Brian Tracy presents a short motivational talk on happiness, arguing that the ultimate human aim is to be happy and that happiness comes from developing natural talents and pursuing goals in service of a cause greater than oneself. He cites Aristotle and Earl Nightingale, frames happiness as the progressive realization of a worthy ideal, and offers two reflective thought experiments (1) what would you dare to dream if you could not fail, and (2) how would you spend your life with six months left — plus guidance to identify innate strengths by revisiting interests from ages 7–15.
Chapters
Hello, I'm Brian Tracy and I want to talk to you a minute about the goal that everybody has. Aristotle discovered this in 350 BC and what he said is that no matter what we do in life, our ultimate aim is always to be happy. So I want to talk to you about your journey to happiness. Now, the key to happiness is both simple and complex. You. It's the sum total result of more than 2,000 years of philosophy, psychology, speculation and discussion about the meanings and sources of happiness. From Aristotle through to the modern thinkers, speakers and writers of today, this key to happiness has hardly changed at all. It's the same for virtually all men and women in all countries and situations and in all walks of life. The key to happiness is just dedicate yourself to the development of your natural talents and abilities by doing what you love to do and doing it better and better in the service of a cause that is greater than yourself. This is a big statement and a big commitment. Being happy requires that you define your life in your own terms and then throw your whole heart into into living your life to the fullest. As Earl Nightingale said, happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. You only really feel happy when you are moving step by step toward the accomplishment of clearly defined goals that you feel will enhance the quality of your life and the life of others. Since you can't be truly happy until you are clear about your inherent possibilities and what you want to accomplish, it's very important that you take time on a regular basis to analyze yourself and identify your strengths and weaknesses. There's an old saying that says success leaves tracks. You can often look back in your life and look around you today to identify who you really are and what you should really be doing with your life. One of the best ways to do this is to ask yourself two powerful questions. The first question is my favorite. What one great thing would you dare to dream if you knew you could not fail? Imagine that you are absolutely guaranteed of success in the pursuit of a particular goal, big or small, short term or long term. Imagine that you had all the money all the time, all time. The all the education and all the contacts. Imagine you had all the resources and everything else that you could possibly need to achieve any one big goal in life. What would your goal be? This is a very important question because when you remove the limitations from your thinking, you often get a very clear idea of exactly what you should be doing with your life. All successful men and women are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be. Ideal in every respect and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose, and step by step realization of their ideal. The feeling of forward motion makes them genuinely happy. The second question you can ask yourself is, how would I spend my life if I learned today that I only had six months left to live? If you could only do one or two things before your time on earth was over, what would they be? Where would you go? Who would you spend your time with? Often, when you think about only having a short time left, you become very clear about exactly what it is that you should be doing with your life. Both of these questions help you to determine your true values. They go right to the heart of the person you really are. They give you indications of your natural talents and abilities and of what is really important to you. Now, everyone has an area of excellence or potential excellence. Everyone has something that he or she can do in an outstanding fashion. It may take weeks or months or even years for you to develop yourself in that area so that you can really perform at an extraordinary level. But you will be strongly attracted to that sort of activity from early in life. Some experts say that what you most enjoy doing or talking about between the ages of 7 and 15 is a very good indication of what you should be doing as an adult. Whatever it is, you will enjoy reading about it and talking about it and thinking about it. You will find yourself admiring people who are outstanding in that area that you are meant to be in. You will look longingly at that field and wonder what it would be like to be in it and to be successful at it. And that is very often your heart's desire. It's that area of activity. The. The area where you can become excellent is probably what you were put on this earth to do. So what is yours?
