lives are what we live for. These experiences make the most impact on our lives and souls. The people we love and the relationships we have are all part of our personal happiness. When we have good people around us, we can handle just about anything. It’s the quality of these relationships that we’ll remember when everything else ceases to matter. Without the cultivation of a healthy personal life, the other areas in our lives will suffer. Mental – A stimulated mind keeps us energized and alive. It’s the thirst for education and self-improvement. There’s always something to learn and some new problem to solve. When our mental life is not nurtured and challenged, we can become indifferent and uninspired. We must make continuous effort to take care of our minds and keep ourselves open to new ideas. When we close ourselves down to new influences and resist growth, our minds will lose their luster. Mental acuity is essential to happiness; it adds depth and meaning to our personal experiences as well. Spiritual – Our belief in a higher power keeps us centered. When we lack the connection in which we feel part of something bigger than ourselves, we can feel aimless. Eventually, we’ll start to question the point of everything that we’re doing on a daily basis. Being in touch with our spiritual center is vital for us to feel balanced and whole. It doesn’t matter what or who you believe in, just that you believe in something. To know that there is more to ourselves than just skin and bones empowers us to persist through those hard times. We need to nurture this part of ourselves just like we nourish our physical bodies. Only then can we truly find happiness and success.
If you’re lacking in any one of these areas, it will show in the way you run your business. That’s why sometimes the people who seem successful, running Fortune 500 companies and earning boatloads of money, eventually break down. You can’t truly thrive if you are successful in one area and deficient in another. It will surface eventually. You’ll notice that it will be difficult to stay inspired and you will be unfulfilled.
Therefore, it’s important to make sure that ALL of your tasks get written on your list—business, personal, mental, and spiritual. You can create four lists, one for each segment of your life. Write down everything you require to be happy and successful for each segment. Business is currently your most important goal, so take that list, and where appropriate, insert the headlines of another list. So if on Monday you are doing business-related tasks, A, B, and C, make another bullet and write “personal.”
When you come to that point on your list, you’ll move to your personal list and choose something from there to complete. Do this with all of the lists. Work them into your business plan. Successful people know when to disconnect; they know that making this a priority ultimately makes them more successful in business.
Key Points from Chapter 3
Write your goals down
Make checklists
Schedule your priorities
Envision your long-term goal when you get discouraged
Limit distractions
Put checking your email in the middle or at the end of your listed priorities
Collect minutes where you can find them and make use of them
Take periodic breaks
Make separate business, personal, and spiritual goals
Suggestions for Further Reading
First Things First, Stephen R. Covey
Getting Things Done: The Art of Succession Productivity, David Allen
Education for Life – Recognizing the Importance of Having an Open and Active Mind
“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.” ~Tony Robbins
Not only is it important to schedule time for your personal and spiritual goals, it is equally important to set time aside for self-improvement and education. Constant learning is essential to prosperity. Never stop learning.
Once you have your plan mapped out and are en route to success, you can begin to focus on broadening your horizons. Devour information wherever you can get it. Every experience is a moment in which to learn something. The more you know (about anything and everything), the better edge you will have over the next businessperson. New information is available all the time, and you need to be constantly learning in order to keep up, but more importantly…to leap ahead. There are herds of people who make excuses. Lack of time is the most predominant one; but if you’re really committed, there are many ways to work around that. If you focus on how you spend your time, you’d be surprised at all of the time you currently waste. If you just adjust your schedule a bit, you can find time you never knew you had.
One of the easiest and most time efficient ways to stay abreast of current developments is through audiobooks and podcasts. You can download these to an mp3player or buy CD versions of the books of your choice. The average American spends more than 100 hours annually commuting to work. That’s the equivalent of two week’s vacation! Imagine the amount of reading you can accomplish if you took this commuting time and made it work for you. This is the quintessential phrase of the day—“Make it work for you.” A savvy businessperson is always looking at the current situation and envisioning how to make that work for him or her.
This is just the beginning. When you look, you’ll find all sorts of minutes during your day that are currently serving no valuable purpose. Figure out a way to use these minutes to your advantage. Time and knowledge add up, so use your time wisely and accumulate wisdom.
Not only is it important to constantly be learning and seeking new knowledge, it’s also important to keep an open mind when new information comes your way. Never prejudge a concept or wave of thought. Inspiration can be hiding anywhere. You never know when a concept you may have learned in a yoga class or read in an autobiography is going to be applicable to your business. When you glean information from activities that are unrelated to your business, you’re capitalizing on time that’s already spoken for. You’re “hitting two birds with one stone” essentially. Keep your eyes open to these learning moments.
Many people think that to be good at business, you have to study business. This is true and will allow you to be good at business. But if you want to be great in business, you have to look outside the box. Take from all areas of your life and apply experiences and ideas you normally wouldn’t even consider into your work. Be a sponge. When you experience poor customer service while standing in line at the supermarket, consider what you can take away from that. The ultimate businessperson isn’t the person who has a business-related education, but the person who has a business-oriented mind enhanced by real work experience who can put to learned work principles in any context.
You also want to make sure that your mind stays active. You don’t always have to be thinking about business, but you should always be engaged in some activity from one of the four planes of life. Always focus on improving. It doesn’t have to be in a mental or work-related way. Improve yourself in all areas of your life: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.
This also doesn’t mean you should never rest. Rest is good and essential. What you shouldn’t let yourself do is get into a rut. For example, if you were in a spiritual rut, you’d be ignoring an important part of yourself. You’d become underdeveloped or stunted in this area and would fall out of balance. It’s important
