more: cynicism.
That locks you away.
That prevents you from learning more.
Being a cynic about the past and the future. Cynic about the marketplace. Cynical about the people. Cynical about the institutions. Cynical about the setup. Cynical about yourself. Cynical about your chances.
See, that locks away all the chance for stuff to flow your way.
So, good advice today. Start off: be thankful.
Listen well.
That’s gonna be a challenge today, I understand that.
Most of our life seems like it’s all continuing out there – family, business, associates, market, economy and whatever else is happening in the midst of your life. And to sorta pull your attention from what’s going on out there and put it in here for just a few hours, I know, is a challenge.
But do the best you can.
Listen well.
Take good notes.
Be a good student today. Take good notes.
I do have good ideas. So, take good notes.
Somebody showed me the other day notes that he took about 21 years ago. He said, “I still use these notes I took 21 years ago to help me in my business, relationship with my family.”
So, I’d like to have these notes that you take today become that valuable for you. Then it would be worth me making the investment to come and spend a portion of my life, my time, my energy here.
And I want this investment I’m making here today to pay off.
And one of the ways it can pay off for me is for you to take good notes and then go away and use whatever makes sense.
Because what I feast on, coming back around, is the stories.
Out of this audience today, sure enough, 6 weeks from now, 6 months from now, 6 years from now, somebody’s gonna – by phone, by letter, by personal contact – walk up to me and say, “The things you shared that day got me thinking and I started making some changes and let me tell you what’s happened to my business. Let me tell you what’s happened to my sales career. Let me tell you what’s happened to my relationship with my family.“
See, that’ll make it worth it for me.
Not the money, the return: something you can’t buy with money.
If somebody says, “Thank you for touching my life and taking the time to make the investment,” then that’s what I’m all about.
Don’t be a follower, be a student.
Take advice but not orders.
Take information but don’t let somebody order your life.
Make sure what you do is the product of your own conclusion.
Excellent note to make: Make sure what you do is the product of your own conclusion.
Not to do what someone else says.
Take what someone else says. Process it. Think about it. Ponder it.
If it makes you wonder, makes you think, then it’s valuable.
Then, when you go take action, make sure that the action is not what somebody’s told you to do. Make sure the action is the product of your own conclusion.
If you’ll follow just a little bit of those simple guidelines, the learning process will be speedy, swift, powerful. Your learning curve can go up and then applying it to your business, your life, your family, your conversations, equities of all kinds, you’ll find some progress like I did in that first 5 years when I met a teacher willing to share with me.
Turned my life around.
Progress I couldn’t believe happening for me.
Okay, let’s get started.
The Five Major Pieces To The Life Puzzle
Jim Rohn took this as an opportunity to review those because they lay such a good foundation for everything else that will be shared in this particular seminar.
I deal mostly with concepts so I expect you to fill in a lot of the details because I got a lot to share and I want to get through it all.
This is so valuable in laying the foundation and some of the things I learned between ages 25 and 30, the teacher who taught me taught me so well, he dealt in these fundamentals.
Basics.
A few simple things, a few basic things that if you practise every day, you can make all the difference in the world
I’ve boiled it down to five.
Philosophy
Philosophy is the major determining factor in how your life works out
To form our philosophy, you got to think, use your mind, process ideas.
This whole process, over a lifetime, starting way back when you were children – school, parents, experiences – all this stuff processed by the thinking process helps to develop our philosophy.
The set of the sail, each person’s personal philosophy is like the set of the sail.
Jim Rohn references his old blame list that included the government, taxes, weather, parents, company, interest rates, costs etc. Everything outside of myself that actually doesn’t matter much but which I like to blame and use as an excuse as to why I haven’t achieved everything I wanted in life.
Actually, most people blame everything outside themselves for not doing well economically when, in fact, it’s their own personal philosophy that’s the issue.
Jim Rohn mistakenly thought before the age of 25 that the future will always be tied to what everyone else is arranging. Not true.
You are in charge of your own life. And you get to choose the direction you’re going.
This is why J. Earl Shoaff, Jim Rohn’s teacher and mentor intimated that the problem was the philosophy and that to change your life, you need to look within rather than without.
The face in the mirror is the one holding all the control.
What makes us different from other animals? The ability to think, the ability to use your mind, the ability to process ideas and not just operate by instinct.
Unlike a goose, you can turn around, you can order the entire process of your own life.
And we do that by the way we think.
We do that by exercising our mind.
We do that by processing ideas and come up with a better philosophy, a better strategy for our lives.
Goals for the future, plans to achieve those goals – all this comes from developing our philosophy.
Philosophy helps us to process what’s available: seed, soil, rain, sunshine, seasons, the miracle of life.
Now, the key is what do you do with all this stuff?
-How do you turn all the stuff that’s available into equity and promise and lifestyle and dreams and future possibilities?
All of these things that are possible now to human beings…how do you take all this stuff and turn them into these into equities and values?
Well, it starts with philosophy.
What is the seed?
What is the soil?
What is the sunshine?
What is the rain?
Is it possible to take some of each of all the stuff that’s available and turn it into food, turn it into value, turn it into nourishment, turn it into something spectacular and unique that no other lifeform can do?
And the answer is yes!
But you cannot deal with all this stuff and what to do with it unless you start refining your philosophy.
Think.
Use your mind.
Come up with ideas.
And strengthen your philosophy.
Process all this information and what to do with all that and turn it into equity and value: that is the major challenge of life, my personal opinion.
So, each person’s personal philosophy is going to determine what you’re gonna do with seed, soil, sunshine, rain, miracle.
That’s it, my personal opinion.
Each person’s personal philosophy is like the set of the sail and that’s what the seminar is for today: help you to trim a better sail.
You don’t need a better economy.
You don’t need better seed and soil.
In fact, when it comes to seed and soil and rain and sunshine and seasons and the miracle of life, that’s all you got.
Now, what if you blame this stuff? Then you’re blaming all you got.
If you blame the economy, blame the schools, blame the teachers, blame the sermons and the preachers, the marketplace, the company and company policy, what else is there?
When some people get through their blame list, there’s nothing else, that’s all there is.
And if you blame the only thing you’ve got to work with, I’m telling you it’s called mistake colossal – in not understanding that that’s all you’ve got to work with.
And if this is all you’ve got to work with, you don’t change the seed and you don’t change the soil and you don’t change the rain, you don’t change the sunshine, you don’t change the seasons.
You can’t fool with this stuff.
You got to take it as it comes.
Then what do you change?
You got to start with your philosophy.
Guess what I had to do at age 25 in order to change my future.
I had to change my mind.
I had to change my thinking.
I had to change my philosophy.
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