A short motivational talk by Brian Tracy outlining seven rules of success that apply across life domains. Tracy defines success as an ongoing process (a journey), emphasizes personal character and integrity, responsibility that comes with achievement, and reframes problems as learning feedback. The talk ends with a prompt for listeners to reflect and apply the rules to their own lives.
Hello, everyone. I'm Brian Tracy, and today I want to tell you about the seven rules of success. These seven rules are true in every aspect of your life in which you can achieve success and happiness. Rule number one is success is a journey, not a destination. Success is a process of moving toward accomplishing the things that are important to you, rather than reaching a final goal or objective where you simply stop. With no plans or goals for the future, one of the best things that you do is to create sequential goals, goals that follow one after the other. For example, making a certain amount this year and a certain amount next year and a certain amount the year after, so that when you achieve a goal, it is part of an even larger and longer goal. In this way, you take complete charge of of keeping yourself positive and motivated and focused toward the future. Rule number two. Success is more who you are rather than what you own. The greatest advantage of achieving success is the kind of person that you have to become in a competitive world to achieve that success. As Goethe once said, to have more, you must first be more. People like and admire and respect you far more and for far longer because of the fine person that you have become in your striving to achieve worthwhile goals. Rule number three. Success means being able to live your life in your own way. Success is only of value to you when you can begin to define your own terms. To live your life in your own way, to do the things you want to do with the people that you choose to do them with. Rule number four. Success is getting what you want, while contentment is merely wanting what you get. Success means setting a goal, making a plan, and then persisting through every adversity and difficulty until you finally win through and achieve your original goal. Success does not consist of giving up and settling for whatever you get. Rule number five. Success means earning the esteem and respect of the most important people in your life. This requires above all that you be a person of integrity. As Emerson wrote, guard your integrity as a sacred thing. The most important men and women and the most respected in our society are the ones who are the most esteemed by the people who knew them in everything you do. Refuse to compromise your integrity for anyone or anything. This is a true mark of the genuinely successful person. We say, live in truth with yourself and then live in truth with everyone else around you. Refuse to do anything that is not consistent with the very best person that you could possibly be. Rule 6. Success imposes higher responsibilities on you and requires a higher standard from you than ever before. When you're struggling on your way up. People may or may not notice you or pay attention to you. But when you achieve your success, everyone will be watching. Everyone will be noticing everything that you do and say. And as the Bible says from him, to whom much is given, much is expected, you have to be a role model. You have to set an example for other people. You have to ask yourself, what kind of a world would my world be if everyone in it was just like me? And whatever your answer to that is, you have to raise the bar on yourself when you become successful. Rule number seven. Success does not mean an end to problems. It merely means a change in the nature of problems that you have to deal with. The fact is that problems are normal, natural, and an absolutely unavoidable part of human life. They never end. They merely change in their character and content. No matter what you achieve, you will have problems of all kinds. The only question is your effectiveness in dealing with them. We say that problems come not to obstruct, but to instruct. And there's no such thing as failure in life. There's only feedback. So when you have a problem, look into it from what you could learn and how you can grow and how you can become even better. Now that we've gone through all seven rules of Success, I want you to take a few minutes and think about them. Watch this video again if you need to, but reflect on your life and your current situation. Do these seven rules ring true to you? If not, what could you change in order to live a more successful and happier life?
