Jim Rohn’s 12 Pillars of Unshakable Success | The Ultimate Personal Code

You don't have to shout to be heard. In a world obsessed with flash, Chris Widener's mentor Jim Rohn proves that quiet character builds the loudest legacy. In this audio program, he delivers powerful lessons on integrity, wise partnerships, and doing work that's not just impressive, but good. He reminds us that persistence isn't just about effort, it's about belief. Success doesn't chase noise, it follows substance. Special thanks to Made for Success for partnering with me to release this content exclusively here on my YouTube channel. And if you make it all the way to the end of this video, leave a believe in the comments below and we might feature you here in a future video.

7 years before Jim Rohn's passing, I already had a pretty decent career as a motivational speaker and a leadership expert. I was traveling all over the world. I was speaking to great groups like General Electric and Cisco Systems. I had even spoken at the Harvard Business School and I was doing quite a lot of events. I'd already written my first couple of books. I'd built an email list of 100,000 people and Life was really great. I was also doing a little bit of ghostwriting for some famous authors and, of course, my own writing. And then out of the blue, I got a phone call, and the phone call was from Jim Rohn International. Specifically, it was from Kyle Wilson, the president of Jim Rohn International, and Kyle asked me if I would be interested in co-authoring The Jim Rohn One Year Success Plan with Jim Rohn. Now, you probably bought this lesson specifically because you love Jim Rohn. And so you can imagine that when someone calls you and says, would you like to work with Jim Rohn? You say, yes, when do I need to be there? In fact, I did say, yes, when would you like me to come down? And Kyle said, tomorrow. So I actually bought an airline ticket, got on an airplane, flew to Southlake, Texas, where Jim Rohn International was located at the time, and began discussions about working on the Jim Rohn One Year Program with Jim Rohn. That was the beginning of a great relationship. It was the beginning of a great season of my life. I was able to learn some great lessons from one of the most legendary speakers of our time. I was able to work closely with him. I was able to do conferences with him. It was a very exciting time of my life. Now let me start by saying the subtitle of this message is Mentored by a Master. There are lots of people that are running around saying that they were mentored by Jim Rohn, and to the degree that listening to audio programs and reading books means that you were mentored by them, certainly Jim Rohn was a mentor to millions of people, but there were very few people that got to be able to actually work with him on a close basis. This is one of the things that I am most proud of and most thankful and grateful for, was that I was able to actually do work and produce products and offerings with the legend himself. Now let me say that if anybody was to be able to say that they were the closest with Jim in a professional and friendly manner, it would certainly be, as I mentioned before, Kyle Wilson. Kyle Wilson is, in my mind, the greatest promoter in self-help history. He has worked with so many of the legends, but the pinnacle of his career was taking over, running, and executing on Jim Rohn International. And in the middle of running Jim Rohn International is when he brought me on to begin to work with Jim. So Kyle had an extraordinary relationship with Jim, and through my relationship with Kyle was able to open this door up so that I was able to also work with Jim. I was able to do a lot of different things with Jim. I was able to do things like MC the 2004 Weekend Leadership Event. Of course, I already mentioned that I was able to co-author the Jim Rohn One Year Program, which has sold so many copies and has helped so many people over over the course of the years. And then what I consider one of the real highlights of my career, and certainly it is still to this day my best-selling book, co-authoring Jim Rohn's last book, 12 Pillars. So let me talk a little bit about those 3 things. The first was the Jim Rohn One Year Program, and it was really quite amazing. I think it's one of the best personal development products ever made. It's actually 12 months, it's 1 year, and we go through all sorts of great lessons from Jim and myself and all of the other experts that we brought in. It was really amazing, was to be able to see Jim over the course of a year walk step by step through so many of these great topics like relationships and finances and sales and leadership and personal development and time management. Really, really extraordinary to be able to learn from the master himself in regard to the one-year program. The second product that I mentioned was the 2004 Weekend Leadership Event. Now, this is what I consider to be the all-time greatest personal development product ever done. It was 3 days, it was in August, and we not only had Jim Rohn, who was the centerpiece of the weekend, but we also had Brian Tracy, we had Dennis Waitley, we had Charlie Tremendous Jones, and we had about 7 or 8 other just amazing speakers. And that was a weekend to never be forgotten. In fact, still to this day, I have lots of people who come up to me or they'll post on Facebook or Twitter and they'll say, I was there, best weekend of my life. And so it was really a great privilege to be able to be the host and the emcee of that event that Kyle put on. And of course, Jim was the centerpiece of, and then to have that turned into a program that has become, in my mind at least, the best personal development program ever done. That's quite an accomplishment, quite a privilege. The last is, of course, 12 Pillars. And I'll tell you how 12 Pillars actually got made. I had been writing with Jim to do the Jim Rohn One Year Program, and at the same time I wrote a book called The Angel Inside: Michelangelo's Secrets for Following Your Passion and Finding the Work You Love. And it was a fiction book. So I went back to Kyle and I said, Kyle, what would you think if we did a fiction book like The Angeline Side, which had become a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book? What would you think if we took the principles from the Jim Rohn One Year Program and we put them into a story form? Little did I know that that would become my bestselling book, probably because, in fact, not even probably, assuredly because Jim Rohn's name is also on the COVID of it. It was an extraordinary privilege again to be able to work with Jim and the team at Jim Rohn International to be able to put together a book that synopsizes all of these great lessons into the lessons of the book 12 Pillars, the 12 Pillars of Success. There's one other product that I'm very proud of, and that is I was able to do the very last interview that Jim Rohn ever gave. Of course, we didn't know at the time that it would become The last interview that Jim Rohn ever gave. But on my television show, I brought in lots of great successful people in the business world, the sports world, and of course the personal development world. And I was able to ask Jim so many of these great questions in more of a personal interaction that have now been put down for all of history to be able to listen to. It was very, very exciting for me, and again, such a great privilege. Almost everywhere I go, people ask me, what was it like to work with Jim Rohn? In fact, just last weekend I was doing a conference call and they had asked me if I would do a conference call. They had 1,000 people on the line and I was going to do my teaching on influence and leadership and success and motivation. And as they introduced me, they finished, and then the host of the conference call said, before you get started, we know that you worked with Jim Rohn for those last 7 years of his life. What was it like to work with Jim Rohn? So I want to spend a little bit of time and just tell you what it was like to have that personal working relationship with Jim Rohn. I was actually able to work with two very big legends in the speaking industry for a period of time. One was, of course, Jim Rohn. The other was Zig Ziglar. And one of the fascinating things to me as a young man coming up in the speaking business and being able to work with them— I co-hosted a television show with Zig and then all the projects I've already talked about that I did with Jim— I was able to see two legends of the industry. I mean, anybody who knows anything about personal development, and you say, who are the great legends? They're going to, you know, that shortlist includes Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn. But one of the interesting things to me was that they were both legends, they were both wildly successful, they both touched tens of millions of people in their lives, but they were very different people. And that was a good lesson for me to learn, that you can make a huge impact across a wide variety of personality types. For example, Zig was just a gregarious guy. He was on stage, he was go, go, go, and off stage he was go, go, go. He loved to mingle. He would always walk into a room and crack a joke and shake a hand and slap a back, and that's just the way that he was. Jim, on the other hand, was more of an introvert, and he was a quiet man. He, of course, as we all know, if we've done any sort of studying of Jim Rohn, we know that he grew up an Idaho farm boy. And when you think of a farmer, you typically think of a quiet guy who just goes about his business and gets it done day in, day out, producing a harvest. That was really Jim. He was also raised by a dad who was a minister. And I think that a lot of the emphasis of just quietly going about your business and humility and those kinds of things that really came about what I saw from Jim Rohn. Jim wasn't the kind of guy that liked small talk with a crowd and all those kinds of things. He, I don't know if he really felt uncomfortable with it or not. I didn't, I never asked, but he was more of an introvert. And it was a great lesson for me. And I think a great lesson for you as you're listening to this, because you might be an introvert and say, well, I can't really go out and make a big impact because, you know, you really have to be a gregarious extrovert. And the reality is, is that you don't. Gregarious people like Zig can make a big dynamic impact, and people who are introverts like Jim can also make a big impact on the world. So it was a great lesson for me to be able to work with someone like Jim, who was a quiet man. That's really what I would call him. In fact, I've often used the term professorial. He, of course, when he gave his talks, he would stand there with his glasses and he'd tilt his head down and look across the top of his glasses almost like a professor would. And he was professorial, and he was like that on the stage, he was like that off the stage. That's again another lesson from both Zig and Jim, is that they were both the same person on stage and off stage, which is exactly what we want to be. That's integrity. The same person on stage and the same person off stage. There are people that I know in the world who are not the same person they are on stage and off stage. And so that was a great lesson that I was able to learn from Jim. When I look back at my time with Jim, there are a few moments of time where I had personal interaction with him that have left lasting impact on me, lessons that I learned from him. I spent, you know, numbers of times with him, but there were a few times that I still to this day remember very explicitly the lesson that I learned. Now, the first time I ever met Jim, he was giving a speech at one of the convention centers that was attached to the Houston Astrodome. And it was June 19th, if I remember right. And Kyle and I came down from Dallas, went down into Houston. I was from Seattle, flew to Dallas, then we flew to Houston. And after the speech that he finished up, after the seminar, Jim and Kyle and I went back to the little hotel. I don't remember what hotel it was, but we sat in the bar and we drank beer. We ate peanuts and we talked about the Bible. And if you just think about, like, that's just classic, right? You know, here's this big star of the stage, and afterwards we just had this little simple thing. Went to the bar, we drank beer, we ate peanuts. They kept bringing you peanuts, probably so that you were salty mouth, so you drink more beer. And we ate peanuts, cracked the peanuts open, and then, you know, put the shells back in the bowl and ate peanuts. But we talked about the Bible. As I mentioned before, Jim was raised by a dad who was a minister. Jim was a person who quoted the Bible often. He was a person who, of course, if you've studied any of his materials, you know that he utilizes the Bible in his teachings to not only teach the biblical teaching, but to also use them as analogies for life lessons. You know, of course, one of the most renowned is the parable of the sower that Jim liked to talk about, and that in your business you're also sowing seeds. So all those great lessons, and we love to talk about the Bible. We were sitting there that night, Jim, Kyle, and I, and I'll never forget this lesson that Jim taught. There's a story in the Bible called the parable of the persistent widow, and the reason it's in the Bible is to teach persistence. And in the story, this widow was seeking justice, and she went back to the judge and she asked for justice, and then went back to the judge and asked for justice, and went back to the judge and asked for justice, and went back to the judge and asked for justice. And finally, as the story goes, the judge says, yes, just to get you out of my hair. Bang! He bangs the gavel and away you go. Well, the lesson of the Bible is pretty clear, right? That we are to be persistent, that we are to go to God and be persistent. We're to work our jobs and be persistent. We're to make sales calls and be persistent. That persistence is one of these great lessons of success. Perfect lesson. But one of the things I loved about Jim was that he always saw behind the story. He would see the story, but then he would see behind the story. And he had an interesting thought about that story. He said, you know, of course I know that we're supposed to be persistent and we're supposed to go back to God and go back to God and go back to God and go back to God because it shows that we want it. It shows that we're pursuing God. But he said, I think there's sometimes that we ask God for something and God grants it. God answers our prayers, but we don't believe. And we go back to God and back to God and back to God, not because we're persistent, but because we don't believe. And it's not a story in the Bible, but I thought it was funny because Jim said it. He said, I can almost imagine the opposite sometimes of the story of the persistent widow, where we've gone back and back and back, and finally we knock on God's door and God opens the door and he looks at us and says, what, you again? And I just thought that was such a funny story and such a unique insight because I think while it's not in the Bible, I think there are certainly lots of lessons in the Bible where God says, ask for something, and it will be done for you, and go about your business. Trust, have faith, all these kinds of things. But it was just a funny little story, and that was the first time I ever met Jim Rohn in that hot, sweltering Houston weather at a bar drinking beer, eating peanuts, and talking about the Bible. A second very clear lesson that I learned from Jim was in Minneapolis, and, uh, Jim and Kyle and I were all in Minneapolis, and I'll never forget it. We're sitting there eating lunch, and we were talking about a whole wide variety of things. We were talking about personal development, we were talking about the Bible— Jim loved to talk about the Bible— we were talking about business, and we were talking about the industry, and we were just talking about all sorts of things. A typical lunch where the conversation just wandered. It wasn't a specific business meeting or anything like that, but we began to talk about a prominent businessman. And this story might at first blush cause you to think, I can't believe that, you know, that actually happened. It did happen, and I actually think that there's a very good lesson to come from it. We were talking about this prominent business person, and Jim knew him, and I knew him, and, you know, a number of people know him. And we got to talking, and Jim said something really interesting. He said, you know, he's a good enough guy and, and certainly wildly successful, But my advice would be, if you ever get a chance to do business with him, run. And you might think, wait a minute, Jim's a motivational speaker, Jim's a nice guy, Jim's a compassionate guy. Why would Jim say something so mean? And, and, and, you know, don't do business with this person. That might be what your first reaction is. But let's think about that for a moment because it was actually a really good lesson for me, and I think a good lesson for you. Jim wasn't being mean at all. The guy is great success, helps lots of people through his businesses, all those kinds of things. But what Jim was suggesting— and we probably could have talked about a number of different people— but what Jim was suggesting about this person was to not do business with him because when you do business with this person, it's not a win-win relationship, it's a win-lose relationship. So it was really I mean, and of course Jim wasn't the type of person, don't do business with that person. It was more of a, just a piece of advice. It wasn't mean-spirited. It wasn't anything like that. But it was interesting because it was really about being wise. It was about understanding your associations. It was about understanding your relationships. It was about understanding who you partner with and who you don't partner with. It was about understanding who you go into business with and who you shouldn't go into business with. There's certainly people that you can enjoy and go to a party with or watch the Super Bowl with or things like that, that you shouldn't get into business with. And again, as a young up-and-coming business person myself, I found that to be pretty profound truth, that there are some people that, given the opportunity to do business with them, the advice would be run. So my question to you would be, are there people in your life that you probably should not be doing business with, you probably shouldn't be spending time with? This is a classic lesson that we taught about in our book, 12 Pillars, that you should expand some associations, you should limit some associations, and you should disassociate from some people. And that was a— but it was a very personal lesson that I learned from Jim because we were just sitting around having lunch, Kyle, Jim, and I. The last lesson that I learned from Jim was something that he said regularly. In fact, I bet very, very few people have ever heard Jim say this because he always said it after an event. He usually said it in a quiet room He said it to me a number of times in the elevator, or he would say it when we were up in his suite. Kyle has heard this thousands of times, I'm sure, many more times than I have. But after an event, or after a speech, or after, you know, something was accomplished, or a product was created, or something, we would all be by ourselves— Kyle, Jim, and I— and Jim would say these words, you know, We do good work. And I just love the simplicity of that. And it's something that I ask myself regularly still. Do I do good work? Is my work able to be described as good? I think one of the interesting things about it is the simplicity of the word good. So many people in the motivational world, they would have said, we do extraordinary work. We do work that impacts the world forever. We do work that changes lives in a dynamic way. Very over the top. But again, Idaho farm boy makes good, moves to Beverly Hills, becomes one of the world's top speakers of all time. And the way he described his work was good. And I just love the simplicity of that. I love the non-hype way of describing his work. And I would ask you, do you do good work? Because that was a question that still to this day causes me to think, causes me to pause, causes me to reflect about my own work, my own life. At the end of my life, will I be able to say, as Jim used to say to us all the time, we do good work, I did good work? One other lesson that I learned from Jim was something that he said to me after the book 12 Pillars came out and it sold so many copies. And it told me something about Jim and his mentality, his attitude, his graciousness. In fact, I even told this at Jim's memorial service, which I was fortunate to be able to speak at along with legends like Les Brown and Tony Robbins and Brian Tracy and all of these just great folks. I was able to share the platform with them. One of the things that Jim used to say to me after 12 Pillars became so popular— Jim was of course still at a late age doing, I think the last year before he became sick, he did 28 countries in one year giving speeches. And so he traveled all around, and every time we would get back together from time to time throughout the year, he always would say, Chris, you're making me famous. And it was just kind of funny that he would say that about 12 Pillars. I mean, you got to understand, you know, here he was in his 70s and here I was, you know, in my early 40s and he was already a legend. And I was, you know, really at the beginning, the cusp of my great fortune to become a top speaker and writer in the world of personal development. And it was just such a gracious thing for him to say. He was already wildly famous. He was already someone who was out there just, you know, doing his thing and making an impact on millions and millions of people. But he always— it was, it was sort of a tip of the hat, you know, to me. You're making me famous, meaning ultimately, you know, this is great, good job. 12 Pillars is a great book and people are being helped by it because of course they were telling him all over the world that they'd been reading the book and that it was changing their lives. I love that story because he was not the kind of person who would say boy, aren't you lucky that I let you co-write my book with me. Instead, he was so gracious and he was able to say to me, you're making me famous. And it always made me feel good whenever he would say that.

To see Jim Rohn's last interview, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe. I'll see you there.

Jim has been hailed over the years as one of the most influential thinkers of our time and considered to be America's foremost business philosopher. He has been sharing his success philosophies for over 40 years to over 4 million people worldwide.