12 Pillars
Jim Rohn
Description
Leave a legacy.
As they read, the words leap off the page at them with life changing Pillars, simple yet compelling, giving them a vision of who they can be, what they can become, a life they can design and dreams they can accomplish. In that moment when a light dawns, miracles happen.
Key words: Success
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My Notes
Summary of the pillars
Pillar 1 - The only way things are going to change, is if you change
Pillar 2 – The outside of you should reflect the inside
Pillar 3 – Put effort into relationships to make them grow
Pillar 4 – Have goals
Pillar 5 – Make the best use of your time available
Pillar 6 – Surround yourself with the best people
Pillar 7 – Be a lifelong learner
Pillar 8 – All of life is sales
Pillar 9 – What you become is what you get
Pillar 10 – Communication
Pillar 11 – Be a leader
Pillar 12 – Leave a legacy
Pillar 1: The only way things are going to change, is if you change
Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.
Personal development – success comes when you develop yourself beyond where you currently are.
You get ahead by starting to work on yourself.
Read books, attend seminars, and study the best people. And then APPLY the information. Implement what you learn. Work on integrating the ideas into your everyday work.
What are you going to change that in turn will change your life?
If you keep on living the way you are now, you will continue to produce the same life you already have.
Pillar 2: The outside of you should reflect the inside
Take responsibility rather than blame your circumstances.
Do not accept mediocrity.
Make a list of things you can control and change in your life, then take a couple of small steps toward improving.
You function best when you live in balance with your intellect, your emotions and spiritual life.
We should take care of our body because it is the only place we have to live.
Pillar 3: Put effort into relationships to make them grow
Use time, effort and imagination to keep relationships flourishing.
Relationships are the backbone of our existence.
Don’t let the weeds creep in.
The way to build relationships is about giving them time.
Imagine what the relationship could be. Then work on it.
Pillar 4: Have goals
The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it.
What the goal make of you will be or far greater value, than the goals you achieve.
The real goal is to make yourself a better person.
You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.
Just decide what you want to do and then get started. That is one of the most powerful lessons in life.
Pillar 5: Make the best use of your time available
Do you want to live with the pain of ‘discipline’ or the pain of ‘regret’?
Every day has many opportunities, but only one best opportunity.
I have done almost everything I desired. Yet, so many men and women never even let themselves dream, and those who do, most of them never overcome their fear and strive for their dream.
It is important to be the designer of our lives.
If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you will fall into someone else’s plan.
Pillar 6: Surround yourself with the best people
Don’t join an easy crowd: you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and demands to perform are high.
Surround yourself with winners, successful people who exhibit and live consistent to their values and skills you want to acquire and develop.
Constantly ask yourself these questions;
Who am I around?
What effect are they having on me?
What have they got me reading?
What have they got me saying?
Where do they have me going?
What do they have me thinking?
Most important – what do they have me becoming?
Then ask yourself the big question…Is that ok???
Are they helping you grow in the direction you want?
If the effect they have on us is negative, then is it up to us to make those tough choices in an effort to protect ourselves from the wrong influences.
Every association has a positive, neutral or negative effect on you.
Place every person you meet into three categories: disassociation, limited association and expanded association.
Have tough conversations.
Successful people look for relationships with other successful people who will push them, challenge them and encourage them to become better.
To attract attractive people, you must become attractive. To attract powerful people, you must become powerful. To attract committed people, you must become committed. Instead of going to work on them, go to work on yourself.
If you become, you can attract. It goes back to personal development.
Attitude is greatly shaped by influence and association.
Surround yourself with winners, optimists and people with positive attitudes.
Everyone you have associated with and everything you have done until now, have added up to your current situation. Maybe if you changed your associations, the results in your life and career would change.
We have the freedom and responsibility to determine who we associate with, and that will have a big impact on how our journey goes.
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
Pillar 7: Be a lifelong learner
Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.
A successful person is always a lifelong learner.
Self-education is what you teach yourself. It is what you learn along the way so that you are constantly improving and growing.
Learning is the beginning of wealth. Learning is the beginning of health. Learning is the beginning of spirituality. Searching and learning is where the miracle process begins.
The truly successful decide to learn the rest of their lives.
A few learning principles.
Read books.
Learn from successful people by observation.
Constantly reflect on your own experiences; learn what went right, what can you improve.
When we read books, we open ourselves to vast new worlds to explore and understand.
How will you ever change if you aren’t consistently and proactively pursing knowledge and ideas that will move you forward?
Pillar 8: All of life is sales
Sales are influence.
One key to having influence with others is to have the others perceive you as a person of talent and virtue.
Anyone who wants to succeed must learn that art and skill of influencing others.
From the day we are born, successfully reaching our goals is dependent on influencing others.
If you are going to sell a product you have to know it, believe in it and feel it. And the same is true if you are selling yourself.
Pillar 9: What you become is what you get
What’s important is the person you have to become in the process of becoming a millionaire.
If you want to make a million dollars, you had better grow personally to the point where you are a million-dollar person.
Ninety-nine per cent of the wealthy become wealthy by working for themselves and capturing the profits.
Pillar 10: Communication
Communication is two or more people working together to find the common ground of understanding. Then they have power together.
Communication isn’t just what you say, it’s also how you say it, when you say it and the receptiveness of who you say it to. And that’s just half of it. The other half is making sure you really listen.
You have to make sure that the other person is ready to hear what you have to say. If they aren’t, save it. Say it later.
The most important thing about communication is ‘listening’.
You have to care enough and value the other person enough to ‘want to listen’.
Pillar 11: Be a leader
To lead others is to help them change their thoughts, beliefs and actions for the better.
All leadership means is that you have mastered the art of influencing others.
Managers help people see themselves as they are. Leaders help people see themselves as better that they are.
Leaders talk about what could be. And then they take the steps to help the people become what could be.
Learn to help people with more than just their jobs: help them with their lives.
Great leaders are interested in people in general, not just for what they can get from them.
People want to know where you want to take them is better than where they are now.
Leaders know how to get to a better destination. They create optimistic vision.
Create a positive vision for the future, develop a plan to get there, communicate it, and then work on the plan.
Pillar 12: Leave a legacy
Lead a life that will help others spiritually, intellectually, physically, financially and relationally.
Live a life that serves as an example of what an exceptional life can look like.
We are all but breezes of wind that blow through this world.
You cannot choose how long you live, but you can choose how well you live it.
Blaze a trail that would allow others to move forward in their lives faster than if they had to blaze that trail themselves.
My actions are the proof that my words are true.
Give of yourself. Sacrifice for the good of others. Take the time to help others and to teach them. Be patient, loving and loyal.
Decide from scratch what seems like the best thing to do, not just what others do.
To be a true business owner. Make it so that you could leave for a year, and when you come back, your business would be doing better than when you left.
A business is a reflection of the creator.
