Transcription
Once upon a time, when I started my career, I sat down at the end of the year and my tax returns were $14,400. 12 years later, I sat down and did my tax returns, and my tax returns were $1,440,000. I'd increased my income by a hundred times in 12 years.
And I went back and I started to look at that, and I realized that I'd used a formula, which I gradually articulated into what I call the 1/10th of 1% formula. And it's very simple. It's based on the law of incremental improvement. Japanese call it the Kaizen principle, the principle of continuous betterment, is getting a little bit better every day.
So I asked the question, if you could increase your productivity, performance, and output by one-tenth of 1% per day, could you do that? Could you increase your productivity, performance, and output by one-thousandth in a day? And the answer is, of course. If you were the tiniest bit more efficient, or you worked a little bit harder on a more important task, you could become a tenth of a percent better in a day.
Well, if you did that every single day for a week, you would be one-tenth of 1% times five. You'd be one-half of 1% more productive in a week. Is that possible? Of course. You would say anybody can become that small amount more productive. So I said, if you did that every week for four weeks, you'd be 2% more productive over the course of a month. If you did that every day for 133 four-week months in a year.
Portland, and his name is Chris, and he came up and he said, "Uh, uh, Mr. Tracy, do you remember me?" I said, "Yes." He's a nice guy, great personality. He said, "Well, you know that 1/10th of 1% formula that you taught, uh, to me many years ago?" I said, "Well, of course I remember, because I've taught it to so many people." He said, "Brian, it doesn't work." I said, "It doesn't work?" He said, "It doesn't work." I said, "How do you mean?" He smiled and he said, "Doesn't take 10 years. Said, only took me seven." He said, "Today," he said, "I am earning 10 times what I was earning seven years ago." He said, "I used it every day. Absolutely amazing." He said, "I'm making more money today in a, in a week or a month than I was often making a month or a year," he said, "by using that formula."
And what I did personally is I used it once, increased, increased my income 10 times, and then I used it again and increased my income 10 times more, a hundred times in 12 years. And so can you.
So here's what, here's what it consists of. It's very simply this. Um, each morning, get up, uh, first thing, at least two hours before you have to be somewhere, so you can invest the first hour, what we call the golden hour, into yourself. And you invest the golden hour by reading something that is uplifting, educational, motivational, spiritual. It doesn't matter. But they say reading is to the mind as exercise is to the body. Instead of reading newspapers or magazines or watching television, what you do is you just read something that's uplifting. If you're in sales, read something in selling. If you're, uh, spiritually oriented, read something spiritual. If you want motivation, read something motivational. But read one hour every morning that will thoroughly prepare your mind for the rest of the day.
Uh, one of the great, uh, speakers said that the first hour is the rudder of the day. It's called the Golden Hour. So you invest the golden hour in yourself. And just like if you got up in the morning, worked out for an hour, you'd be feeling great all day long. If you get up in the morning and read for an hour, you'll be feeling mentally great all day long.
Step number two in the formula is make a list of everything you have to do that day. Sit down, make a list. Be everything that you have to do. Plan your day in advance.
Step number three is organize your list by priorities. Determine what's most important, what's second most important, what's third most important. Put a number next to each one. Number one, number two, number three, number four, number five.
Fourth step is to start on your most important task, as we mentioned before, and work on it single-mindedly with concentration, focus, and discipline until your most important task is done. And then go to task number two and do the same thing.
Number five is listen to, uh, audio programs in your car. Turn your car into a mobile classroom. Turn your car into a university on wheels. Now, a study at the University of, uh, California, USC, concluded that if you listen to educational audio programs in your car as you drive around, instead of listening to to music, which we call chewing gum for the ears, if you listen to audio programs, you'll get the equivalent of almost full-time university attendance, except for one small point. Is when you go to the university, people who've graduated from universities that, as I eventually did, find that about 90 or 95% of what they teach you is not practical. It's theoretical. It's true. It's enjoyable, but it's useless in the real world. However, when you select educational audio programs on sales, communication, time management, goal setting for yourself, which you can stop and start if you like, you only select things that are valuable to you in the moment. So you get even more than a university education by turning your car into a classroom on wheels. You turn your car into a mobile learning machine.
Here's an interesting point. Going right back to the beginning. If you were to get up and read for 60 minutes each day, you would read an average of one book per week. One book per week would be an average of 50 books a year. Now, to get a PhD at a leading university in any subject, including astrophysics, you have to read about 30 to 50 books and combine them into a dissertation. If you read 30 to 50 books in your field in the course of a year, you get the equivalent of a doctoral degree, whether it's in selling, business, entrepreneurship, or any other field. You will, because you're reading material that's practical, have the equivalent of a dissertation in that you will have blended it into your life. You can double and triple your income simply by reading one hour every day. And I've taught this to thousands of people who have come back to me and said it's absolutely incredible the difference it makes in your life to begin the day by reading in your field.
The second thing is, if you plan every single day in advance, I can promise you this, the very act of planning and setting priorities will increase your productivity by 25% the first day. If you were to set and and concentrate on your most important task, you'd increase your productivity by another 50%. By simply reading, setting priorities, focusing on your most important task, your productivity, performance, and output will go up 100% in one year. If you then listen to audio programs in your car, many people have told me that that alone has increased their income 1,000% in 10 years.
Now, what is the next step? Number six. Number six is to ask yourself two questions after every call or every event. These two are what I call the magic questions, and they will change your life. Question number one is, right afterwards, say, "What did I do right in that situation?" If it's a sales call, if it's a business meeting, if it's a job application or interview, if it's a negotiation, if it's a meeting with your bank, afterwards, ask yourself, "What did I do right?" And immediately think, and even better, write down everything that you did correctly in that meeting, because you did a lot of good things. Even if it wasn't successful, you did a lot of things that were right.
Second, though they're about to buy a million dollars worth of your product, if they like you, and if you treat them nicely, and especially treat the members of your family, treat your children, treat your spouse, treat your friends like they're really important people. And the wonderful thing is that the more you treat other people as if they're important, the better you feel about yourself. The more positive you feel, and of course, the more positive they feel, and the more they want to work with you and be around you.
This 1/10th of 1% formula has been the key to success throughout history. Is you don't make quantum leaps. You don't go from zero to being rich. You don't make easy money or quick money. What you do is you go to work on yourself bit by bit, day by day, week by week, month by month, and your results are virtually guaranteed.