Jim Rohn - Take Charge of Your Life - Audiobook - 1991

[Music] The Nightingale Conan Corporation is proud to present Take Charge of Your Life, the winner's seminar by Jim Ran. [Music]

Some people have this incredible zest for life and an appetite for living well and doing well. And others seem to take the hoham attitude, let it slide, and hopefully it'll work out anyway. I don't know what the difference of that is. But it is exciting to watch people who are inspired. But I think the key to it all is self-motivation. Self-motivation. The guy says, "Boy, if somebody just come by and turn me on, hey, what if they don't show up?" Right? You got to have a better plan for your life.

But life is a challenge. What else is new? It is so important to articulate the challenge, the press, the push, because the push is on. But that's what life is all about. Accepting the challenge, driving the roots deep, becoming as strong as possible, accepting everything that comes and making it into what you wish to make it. Attempting your best, trying your hardest, thinking well, reading well, living well, struggling with it all. That's called the challenge. But that's what makes life worthwhile. That's where the value is. The struggle for high ideals to make something unique out of your life.

Ideas are life-changing. The ideas you grab hold of today and act upon can make all the difference in the fulfillment of your dreams. Just one good idea can take you to the top. And likewise, with a headful of the wrong ideas, you can become permanently sidetracked from success. If you want to take charge of your life to really make the most of what it has to offer, you're listening to the right man with the right ideas. Jim Ran knows the secrets of success. He has devoted his life to a study of the fundamentals of human behavior and personal motivation. And he can awaken a remarkable power for achievement in you. With his unique style of philosophy, wisdom, wit, and solid common sense, he provides practical information and motivation we can all profit from.

In this program, you'll discover the five pieces of the life puzzle, a body of knowledge guaranteed to help you achieve your greatest goals. You'll hear the secrets of an effective communicator, and learn the leadership skills you'll need to get ahead. Jim Ran speaks from experience. He has an international reputation as a dynamic, effective public speaker and has conducted workshops on personal development all over the world. There's magic in the touch of human words. Jim Ran credits much of his success to the teachings of his mentor Earl Schae. And now he passes these ideas along to you. Let's join Jim Ran as you take a front row seat at this live seminar recorded especially for you. [Music]

Wow. My gosh. I think I've been here before. Nice to see all of you. It is a pleasure to have you here. We're going to talk about leadership skills for the 80s. One of the greatest experiences any of us can have is the experience of influence. To persuade somebody that we've got a good idea to persuade somebody to buy a product or consider a service. To be able to influence somebody to a way of life, a product, an idea, a company, a corporation, an enterprise. Influence is one of the greatest of life's experiences. And I would like to talk about that in this series of lectures. The chance to influence somebody else, their thinking, their future, maybe their lives is a great experience. And all the way from being a manager to an executive to being a parent, we all have in some respects the chance and the opportunity to influence somebody else.

Now the key is to develop the skills to do it. There's one thing in doing it casually, another thing in doing it haphazardly, and the other is to do it on purpose by learning the skills. And that's what I'd like to cover in this series of lectures. Gathering the skills to help influence people to a way of thinking to a product to an idea to an enterprise or just to a better life. The skills of leadership. First of all, just in preliminary, let me just give you a list of what I hope you'll find in my series of lectures this time. Here's the list.

Number one, sincerity. To accomplish something, especially in lecturing and listening, we have to start with sincerity. And I would assume you're sincere or you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't have made this effort and pushed past whatever you had to push past to get here. And I can appreciate that. So, we first of all start with sincerity. And hopefully you'll find me sincere. I really have come by to bring value for your time and effort and consideration. But I've got a good note for you to make. Sincerity is not a test of truth. Sincerity is not a test of truth. We must not make the mistake of saying, "He must be right. He's so sincere." And the reason is, it's possible to be sincerely wrong. So we must not mistake sincerity for truth because it is possible to be sincerely wrong. But hopefully you'll find me both sincere and truthful because I wish to speak for you the truth. But you have to decide for yourself what is truth. But here's the key way. Sincerity on sincerity scales and weigh truth on truth scales. We don't weigh truth on sincerity scales.

Next, I hope you'll find in our series two major things. Ideas plus inspiration. If you want your life to change, here's the source of it all. Ideas plus inspiration. Now, ideas are not that far away. In fact, I've got a good phrase for you to consider. This will serve you well for the rest of your life. Everything you need is within reach. Everything you need is within reach. The ideas you need for life change or business change is within reading reach. It's within listening reach. There's probably a library not too far from you. The problem is, right, there's a library there, but most people drive by. Very few drive in. Poor Andrew Carnegie, right? Set up all these libraries across the country thinking everybody would stop by. Said, "No, everybody's going to drive by." He thought, "Sure, they were going to stop in." Do you know how many people own a library card in the United States? 3%. And guess how much they cost? Nothing. Wow. But see, it's within reach.

Now, the key is who's going to reach. There's a simple Bible phrase, and I'm an amateur on the Bible, but here's what it says. If you search, you will find. But it's very important to know that finding is reserved for the searchers. We don't find what we need. We find what we search for. Needing is not the prerequisite to getting value. You can't be a needer. You have to be a searcher. But if you will search, if you'll try, if you'll go, if you'll listen, ideas are within reach. And ideas are life-changing. There's nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. A business idea, a social idea, an investment idea, good health idea. All you need is just the refinement of an idea to make an impact on your life. Gather treasure, gather equity, gather wealth. Because it doesn't take much to make a significant difference as the time passes.

You might draw a little circle. This is where you are. 10 years from now you could be here or 10 years from now you could be here. And the difference in 10 years between here and here could be significant in money and lifestyle, treasures, equity. In 10 years, an incredible difference. But right here, a small difference in the change of discipline, the change of thinking to start you on this journey versus this journey. Now, it's also very important intellectually to know whether or not you're headed this way or this way. And once you decide 10 years from now, I think that the gathering of my intellectual and personal and spiritual and moral and economic treasure may not be that great. The key is to start right now making these changes to walk this new road. But here's what's exciting to me. Just a few daily disciplines makes a great deal of difference in one year, three years, five years. Just a few daily disciplines. And that's what I'd like to talk about in this series. Just these few daily disciplines that make the difference whether you wind up here or here. Good question. 10 years from now, you will surely arrive. The question is where? We don't want to kid ourselves about where. We don't want to kid ourselves about the road we're walking.

I had a day shortly after I met Mr. Schae called "Do Not Kid Myself Anymore Day." I don't want to go disillusioned anymore. You know, I was using the cross-finger theory back when I was 25, 24, 23. I finally decided that the cross-finger theory was not going to get me what I wanted. That isn't where the treasure lies. That I'm going to have to make sure which of these ways I'm headed. But a few reading disciplines and a few disciplines of mind and a few disciplines of activity and you can make all the difference in the world whether you wind up here or whether you wind up here. Okay? But just a few changes. Sometimes we get the idea that we're doing about 10% and there's about 90% more that we need in order to make the difference for our fortune. And probably the opposite is true, right? We're doing enough things to have arrived here today. We're doing enough things to have bought and shared in the good life so far. And maybe all you need is that extra 5%, 10% of intellectual change, activity change, a refinement of discipline, a refinement of thought. And all we need is the ideas to make those simple changes and the equity starts gathering in one year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years.

I have a good comment for your notes. Now's the time to fix the next 10 years. Now's the time to fix it. Now sometimes you have to come to grips with reality and with truth. That's what was good for me when I met Mr. Schae. I was 25 years old. He was 44 years old. And he brought me a wealth of experience. And he started asking me the tough questions. Big question. He said, "Are you reading the books that's going to take you where you want to go in the next 5 years?" Excellent question. So, you want to make sure I would assume for all of you to get where you want to be in the next 5 years, you're either reading the right books or you're not. That's kind of a brilliant statement, right? You're either engaged in the disciplines or you're not. But here's what we don't want to engage in. Disillusion, right? Hoping without acting, you know, wishing without doing. So the key is to take a look and say, "Where am I? What could I do to make the changes to make sure that I can take more certain daily steps toward the treasure I want?" The mental treasure, the personal treasure, the spiritual treasure, the financial treasure. I don't want to make any errors. Now's the time to adjust my daily program to take me where I want to go. So hopefully I'll have some ideas to share with you that might help make just a few adjustments. And in lecturing for especially the last 16, 18 years, I've got some letters and some personal testimonies of people that have done such remarkable things with just a few suggestions that it is worth taking the time. And that's what I'm here for, to do a little coaching. A good note for you to take. We could all use a little coaching. When you're playing the game, it's sometimes hard to see it all. And if you just take a breather, take a little time out, is what we're doing here in this lecture series. Take a little time out, listen to someone's experiences, which is what I want to share with you, my experiences, my ideas, and see if it might cause for you a little moment of correction so that you can make some changes that'll add up to some extra worth in the next 1 year, 3 years, 5 years.

So, ideas. Hope you'll find here during this series. All kinds of ideas, health ideas, enterprise ideas, living a better life ideas, and primarily for this series, skills of leadership ideas. The next key word is inspiration. Hopefully, you'll find some inspiration from this series. Inspiration is a mystery. Why some people are inspired and some are not? Who knows what that mystery is? Emotional vitality. Some people have this incredible zest for life and an appetite for living well and doing well. And others seem to take the hoham attitude, let it slide, and hopefully it'll work out anyway. I don't know what the difference of that is, but it is exciting to watch people who are inspired. But I think the key to it all is self-motivation. Self-motivation. The guy says, "Boy, if somebody just come by and turn me on, hey, what if they don't show up?" Right? You got to have a better plan for your life. Personal inspiration, drawing emotional vitality from life and the challenge, going for it. We all admire that. Hopefully, you'll find some of that as we study together.

And here's what I hope you'll find also during this series. Guidelines for translating response into results. I just want to share with you some of my insights, some of my experiences. I belong to a group that does business around the world. We've discovered a lot of ways and means and methods and ideas. I just want to share that with you from my own experiences and hope that it will serve as guidelines, but I'd like for the guidelines to translate response into results.

Now, just a personal word. I don't know where I've caught you in this particular lecture series. Maybe this is springtime for you. You've got a new opportunity going and no telling what you're going to make of it and you're all excited. I congratulate you for that. Maybe some of you, we've caught you in harvest time. If we knew your story, we'd let you give this lecture. I'd be happy to sit down, let you translate to us your story and your experiences and your success. Maybe you're celebrating. And maybe this series of lectures I've come along has caught you celebrating. Maybe this is the summertime for you when sometimes the going is tough and the weeds are attacking your garden and the bugs are after your values. Summertime is an interesting time. It's not that easy to last from spring till fall. Summer's a test and especially when the creditors are calling. We have a tendency to walk out in the field and say, "Grow, crop, grow. They are on me." So, I don't know. Maybe we've caught you in a testing time. Maybe this is a challenging time for you, the summertime. Maybe I've caught you in winter. And I'm sure we've all had some of those winter times, sort of desperate times, decision-making times. Maybe I've caught you at the fork of the road. And some of the decisions you make in the immediate future are going to have everything to do with your next 5 years, 10 years. And I've been to a few of those called forks in the road. I mean, which way do you go? What do you select now as your next path of opportunity? And maybe these are trying times for you. Winter can be a source of trial when the push is on and the press is on. So, I don't know where I've caught you, but whatever season I've caught you in, I want to bring you value. That's my intent.

And to get the most from this series, let me give you just a quick list. Here's number one. Be thankful. I think first of all, to get more, we need to just be thankful for what we already have. Especially living in this unbelievable country. In America, we call somebody poor that makes $10,000 a year. I'm sure the rest of the world would find that hard to imagine. Say, "Why would you call somebody poor that makes 10,000?" I don't know. We're such a rich, fabulous country. It's unbelievable. In Bangladesh, the average income is $95 a year. So, I'm sure they would find it strange that people would attend lectures on how to do better when probably we're doing better than almost anybody else in the world. I gave a lecture one weekend at our ranch in Clear Lake, California. Nice group of people. I get there a little bit before the Friday evening session and I can't believe the parking area. El Dorados and Continentals and Mercedes and Ferraris and one Rolls-Royce. Unbelievable. And I walk in and here's this good-looking crowd. And my opening remarks were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I think the rest of the world would find it strange that we have all come here this weekend to try to figure out how to do better." Surely the rest of the world would say, "I don't understand." The man in his Rolls-Royce saying, "I got to get to the seminar, find out how to get another one of these." Incredible. But here we are, right? Probably doing well. But let's be thankful for where we are because that's how good ideas start to flow. Thanksgiving for what you've already got.

Here's what blocks the flow of all good information. Cynicism. It's not that difficult to be a practiced cynic. Feeling cynical about circumstances, cynical about place, cynical about opportunity, cynical about people. But if we turn that around, turn cynicism into thanksgiving. Now the ideas can flow, information can flow, refinement of ideas can flow. So that's number one. Be thankful.

Here's number two. Be eager to learn. No matter what you know, there's always some more. Another point I'd like to make is argue later with all the stuff I'm going to share with you in this series. I wish we had time to argue it all out here, but we just don't have the time. I do like that format. There's nothing like a good powerful discussion to refine an idea. What we want is ideas that pass the test of the tough questions. And it's good to be around people who can ask the tough questions. Debate has a unique way of refining ideas that can become of value. And if we had time to argue and debate all this stuff I'm going to share with you, I would find that beneficial. But unfortunately, we don't. But here's what I ask you to do. Argue with all this stuff later. Go back over your notes and relive the experience and think about what we've shared with you here. The key is to stimulate the mind to think thoughts and to think ideas to open up channels of information. Refinement of intellect is where the future fortune lies. But be eager to learn.

And the last comment is be a good listener, which isn't easy these days. Everybody wants our attention. Radio voices and television voices and advertising voices and political voices and social voices and religious voices and community voices and family voices. And how do you sort through all the voices and give extra time to a voice of substance? It isn't easy. But if you'll practice the art of good listening, no telling what you can find in the way of ideas that can help change your life.

All right, that's enough in preliminaries. Let me just give you the five major pieces to the life puzzle. Somebody asked me not too long ago, if somebody needed help, could you categorize where they may need help into some simple steps? And I said, "I think I can." And here's what I came up with. The five major pieces to the life puzzle. If we all need some help, here's probably where it's going to fall in one of these five pieces. And I'm sure you can guess what they are.

Number one's philosophy. Philosophy is simply what you know. Now, to correct a couple of old cliches, what you don't know will hurt you. And to correct another one, ignorance is not bliss. Boy, it's so important to have the correct philosophy. It's so important to know. Philosophy sets the course of your life. It is the major piece in the five major pieces of the life puzzle. This is called major. Now, some things are minor, some things don't affect your life that much. But here are five areas that affect our life immensely. Philosophy is simply what you know. So it's important to know. I'm telling the kids these days, make sure you get the information while you're here. I'm talking to the Newport Harbor High School kids in some lectures last year and this year. And my encouragement is, make sure you get all the information while you're here. I know it's laborious. I know it isn't easy to read the books and take the classes and try to get good grades. But hey, while you're here, gather it all up. Because there's nothing worse than being stupid, right? Being broke is bad, but being stupid is what's awful. And what's really bad is being broke and stupid, right? There's nothing much worse than that. Unless you're sick. Sick, broke, stupid, right? We would call that the ultimate low. I don't know anything much worse than that. Well, maybe one more. Ugly, sick, broke, and stupid. So to correct all that, here's number one. You've just got to know because what you don't know will affect your economic future the next 3 years, 5 years. The book you miss will make a difference, right? The information you don't get will make a difference in the legacy of your equities over the next few months, the next few years. So philosophy, this is where it all begins.

Now I've divided philosophy into three parts. One is basic starting out philosophy. The baby starts processing information right away. Cold is bad, warm is good, hungry is awful, food is terrific. The baby starts reacting and processing information and having certain reactions to it. So our philosophy starts early, gathering information and reacting to it. Next is expanded philosophy. At least enough philosophy to be gainfully employed and offer a value to society and find your place in the marketplace and you know, be a reasonable decent human being. Expanded philosophy. But now how do you become wealthy and powerful and sophisticated, influential and unique? Simple word: refined philosophy. The refinement of philosophy, the extra studies and the extra books and the extra classes and the extra thinking, the extra pondering, the extra give and take of testing ideas and debate and discussion. That's where the extra life comes from is in the dimensions of refined philosophy, the extra thinking. And these are the steps of intellectual discovery that a lot of people just don't want to take or they're too busy to take it or it presents itself in too strong and tough a manner, these extra skills. But I'm telling you, once you start engaging in these extra skills, you won't ever want to go back. This new intellectual discovery is where the wealth is. It's where the happiness is, the good life, influence, power. It's refinement of philosophy.

Now our philosophy comes from a lot of places. Let me give it to you. Number one, from teaching, the influence of others, from the books we read, from the classes we take. And you might underline the word influence. This is where a big share of our philosophy comes from. Influence. In another series, we asked three major questions. Who am I around? That's called a big question. Some questions are little and some are big. This is a big one. Who am I around? Question number two, what are they doing to me? This is called major. This is called big. Where have they got me going? What have they got me reading? What have they got me thinking? What have they got me saying? And the biggie, what have they got me becoming? Influence plays a major role in the development of our philosophy, how we think, how we speak, the formulation of ideas, the things we weigh concerning values. All of this is so important. What we know, the mind thinking, processing ideas and information. Ideas are simply information taking form. But this whole process of mind and thinking and knowing and processing ideas and information. This is so important because it determines the major piece of the five pieces of the life puzzle. Philosophy.

Now we do something very important with what we know. We weigh it. We put it on our mental scales and we weigh it. And I don't know, we may give it a number from 1 to 10. Probably not consciously. But if we hear something and we come into possession of some information and we give it a 10, we'll probably act on it right away. If we give it a one, we'll probably let it slide. If it's important, we'll do something about it. If if we don't think it's important, we'll probably let it go. But it's so important to evaluate. A key word we learn in leadership skill training, perception. Trying to find value in something. Where is the value? How valuable is it? How important is it? Is there something here that I can't see at first glance? Is there something below the surface? Is there something in the inner workings of it? What goes behind it? What goes beyond it? What is its origin? All of these questions that help us come to the perception of value, ideas, evaluating information.

Now, here's what's important to have a good set of mental scales. What if in processing information your mental scales were off and you weighed everything a little wrong? Do you think that would affect your life? The answer is, of course. And all you got to be is a little off for 10 years. And you can imagine what the difference is. I got a key phrase for you. Life accumulates. We either accumulate the debt or the value. We either accumulate the regret or we accumulate the equity. Now we must all suffer one of two pains. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret. And I'm suggesting discipline, mental discipline to refine ideas. Of course, it's laborious and of course it's a push, but it's called a small price to pay so that you won't have the regret later on. Regret weighs tons. Discipline weighs ounces. So if you accept the early ounces of discipline of thought to refine ideas and not just let major questions go by, what about society? What about the government? What about taxes? What about religion? What about life? What about capital? What about business? What about society? All of these major questions. What about my life and my value and my place and my future? And what about life? What about origin? What about destiny? What about opportunity? What about possibility? All of these major questions to let them go casually by is to miss the treasures that your life could accumulate into in the coming months, the coming years. So this is called major. What we ponder and what we think about sets the course of our life. It's like the set of the sail that's taking us somewhere. Let me give you a good question to write down. Where are my thoughts taking me? This is the biggie question. Where are my thoughts taking me? These are some of the things you want to make sure of. You might be able to be casual about some things, but here are some things not to be casual about. My philosophy is taking me somewhere. Big question, where the accumulation of equity will either be there or won't be there. Life accumulates and I'm either accumulating debt that I'll be sorry for or I'm accumulating value that I'll be happy about. Okay. Philosophy, the first major piece in the five major pieces. [Music]

Here's [Music] number two. Attitude. Attitude is how you feel. First of all, we're affected by what we know. Second, we're affected by how we feel about what we know. The emotional part. Now, this is a major part of the five pieces. How I feel. Now, there's a lot of different ways to feel. Here's one. "If this is all they pay, I'm not coming early and I'm not staying late on the job, right?" We call that one way to feel. Isn't that a selection process? If this is all they pay, I'm not coming early and I'm not staying late. We call that your choice of attitude. Now, do you think that attitude, if you kept it for the next 5 years, would greatly affect your fortunes? The answer is, of course. You cannot escape the accumulated effect of the selection of your attitude. You can't escape it. So one of the major things to check is, how do I feel and am I on track or off track with my attitude? Now, attitude is not that easy to fix. It's not that easy to get information. It's hard to look up attitude in the yellow pages. If you could put your car in the shop and go next door and get your attitude tuned, wouldn't that be nice, right? But where do you go? How do we engage in the kind of philosophical thinking that will refine our attitude to give us a chance for future fortune rather than what will be missing in the future? So this is big, attitude.

Here's another attitude. "No matter what they pay, I always come early and I always stay late to invest in my own future." We call that another attitude about the same job. Now, why would one person have one attitude, another person have another attitude? We call that mysteries of the mind, right? I don't know. Everybody has to choose for themselves. Everybody has to decide by education. Now, if you didn't know what the consequences were going to be, it could be very easy to choose the wrong attitude and not discipline yourself to the right attitude. So a big portion of our life is affected by how we feel.

Let me give you just a quick list about the feelings that affect our lives. Number one, it's how you feel about the past. Boy, it's easy to carry the past as a burden instead of as a school. It's easy to let the past overwhelm you instead of let the past instruct you how to feel about the past hurts and the past losses and the past difficulties and the times you failed and the times it didn't work. The accumulation of all of that, how you feel about that, it's going to greatly affect your future in your life. One of the major things that affects your life is how you feel about the future. Our life is affected by two major things. One is price and the other is promise. And it's not that easy to pay the price if you can't see the promise. I think kids are having problems these days trying to pay the price because they can't see the promise. But all of us wouldn't mind paying the price if we could have a clear view of tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. If we had the high assurance with great probability of how it's going to work out, do you think we would hesitate to pay? The answer is no. But everybody hesitates to pay if the future isn't clear. So to help the kids these days, we got to do two things. Help them to see the promise and help them pay the price. But we can pay if we can see. My karate instructor said, "Mr. R, you cannot believe the incredible feeling of walking down any city street unafraid." I said, "Let's get on with the classes." Right? Hey, I will sweat. I will put myself through the paces, right? What would we do for an extraordinary promise? Answer: The most unbelievable things. Would you crack the books? Would you burn the midnight oil? Would you engage in the extra thoughts and the extra disciplines? If the promise was adequate and the answer is of course. But who wants to read? Who wants to burn the midnight oil? Who wants to put themselves through the paces if the promise isn't clear? Important price and promise.

Here's number three. It's how you feel about each other. It's so important attitude about society, country, state and city, community, family, enterprise, office, company, corporation, division. It's so important to have a unique understanding about other human beings and what makes a good life, what constitutes a good life, how you feel about each other. I've got a good phrase for you. You can't succeed by yourself. So to have a unique refined sense of appreciation for each other is prerequisite. It takes each other to build a society. It takes all of us to build a country, to build a nation. It takes all of us to build a community. Key phrase, you can't succeed by yourself. I gave a speech not long ago to the Rotary Club of Culver City, California, and I was unusually affected by the pledge of allegiance that day. Big strong voices. It's a big strong club. And it was going through my mind the next few days, the pledge of allegiance. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought, what an important key document, right? The pledge of allegiance. And so I started writing and I wrote a discourse on the pledge of allegiance. I took each key word and did a little summary for our tape of the month club. Wow. The pledge of allegiance is unique. It starts with "I" and ends with "all." The pledge starts with "I" and ends with "all." It takes all of us to make any one of us successful. And a unique refined appreciation of the all of us is what makes the "I" of us do much better. That appreciation of society. It takes all of us to make a market. We need each other's ideas and inspiration. And once you have that sense of appreciation of the all of us, now you and your place and your possibilities and your opportunities now start to really soar when you understand how important it is within the framework of the all of us. So you can't succeed by yourself. It's hard to find a rich hermit.

Now here's the biggie. It's how you feel about yourself that's major. Understanding self-worth is the beginning of progress. How valuable are you? What could you do if you had all the skills? If you took the extra classes and burned the midnight oil, what could you do? What true value could you become? That is one of the better exercises. What could I become in terms of value? What could I really do in the marketplace, in enterprise, family, home, love, experience, marriage, friendship? How valuable could I become? Am I valuable enough to work on what all is still not functioning in my life to full capacity? If I'm operating at 20%, what could I possibly do with the other 80%? And do I have it in knowledge and worth and value and experience? Once you start understanding this part of you, understanding how valuable you are, it is a whole new experience understanding self-worth. So attitude plays a big major part in how our life works out. Number one is philosophy. Number two is attitude. Number three is activity.

Activity is what you do. So our lives first of all are affected by what we know. Second, our lives are affected by how we feel. Third, our lives are affected by what we do. It is so important to understand this. If you want to influence and help people, here's the key. Success is a doing. You've got to actually do it. Activity is high priority in the life process to try to get maximum benefit out of what we have available. Activity. Now, here's an important question. What is your philosophy about activity? What about hard work? What about long hours? What about full days? If you're doing something, how hard should you go at it? How much time should you put in? Everybody has to develop their philosophy about activity. Just by way of review, let me quote you. Old Testament says six days activity, one day rest. That's called philosophy of ratio of activity. What is a good ratio of rest and activity? Old Testament says six days of one, one day of the other. You say, "Well, that's kind of old and outmoded." Well, maybe it is. I don't know. Maybe that's too old a philosophy. The old 6-1. I don't know. Who knows? Now we've got it down to five and two. Maybe five and two is okay. I don't know. If God would have thought of five and two, he might have made it five and two, right? You can't think of everything when you're putting one of these together. I guess who knows? But we've all got to have a philosophy about activity because your philosophy of activity will affect the rest of your life. Not to think so is naive.

I've got a good clue on rest. Make rest a necessity, not an objective. The reason for life is enterprise. The reason for life is productivity. The reason for life is to see what we can do with the seasons and the chances and our mind and our spirit, ourselves, to see what we can do. That's what life is all about. To see what you can do. Now, the doing, you've got to have a philosophy on how much time you're going to spend doing. And I've decided that enterprise is better than ease. If you rest too long, the weeds take the garden in the summer. So you can't rest too long. Life doesn't stand still. And the threat of life will start overwhelming the values of life if you just let it go. So we've all got to have a philosophy about activity.

Let me give you one of the best I know. Here's what it says. An ancient phrase says, "Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might." That's a philosophy. You say, "Well, I'm getting by with half my might." Well, okay. But you've got to decide on your own personal philosophy of activity. Now, this philosophy says, "Do it with all your might." Do you think there's any value or virtue in that? Well, I don't know. You've got to decide. You've got to weigh this out, right? You've got to evaluate it for yourself and put it on your own mental scales, and you've got to come up with your own answers. How hard should you work?

I'm teaching kids now the ant philosophy. The ant philosophy. An ancient story says everybody should study ants, especially lazy people. The ant philosophy. Let me give it to you. It's very brief. Number one, ants never quit. Good philosophy. If they're headed somewhere, you try to stop them, they'll look for another way. They'll climb over, they'll climb under, they'll climb around. They keep looking for another way. What a neat philosophy. Never quit looking for a way to get where you're supposed to go. Number two, ants think winter all summer. That's an important philosophy. You can't be so naive as to think summer all summer. You say, "Well, isn't it nice?" You can't think nice when it's nice. We will call you naive. An ancient story says, "Don't build your house on the sand in the summer." Why would we be given that advice? Because it's easy to build your house on the sand in the summer, but you must not be so disillusioned. So, ants are smart. They think winter all summer. In the summer, you got to think storm. You've got to think rock. You can't think sand and sun. Key philosophy number three. Ants think summer all winter. That's so important. I'm sure all winter long ants say, "This won't last long. We'll soon be out of here." What a neat philosophy. What a neat attitude. "This won't last long. We'll soon be out of here." First warm day. The answer: out. First warm day, they're out. Now, if it turns cold again, they'll dive back down. But first warm day, they're out. They can't wait to get out. What a neat philosophy. Can't wait to get at it. We teaching leadership skills. Average people look forward to getting off. Successful people look forward to getting on with it. The guy doesn't want off, he wants on. And that's what starts to transform his life into the doing, into the activity.

Now, here's the last of the ant philosophy. How much will an ant gather during the summer to prepare for the winter? Answer: All he possibly can. What an incredible philosophy. The "all you possibly can" philosophy. How much should you do? You got to come up with a philosophy of how much should you do? We're all governed by our thinking, our evaluation, what we've decided and how we feel. And this is a big question. What should you do? Schae gave me the best answer when I was 25 years old. Here's what he said. Do all you can. How many books should you read in the next six months? As many as you can fit into your schedule because the book you miss won't help. What if a guy missed the book? Think and Grow Rich. The guy's 40 and poor and he missed the book. He lived in the right country but he missed the book. He was a nice guy but he missed the book. He was very sincere, but he missed the book. He worked hard, but he missed the book. I'm telling you, if you miss the book, no telling what treasure will be missing in your life if you just miss the book. How hard should you work? The ant philosophy.

The man says to me, "I'm making about $50,000 a year. Isn't that enough?" Now, what would be your philosophical answer to someone who says, "I'm making $50,000 a year. Isn't that enough?" He said, "My kids are doing okay." And he said, "I got my bills paid." So, what would you say if a guy says, "I'm making $50,000 a year. Isn't that enough?" I said, "Yes, $50,000 a year is enough if it's the best you can do. We don't call enough an amount. We only call enough your best. If you're capable of making a half million a year and you make $50,000 a year, we call you a loser." Now, it isn't the difference between 50,000 and a half a million that's important. What's important is the full extent of your reach. That's what's important. The only way to feel maximum good about yourself is to extend yourself to the full capacity of your reach. Your intellectual reach and your physical reach and your potential and your possibility to do the best you can. What should you do? All you can. How many books should you read? As many as you can. How many skills should you learn? As many skills as you can. How many people should you touch? As many as you can. What all should you engage in? As many things as you can. Why not go to the max?

I've got a good question for you. How tall will a tree grow? As tall as it can. Did you ever hear of a tree growing half as high as it could? No. Trees don't grow half. They grow all full. They drive their roots as deep as they can, stretch as high as they can, produce every leaf they can. Trees go to the max. Now, why would human beings settle for less than the max of their capacity? Simple answer, they have the power of choice to do so. It gives us the dignity of being human beings called the power of choice. So, we've got a couple of choices. Let me give them to you. Here they are. To be all or to be part. Now, this is a philosophical discussion. You can choose to be less than you were designed to be or you can choose to be all you were designed to be. I'm merely suggesting that you ponder what the "all" might do for your life in the next 1 year, 3 years, 5 years. If you refined your philosophy of activity and went for it all. So the difference in value is not the amount. If you do the best you can and you make $10,000 a year, we call that enough. If you do the best you can and you make a million dollars a year, we call that enough. Enough is not the difference between 10,000 and a million. Enough is simply doing the best you can.

A group of psychiatrists invited me to come and lecture in Los Angeles not too long ago. I thought that was fascinating. I never graduated from college, but they wanted to hear my story. So, I go talk to the psychiatrists. Then in the middle of my talk, I had the audacity to say, "Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you what I think most messes with the mind." They said, "What do you think most messes with the mind?" I said, "I think it is simply doing less than you can." Messes with the mind. It causes all kinds of psychic damage. I think simply being less than you can be, doing less than you could do, trying less than you could try, doing it with less enthusiasm than you could. I think it somehow damages the mind. It damages our self-image. Because here's what I've discovered happens the minute you turn this around and start extending yourself. It isn't the value you get from extending yourself that's the greatest value. It's how you feel about yourself that's the greatest value. Because see, it's not what we get that makes us valuable. It's what we become. And part of becoming is to see what all you can become. See what all you can do. See how much you can earn, how much you can share, how much you can start, how far you can reach, how far you can extend your influence. Now that kind of commitment to philosophical thinking about attitude and about activity, we call this the potential for life change. The five major pieces to the life puzzle. We've covered three of them. Number one is philosophy. Number two is attitude. Number three is activity. Number four, I'm sure you're ahead of me. Results. Results is the name of the game. The quest of life is to see one what we can become, two what we can accomplish. What we can become and what we can accomplish. The key to life is to become skillful enough to do rewarding things with our life. Influence, productivity, activity, results, economic, social, personal, spiritual. But results is the name of

The game. But the reason for the seasons is in the fall to see what has come from the miracle of your hand and the seed and the soil and the seasons and the rain, the changes to cope with it all and to see what you can make out of what's available.

One of the most interesting ancient stories said, "A master had three servants and he gave them talents." Talents is simply value. Philosophy is to determine value. And once you understand that you have value, the key is to see what you can do with it. And here was the commission that the master gave his three servants. He gave one five talents, the other one two, and the third one, one talent. And his commission was, see what you can do with these values. And that's what life is all about. See what you can do with your mind. See what you can do with your skills. See what you can do with your hands. See what you can do with your thinking, your possibilities, your capabilities. The key is to see what you can do with it all because results is the name of the game.

And he said, "I'll be gone for a while and when I return, we'll go over the results. Here's all life expects us to do. Make measurable progress in reasonable time." Now, according to the story, the master evidently was gone. Reasonable time. We can't ask every 5 minutes, "How are you doing now?" Right? That's unreasonable. And we can't wait 5 years. That'd be too late. So there's what we call reasonable time to ask, "How are you doing now? What progress have you made now in this long list of human values and experiences?"

So the master having been gone, evidently reasonable time, came back, got the three servants together, and asked one of life's most important questions. How did you do in the time that was gone? What progress did you make? What results did you show? He asked this servant who had five talents, what happened? And that servant said, "I turned five into 10." Those numbers, I think, are very important, five and 10. Do you think they have any significance? I think in higher learning, they have very much significance. Now, in average learning, it probably doesn't matter. But in higher learning, we say it's very important to understand the numbers. Key life question: Should we be expected to double our values in reasonable time? Answer: Of course. Shouldn't we be expected to make progress? How many years do you want your child to spend in fourth grade? About one. You say, "Well, if they're nice kids, would you give them three or four years?" You say, "No, you can't give your child four years to get through fourth grade. That's too much time to make such small progress."

Now, wouldn't it be important to ask those same questions all of our life? See, we build those first-grade desks so small so they won't fit at age 21. And shouldn't it be a reasonable question, "What are you doing here? All this time has passed." So, I think it's very important, according to the story, to go from 5 to 10 in reasonable time.

Now the master said in response to these numbers, "Good job. Well done." And to this servant, he said, "What happened?" That servant said, "I turned two into four." Now, would you find that significant? Turning two into four. I think it is. Key phrase: Life is a numbers game. Part of life is a numbers game. How many books should you read to be adequately prepared to debate the major life issues in the next 10 years? Do you think it's important to come up with a pretty good, reasonable number of books in a wide variety of subjects to be adequately prepared to debate the major life issues in the next 10 years? The answer is, of course. Now, wouldn't it be important to know about what the number of those books are and what the wide range of major life topics are? This is very important stuff. This is not "get by" stuff now, right? You can get a crust of bread and a pair of shoes and stay out of the rain and do okay. But this is called higher learning for success and leadership and influence and skills that serve well for the future. So it's very important numbers.

How many pounds overweight should you be at age 50? Approximately about none. Well, we may let you borrow one or two, but five, and we say, "Hey." 10, and we say, "Hey." Hey, 15, and we say, "Hold it." 20, and we turn on the red lights and the sirens. You can't go beyond 20 with any reasonable amount of safety for your health and your future. So numbers, numbers are very important when a reasonable time has passed to say, "Let's go over the numbers one more time to make sure we're not off track." Everything by longevity tends to drift off track. So we have to keep coming back, what we call mid-course corrections. If you're headed for the moon, the early guidance system when you first blast off doesn't serve for the whole trip. You've got mid-course corrections, and they're very important when you're headed for the moon. [Music] Because you can miss Kansas City and hit St. Louis, and you're all right, but you can't miss the moon, right? So results being the name of the game. When reasonable time has passed, we have got to, among thinking people, to check out your numbers. Okay? And whatever these numbers may represent in skills or learning or capacity or equities of mind, 5 to 10, 2 to 4.

The master said to this servant, "I gave you one talent." What happened? That servant said, "I've still got the same talent." And the story said, "The master lost his cool or something like that." We call that proper response to lack of results. We must show that the insidious is insidious. We must show how empty life can be without measurable progress. We must get right on the problems and the challenges, lest we yield too easy to the things that can leave our lives empty instead of full and leave us with pennies instead of fortune. We must have proper response to lack of results.

Jesus said to his disciples one day, "Does that fig tree have any figs?" Is that an important life question? Does the fig tree have any figs? That's such an important life question. If it's a fig tree, his disciples said, "No, sir. That tree doesn't have any figs." The story said Jesus lost his cool. One of the few times he lost his cool. We call that proper response to lack of results. Shouldn't we pour it on? Lack of results. Shouldn't we make it clear? Shouldn't we become emotional? Shouldn't we become philosophically strong and find and select powerful words that will illustrate the point? Lack of results, right? So, I guess the moral to the story is, fig trees better have figs, especially when the maker of the fig tree comes by. [Music] Results is the name of the game.

I'm teaching kids now how to be rich by age 40. If you live in America with banks and capital and money and churches and sermons and libraries and books and teaching and training and classes and rallies and inspiration, shouldn't you be rich by age 40? If you're not, isn't something wrong? The word isn't right. The word's wrong. Something's wrong. Now, there's nothing wrong with the country, and there's nothing wrong with the community, and there's nothing wrong with the library and the books, and there's nothing wrong with the churches and the sermons, and there's nothing wrong with the school and the teachers, and there's nothing wrong with what's happening, and there's nothing wrong with you, but there's something wrong with your philosophy. Somebody sold you the wrong plan. Wow. It's easy to buy the wrong plan, buy the wrong philosophy, and make errors in judgment that compound into pennies instead of treasure.

So, one of the major reasons for looking at results is to see what might be wrong with activity. Maybe it's activity that's producing poor results. Now, a lot of people are working hard, but they're not making much progress. Here's what we teach in leadership skills: Don't mistake movement for achievement. Boy, it's easy to get faked out by being busy. The key is not just being busy. The key is doing what? It's easy to be busy and be making figure-eights instead of much progress. So, we look at results to see if there may be some difficulty with activity. Here's where we may need to go to work: activity. Because it takes activity to bring enterprise into being. There's a whole study here on activity. Activity is like birth pains. Disciplined activity is like birth pains. Now, I'm short on experience here, but I'm sure the mothers in the room would tell us it ain't easy. But see, it wasn't meant to be easy. Values were meant to be costly. The only way we can appreciate a value is by its cost. If it doesn't cost much, we probably wouldn't call it valuable. True winning is of great worth, but the price is to play with all your heart and mind and perhaps do some losing sometimes so that when you do win, boy, the worth and the value of the winning now becomes a high appreciation simply because now we understand both sides of this equation: price and promise.

So, we take a look at activity, and as we look at results, maybe something's wrong with attitude. Maybe it's how we feel. Maybe we've been nudged off course by influence into how we think about society and how we think about taxes and government and how we think about churches and sermons and people and schooling and learning and classes and worth and value and community and ideology. Our feelings about all that, then if the results aren't there, one of the major places to look is philosophy: Where have I missed in the refinement of my thinking because my thinking has brought me here? Maybe I need some changes in my thoughts, my thinking, the books, the classes, the lessons, the studies, the decision-making, errors in judgment. If I went back and corrected some errors in judgment, do you think that would affect the next three years? The answer is, of course. The new equity would be astounding. The new treasure would be exciting, simply by making some corrections in philosophy. So we take a great deal of time to look at results to check errors here, errors here, and errors here.

All right, here's number five. And I'm sure you've guessed already what number five is: Lifestyle. Lifestyle is simply how you choose to live, how you design your life. It's key to understand. Some people have learned to earn well, but they haven't learned to live well. The man studied economics, but he didn't study lifestyle. Or he's got the money now, but he doesn't have the joy. Here's what lifestyle is: Figuring ways to live uniquely. And it's a study. It's a practice. It's an art. It's as much of a skill as economics. Learning to live well, finding ways to bring joy, pleasure, excitement, appreciation, and awareness of how unique life can be. It's a study. It's a practice. Doesn't come by accident. Happiness is not an accident. It's an art. Lifestyle is not an amount. Culture is not an amount. Sophistication is not an account. Sophistication is a practice. It's an art. And anybody who wishes can engage in the art of sophistication, understanding the difference between trinkets and treasures, lifestyle. [Music]

If you want to get good at communication, you have to be aware of doing it every day as a practice session of getting better so that when the real important occasions arise, you will have the gift and you'll have the style. You'll have the sharpness and the clarity and the substance and the emotion. Let's get started in leadership skills with one of the most important called communications. Of all the skills to learn, this has got to be upfront, major. Learning by language to affect somebody else's life and mind. Learning by words and phrases and sentences to communicate with other people. Here's where part of the fortune lies: the use of language. There's magic in good communications. There's magic in the human touch of words. It was said, "The pen is mightier than the sword." That's true. Words are powerful. Words are almost godlike. I'm an amateur on some of these studies, but an ancient verse says, "God was the word, and the word was God." Wow. Powerful language to illustrate how powerful the word is. Words can be life-changing. Words can give life. Words can formulate ideologies: democracy and freedom and capitalism and all the things we enjoy in this unique country. We have to find ways to give words to that so that it can be understood. Words form the pictures of our minds. Words help to translate an interchange of thought and ideas between human beings.

So, one of the most important skills is the skill of good communication. Learning words, phrases, sentences, whether it's written or spoken. Language is so powerful in affecting our lives and using those skills to affect other people's lives. So, let's talk about communications and how powerful it is and how important it is. I've got four steps to achieve good communications. Let me give you this. Let's dive right into it. And I'm sure if you were to just ponder for a while, you'd probably come up with these same four steps. I'm not covering anything new. Right? These are just basic fundamentals. But here's where it all starts: fundamentals. Somebody once said, "Being successful is not doing extraordinary things. Being successful is simply doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." So, let's talk about some fairly ordinary things. See if we can't find an extraordinary way to put it into action.

Four steps to achieve good communications:

Number one, have something good to say. Right? That's obvious. Success is a study of the obvious, a refined study. So to achieve good communications, first of all, you've got to have something. In computer language, it's very simple: nothing in, nothing out. You cannot speak that which you do not know. You can't share what you don't feel, and you can't translate what you don't have, and you can't give what you don't possess. So first of all, to give it, to share it, for it to be effective, you've got to have it. So good communications, first of all, starts with preparation. Key word: preparation. Preparation is simply getting ready. And a big share of our life is simply getting ready. Getting ready. That first five years was to get ready to start our formal education. The next eight years. Eight years is a chunk of time, right? But after eight years, now you're ready for high school. That's a long time. Five years and then eight more years. That's a long time to get ready. So now we go through four years of high school. And all those four laborious years are to get ready for college. Now another 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 years, six more years to get ready, right? To be gainfully employed and earn a living and get out there in the marketplace and see what we can do. Lot of life is just simply getting ready, preparation.

Now, to get ready for good communications, you've got to spend part of your year, part of your day getting ready for the next day, part of the week getting ready for the next week. It's so easy to be casual about not continually preparing for the next day, the next week, the next month, the next year. Getting ready, and this is one of the most important areas to get ready in: good communications. Key word: research, continual research. It's easy to hope that the skills that you learned in the 70s will last through the 80s or the information you gathered during the 70s will be sufficient for the 80s, but not so. We've got to continually learn, continually grow. So, keyword research, preparation, getting ready. Preparation is like building an account from which to draw. When you get ready to talk, you want to make sure you've got a verbal check that'll cash. Here's the power in good communication: when what you say is only the tip of the iceberg of all you know, that's when communication becomes powerful. When what you say is only a portion of all that you know because you've gotten ready for this moment, this time, this occasion. I'm sure we've all been around some people who very quickly told us more than they knew. Didn't take them but a short period of time to run out of illustrations, to exhaust all their stories. Probably meaning great lack of preparation, great lack of deliberately getting ready.

Now, it is possible in some respects to prepare for life just by accident. You know, life does teach us some things by accident. There are some things you can learn by just careening from wall to wall and stumbling from day to day and staggering from week to week. I mean, you can learn some things that way. But the other 99% of what you need to know has got to be on purpose. Preparation on purpose. Good phrase. Am I engaged in preparation on purpose to get me ready to do in communication the skills that are necessary to take me where I want to go? Good question. And that's what we're here for, to ask some of the tough questions.

When I met Mr. Schae, he asked me the tough questions. I'm 25 years old. He said, "Mr. You've been working six years. I started working when I was 19." Mr. Schae asked me a simple question. He said, "Mr. How are you doing?" I said, "Not very well." Mr. Mr. Schae said, "I suggest you not do that anymore." Wow, tough questions. Mr. Schae said, "Mr. Own, how much money have you invested in the last 6 years?" I said, "What do you suppose, roughly?" "Not any." Schae said, "Who sold you on that plan?" Wow. Tough questions. Tough questions. And it's so important for somebody to come along and ask us the tough questions and not let us get by with small numbers and small answers. So that's what I'd like to do: ask some of the tough questions.

Let me give you now some keywords that'll help us to prepare for good communications. Keywords:

Number one, interest. To prepare for good communications, take a new interest in life. Here's a good pledge to make at the beginning of the day: "I'm going to be more interested in this day. I'm going to see if I can get more from the day." Boy, it's easy, if you're not careful, to just try to get through the day. But sophisticated people learn to get from the day. They don't want a day to go by without gathering up some new ideas, some new impressions, new color, new nuances, new sense of worth and value. They gather from the day. Interest. And here's two of the major subjects to study with interest: life and people. Develop a new, sharper interest, new, sharper focus on life and people, what's happening, what's going on. Now, that new commitment to a new interest for the day will get you ready for the years to come with better communications because to say it well, you have to feel it well. To say it well, you have to know it. And to know it, you just got to go through the laborious process of gathering, extracting the information. So that's the first word: interest.

Here's the second word: fascination. A bit beyond just simple interest. Interested people are probably satisfied that it ticks. It ticks. And that's good to know. It ticks. But fascinated people want to know, "What makes it tick?" Fascinated people aren't satisfied usually with surface information. They've got to know more than just what appears. What's really going on? The hippies had a pretty good question in the 60s. What was it? The hippies. Good question. They had, "What's happening?" That's a good question. "What's happening?" And sophisticated hippies say, "What's really happening?" Right? What is really going on? What's making things tick? What's making things happen? Why do people feel like they do and think like they think? What is the difference between success and failure? Who has the appetite and who doesn't have the appetite? This whole fascination about life and people and circumstances and society and money and banks and churches and sermons and books and records and life experiences and enterprise and nations and color and races and religion and a whole fascination for this wide panorama of life and life experiences. I'm telling you, if you'll take a new, fascinated look at life and what's going on, it will now show up in color and sharpness in your future communications. It'll have a new reach and a new depth. It'll have a new insight, a new excitement.

Now, I've got a good experiment for you to try. The next time you're tempted to be frustrated, see if you can turn it into fascination. How to turn frustration into fascination. That's a good skill to try to learn. I'm sitting on the freeway in Los Angeles. My airplane leaves in 45 minutes. The traffic is not moving an inch. I am now fascinated. I'm telling you now. It doesn't work every time. I'm willing to admit that nothing works every time. But can you imagine the extra value you'll get from a frustrating experience if you just think about this: "Can I turn this frustrating experience into something fascinating?" I'll learn a lot more from it if I'm fascinated by it than just frustrated by it. So just try that little key. Try to turn frustration into fascination. And in a frustrating experience, if a smile comes across your face, other people will wonder, you know, what's going on? But it'll just be private between you and me. The man taught me how to be fascinated, if possible, in a frustrating situation. Okay. Turning frustration into fascination. The extra learning discipline, the extra learning skill. And I think this is part of it.

Here's the next keyword: sensitivity. To really communicate well and to touch people in a wide range and from a wide range of experience, you've just got to have felt the experience. It's got to be part of you. Sensitivity training, being touched by a wide range of human experience, perhaps even beyond your own. Incredible word said about the master teacher Jesus. It said he was moved. Wow, that's a key word. It said he was moved with compassion. What was happening moved him. It touched him. Another phrase said he was touched. He was moved. He was affected on more than one occasion. He cried. So part of that human drama of experience, I think for us to really be able to reach people and touch people with words and ideas and emotion and phrases and sentences loaded with feelings, we've got to go into this area of sensitivity. Being touched, being affected by our own lives as well as the lives of other people. Sensitivity, being touched, being moved. This is part of the heavyweight stuff that starts to show up now in our language and in our communication.

I've lived a rather sheltered life all my life. So, I've had to really work on this. What do I know about tragedy? I've never had any tragedy. But part of the world is tragic. Part of life is tragic. And if you don't at least try to understand the dark side of life, the tragic side, the extreme sorrow side, your life is left a bit shallow. And sometimes when you live such a sheltered life, you just have to try to go outside of your own small world of sheltered experiences and see if you can't live as someone else might have lived or at least try to be touched by the experience. Now, you can't really know till you live it. I understand that. But at least you can try. And if you do your homework here in sensitivity for a wider range of experience than your own, I promise you that extra worth will show up in your conversation and in your communication.

When I lived in Northern California, I used to go to San Francisco two, three times a year, spend a day in the Tenderloin for a farm boy from Idaho. The Tenderloin in San Francisco. What an experience. And if you just go spend a day, you get to see what we call the other side. And if you just spend a day there and walk the streets where those lonely walk and go eat where they eat and listen to some of those stories, you come away with a whole new sense of the great distance between failure and success, the whole distance between goodness and evil, between despair and joy. And you come away with more of a sense of value because the true values of life come by the contrast. And unless you experience more of the contrast, even the values you consider value will become a bit shallow if you don't understand the contrast. It's hard to really appreciate winning until you've done some losing. It's hard to appreciate success until you've done some failing. And if you've done some failing, success now becomes a much larger worth and value and commodity if you understand a bit of the other side. So part of this is just deliberately go where experiences beyond your own touch your life to get somewhat of an education as to the contrast of life and the differences. It'll educate your mind and educate your spirit. And sure enough, that extra worth will start showing up in your sentences and your words. And they'll be weightier. They'll be heavier. They'll mean more when you talk to somebody.

I met Frank, the bartender, in the Tenderloin. Frank is a bartender in this sleazy little bar. You wouldn't believe this place. Frank sees more tragedy in a week than most people see in a lifetime if you work in one of those places. I'm visiting Frank one day and Frank and I are talking. Frank says, "See that lady sitting over there on the bar stool?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "Uh, how old do you think she is?" I said, "She's 45." Frank says she's 25. I said, "Wow." He said, "That's Cookie. Her name is Cookie." He said, "Cookie used to be a go-go dancer back in the go-go days." But then he said, "Cookie developed some kind of bone disease in her legs and her hips." And he said, "Now she's had all kinds of operations with the bolts and the pins trying to hold her together." And says, "Now she's a and she can hardly walk. So her go-go days are over." And sure enough, Cookie was very crippled. Frank says, "Cookie also has a little boy, 5 years old, and he's dying of leukemia." So he said, "Cookie comes several times a week, sits on that bar stool, and plays a little music to try to cheer up her life, and she usually drinks far too much, and gets wasted, and I have to call a taxi to come and take her home." Wow. I thought, Cookie. How come her life worked out like that and my life worked out like this? How come I get to travel around the world and Cookie finds it hard to even get home? That kind of exposure, that kind of sensitivity, that kind of study. Now, you can't really know it unless you live there. I understand that. But you can go a great deal into trying to understand a wider range of human experience. And if you will try to let those experiences touch you, let them affect you, let them educate you, let them give you a broader range of emotional wealth and worth, I'm telling you that extra worth will start showing up in your language, in your words, and in your sentences. And you'll be able to touch people that you couldn't touch before. You'll be able to reach people you couldn't reach before you had the experience. Your words will have more of a drawing than they had before, just by going through some of these experiences. So I'm asking you to consider the word sensitivity and ask yourself, what could I do and what experiences could I make sure that I engage in that would give me a broader range of understanding of human suffering as well as human joy, of the dilemma as well as the confidence, of the joy as well as the sorrow, of the success as well as the failures of life, and try to gain an understanding in a broader sense and let that have an effect on your future ability to touch and reach somebody else. Key word: sensitivity.

Here's number four: knowledge. Good communication starts with this laborious task of gathering knowledge. And I've got a parenthesis for you to make: working knowledge. Knowledge that you deliberately gather that will work for you in the future. This is why Schae taught me to keep these journals. He said, "Gather working knowledge." Knowledge that you go back over. Knowledge that you review. Ideas that you go back through one more time to see if you can't find the extra meaning, the extra depth, the extra worth, the extra value, working knowledge, your library, the books you read, the deliberate attempt to broaden your understanding. That's very important in bettering your communication skills. An ever-increasing amount of the refinement of intellect. That's so important. This working knowledge. We covered interest. We covered fascination. We covered sensitivity. And we covered knowledge.

Now, I've said all this to support my number one point in good communications: have something good to say. I was asked to give a talk, this has been many years ago now, to a service club. And I was trying to think of a good topic for my noon lecture. And I came up with this: the four ifs that make life worthwhile. And I thought it was something good to say. Let me just pass it along to you, in case somebody asks you to make a speech, and tell them where you got it, please.

The four ifs that make life worthwhile:

Life is worthwhile, number one, if you learn. Life is worthwhile if you learn. Your own experience can be a great teacher. The last three years, you've probably been doing it right or been doing it wrong. Mr. Schaef pointed out to me when I was 25, said, "Don't ignore the last 6 years." 6 years is a pretty good chunk of time to go over and evaluate and put it on the scales and say it either weighs or it doesn't weigh. You're either on track or off track. Let's take a look at our own experience. Another big way to learn is from other people's experiences. Might as well gather up someone else's experiences. OP, we call it other people's experiences. If somebody went through something for five years and they wrote a book and you could read the book in five days, wouldn't that be an advantage? Well, yes, if you read the book. Now, this isn't easy stuff, right? This is not casual stuff. This is the extraordinary kind of learning and skills that's necessary, I think, to gain the high life treasures. But I think it's worth it all. Small price to pay for treasure. The extra reading, the extra commitment to the excellence of learning. Life is worthwhile if you learn.

Number two, life is worthwhile if you try. You got to try something with what you know. Can you win the next game that's set up? I don't know. How are we going to know? You got to try. How else are we going to know whether you can be a winner in the next game? I don't know. Just make a commitment to try. When the final book on you is written, let it show your wins and let it show your losses, but don't let it show you didn't play. How would you explain that? So, you got to play. You got to try. See what you can do with your life. See what you can do with the next game. The key to life is to give it a try. I put the bar up 3 ft. Ask the kids, "Who can jump three feet?" I get a whole variety of response. "I don't think so." "I'm not sure." "I don't know." "Yes, I can," they say. Well, how are we going to know? You got to take a run at it. I don't know any other way. You've just got to take a run at it. Who knows if you can jump 3 ft till you try. Now, if you try and knock the bar down, does that mean you can't jump three feet? No. Let me give you the next clue: try it again. Try it over. Try it another time. Try it another way. Try it with more speed. There's all kinds of ways to try.

Number three, life is worthwhile if you stay. You got to learn to hang in there. You've got to learn to stay from spring till fall. Many people plant in the spring and leave in the summer. They're gone. First hot day. I thought sure John would last a month. Say, "Where is he?" "I don't know." Somebody said "boo" and he quit. "Where is it?" "I don't know." I'd say to win, you got to learn to stay. Just because you're behind in the first quarter, you can't leave. You got to learn to stay and hang in there. Guy builds a foundation. Then he walks off, wanders away, and builds another foundation. He never stays and puts up the walls and puts on the roof. You got to learn to stay. Hang in there.

The last one, life is worthwhile if you care. Caring is an important human value. And I wrote, "If you care at all, you'll get some results. If you care enough, you'll get incredible results." Caring to care for the day and to use its time. To care for the people and to help them with their possibilities. To care for the enterprise, its dignity and its reputation. And to care for yourself. To become all you can become. Stretch as far as you can stretch. Accomplish as much as you can accomplish. Become all that you can become. Caring, having something good to say. The fours that make life worthwhile.

First step to good communications: preparation, research, getting ready, making deposits in your mental, spiritual, moral bank account upon which to draw. [Music]

Here's the second step to achieve good communications. We have finally gotten to it. After you've got something good to say, number two is obvious: learn to say it well. Once you've got the information and the awareness and the understanding, the knowledge, now the key in good communication is how to translate it into meaningful words, emotions, feelings, phrases, sentences, paragraphs. It's very important now to be able to translate it. Learning to say it well. Now, this is a whole subject in itself. This is worth a weekend of study. Let me just give you a short list of suggestions on learning to say it well.

Number one, repetition. It just takes practice. I don't know any substitute for the practice. To learn any skill, you've just got to go through it again and again and again. My first attempt at lecturing, especially outside my own comfortable business circles, was pretty tough. Learning to say it well was a struggle for me. But I kept at it and kept at it. And now I've gotten better. I do one seminar called "Challenge to Succeed." It's about four hours long, and I can do it without any notes. Every once in a while, a person comes and says, "You lectured this evening for 4 hours without any notes. How can you do that?" I said, "It's very simple. I've done it a few thousand times." We call that simplicity. You just do it over and over and often. I've got a good question: How long do you want it to take to get good at what you do? You say, "Not very long." Then you've got to do it often. Do it often. Repetition starts the skill.

Now, it also must be repetition with the objectivity of getting better. Because sometimes it's easy to be casual just about repetition and not get much better. How about the man who's been talking for 10 years, but he's making the same verbal errors he made 10 years ago? Or 10 years ago, he said, "I don't quite know how to put this." 10 years later, he's saying, "I don't quite know how to put this." We say, "Hey, 10 years is too long not to know how to put it." We can give you 10 hours not to know how to put it. You can stretch our patience and take 10 days not to know how to put it, but we can't give you 10 years. 10 years is too long not to make enough progress in better language skills. So, repetition with purpose. The purpose is to grow and to change, to develop, to expand, to make progress.

Here are some other parts to saying it well:

Sincerity: from the heart with noble intent. Wishing to bring value that adds immeasurably to your ability to speak well, communicate well. Sincerity, there's no substitute for sincerity. I can forgive you for a mistake in judgment, but I can't forgive you for a mistake in intent.

Next key part to saying it well: brevity. Part of the key is to be brief. You can't linger too long. I've discovered in my lecturing and speaking around the world, you can't linger too long on any one point. Brevity. I used to tell stories too long. Too long. I get involved in a long, long story on and on. By the time I hit the punch line, people forgot how it started. Now it doesn't make sense. Too long. Here's why brevity is important: the human attention span is short. You haven't got long to get it said before you lose your audience. Now, the best practice I know of here is practice on the kids because their attention span is really short. Right? Underline "really." You talk to kids for 30 seconds. They say, "How long is this going to take?" Right? I mean, they're already out of shape, right? Looks like you're going to take forever to get to the point. Get it said. Brevity. Jesus, master communicator, was probably the best. In selecting his team, he would look at somebody and say, "Follow me." That's brief. That's right. That's short. Now, how could you be so brief and yet be so effective? I think probably because of all that he was that he didn't have to say. Sometimes we try to make up in words what we lack in self-confidence. So part of the key to being brief is personal development, personal growth, personal awareness, understanding self-worth. Now you can use the economy of words. And this is a good position to be in, that what you are adds so much weight to what you say that you don't have to say very much. But brevity is a good point on saying it well.

Next is style. And there's all kinds of parts to style, from body language and gestures to facial expressions and eyes and emotion. But style is very important. Here's part of the clue: it's not just the matter you cover, it's the manner in which you cover the matter. Style is important to attract someone's attention, to emphasize the point. Now, I've got a couple of good points here on style: Be a student of style, but don't just copy someone's style. Make sure that the study of style becomes distinctly you. But it is also important to be a student of style. How people speak well, be a student of that. And then borrowing bits and pieces from people you admire and the way they can communicate. Then make sure that all of that blended into you becomes your own distinctive style. But style is very important. Now, there's a variety of styles. Ancient story tells us of John the Baptist. He had a unique style. He came out of the desert dressed in camel's hair, and his diet was grasshoppers and wild honey. And he screamed and yelled and thundered curses on the king and other people. That was his style. They came to see John. I'm sure. Right? I'm sure the word was out: "You got to come and see this guy." Not just what he said, but his style, I'm sure, was something to watch. So John had a unique style. Jesus, I'm sure, had a probably a whole different style. But style is important to become uniquely John or to become uniquely you. But it's important to study your own style and say, "How am I coming across in style? Should I learn to emphasize more? Should I learn to be more emphatic?" All these things concerning style.

Next is vocabulary. Saying it well is proper choice of words. To build my early vocabulary, I used to put three or four words I didn't know on a card and put it up on the sun visor on my car. Back in those days, I traveled a lot by car. Sure enough, by the end of the day, I'd mastered two or three word vocabulary. Some of my friends took a survey among prisoners in New England several years ago. They made a very important discovery, some rehabilitation program they were working on. But here's the discovery they made: there's definitely a relationship between vocabulary and behavior. The more limited the vocabulary, the more tendency to poor behavior. Isn't that amazing that vocabulary would affect behavior? Now, if you think about it for a while, it makes sense. Here's why: vocabulary is a way of seeing. One reason for vocabulary is to interpret what we see, to interpret what we hear. The vocabulary of the mind grapples with the words and the images that come to our mind. Now, if you've got a poor set of words and skills and tools with which to interpret, you can imagine the errors and the mistakes you'll make in judgment. And since vocabulary is a way of seeing, if you can't see well, you can imagine the errors you can make and how they compound as life unfolds. We do two things with vocabulary: we interpret and we express. The words we have are the only words available to us. The words we know are the only tools available to us to number one, interpret what's going on, to interpret what's being said, and to express your heart and your mind. Now, if you can't interpret well and if you can't express well, you can imagine what a deterrent that is to the good life and the extra treasures, the extra feelings, awareness, riches, power, influence. So it's very important to have a good vocabulary. So I would ask you, one of the most important books in your library should be the dictionary. Just go through the dictionary. The words are fascinating, their origin and where they came from. Vocabulary.

Now, here's the last part on saying it well: Don't forget to say it. Practice the art every chance you get. Try to say it well. It's easy to be lazy in language all day and not practice the gift in the art. Then when it comes time to make an important talk, to appeal to a child, we're missing the words and missing the sharpness and missing the vocabulary simply because we lack the practice of doing it every day. If you want to get good at communication, you have to be aware of doing it every day as a practice session of getting better so that when the real important occasions arise, you will have the gift and you'll have the style. You'll have the sharpness and the clarity and the substance and the emotion. I have a key phrase for you: Actions are no substitute for words. Don't fail to say it.

Now, we've heard the old expression, "Words are no substitute for action." That's true. Talk, talk, talk, never act. That's not good. But this also isn't good: Act, act, act, and never talk. We must be gifted with words if we want the full treasure of life. So, practice every occasion you get. It's okay to send somebody flowers, but don't let flowers do all your talking. Here's why: flowers have a limited vocabulary. About the best flowers can say is, "You remembered." That's about the best. Or, "You care." That's about all. Flowers don't say, "You do incredible things to me. Nobody in this world affects me like you do." Now, see, flowers talk, but they don't say that. That you got to add in the card, right? That you got to add in person. So the next time you give flowers, say, "Just so my flowers won't do all the talking, let me add..." And then put the gift of words to work to go along with the activity. And you will start to sense this whole growing excitement about using language to affect somebody, to translate feelings of heart and mind. And the response you're going to get and the results you're going to get starts growing in measurable quantities. I'm just asking you to take the extra time to engage in these arts and practices. The gift of language, communications, affecting people with words.

So, we've covered step one: have something good to say. Step two: say it well. Here's step three to good communications: read your audience. It's very important to read and to pick up the signals of what's happening with your audience. Now, when I first started lecturing outside my business circles, I had some problems here reading my audience. I think my early audiences, they all could have left halfway through and I'd have never known it. I was so intent on what I was saying that I was a bit unconscious of what was going on out there. Then I finally learned to look up, to watch and see what's happening. We call this reading what's happening. My largest audience has been 10,000. I wasn't the only speaker. Art Linkletter, Paul Harvey, Dr. Peele, Zig Ziglar, myself, we each had an hour, but we had 10,000 people. But now, that was the first time I'd ever talked to 10,000 people. Awesome event for me. You know, Paul Harvey, he didn't have any problems. Art Linkletter, he didn't have any problems. But I had some problems that first four or five minutes, right? 10,000 is a lot of people. And you got to read fast, right? Because 10,000 people can turn on you quick. But learning to read what's going on back there? What's happening? Now, it's also just as important to read a person, to read a child. If you want to be effective, you got to get the feedback. You've got to pick.

up the signals to know whether to be stronger or whether to ease off, whether to change stories, change words, change language. All of this comes by a good ability to read your audience. So, let me give you some clues on reading.

Number one is simply to listen. Part of reading is listening. You pick up a lot of clues as to what else to say, what all to say by being a good listener. From early times, I think we've learned to be a good speaker, you got to be a good listener. That's where you pick up the information is to listen well, especially in a private conversation, a more informal conversation. Good listening habits. That's part of reading.

Number two, you got to read what you see. There's a good book called How to Read a Person Like a Book. It's a pretty good book by Nermberg, and it's a study of body language. Now, you can't get too deeply involved in this or you'll be so intent on reading body language that you may miss the point, but we can all, I think, use some help here. And now, some things are very obvious. You're talking to somebody, they've got their arms folded and their chin tucked down and they're frowning. That probably means, right, you got your work cut out for you. You got to reach deep into your bag of experiences and language because this one isn't going to be easy. So, some body language is fairly obvious. If you're talking to somebody and they're leaning toward the door, that probably means something, right? It means you're gonna have to get with it. You're not going to have an audience long. So, part of it is just being conscious, right? Body language, reading what you see.

Now, kids are pretty easy to read because they don't even try to fake you out, right? You talk to kids and they're staring out the window. I mean, they don't mind showing their total unconcern. But now, here's what's more challenging. In a polite society, sometimes body language can be deceiving. If somebody while you're talking looks at you and smiles, you got to make sure you don't misread that. Here's what we teach in leadership skills. Don't mistake courtesy for consent. In a polite society, we've learned sometimes to be courteous, but that doesn't mean we buy the story. With somebody being polite, smiling, and nodding, you got to make sure you don't misread that and stop short of the full persuasion. Don't mistake kindness for acceptance. In a polite society, we've learned to be kind, but that doesn't mean we've accepted. So, part of this is a little more subtle in reading. In a polite society, whether or not somebody is buying your argument, if they're being persuaded by your presentation. So, body language, picking up those signals.

Now, here's the one that's probably the most effective, but it's probably the most elusive. Reading the emotional signals. This is an area probably where the women have it over the men. Picking up the emotional signals. I think men can learn these skills, but I think women have a lot of this automatically. Men can learn it, but it's something we all have to learn. Emotional signals, picking up the signals of whether to change your language, be sharper or to be softer, to go after a problem or to ease back and give it time to soak. Part of this is just picking up the feelings, picking up the emotions, being sensitive to the situation. This is not easy stuff. This is extra learning stuff, extra skills. But this is called summit learning for those extra measures of rewards that come from communicating by learning these extra skills. So third, very important to read your audience. How are you coming across? What is the effect from a child to a auditorium full of people? Reading. Reading.

Here's the fourth step to good communication. Number one, have something good to say. Number two, say it well. Number three, read your audience. Number four, intensity. Here now starts the power of what we say. Part of the strength of what we say is the words we choose. The greater part of the strength of what we say is the emotions that are loaded into the words. Here's what has power unmatched. Words loaded with emotion. There is no greater power. Words have an effect, but words loaded with emotion have an incredible effect. My words may reach you, but if I can't touch you with my spirit, if I can't touch you with my emotions, my feelings, my beliefs, then I probably haven't affected you very much. We might describe words like a little straight pin, right? Guy buys a shirt, it's got all these little pins in it, right? If I took one of those little straight pins and I threw it at you and it hit you in the face or the hand, you'd probably feel it. This little straight pin, that means I got you with my words. But what if I took that little straight pin and wired it to the end of an iron bar and I let you have it with that? See, I can drive the pin through your heart. Now, the reason I can do that is because the pin is the words, but the iron bar is the emotions, the feelings, the belief, the commitment. All that I am if I can put more of what I am into what I say. No telling what miracle I can rot. No telling how much of an effect I can be. Real persuasion comes from putting you into what you say.

But now here's part of the clue. And we call these extra refinement of leadership skills. Learning to measure your emotions. That's very important to learn to measure your emotions. We teach don't shoot a cannon at a rabbit. It's effective, but you got no more rabbit. It's called too much firepower for the occasion. You don't need an atomic explosion for a minor point. Enough but not too much. We call this understanding how to measure the flow of your emotions to cover a point. Okay? But if it needs heavyweight stuff, you reach and get it. If it needs a milder approach, you learn how to measure it in milder, easier terms. But it's very important to measure your emotions, your feelings. Now, what do we mean by intensity and emotions? Here it is. All of your experiences and how they've affected you. That's the sum total of your emotional content. Where you've been and what you've heard and what you've seen and who you've met and this whole panorama of life experiences for you up until now and how you felt about all that. That we call the sum total of your emotions. Now, the key is to learn how to measure all that and put it in effective amounts into the words you choose. So, here's the key to effective communications. Well-chosen words loaded with well-measured emotions in the gift of a performance of an actor or an actress. The splendid performance comes from knowing with skill how to use language and how to use emotions. when the time calls for it. Emotions kept close to the surface, put into well-chosen words, can make the most dramatic effect on somebody's mind and somebody's heart. You can't believe the extent of your reach if you will engage in some of these communication skills.

[Music] Here's the clue to really affecting people. Start with where they are before you try to take them to where you want them to go. Meet people where they are. If somebody's hurting, you got to meet in the hurt. If somebody's in trouble, you got to start with the trouble.

[Music] Here's some more pieces to the communication challenge. Number one, identification. Learning to identify. This is a real challenge. Now, it's not too difficult if somebody's like you. The real challenge is to identify with somebody who's not like you. In a wider range of teaching all of this, here's the reaction you want from identification. Me too. You just want the reaction for somebody to say, "Me, too. I understand what that's like. I've been there." So, part of it is trying to translate your experiences into words so that someone will identify with it and say, "Me, too." Here's a reaction you don't want. So, what? Now, it's easy if you're not careful to load your presentation with a lot of so whats. Mr. Mr. Schaefe, who only went to the eighth grade in school, but he gave me the classic point to ponder here when I was 25 years old. And it was put in such simple terms, I've never forgotten it. Let me put it in those same terms for you. Here's what he said. Learn to express, not impress. That was so helpful for me because it's easy to engage in language just designed to impress instead of express. But chauffe said if you want to touch somebody learn to express sincerity from the heart not impress. Impress builds a gulf. Express builds a bridge. Identification. This is a whole wide subject in itself. The identification question is what will make me real to my audience? What will make me real to the child? Identification is building a bridge. If you're meeting somebody for the first time, it's simply getting acquainted, building a bridge, making contact. Here's one of the clues. Find something you have in common. That's where you start. Something you have in common. At our ranch up at Clear Lake, when we have seminars, everybody gets acquainted real easy. And one of the reasons is because almost everybody gets lost trying to find it, right? What a great way, right? Did you get as lost as I did trying to find this place, right? Somebody says, "Yeah, was that you up there taking the wrong turn? I thought that was you." What a great way to get acquainted. We've just had an experience recently that's been similar like getting lost. So identification is finding something in common.

Here's the clue to really affecting people. Start with where they are before you try to take them to where you want them to go. Meet people where they are. If somebody's hurting, you got to meet in the hurt. If somebody's in trouble, you got to start with the trouble. one of the greatest communicators of all time. Paul, apostle of early Christian history, didn't have any problem talking to sinners because he claimed to be chief sinner. Wow, what an identification point. Do you think sinners would listen to chief sinner? Of course. He said, "Tell me about being a sinner. I'm number one sinner. Got the plaque on the wall." What a way to begin, right? If he's talking to sinners, the key is to start where somebody is. If they're in trouble, you got to start with trouble. You can't talk success if somebody's in trouble. You got to start, first of all, talking trouble. Now, if you've never been in trouble, you got a problem. So, I suggest here that you get in a little trouble. So, you know how to talk trouble, right? get arrested for something. So that when somebody is stricken in the heart and you've had this experience, maybe not as deeply, but somewhat of an experience of being stricken in the heart, when you meet somebody and you're trying to help them, you can talk about being stricken in the heart and it'll have substance. It'll have meaning. It'll have depth. And you start there and then start building the bridge and start building the path towards solving the problem.

Identification. How do you identify with a child? It's tough. What if the adult is 40 and the child is 12? We call that a long bridge. How do you bridge the gap between 40 and 12? It isn't easy. In fact, we used to call it the generation gap. And how do you manage the skills that builds the bridge over the generation gap? Well, there's some answers here. Here's number one. Remember when you were 12? You've just got to have the skill to go back. This is what an actor does. They go back. They rehearse the early hurts and emotions, the trauma and the drama of the sum total of their life back in the early years. You just got to go back through all that and let it affect you one more time. Let it wash over you one more time. Let it rekindle one more time. You say, "Well, it may be painful." That's true, but you got to go back through these pains in order to reach some people that are in pain. So, part of it is to remember when you were 12. I don't have much problem with 12 year olds because I remember almost every day of being 12. 12 is a fascinating year. One of the challenges of being 12 is you're not 13. If I heard it once, I heard it a hundred times when I was 12. You're only 12. As if that was some awful place to be, right? The teenagers would say, "Of course you can't go. You're only 12." I thought, "Wow, I can't wait to be rid of 12." And become a teenager. So pretty frustrating. You just got to go back and remember that if you want to reach somebody 12, you just got to remember 12. Did you ever get chosen last when you were a kid? That's an awesome experience. They're choosing other sides. I'll take you. I'll take you. I'll take you. And then you're last and you're standing there. And the next leader says, "Well, I guess I'll have to take you." Right? Wow. What an awesome experience. But you just got to go back and relive that and let it smite you one more time. Let it hit you and let it hurt you. Because see, to really affect people, you got to be moved and you've got to be touched. And without moving and touching of life experiences, whatever emotion it calls for, there are some people you can't reach.

Here's another key way to reach the kids. Read all their books. Here's what it's called. Do your homework. Lack of homework shows in the marketplace. Lack of homework shows at home. See, if a child has read this book and I read the book, one of the great places we can meet is in the book. I say to the child, remember the story where right away they're going to be impressed that I've done my homework. And the kid says, "Did you read that book?" I said, "Yes, I read all those books." They say, "Wow." But I say, "Remember the story where?" They say, "I remember that story." Say, "Well, that's about like now." Not exactly, but it's pretty close. And the child says, "Oh, I see. I see. Now they can see because we went back to the common seeing that was in the book. But if you miss the book and don't do your homework, I'm telling you, you'll miss a chance to identify.

Here's the big challenge. Identifying with somebody who's not like you in color or religion or circumstance. How do the successful reach and touch somebody who isn't successful? Well, first of all, they've got to talk about their struggle, not their success. Let me give you the clue to good identification. Your struggle will more often identify than your success. If you've got an hour to talk and you spend 59 minutes on your success story, we call that building a gulf, not a bridge. You got to spend most of the time on your struggle. Most of the time on your fears, most of the time on your apprehensions, most of the time you hesitated, most of the time you were about to give it up. You got to spend some time on that. That's called identification and building a bridge. Then take them by the hand and then show them your success when it has meaning because it came from struggle. It came from decision and it came maybe from heartbreak and it came maybe from the same position the person finds themselves in that you're talking to. Identification what makes you real. That's so important.

Part of identification is proper word choice. Jesus said to his disciples one day, "Today I'm going to teach you how to fish." What an important choice of words, fish. Who is he talking to? Fishermen. We call that brilliant. He didn't say, "I'm going to teach you how to recruit." No. What did they know from recruit? These fishermen don't know recruit. And if you keep insisting on saying recruit to fisherman, we call you naive. You got to change your vocabulary. He said, "I now wish to teach you how to become fishermen. Now see they understood that language. He said winning people is a lot like fishing. Now see they understood that story. If it's like fishing, we can figure it out.

Here's the next clue to identification. Beware of using inside lingo on the outside world. Sometimes inside some little catchy phrases become comfortable, but outside they become strange. The man said to me, "We've got to get into the word. We got to spend more time in the word." I thought, "How small would you have to be?" Now, what I found out later he meant was we should read the Bible more. Now, see, that would have made sense to me, right? But the end of the word, we call that kind of strangy strangy language. And you got to be careful of strangy language on what we call the outside world. You got to learn to shift gears. The lady said to me, "I've learned how to handle my space." She said, "How are you doing with your space?" I thought, "Space, space? What's a space? Space." Now, I found out later she'd been to the space seminars and she learned the kind of spacey language. Space, space. But see, you got to be careful. You talk space, space to a lot of people, and they go back like this, say, "Space, space, space. What's this? Space, space." Right? Now, the people that have been through the space seminars can understand the spacey language. But if somebody hasn't, you got to learn to what we call shift gears into an appropriate word choice depending on your audience. It's called the gift of language in a variety of awareness to learn how to choose the right words and the right phrases depending on who you're talking to. We call this awareness. We call this being non-lazy. We call this being sharp in perception to know who you're talking to and how to choose the words that'll make sense.

Identification. You've got to identify with the sorrow by recalling your own sorrow. Identify with the joy by recalling your own joy. Identify with the difficulty by rehearsing your own difficulty. Here's one of the best clues in learning to better identify. go back over your own life and make a study of your own life, your circumstances, your feelings, your awareness, some of the stories you haven't told for a long time, some of the experiences you've had. Now, sometimes when you've freshly come from an experience, it isn't that easy to translate it and it isn't that easy to talk about it. But as the time passes and you can take a more thoughtful approach to your experiences, the key is not to lose the intensity of it, but to become more educated in using the intensity of your experiences to weave into the next conversation. And by the gift of language and emotion, touch somebody's life, reach somebody, affect somebody, persuade somebody. Identification, very important subject.

Here's the next part of a good presentation. It's what we call logic and reason. If you're trying to persuade a child, talk to a child, or talk to an audience, or if you're trying to talk to a customer. Part of any presentation is the logical part, the facts and the figures and the numbers and the dimensions. And we won't linger too long here because here's my point on logic and reason. It's got to be brief. We need some facts, but only enough facts to start the decision-making process. You got to beware not to cover too many facts. I'm sure we've all heard the expression, it's possible to talk somebody into buying and keep on talking them out of buying. Here's where this problem usually occurs. Even if it's a child, you can talk a child into deciding and then you keep on talking and then they undecide. We talk past too much logic, too much reason. We need just enough logic and reason so that it starts to make sense. Not so that you understand it all. If you walk into the new car showroom and express an interest in an automobile, salesman comes along and says, "Let me tell you about this car." You say, "Okay." He says, "Follow me." And he takes you out back into the shop. And he opens up the shop manual on the car and says, "Let's start with the left front wheel." Right away, you would say, "Hold it. Hold it. He says, "This is going to take a long time. We got a thousand facts here to go through." You'd say, "Hold it. Hold it." You don't need a thousand facts to decide about this automobile. How many facts do you need? About a half dozen. And if somebody makes the mistake of going beyond a half dozen, here's what they're going to do. Lose their audience. So, you got to make sure you don't get into too wide range of facts and logic. Because here's why. Most decisions are made emotionally. We need just enough logic so that it makes sense, but we're going to do it probably out of emotion. So, the key is to be brief with logic, reasons, facts, because too much of anything is too much, right, at one time. What if you sat down to a steak dinner and you were real hungry, so you you cleaned it all up? What if they cleared that away and brought you another one? Well, let's say you're real hungry, so you go for the second one. What if they cleared that away and brought you the third one? See, that third one doesn't look good. In fact, if you start on it, you'll probably lose the whole thing, right? I mean, too much is too much. So, brevity on logic and reason, it needs to be powerful. It needs to be factual, but brief.

Number [Music] three, learning to attack the problems. It's so important to mount a precise attack on the problems because one of the best ways to help somebody in communication is learn to attack the problem to attack what's wrong. But here's the refinement of the skill that leaders must have to attack the problem but not the person. We also express this particular part called attack and confess. One of the best ways to attack something is to confess you've had the problem. Use yourself as example one. Then use some others we call third party. Let me tell you about Mary. If Mary was here, she would confess, but she isn't here, so I'll confess for her. She put it off. She had the problem. And if she was here, she might even try to persuade you with tears, right? We call that third party. But one of the best is to use party one called you to attack the problems.

Now, what are some of the things that need to be attacked? Let me just give you some examples. It's a pretty long list, but we'll have to just be sufficiently satisfied with a few and you can continue these studies on your own. Procrastination. That's a good one. Front and center. We've got to attack procrastination because it's so insidious. It eats up such large chunks of your life and leaves you in a small corner. Putting it off, delaying, letting it slide. Now, I'm one of the best to attack procrastination because I confess to being one of the all-time great procrastinators. I've done a lot of things, but I've put a lot of things off. Procrastination. I am so good. I could teach it. Procrastination. I can show you how to do it. So, it don't show. I mean, I'm so good. I'm so good. But I also know the pain of procrastination. I also know the regret that comes from procrastination. I can also show you pieces of my life missing never to be repaired because I let it slide. Now see, if we all studied our own lives and we're trying to help somebody with this insidious disease of procrastination and putting it off front and center, we use ourselves as best example because you feel the strongest about your own experiences and your own emotions. Do you think you could help somebody with procrastination? developing this skill of going back rehearsing your own life and coming up with the essence of the emotion and the experience to try to illustrate to somebody how insidious it can become and how devastating it can leave your life and what'll be missing if you let it slide. That's what we call learning to attack the problem.

Now underline the word attack. It's very important to go after the insidious. The great leader of the Christian says, "The things I once hated, I now love. The things I once loved, I now hate." It's so important to incorporate both love and hate in the same conversation. Now, let me give you the dilemma. This stuff isn't easy. It's so easy to be careless with words and get the wrong reaction. What if you meant to say, "What's troubling you?" and instead you said, "What's wrong with you?" Can you imagine the difference? Just the mistake of one small word means all the difference in the world in the kind of reaction that you get. But here's the dilemma. To attack the problem, but not the person. God's got the same dilemma. God says, "I love you, but I hate your sinful ways." Now, see, that's a challenge to show somebody that you love them, but you hate. How do you put love and hate in the same sentence? I'm telling you it is essential to show your contempt for the problem and your concern for the value. These are not easy skills. You don't walk these summits of intellectual thought and word choice and emotional content and precision. You don't learn these overnight. But your commitment to excellence in communications can make all the difference in the world in how your economic and social and personal world works out. And here's part of the challenge. God says, "I love you, but I hate your sinful ways." Now, since me and my sinful ways are bound up so close together, I tend to take that personal. And God has to say, "No, no, no. Let me make it clear one more time. I love you, but I hate your sinful ways." See, we've got to make that clear. You got to make it clear to your children. I love you, but I hate what you're doing and what it's doing to you. So, you got to learn to put love and hate in the same sentence and to make the insidious as devastating and as ominous as it should be and make the opportunity as bright as it can be. But we've got to learn to paint by language and by emotions how much we hate the wrong in order to develop the good. And this is some stuff you can't be mild with. See, you can't take the mild approach to the weeds in your garden. You got to hate weeds bad enough to go kill them. You say, "Well, I've learned to handle this stuff." This is not stuff you handle. This is stuff you devastate. This is stuff you got to kill. If something is going after some treasure and some value, you've got to go after it with a high hateful attempt by word, by language, by emotions, whatever is necessary to get the job done to illustrate the evil and the possibility of good. Now, these are not easy skills, but if you want to extend your reach, in my opinion, you just have to engage in the confrontation. It's where the values are. Let me give you a good philosophical phrase. All values must be won by contest. All values must be won by contest. And after they've been won, they must be defended. You say, "Wow, you've put a pretty heavy task on us." That's what life is all about, a pretty heavy challenge. We don't give large trophies for small effort. If you want to win high health, if you want to win high wealth, if you want to extend a long reach in touching people's lives, you got to engage in some of these extra powerful disciplines. And one is to secure the territory by vigor. And the other is to defend it with equal challenge.

Attack. Procrastination. Here's another good one. Blame. I engaged in this the big share of my life until I met Mr. Show. I used to blame my negative relatives. I used to blame the government. I used to blame taxes. I used to blame prices. I said, "It costs too much." Sh said, "No, let's cover the real problem. You can't afford it." I thought, "Wow, I never looked at it like that before." Schul said, "Sir, you must intellectually understand. It's not it that's your problem. It's you that's your problem. It's not out there that's the problem. Out there is like it's been for 6,000 years. You can't cure that. But what you can cure is errors in judgment, errors in attitude, errors in activity, errors in misjudging results. I found that the errors were within. But see, he had to go after me on that point.

Here's the next one. Excuses. Wow, we've got a million. I'm too short. I'm too tall. I'm too old. I'm too young. I don't have the money. I don't have the experience. On and on and on with the excuses. Learning to attack. Very important.

Now, here's what we call tools of last resort. Here's part of the attack you can use. And if you learn these skills, no telling who you can help. But you must save these for what we call tools of last. Underline last resort. These are some things you don't use up front. Here's the first one. A direct attack. You got to be very careful of a direct attack so that it not be misjudged in severity. Next is scolding. Got to be very careful of scolding. You only use it as a last resort. Somebody walks in late, you say, "Where have you been?" See, that's loaded with insinuations. Loaded. You got to be very careful. Only use it as a last resort. If if you have to resort to it, you have to. But don't use it up front. Okay? We call save these. Save these for when the occasion calls for such harsh language to go after something. And the last one is sarcasm. Sarcasm can be useful, but you got to save it. Who do you think you are? See, that's powerful language, but you got to save it for when it is meaningful to use such powerful language. Matters of the heart are delicate. Here's what we teach. Don't operate on the heart with a hatchet. When you use these tools, you got to be very careful to save the value and go after the problem.

Now, let me give you the real clue. The more you care, the stronger you can be. People don't mind you using strong language about insidious things. They don't mind you becoming sharp, powerful. As long as you care, and the more you care, the stronger you can be. I don't mind a minister consigning my soul to hell fire for my sinful ways. I don't mind that as long as he does it with tears and not with joy. But wouldn't we all resist a dry-eyed sermon on hellfire? You can't preach hellfire without your heartbreaking. You got to sob your way through a sermon on hellfire. Or we all would resist a dryeyed attempt to preach on hellfire. Why? A simple obvious lack of really caring. And there are some subjects you cannot even deal with unless your heart breaks. And unless visibly it shows by the emotional content that you really care, now you can deal harshly with some powerful important problems. Tools of last resort, attacking the problems, but not the person.

Just by way of review, we've been covering the major parts in a presentation. Whether it's to a child or a business audience or a sales situation, all of us have the opportunity to affect somebody with words. And we talked about making the presentation that comes in four parts. Number one, identification, learning how to relate to somebody else, which is pretty easy if somebody's like you, pretty difficult if somebody's not like you. There's a difference in color, a difference in religion, a difference in age, a difference in uh experience, background. gets a little more complicated, but it can be mastered. And all you have to do is refine these skills to have a longer reach economically, socially, personally. Deal in subjects that make you real. Tell your story with authority. Next is the logic and reason part. Not too many facts. There's probably about a thousand facts about an automobile, but you don't need them all to make a decision. About a half a dozen will do. And if you stretch it beyond the half dozen, it's pretty easy to lose your audience. So brief on logic and reason. Number three was learning to attack the problems but not the person. Number four in making the presentation solution. So we've got identification, logic, attacking the problems and offering solution.

This is what we call solutions. Painting results in advance. This is an exciting part about the human experience. The ability to paint results in advance. We call it borrowing from the future. One of the reasons for living is to borrow from the future. If you can't see the future, it makes today pretty desperate. If you can't see the future, it makes your steps uncertain. Why bother to learn the skills and pay the price and go through all of the calisthenics and all of the trials of learning and growing and changing if you can't see the future? If there is no future, if there is no promise. So this is one of our great challenges to do two things. One, paint for ourselves the future results in advance borrowing from the future. But when you stop to think about it, that is a tremendous unique experience being able to borrow from the future, bring it to the present, and use it as an incentive to go get the job done, to learn the skills and put those skills to work. So painting results in advance, whether it's money results, whether it's position results, possibilities, opportunities, putting the person you're talking to in the future position, I can see you now solutions. And it can be very powerful, very powerful.

What makes the farmer work all spring and toil all summer? His vision of the harvest. If he couldn't see the harvest, he wouldn't put the plow in the ground. If he couldn't visualize the opportunity, the chance to cash in and to turn wheat into money and money into lifestyle, if he couldn't see all of this, why would you put the plow to the soil? And the answer is, of course, why? If you can't see, why labor? And if the promise isn't clear, why put out the effort? So, one of the ways to get people to respond, to put out the effort, to read the books, make the decisions, whatever it is you want them to do, part of the key is to offer the solution and be able to paint it in no uncertain terms. Jesus said to his disciples one day, "If you'll stick with me and plant the roots deep in our Christian ideology, this philosophy," he said, "If you will walk the streets, if you'll pour your heart and soul into this enterprise, if you will touch every human you can touch, if you will cross the oceans, if you will fling yourself on the known world, and it isn't going to be easy spreading the ideas, spreading what we've been going through the last three and a half years." He said, "It isn't going to be an easy task, but he said, "I promise you after you have finished this rather difficult task of putting all of your energy, time, and effort into the enterprise." He said, "I promise you when it's finished, in my father's house are many mansions." Wow. See, that's clever. He put the mansion shot on them. No wonder they walked the streets. All you have to do is read the book of the activities. And they crossed the oceans. They walked the streets. They touched every human they could touch. They put every ounce of energy and mind and soul and spirit into this philosophy. And they did it right up until the time they forfeited their life, most of them, for the opportunity. No wonder it's lasted for 2,000 years. But the enterprise also had the promise. And wouldn't you put out some effort if somebody that was credible told you about such a unique promise? And the answer is, of course. All we have to do is to see the promise clearly enough. And we will do some amazing things.

[Music] Passion, emotion, beliefs, convictions. If you can learn to articulate those well, if you'll learn to let that flow, not just from the surface, but from down deep, from a lifetime of experience, if you'll draw from all of those feelings and commitments and awareness, even with some misgivings, even with not knowing it all, even with a sense of humility, but it's that flow of emotion that finally now seals the point in the final art of persuasion.

Now, let's engage in a very exciting subject called the art of persuasion. Let me give you some notes to take because I found there's a great deal of difference between presentation and persuasion. When I first got into sales, I became a pretty good presenter. Schae taught me well. I used to hear people say, "I've listened to a lot of salesmen, but you've got to be one of the best." I thought, "Wow, the man has taught me well." Somebody else would say, "Hey, I've been around. I think I've heard them all, but wow, you got to be the best. You're one of the greatest salesmen I've ever heard." And I thought, "Wow, I've learned this stuff pretty quickly." Then one day, the awful truth dawned on me. I thought, "Hey, wait a minute. Something's wrong here. If I'm one of the world's all-time great salesmen, how come they ain't buying?" Wow. It started to dawn on me that I had an additional skill to learn. I got very good at presentation. I had yet to get good at persuasion. There were two great orators of antiquity. One was Deamasanes. He was a Greek. The other was Cicero. Cicero was a Roman. And they were both great speakers. But it was said of Cicero when he spoke everybody said what a great speech. It was said of Deosanes when he spoke everybody said let us march. And that's the difference between presentation and persuasion. I'm asking you to learn this additional skill. We call you a good persuader if now the results start to follow. If something starts to happen, if people decide, if they actually do something about your presentation, if they do something about your appeal, if something happens, now we know you have truly become what we call a persuader.

So, let's talk about the art of persuasion and what all it entails. Let me give it to you. Here's number one. Be a good storyteller. If you're involved in a company that deals in numbers and business and products and volume of business, make sure you translate all the business into stories. Sometimes it's easy to say, "We did $10 million in business last month." And then we forget the stories that are involved in that 10 million. So, here's what I'm asking you to do. become story conscious as well as figure conscious. How many stories does $10 million represent? And if you're only interested in the numbers and not the stories, you'll be limited in your future skills of communication. try to translate activity and business and volume and money and numbers into people into people's lives and and stories and who all is involved in the transactions. Okay.

Now, here's another key. Become your own best storyteller. Learn to tell your own story. Whether it's identification, logic, solutions, be a student of your own life. It's so important to go back over your own life. It's good to review at the end of the day your experiences of the day. We call it learning to reflect. One of the keys of making the past more valuable to invested in the future is learning how to reflect. Let me give you some good times to reflect. One is at the end of the day, take a few minutes at the end of the day and go back over your day. Who did you see? And who did you meet? And who did you talk to and what happened? Why did they say what they said? And why did you say what you said? We call it running the tapes again. And if you'll take a few minutes at the end of the day and run the tapes of the day again, that day will take a more important place in your equity future. You'll be able to draw from that day. But if you casually go through the day and then if you casually miss the opportunity to lock that day into your consciousness, sure enough, at some future time when you could have drawn from that experience, it won't be available. Here's how to lock in your past and make it more of an equity. Number two, take a few hours at the end of the week to go back over a week. A week is a pretty good chunk of time. The sights and the sounds and the colors and the people and the decisions and the mistakes and the errors and the successes. Just go back and review that week and let that week take a more powerful place in your awareness. A half a day at the end of the month, a month is really a good chunk of time. We wouldn't let a company go by without taking a look at least in 30 days. You can't be casual about taking a look. Somebody says, "Well, let's let the company go a few years and then we'll take a look." Say, "No, you can't wait a few years. That would be too late. You could be so far off track." Now, I'm asking you not to let your life go more than about 30 days without taking a serious look at the numbers and what you've done and what you've said and how you've grown and your experiences. So that one more 30-day period takes a stronger place in your life. Take a weekend at the end of the year called time to reflect. Why? To make the past more valuable. If you treat it so, experiences can become commodity, currency, coin. Now, why try to make the past more valuable? Here's the simple answer. To invest it in the future. When my father was about to turn 76 years old, I said to him, "Dear father, can you imagine the incredible experience that's waiting for you to gather up the last 75 years of your life and invest them into your 76th?" See, that's a lot different awareness than just trying to make it through one more year. Let me offer you this challenge to gather up more of your past and invest it in your future. And part of it is studying your own story because your own story could be so powerful in identifying and offering answers and solutions. No telling what if you took a little time you could uncover that you just haven't talked about for a long time. If you were to dig back, no telling what additional stories and experiences you could reawaken so that when the opportunity came, you could draw from that experience and invested into that conversation and no telling who you could touch. And without it, it might be a touch you couldn't make and a reach for which you're too short. Stories, your story, other people's stories. What a great way to illustrate fact and ideas and philosophy is to use the stories of life because that's the real stuff of life, the stories of life.

All right, here's number two in the art of persuasion. Accurate facts. Accurate facts. We call it dealing in truth. Accuracy is very important. Here's why. It builds credibility. Credibility starts to weaken if you mess with the facts. the truth, the correct numbers. Now, everybody will give you room for what we call an unintentional error in dealing in facts. Now, see, if my watch says about 7:28, but if you were to ask me what time is it, and I was to say it's 7:30, you would allow me to be a couple of minutes off, right? If I said it was 7:30, but accurately, really, truthfully, it was 7:28, you would give me that error to just quickly say 7:30, right? You would say, "You didn't mean to mess up my life, right, by leading me astray with this erroneous information that it was 7:30 when really it was only 7:28." Now, there are times and occasions when you may have to be precise, and it may be a life and death matter. Who knows? But in generally speaking, people will give you room for making what we call an unintentional error in stating what we call the truth. But beyond a sort of reasonleness of unintentional error, an area that is what we call in higher circles unacceptable. Some people deal in exaggeration and it starts to destroy their credibility. If you're giving testimony in a in a trial and you're on the witness stand, if they catch you in one lie, guess what they do with the rest of your testimony? They throw it all away. Why? You have destroyed your credibility. The guy says, "Well, no, I only lied just that one time." Well, how are we going to believe that? All it takes is one to now weaken your whole testimony. Right? So, here's part of the key in the art of persuasion. Dealing in truth, dealing in fact. Here's what we call true sophistication. A total absence of exaggeration. Why? It's unnecessary to the sophisticated. Here's what we call exaggeration. The childish attempt to make up for lack of selfworth. If you don't feel adequate, more often than not, you tend to deal in exaggerations, to make up in numbers what you may lack in character or what you lack in substance or what you lack in confidence. But if you start building character and confidence

And precision of thinking and decision-making. And you have a sense of growing worth and value, you don't mind dealing in absolute truth and accuracy because that's what counts.

Here's the next key. Better understated than overstated. I have a book called Seasons of Life and it's got my picture in it and it isn't the best picture. You know, the book came out about 3 years ago. I published it myself. Every once in a while somebody says, "Mr. Ran. This picture of you in this book, Seasons of Life is not the greatest picture of you." I said, "I know. That's why it's in there. So that when I show up, I'll look better than the picture, right?" A lot of people use these glamour Hollywood shots, right? And when they show up in person, they look a little used around the edges, right? I'd rather have people surprised on the upside than surprised on the disappointing side.

If you're working with people, let me give you one of the greatest clues I've learned. When you're working with people, let them find out it was more than you promised and let them find out it was easier than you said. Later, you always want people to be surprised that it's more than you promised and it's easier than you said.

Key here, learn to trust the truth. If the truth isn't enough, then all you have to do is become stronger yourself in presenting the truth. All right. Number one with stories. Number two, accuracy, facts, telling the truth. Sometimes you never know who's going to be around to check the accuracy of your stories.

In one of my sessions on the weekend in our leadership series, I was talking about a murder trial I attended many, many years ago in Houston, Texas, and I was describing this murder trial and the scene and the lawyer who turned down the case. Then they hired another lawyer to defend this uh black man who had killed a bus driver. And I'm going through this whole scene and somebody told me it was going to be quite a dramatic trial and I should go and I happen to be in the area. So I went to this murder trial. I was there every day. And that the lawyer was so brilliant. This black lawyer from Dallas was so brilliant. I was swept away by his language and his style and his uniqueness. He had the whole courtroom mesmerized.

So I'm telling this whole story for some illustration I was using and then I finished the story and I started moving on and it was, you know, getting close to having a break in the in the seminar and when I finished the story a lady stood up. I had a class of about 40, 50 people. She stands up. She said, "Mr. Ran, could I say something?" And I thought we'd been going quite a while and she just wanted to stand up and leave and excuse herself. And she said, "Could I say something?" And I said, "Well, yes." And she looked a little sort of shaken. I said, "Yes, of course." She turned around to the group and she said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I've just had a unique experience." She said, "This story that Mr. Ran told you about this murder trial down in Houston, Texas some 15 years ago." She said, "I want you to know the experience I've had in listening to the story has been unique because I was there." She said, "The attorney that turned down the case, a pretty famous attorney, she said he happened to be my boss. I was his legal secretary. I also sat in that courtroom." I want you to know Mr. Ran has described to you exactly what happened. And I thought, wow, close, right? I'm asking you, right? Tell accurate stories. Deal in truth because you never know when 15 years later somebody's going to be sitting in your audience. Okay?

But learn to trust the truth. There's nothing more powerful than the truth. I got an ancient quote for you. Here's what it is. The truth will set you free. That's what sets you free. The truth. Many people are dealing in affirmations, but I'll tell you what sets you free. The truth. Best thing to affirm is the truth. If you're broke, best thing to affirm is "I am broke." That's what you put up on the refrigerator. It's the truth that sets you free. Right? When you're shaving in the morning, gentlemen, if you're broke, you just put that up there. "I'm broke." There's nothing better to set you free than the awesome facts, the truth. So, deal in truth. Affirmation without discipline leads to delusion. And the discipline and the accuracy of knowing your situation. You say, "Well, that's a bit negative." You got to deal somewhat in negativity. If you've got something fairly wrong with your heart, looks like you're going to need a major operation. How many X-rays do you want them to take to find out what's really wrong? Somebody says, "Oh, just take one and see if we catch it." You say, "No, no, not my heart. How many X-rays do you want them to take?" It's kind of a negative subject, taking X-rays. How many? As many as it takes to find the full extent of the facts called the negative problem. So best to state the truth. Now we can deal with truth. Now we can deal with the problem if we accurately state it and we take an X-ray that shows it in all of its insidiousness. Now we can go after it and we can affect a cure. Now we can start the positive treatment. But at first, you got to know the problem before you can find the answer. So dealing in truth, so important. It sets you free.

Next in the list of key things to remember in the art of persuasion, I've got down here quotes. You might as well borrow somebody else's good language if they've said it extremely well and you can use it to illustrate a point. Just borrow it. I borrow everything I can borrow. All the stuff Mr. Schae taught me. I borrow all that. You know, try my best to give him credit for all the things he shared with me. But borrow, borrow. Some people have said it so well, there's no use trying to think up another way to say it. Quotes. It shows you've done your homework. It shows you're passionately interested in your subject. The quotes, the stories.

In some other seminars I give, I use a lot of quotes. I'm talking about humans being affected by each other. And I quote the lyrics from a recent song that says, "If not for you, the winter would hold no spring. Couldn't hear a robin sing. I just wouldn't have a clue if not for you." Now, see, that's so well said. You couldn't improve much on that. So, the key is to just borrow. Borrow all that you can borrow to support your argument, to express your heart, or to express your mind and your feelings. This is part of the art of persuasion, learning to borrow things well said and well constructed.

Winston Churchill said, "The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is." See, that's so well said. You could stay up all night and not think of that, right? But you don't have to stay up all night and think of it, right? Churchill's already said it. But it's so powerful and it's so brief and it's so precise and it's so dramatic that you might as well borrow the drama that comes from the language just by exercising the quote.

I talk about the brevity of life in one of my other lectures. The Beatles wrote, "Life is so short." What a powerful lyric from one of their songs. And for John on the streets of New York, it was extra short. But see, those are powerful words. Elton John sings, "She lived her life like a candle in the wind." Wow. You can't think of much better lyrics to describe how fragile life is and how brief it is. Right? Those are unique words. And the key is to learn the words and borrow the words and borrow the quotes to support your expressions, your communication, your conversations.

Benjamin Disraeli said, "Nothing can resist a human will that will stake its existence on its purpose." Wow, that's powerful. We call this towering language. We call this climbing the summit of words and sentences and phrases that have incredible meaning. So briefly said and yet so powerfully done. And you might as well borrow the power and borrow the explanation and borrow the effect of somebody else's unique words. Just borrow those and put them into your presentation. You'll see the dramatic difference right away.

John Kennedy said, Winston Churchill had the ability in World War II to take the English language and send it into battle. And we were all inspired by the speeches rallied to the cause, the tenacity to hang on, the visions of the rascal, Hitler, and his insidious, casting a long shadow over the land of Europe. Churchill had the ability to use the language to get us to see and to get us to think and to stir the mind and stir the heart and stir the soul. I'm telling you, words are so powerful. And think up words of your own that are powerful. But when you need it, reach and borrow somebody who has said it well and offer it for somebody to consider to touch the heart and touch the soul and mend the problem and get somebody to decide to try to move to change to grow. Of course, this isn't an easy task. It wasn't meant to be easy. It was meant to be a price because that's how you appreciate the promise of language. The language that affects the cure, the language that reaches and touches. You've got to go through some of these skills. Learn the craft.

Now, I've got another word down here you might not have that much use for. It's called oratory. Oratory is a dramatic way of saying something to catch someone's attention, to drive the point home. And you may not have that much use for oratory. I probably use more oratory informally than I do in public. I'm a little more reserved on the platform behind a podium. I get a little more dramatic in person. That's just my style. A little more conservative in public, a little more dramatic in person. But I do have a bit of oratory.

One of my lectures I'm dealing with the problem of complaining. I go through a whole list called the diseases of attitude. And when I get to the last one, complaining, I'm wanting to really make it clear. And I say, "Spend 5 minutes complaining and you have wasted five, and you may have begun what's known as economic cancer of the bone. They will soon haul you off into a financial desert and there let you choke on the dust of your own regret." Now, that's what we call a bit of oratory, right? Oratory, just a burst, right? Now, you can't do 30 minutes of that, right? That would be too much. But when the occasion calls for it, oratory, saying something in a more dramatic fashion.

[Music]

Here's [Music] the next one. This is very important in dealing in the art of persuasion. Straight talk. I don't think any of us mind anymore, do we? In saying, "Let's tell it like it is." Doesn't almost everybody make the comment, "Level with me. Tell it like it is. Put it on the line." And that was one of the great experiences I had in meeting this incredible gentleman, Mr. Schae, when I was 25 years old. Mr. Schae only went to the eighth grade in school. So he put things in very simple language. But I tell you what he did do. He laid it on the line. He said, "Mr. Ran, 25 years old and you're an American male and you've been to high school and one year of college and you're not at least a third of your way towards your fortune." He said, "Isn't something wrong?" Now, see, I'd never looked at it like that before as being wrong. He said, "Something's wrong." Right? He said, "There's nothing wrong with the country and nothing wrong with the companies, and there's nothing wrong with the banks and the money, but there's something wrong with your plan. There's nothing wrong with you, but there's something wrong with your thinking, something wrong with your plan. You bought the wrong story. You bought the wrong formula." And it's easy to wind up a nice person and broke. It's easy to wind up sincere and poor. I'm telling you, you can be sincere and poor, and you can work hard and be poor if you buy the wrong formula, buy the wrong plan. You didn't add up the percentages. You never took out the calculator. You never counted the cost, as an ancient phrase says.

Now, see, that kind of blunt, straight language really helped to uncover where my problem lay. Let me give you one of the most clear formulas he gave me that helped to change my life. We deal in what we call basics in one of my lectures. Basics, fundamentals. And there's just a few fundamentals. And there aren't any new fundamentals. You got to beware of somebody who says, "I got new fundamentals." And no, fundamentals are old. You got to be suspicious of a guy that says, "We're manufacturing antiques." Say, "No, you you don't manufacture antiques." Come on.

Here's one of the greatest of basics and fundamentals. It comes from an ancient Bible phrase. Here's what it says. Whatever you sow, you will reap. We call it simply the law of sowing and reaping. Right? Simply put, the law of sowing and reaping. Now then, Mr. Schel said to me, "Mr. Ran, there's another way to quote this law that may very well help to discover where the problem lies." I said, "Okay, I'm ready." Here's what he said. It's also quoted like this. Whatever you reap is what you've sown. I thought, "Wow, I never thought about that." Now, there went my list of all the things I blame for my current circumstances. If you don't like the crop, who do you look up? Answer, whoever planted it. And where do you find who planted your crop? Answer, in the mirror. That's where you go come fall, come harvest time, you go to the mirror, and if necessary, you say, "A few skinny carrots. I got to be unimpressed." Where were you last spring? Asleep? Didn't you read the books? Did you break your hoe?

Now, we call this straight. This is talking straight. This is telling it like it is. I asked the question last night, am I reading enough books or am I not? If I engage in my current financial practices, will it take me toward the fortune I would wish for in the next 10 years or will it not? If I keep up my current health practices, will I have the vitality and the health and the vigor to do all the things I want to do 5 years from now? Will I or won't I? Are my current practices taking me where I would really like to go or have I been kidding myself for quite some time? I had a day just before I met Mr. Show called "Do not kid myself anymore day." Here's where I am after 25 years. Here's what I've got. There's no use Mickey Mouseing with the numbers. There's no use trying to stretch it. There's no use trying to excuse it. There's no use trying to paint it some phony color. Let's tell it like it is. Because it's the truth that starts the freedom mechanism working. It's the truth that starts to relieve the mind of all the guilt and all the excuses and get right down to where it is.

When I finally discovered that the government wasn't my problem and that prices weren't my problem and that it wasn't the company and it wasn't company policy and it wasn't my negative relatives and it wasn't the weather and it wasn't the economy and it wasn't the community, when I finally discovered it was me, we call that trauma. Now, after I had passed through the trauma of discovering that it was me and not all the other things I'd blamed all those years, when I finally went through the trauma, now suddenly it dawned on me, hey, if it's me, I can do something about that right away. And then I started getting excited after my trauma had passed. See, if it's the government, I don't give you much chance. If it's prices, I don't give you much hope. If it's other people, I don't give you much of a chance 'cause I'm telling you, it probably isn't going to change. It's going to be about like it's always been, right? Opportunity mixed with difficulty. So, if all those things are going to remain in place the next few years, which I imagine they will, the only change that is really going to dramatically affect your life is you. Mr. Sch said to me, "Mr. Ran, if it isn't going well for you, you don't say what's wrong out there. You say what's wrong in here." There's a Black Heritage Spiritual that says, "It's not my mother nor my father. It's not my brother nor my sister, it's me." What a revelation. But once you find out it's you, that's something you can go to work on this very day. You can start to make a new stretch today. You can start reading some new books today. You can sign up for some new classes today. You can start engaging in constructive thinking today. You can make some life-changing decisions today. See, you don't ever have to be the same again after this evening. Only by choice. And while you wait for prices to come down, and while you wait for the outside to change, I would go to work immediately and quickly on the refinement of your own thinking and the refinement of your own disciplines and watch how quickly the equity of that starts to grow.

Now, this is called dealing in straight talk. When a father who's 40 and broke living in this country finally discovers when his children say, "Daddy, how come we're not rich?" If he wants to speak the truth, finally, he says, "I'll tell you why. I smoked it. I spent it in small daily pieces. And I didn't know it was going to mount up to be a fortune over the last 20 years. To be honest with you, I spent our fortune on non-essentials. Somehow they got to me with all the trinkets and I didn't know what a price it was going to pay." We call this dealing in truth. Straight talk. Tell it like it is.

Okay. Next in the art of persuasion. Challenge. Challenge. We all respond to a challenge. I don't know a normal human being that doesn't respond to a challenge from the time we were small. "How high can you jump? How fast can you run? How much can you do? Can you win?" Right? We all respond to a challenge. So part of the art of persuasion is challenge.

Here's one of the greatest challenges Mr. Schaef gave me. He said, "Let's go do it." That's the great challenge. Not "You go do it." "Let's go do it." Boy, it's easy to say, "You go do it. You go change your life. You go be successful. You go make the decisions." But how much better if somebody comes along and says, "Let's go do it. Let's read the extra books. Let's make the decisions. Let's pour it on for the next 6 months. Let's go full speed 110% and see what comes of that." Boy, what an inspiring thing when somebody says, "Let's go do it." That's the greatest of challenge. Let's.

But life is a challenge. What else is new? It is so important to articulate the challenge, the press, the push, because the push is on. But that's what life is all about. Accepting the challenge, driving the roots deep, becoming as strong as possible, accepting everything that comes and making it into what you wish to make it. Attempting your best, trying your hardest, thinking well, reading well, living well, struggling with it all. That's called the challenge. But that's what makes life worthwhile. That's where the value is. The struggle for high ideals to make something unique out of your life. I don't know how better to put it. That's it. The challenge.

Now here's the last part in the art of persuasion. The word is passion. Some new books just written. A passion for excellence. Passion is the emotion. Unique thing about emotions. Emotions is what gives us the drive. Emotions is the spirit. Emotions is the life. It isn't just knowledge that makes you wealthy. It's knowledge mixed with feelings and attitudes and emotions. The surge of feelings and emotions. But here's the key. Our emotions need to be educated. We've got to send emotions to school. We call civilization the intelligent management of human emotions. You've got to have the drive. Without the power, you don't get anywhere. But now we've got to have the power well educated and well-directed. But that's what it takes in the final art of persuasion. Putting yourself into the picture. Passion, emotion, beliefs, convictions. If you can learn to articulate those well, if you'll learn to let that flow not just from the surface, but from down deep, from a lifetime of experience, if you'll draw from all of those feelings and commitments and awareness, even with some misgivings, even with not knowing it all, even with a sense of humility, but it's that flow of emotion that finally now seals the point in the final art of persuasion when people have picked up the essence that you really believe and are committed to what you've been talking about. And that's why you laid it on the line. That's why you borrowed every quote you could borrow. That's why you said it as well as you could say it. That's why you told every story you could. That's why you used yourself front and center is because you so passionately believe in the moment and what you're trying to accomplish in the way of decision-making in touching somebody else's life.

Now, how good can you get at all of this? The art of persuasion. Probably one of the best illustrations I can give you is an ancient Bible story. I'm an amateur on the Bible, but there's some neat stories. One is so dramatically told it bears repeating. It says, "King Agrippa was advised one day that he had a famous man in his prison. And they came and said, 'Oh, Agrippa, we have got the man you've been wanting for a long time. We've got him locked up in your dungeon.'" And King Agrippa knew who the man was. He was the great leader of the early Christians. Formerly known as Saul from Tarsus, now known as Paul, Apostle, leader of the early Christians. And Agrippa has been brought this incredible news that this man is in his dungeon. I'm sure Agrippa said, "You don't mean the man himself." They said, "Oh, king, we have got the man." Agrippa evidently had studied this whole Christian movement and had watched it grow and evidently he knew a lot about the man and he said, "Bring him to me. I got to see the man in person." So they hauled him out of the dungeon and stood this man in front of the king. And the king took one look at Paul and said, "Paul, I've heard all about you. Unfortunately, you find yourself in my dungeon. But what is going on here? What is this Christian movement? Why are all these people willing to give their lives for this incredible cause and willing to sacrifice and it's growing like a prairie fire spreading like wildfire? Says, 'What's going on here? What is happening? What is this Christian thing? What about you?'" And Agrippa said, "Tell me your story." He shouldn't have asked, right?

One more time with eloquence to spare. And if you're a good reader of drama and stories, this is one of the most important ones to read in all of literature and history. He gave the greatest example of somebody who knew how to use the language to tell his story. And he went through and told his story. He said, "I used to hate the Christians. I was known as Saul from Tarsus. And then one day, I'm making it for Damascus. This great light shines out of heaven, knocks me flat, grinds my face in the dirt and blinds me for three days." He told the story with eloquence and precision and drama. And then he said, "I was finally persuaded to be a Christian, became a leader, and now the people I hated I now love." Went through the whole scenario. And he wrapped up his presentation to King Agrippa by saying, "Oh, king, I only now have one request." And Agrippa said, "Pray tell, what is that?" And the great man said, "My request is, I wished you were just like me. I wish you had what I got, except for these chains. I don't wish these chains on you, but for the change, not the chains. If you could see what I can see, if you could have what I've got, that would be my greatest wish." What an occasion. What a chance for eloquence. What a chance for precision of language. What a chance to relate your experiences and pull from the past and relate it to the future and bring it to the drama of the present. And when he finished his story, the story says the king did send him back to the dungeon. But before he sent him back, he did look squarely at the man and say, "I must admit, sir, you have almost persuaded me to be a Christian." What a drama. What an occasion.

So, how good can you get at this art of persuasion and communication? Well, you might get so good you might have a chance to persuade the king. Let alone anybody else between you and the king, they won't have a chance. All right. Communications, touching people with words. One more formula in touching people with words. It's going to be 20% what you know, 80% how you feel. So I'm asking you to work on knowledge. But the greatest of skills is to work on the precision of emotions, feelings, commitment, passion for the cause. For the occasion, to solve a problem, to touch somebody truly with spirit as well as mind, with heart as well as words.

[Music]

I call leadership the challenge to be something more than mediocre. The step up to the new challenge, the new opportunity. It was said of Abraham Lincoln. He was at his mother's bedside when she died. And her last words were, "Be somebody, Abe." And if that story is true, evidently he took it to heart and proceeded from that moment to become somebody. And that's the key to leadership. Inner inspection of your gifts and your skills, your integrity and your character.

I've got a good phrase for you to jot down. Here it is. To attract attractive people, you must be attractive. We're going to talk now about leadership skills. To attract other people, the key is to be attractive. We come back to the central theme of all of my lectures. Here's what I start with. The major part of your world starts with you. Mr. Schaef gave me in dramatic fashion one of the major keys that changed my life. Here's what he said. Work harder on yourself than you do on your job. That simple statement started to make measurable changes in my life in a fairly short period of time. I had discovered up until age 25 I had worked hard on my job but not on my self. And that was my reason for lack of progress.

Now, when it comes to be a leader, the same thing applies. If you really want to attract attractive people, if you'd like to have people of quality around you, the key is to become a person of quality. Leadership, the ability to attract someone to the gifts and skills, opportunities to be around you as a manager, as a parent. I call leadership the great challenge of the 80s in a wide variety of areas, science and politics and industry and education, sales. And here's a major one: parents sometimes parents don't see themselves as leaders, but it is the greatest chance for influence as a parent. I call leadership the challenge to be something more than mediocre. The step up to the new challenge, the new opportunity. It was said of Abraham Lincoln. He was at his mother's bedside when she died and her last words were, "Be somebody, Abe." And if that story is true, evidently he took it to heart and proceeded from that moment to become somebody. And that's the key to leadership. Inner inspection of your gifts and your skills, your integrity and your character.

The outer look at how you present yourself as you appear. In some of our other lectures, we go through this whole scenario. The inside is important, but also the outside is important. When you meet somebody for the first time, first thing they're going to do is take a look. Now, sure, they're going to listen, but then they're going to take a look. Now, certainly, we learn to evaluate people by more than what we see. But at first, we're going to take a look. Let me quote you. An ancient phrase says, "People look on the outside, God looks on the inside." Isn't that excellent information? That's excellent information. So that might mean work on the inside for God, work on the outside for people. You say, "Well, people shouldn't judge you by your appearance." Well, let me give you a clue. They do. They do. You can't deal in shoulds and shouldn'ts. You got to deal in realities. Now, when people get to know you, they'll judge you by more than what they see. But at first, it's all they got to go by is what they see and what they hear. Now, sure, there's more to come, but at first, you got to pass the show-up test. The challenge to be somebody.

Let me just give you a brief list. Be somebody wise. There's no substitute for smart. Threats don't make up for smart, right? Volume and shouting doesn't make up for smart. There's no substitute for smart. Be somebody strong. Strength is attractive. And there are many ways to be strong. Decision-making, character, language, right? As well as vitality and health. There's a lot of strengths and they're all attractive.

But let me give you now the refinement of leadership skills. Here it is. Learn to be strong but not rude. This is refinement. These are the extra steps to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It's not even a good substitute. Next, be kind but not weak. We must not mistake weakness for kindness. Because kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain kind of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusions. That's a sense of kindness. Not weakness, but kindness. Next, learn to be bold, but not a bully. It does take boldness to win the day, to become a leader. You got to stride out front. You got to be willing to take first arrows. You got to be willing to take first problems, first trouble, leading the way. You must boldly seize the spring. Farming is not an easy task. You must press the seeds into the soil. I think all of us would relate farming to hard work. It's hard work planting the seed, letting it grow, and defending it against all of the encroachments of bugs and weeds. We call it not an easy task, but that's one of the best illustrations I know of life. If you want any value at all, come harvest, you got to press. You got to be bold. You got to seize it. The high life is not for the timid and the shy.

Here's the next one. Be humble, but not timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. But humility is a virtue. Timidity is a disease. It's a malady. It's an affliction. Now, it can be cured, but it is a problem. But humility is an almost godlike word, a sense of awe, a sense of wonder, a sense of dimension, of a sense of understanding the distance in worth and value, an awareness of the human soul, the spirit, something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars and yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars. Next, be thoughtful, but not lazy. It's okay to dream, but we must not just become a dreamer.

Here's a good refinement. Be proud, but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. Takes pride in company and philosophy, opportunity. It takes pride in community and school. It takes pride in group organization. It takes pride in cause and accomplishment. But the key is to be proud without being arrogant. Do you know the worst kind of arrogance? Arrogance from ignorance. It's hardly tolerable. Right? Next. Deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept it like it is. Life is fairly unique. Except it is unique. Now, best to call it unique. Some people call it tragic, but I think it's best to call it unique. Unique. That's unique. The whole drama of life is is unique, right?

The Bible is one of the most fascinating books to read because it is so unique in its presentation. One story says, "God and Satan were chatting away one day." Now, see, I wouldn't have thought that. Isn't that unique? And they're chatting away, chatting away, and looking down on what's going on on the earth. Now, see that? That's unique. I thought, how often do they get together and and chat and talk about all this stuff? I don't know. But the drama of the story is absolutely fascinating. I mean, it's unique. And on this particular occasion, the story says God got to bragging about one of his favorite people, Job. And he got to saying, "Job, Job, Job, he's my favorite friend, Job. He's the greatest. He's the richest, he's the most powerful, and I'm taking good care of my friend, Job." And he kept saying, "Job, Job, Job." And finally, Satan got it up to here with "Job, Job, Job." And he said, "Yeah, God. Job, Job, Job, your special friend. You've got this wall built around him. I can't get to him in my normal fashion." And God said, "Well, he's a special friend of mine, right? We got this thing going, so I'm taking good care of him." Now, this conversation is going on. I I find that fascinating. I find it unique. And finally, in the scenario of the story, Satan says to God, "I tell you what, God, if you were to take that special wall of protection down from around your special friend, and if you were to let me add him, I promise you in a short period of time doing my specialty, he will curse you to your face and then die." God said, "You're out of your mind." He would never do that. Not my special friend. Satan said, "Would you like to wager?" Wow, isn't that fascinating? God says, "Hmm, interesting question. I wonder what Job would do." Now, see, Job doesn't know this is going on. Isn't that fascinating? That's a fascinating story. Finally, according to the scenario of the story, unbelievable. God went for the bet. And he had just one requirement. He said, "Just one thing." Satan said, "What's that?" God said, "Well, you can't kill him 'cause he's my special friend." Satan said, "Okay, okay. I don't need to kill him, but you just take the wall down. Let me do my number, and I promise you he will curse you." God said, "No way." Satan said, "I will do it." And the bet is on. Isn't that fascinating? That's fascinating.

According to the terms of the wager, God did as he was required by the wager. And he took the wall down from around his special friend. And when he did, according to the story, Satan did one of his all-time famous numbers on the man. First took his family, second took his wealth, destroyed him, and blow three took his health. That's called triple blow. Your family, your fortune, and your health. In one of the last scenes, Job is sitting on the ashes with everything gone and he is scraping his sores with a rock. And his wife comes along and she's observed all of this scenario, God forsaking his special friend Job. And she said to Job, "It looks like your friend has forsaken you. Why don't you just curse him and die?" Satan said to God, "Here's where it happens." God says, "He hasn't talked yet." Isn't that fascinating? That's fascinating. While they both watch, wondering the outcome of this wager, Job says from his ashes, "Never. I will never curse my friend." God said, "I knew it. I knew it." And he picks up the bet 10 to one or whatever it was. I don't you know, it doesn't say what the wager was. Isn't that fascinating?

Now, the rest of the story says God did make it up to his friend Job. And when you play these kind of games, you do have to make it up. Sussy, what shall I do? I I know what I'll do. I'll just give Job twice of everything he had before. Wow. And Job became, according to history, one of the richest, most powerful men in the known world. But isn't that a fascinating scenario? Don't you find that fascinating? Now, maybe a bit frustrating, but we learn to turn frustration into fascination, right? And you just give up on a lot of this trying to figure it out and say that's one of those things. It's a fascinating thing.

I used to say liars shouldn't lie. See, we call that wasted energy. Why would you deal in such Mickey Mouse pronouncements, right? Liars are supposed to lie. That's what they're supposed to do. That's why we call them liars. Lie. You wouldn't expect them to do anything else. Lie to say "liar shouldn't lie." We call you naive and we especially call you naive if it upsets you instead of finding it fascinating, right? Somebody cuts you off on the freeway. You go chasing them down the freeway and shaking your fist. Hey, save yourself. They say they shouldn't cut you off on the freeway. Hey, hold on. Hold on. That's what they are supposed to do. They're known as cutter-offers on the freeway. And if you say those people shouldn't cut you off, we call you naive. Naive. Come on.

Here's some stuff that saved me a lot of agony and a lot of anguish and a lot of sleepless nights I used to go through and pulling my hair and wondering, wondering, wondering. I gave up on all that when I finally understood the 80/20 rule. Let me give you some good clues on the 80/20 rule. As a leader, as a manager, being able to influence other people in this 80/20 group. Here are some clues. Learn to spend 80% of your time as a leader with the 20%. For maximum efficiency and productivity, this is part of the key since it's going to be 80/20. And there's plenty of examples to show that it's 80/20. Not exactly, but fairly close. Ask the minister of the church who picks up the tab here, and he'll say probably 20% of the people pick up 80% of the tab. I mean, this is called one of those things. Okay? So what do you do? Well, you learn to work with it and not try to solve it. It's like trying to solve the seasons. You don't solve the seasons. You learn to work with the seasons. They're all set. And some of these things by history are all set. The key is to learn to work with the way it is set. So part of the key of leadership is learning to spend 80% of your time with the 20% because they're doing the 80%. We would call that good leadership sense.

Now you say, "Well, how do you do that?" Let me give you part of the answer in how to do that. Here it is. Spend individual time with the 20% and group time with the 80%. This is part of the answer to leadership skills. However, guess who wants your individual time? The wrong group. But that's what life's all about, right? Accepting this challenge. So now you've got to be what we call clever. And you've got to be another key word, diplomatic. Diplomacy and strategy are two key words for leadership to understand. Diplomacy and strategy. Here's part of the diplomacy. Mary comes and says, "I've got a question." You say, "Mary, bring your question Saturday morning. I'm going to meet with everybody and I'll cover it." Then she says, "Okay." Now it might not be that easy, but if you start trying to put this in perspective now, groups you can deal with the 80% by groups and you can talk to the 20% individual. Now the pull is in the opposite direction and it always is. Gravity is the downward pull. Life is the struggle in the opposite direction of gravity. It's downward pull. Life is moving in the opposite direction of the normal negative.

Now, somebody says, "Well, I'll just fire the 80%. They're only doing 20% of the business." Well, I wouldn't fool with that because after you fired the 80%, before too long, whoever is left, 20% of them will be doing 80% of the business and 80% will be doing 20%. Right? This is not something you fire. This is something you learn to work with. The 80/20 rule, very important rule.

Now, let me give you some other clues to understanding ratios and numbers. Categories in this challenge of leadership. The next subject is called the law of averages. The law of averages. So important to understand the law of averages. The law of averages in a personal sense is is very simple. Here's what it says. If you do something often enough, you'll get a ratio of results. It's important for leaders to understand ratios. Because if you're working with people, you got to have some charts. You got to know ratios. You got to be able to evaluate your own performance, their performance. Ratios. What do we mean by ratios? Well, let's say you're in sales. You join a company and you start representing the products or the service and you're first getting started. You talk to 10 people. Nine say no, I wouldn't care for anyone. One says, "Yes, I'll take some." We call this your opening ratio. Now, one out of 10, it all depends on what you're involved with whether or not that's a good ratio or a poor ratio. You say, "Well, that's not too good a ratio." Well, it all depends. Okay, but it's your opening ratio. So, at first you don't worry about what the numbers are. At first, you just get some activity going. Now, we call this very simply one out of 10.

Now, here's what's very exciting about dealing in ratios. Once a ratio starts, it tends to continue. Now, this is some things leadership needs to know so that you're not frustrated. If you talk to 10 people, one says yes. If you talk to 10 more, chances are excellent, you'll get another one. If you talk to 10 more, chance of excellence, you'll get another one. It's uncanny. I don't even know how it works. All I know is it works. There's a lot of things you don't even know how they work. Just work them, right? A lot of people are studying the roots. Others are gathering the fruit. I mean, it depends on what end of this you want to get in on. It just works. It's a fascinating subject. The law of averages. Okay.

Now once you know that your ratio pretty well is in there, one out of 10, now you can start to compete. It is so important to compete to test your skill against someone else's skill. What someone else can do is a pretty good insight and if you stretch what you might be able to do. So competition is a very healthy thing. Now you've got to be very smart here. If you've been with this company, let's say a long time and you've been there so long you're so good you can get nine out of 10 and I just joined and I can only get one out of 10. If we have a 30-day contest as to who can get the most to say yes to our product or service, if we have a 30-day contest, you and me, even though I can only get one out of 10, I will win. You say, "Well, I've been here a long time. I can get nine out of 10. How could you possibly beat me?" It would be very simple. Now, it might not be easy, but it would be very simple. During the 30 days, since I understand now these ratios, during the month, while you talk to 10 and get nine, I will talk to 100 and get 10. So that at the end of 30 days, you got nine, I got 10, I beat you. Isn't that clever?

Let me give you a scenario here. If you're bright, what you do, if you're new, you make up in numbers what you lack in skill. This is called helping people with the numbers, helping people with ratios. Someone says, "Well, I can only get one out of 10." and say that's got nothing to do with competition. Now, after 30 days, I may be fairly exhausted. But see, I'm pretty good for a 30-day run. One is I don't sleep much for 30 days. About 4 hours sleep is all I need for 30 days. Now, I got to back off after 30 days. I'll admit that. But for 30 days, I can go on 4 hours sleep. Now, see, it's hard to beat somebody that won't sleep. How are you going to How are you going to beat somebody? About one hour a day for nutrition. That's all I need. One meal a day, one hour a day for nutrition. In

30 days, how how are you going to beat somebody that won't eat? Won't eat, won't sleep? The answer is it's hard. It's hard.

Even if they're new, but if the new person is so clever to make up in numbers what they first lack in skill, I'm telling you, you can compete even though you're new. The key is to be bright enough to understand ratios. Here's the next clue. Ratios can be increased. You talk to 10, get one. Talk to 10, get one. Talk to 10, get one. Talk to 10 more, get two. Why would about the fourth time you talk to 10, you get two instead of one? You're getting better. Key question. Who can get better? Answer: anybody who tries. All you got to do is put together the numbers, right? Your brain is as good as anybody else's. Your chances are as good. All you got to do is find a way to put out the extraordinary effort to do an ordinary thing extremely well. Ratios. Success is a numbers game. It's important to keep track of your numbers. In baseball, we call it batting average. Whatever you're doing, the key is to keep track of your success and how good you are at whatever.

Someone says, "Well, I'm not very good on the telephone." I tell you how you can quickly cure all that is get on the telephone. I'm telling you, you can get better at anything. All you've got to do is attempt it and try it and start putting a string of numbers together and keeping track and understand your own ratios. I teach a very simple sales course. Let me give it to you in three points. Number one, talk to lots of people every day. It's a simple sales course. Number one, talk to lots of people. Isn't that simple? It's a numbers game, especially if you're new. And here's what's exciting. There's lots of people. You don't have to worry about people. So, just talk to lots of people. Even if your presentation is very poor, if you put the numbers together, I'm telling you, something will happen. If your presentation was so poor you went around every day saying to everybody you could meet, you wouldn't want to buy anything, would you? Sure enough, somebody's going to say, "Well, maybe I would. What are you selling?" I'm telling you, it's just about that simple. If you put the numbers together, if you talk to lots of people every day, two things will happen. Number one, you're bound to make sales. I'm telling you, some people buy for the strangest reasons. Hey, some people buy out of sympathy for the salesperson. I'm telling you, you can find some people that'll buy out of sympathy. They don't want to see your kids starve. I'm telling you, if you'll talk to enough people, some people will buy out of sympathy. So, part of success is, you know, look pitiful to enough people, right? I'm telling you, somebody will buy. And why? Why? It's because of ratios. It's because of numbers.

Now, you can have a much better presentation, then you wouldn't want to buy anything, would you? You can get a little brighter than that. But if you start just that simple, it's simple. Someone says, "Where do you start?" Anywhere. It doesn't matter. If you're in sales, you know, walk outside, find you a rock, throw it up in the air. Wherever the rock comes down, start right there. That's a good place to start. Anywhere. The next person you see, say, "Sir, you're the first man after the rock." And that'll get a conversation started. I'm telling you, they may back up while they talk, but something will start. And the reason is understanding the numbers. The numbers. You don't have to be so cleverly skillful. All you got to do is be bright enough to understand that numbers can make up for lack of skill to begin with. And if you're in a leadership position to help people, help them with their ratios. Say, "John, let's go over these numbers one more time. How many calls and who did you talk to?" Okay, so that's my sales form. It's very simple. Number one, talk to lots of people every day. You're bound to get better. You're bound to find somebody. Number two, be real nice when the weather isn't. Be real nice when people aren't. A big part of presentation is attitude, personality. And third is simple. Give good service. Write all the notes most people don't write. Do all the extra things most people don't do. Call them before they call you. Service leads to multiple sales. If you'll take good care of somebody, they'll open doors you could never open yourself. They'll take you by the hand and share you with people that you never thought you could reach. Service leads to the multiples. That's a simple sales course, but it starts with numbers. Understanding ratios.

[Music] [Music] Our [Music] next subject for the study of skills in leadership. It's a simple story comes from the Bible. Now, being an amateur, you sort of have to take my way of putting it, but my prince made sure by the time I was about 19, I was a pretty good scholar, but I'm still an amateur. But there's a unique story in the Bible. It's called the parable or the story of the sewer. S O W. The sewer in the ancient days was the person that planted the crops. Very simply, they got the ground ready and the sewer with a bag of seed would walk across the ground, sew the seed. That's how they got the crops going. And it's a very fascinating story and it's got a lot to say and it's got a lot to say about our subject called the law of averages. There's some important points you'll pick up right away when you read the story. Here's number one. The sewer was a wise man, a great advantage, right? They didn't send a dummy out to plant. Number two, he was very ambitious. And by the time you finish the story, you'll come to the conclusion he was ambitious. Admirable quality. Ambition. Now, that has to be tempered. One writer said, "I've learned to be both ambitious and content." That's a unique place to finally arrive to be both ambitious and content. But this story says the swer was very ambitious. Nothing wrong with ambition as long as you work the right formula. The Bible probably gives the greatest formula for wealth and power. It says, "Be faithful over small amounts and we'll make you ruler over much." Good philosophy, which teaches us number one, I think it's okay to wish to be a ruler. Nothing wrong with that. But here's how you become a ruler. Good stewardship when the amounts are small. The guy says, "Oh, if I had a fortune, I'd take good care of it, but I've just got a paycheck, so I don't know where it goes." I say, "No." When we really check your faithfulness is when the amounts are small. I said to Mr. chauffe when I met him at age 25. I said, "You know, if I had more money, I'd have a better plan." He said, "Mr. I, I would suggest to you, if you had a better plan, you'd have more money. It's not the amount that counts. It's the philosophy that executes your plan that counts. If a child has a dollar, what should he do with it? It's very important. It's going to determine the rest of his life what he does with a dollar." You say, "Well, it's just a child and it's just a dollar." We call that massive errors in judgment. It's only a child and it's only a dollar. What a colossal mistake to make in analyzing. If a child is allowed to spend the whole dollar and they don't have the sense of where that could take them, we call that the greatest disservice to a child. Not to explain to them the journey and the road you select when you spend the whole dollar. So if child wants to spend the whole dollar, you say, "No, no, you can't spend the whole dollar." Child says, "Why not?" Say, "Well, let me show you why not." And you take them to the other side of town. And say, "Would you like to live here?" Here's where the people live that spend all they make. Here's where they live. There's nothing better than visual to illustrate to a child. Show them the tragic circumstances. If you spend all you make, if you spend all you've got, and kids will come home with a big wide eyes, say, "Would you like to live here? Would you like to live like this?" Kid says, "No, I wouldn't want to live here." Then you can't spend the whole dollar. Okay, back to my story. The sewer was bright and he was also ambitious. Number three, he went to work. It takes activity to furnish the labor that brings new life. Ideas without labor are still born. They never become tangible. They never become real. You got to put yourself through the activity through the labor. So when you read the story, you'll find this was a hardworking sewer. We call that admirable quality. Now some interesting things that happened to the sewer. It said he had excellent seed. Point 4. He had the best. At least the scenario of the story says he had the best of seed. Boy, it's exciting when you feel that you're involved in the best. The best product, the best service, the best idea, the best enterprise, something you feel proud about. Okay, but that's important to have what you consider the best.

Now, with all of these qualities, he starts out and now starts to unfold the scenario of life called the law of averages. Here's what happened. The sewer goes out to sew the seed and the first part of the seed that he sews falls by the wayside and the birds get it. Now, I want you to understand the scenario. Here's what's very important for leaders to engage in to teach the inevitable. It's very important to teach the inevitable. Key for leadership leaders must understand birds. Why? Birds are going to get part of the seed. It's called inevitable. And if you don't teach inevitability, people will be all upset. They won't know what to expect. We must all be prepared for what we call eventualities, the inevitable. So, here's part of the scenario. The sewer goes out to sew the seed and the birds get some. He sws some more seed and the birds get it. Now, this is a typical story of life. Is that fairly typical? Fairly typical. The birds are going to get some of the seed. Some of you building an organization, right? You're out recruiting. Say, "John, I've got a important story for you to listen to. Could be the change of your life. Earn some extra money or make it a full-time venture, whatever. But come and take a look." And he says, "Oh, I think I'm ready for something like that. Thursday night, I'll see you and let's go through it all." You say, "Wonderful." Comes Thursday night. John isn't there. Say, "Where is John?" The birds. The birds. The birds. Who knows what form they come in? I don't know. It's called the inevitable. The inevitable. His brother-in-law said sales. You're not going to get mixed up in sales. Who told you you were a salesman? All kinds of stuff that talk people out of a good idea. I don't know.

Now, when the birds get some of the seed, you got one of a couple of choices. Number one, you can chase birds. You say, "Well, I'll go straighten this out." Well, here's the problem. If you go try chasing birds to straighten things out, you have now left the field. And the law of averages isn't going to work for you anymore till you get back to the field. This is so important to know what to spend your time on and what not to waste your time on. There's two ways to have the tallest building in town. One is tear all the other buildings down. Right now, yours is the tallest, but we call that the hardest of tasks. Right? You might get the first one down. Right? The guy's gone. You got his building down. The next one, right? Maybe not be that difficult. But about the third building you start for, a guy standing out in front and he says, "I've heard about you. [Laughter] Formidable." Right? Now, you got some problems cuz you're not known as a builder. You're known as a wrecker, a destroyer. You put everything down to try to make you look good. We call that massive errors in judgment. The best thing to do is to spend your energy and time on the things that count and understand the law of averages, okay? And not chase the birds, but to stay in the field. Here's what it said the wise man did. He ignored the birds and he kept on sewing. Why? He was so bright. He understood the law of averages.

Now, here was some more of his experiences. Now, he keeps on sewing the seed. Now, the seed falls on rocky ground and the soil was shallow. We call this inevitable. I don't know how to miss this. This is called the stuff of life. It's so important to understand the seasons and the stuff of life and the ratios and the inevitables. This is so important especially as a leader so that you can help people through understanding how it is. This is called one of those things. And it said this time the seed takes root and the little plant starts to grow, but the soil is so shallow that the first hot day the little plants wither and die. You say, "Wow, what a disappointment." Well, sure you're going to be disappointed. Some people are going to try so little even if you've got a good idea. 30 days later, you say, "We had this meeting. John wasn't here. So where is John?" Said, "I don't know." You say, "Well, I thought sure John had last 30 days, but he didn't." Why? It's called inevitable, right? And who knows the reason why John isn't here anymore. Somebody said, "Boo." And he quit. He quit. First hot day. Now, you're going to be disappointed, especially if it's somebody you like, somebody you know. But here's what you must learn to do as a leader. Discipline your disappointment. This is part of the challenge of life. Disciplining the disappointment, understanding the law of averages.

Now, here's what it said the wise man did. He kept on sewing. How brilliant. He was so well schooled in the law of averages. Now, he keeps on sewing and this time the seed falls on thorny ground. You say, "Well, how much of this ground can you get?" Well, just hang on. It's not the end of the story. Now this time he sews the seed. It falls on thorny ground and the little plant starts to grow, but the thorns choke it to death and it dies. Wow. What's this called? The inevitable. Do you know what the story called the thorns? The cares of life. Little cares. Who knows the excuses some people use for not pushing on through and getting the job done. It's called inevitable. Some people are going to try so little they're going to let other things crowd out the good opportunities. I and who knows why? I don't know why. I'm an amateur on this stuff. The key is to take the inevitable and take the obvious, right? Everybody should take obvious one, obvious two, right? Study the obvious and not let it unduly disturb you and learn to manage the obvious so you can get on with the more important things in life. Who knows? I call John up. I say, "John, where were you last night? We had this meeting." John says, "Well, I can't make every meeting." I say, "Why not?" John says, "Well, I got a lot of other things I got to do." I say, "What are they?" You won't believe the list John gave me. The backyard fence was sagging and the dogs are about to get loose. You just can't let your dogs run loose. I say, "Okay, John." John says, "The screen door came off the hinges, and you just can't let things fall apart. You got to take time, keep things fixed up." Okay, John. Some extra trash had piled up in the garage. You just can't let mountains of trash take over. You got to take care of your trash. I said, "Okay, John, on the phone." I can hear the thorns going.

[Music] Some people have the incredible ability to major in minor things. I don't know why we call this inevitable. We call it a mystery. It's part of the scenario of life. I'm driving through the little community. John's out there mowing his lawn. He's cussing the weeds and he's red in the face and he's about to explode. I said, "John, what are you doing?" He says, "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm mowing this lousy lawn." I said, "John, there's all kinds of little neighborhood boys around here. Mow your lawn." He says, "They want $5. I'll mow it myself. I'll mow it myself." Okay, John. Okay. Number one, there should be a law against cheating some little neighborhood boy out of $5. Now, why the scenario? The scenario of the story of the swer is to prepare us for the inevitable called the law of averages. Now, here's what it says. The sewer kept on sewing. He was so bright. Evidently, he'd been schooled in these numbers of about how many are going to let the birds and about how many the hot weather's going to take and about how many are going to let little things cheat him out of big chances, right? He must have gone through the school because he understood. He kept on sewing.

Now, here's what it says. The seed falls on good ground. Let me give you a promise as a leader. It always will. Keyphrase. If you share a good idea often enough, it'll fall on good people. Why? The law of averages. Now, even the good ground had a variety of productivity. It said part of the good ground produced 30%. Wow. And it said part of the good ground produced 60%. Terrific. And it said part of the good ground produced 100%. What's that called? The law of averages. That's the way it is. It's called one of those things. Now, can you find some 100enters? The answer is yes. But you got to go through the birds and the hot weather and the thorns and cares and you've got to find some way to use the 30enters and the 60enters. And if now if you become entrusted as a skillful leader and learn the law of averages and learn how to deal with all this, you'll have some 100enters to deal with to work with the law of averages.

[Music] [Music] As leaders, let's learn to help people not just with their jobs but with their lives. I think we have a two-fold responsibility to help people with job skills. But I think the greater responsibility is to help people with life skills. Let's don't just teach people how to work. Let's teach people how to live. How to assimilate and accumulate far greater treasures than just a paycheck. The treasures of awareness, understanding, setting goals, reaching into the future, growing, changing, expanding.

[Music] Let's talk about team building. Understanding now in some of this background, the law of averages. Let me give you I think what are some good scenarios to understand about putting a good team together looking for good people. If you want to build a championship team, that's quite a challenge. How to build a successful team of people to accomplish some purpose. If you've got something in mind, whether it's enterprise or organization or or whether it's church or whether it's sports, doesn't matter what it is. If you want to find good people, here's part of the challenge in finding a successful team of people. Jesus had the same purpose, right? And you can't hit them all. Jesus says, "I'll take you." And that was Judas. I mean, you can't hit them all. Anyway, to put together a good team, I've got a checklist for you. It's got four parts to it. Here's number one, history. It's not a bad idea to check history. Somebody's qualifications to do the job. Just take a look. Now, we can't go into too much detail on any one of these, but let me just give you the list. Number two, check interest. If somebody's interested, they're probably a good prospect. Now, sometimes people can fake their interest. But if you've been a leader for a while, you can be a pretty good judge of whether or not somebody is faking you out on what we call true interest. And you just have to have some face to face conversation just to check out to the best of your ability. You won't hit it every time, but you can get pretty good at checking what we call true interest. A group came to Jesus one day and said, "We wish to be disciples." He said, "Gentlemen, you've put your story on the wrong man." They said, "Wow." He said, "Unfortunately, I can read your heart." They said, "Oh." They didn't want to be disciples. They had all kinds of trickery in mind. But he picked up on it right away and he wasn't faked out by the we wish to be. Now, you might not get quite this good at reading hearts, but I'm telling you, you can get pretty good as a leader in judging somebody's what we call true interest.

Here's the third part of the checklist. Check response. Response tells you a lot about someone's integrity and character and interest and skill. If someone says you have to get there how early you have to stay how late the break is only 10 minutes two evenings a week Saturdays that give you any clues these are called clues, right? Don't go past these clues. Clues clues on what we call response. A person's response quickly illustrates their philosophy. We only respond based on what we know. And our attitude and philosophy is so bound up. And we might, you know, be clever for a while, but pretty soon response is going to come truly from our philosophy. And if there's any great errors there in philosophy and attitude, here's one of the places where it shows up in response. And here's the last piece of the checklist in putting together a good team. Check results. Finally, the name of the game is results. How else are we going to judge? That's the final judge. Results. It is the name of the game. Results must soon match quality. You might have a nice guy, but finally you got to have results. Nice don't get it. Now, there's two parts to results. Here it is. Number one, activity results. Sometimes we don't ask for productivity right away. All we ask for first is activity. Now, it's pretty easy to check activity. If you joined a sales organization and you're supposed to make 10 calls first week, it's pretty simple on Friday, right? Pretty simple on Friday. Say, "John, how many calls did you make?" John says, "Well," you say, "John, well won't fit in my little box here." And John starts on a story and you say, "John, the reason I made this box so small is so a story won't fit. I just need an activity number from 1 to 10. Now, if the results on activity first week are not good, those have got to be signals, clues. Now, you might try another week, but you got to be the judge, right? How far you go and putting a team together with somebody's lack of precise activity. Now, finally, here's the last part. Productivity. Finally, the tree must have figs. Finally, the ultimate test of a quality team is productivity fruit evidence, measurable progress in reasonable time.

Now, as a leader, you've got to learn to measure results and productivity and activity. And here's part of the skill of leadership. Be upfront in team building with what you expect. Don't let the surprises come later. Put it up front. God was very upfront. Old Testament God says, "If you move toward me, I move towards you." See, that's very upfront. That's called making it fairly clear. You take a step, I step. Now, I only ask you to take human steps. I take God steps. You take human steps. But you got to take a step because here's how it reads. You don't move, I don't move. You say, "Well, that's arbitrary." Well, when you're God, you can set it up that way. When you get your planet, you can set it up however you want to. This one is set up. I got a good philosophical statement for you. Life was designed to respond to deserve, not to need. On this planet, it doesn't read, "If you need, you will reap." No, it reads, "If you plant, you will reap. You say, "Well, I really need to reap." Then you really need to plant. Life wasn't designed for the needers. Life was designed for the planters. Life doesn't respond to what we need. Life responds to what we deserve by activity, belief, faith, action, movement. You got to take a step. So, one of the things to make clear when you're bringing somebody on board is say, "Mary, if you step, we do these things. If you take three steps, we go this, this, and this, and this. And if you do this, we do all of this. But if you don't move, we don't move." It's very important to make it clear why. Because everybody needs to pay. Everybody needs to pay. Even if the payment is only token, it has to be paid. Because life responds to deserve, not need. Fascinating study. Here's one of the clues to leadership. Learn to work with the people who deserve it, not the people who need it. Now, we're talking team building now. We're talking winning a championship. We're talking putting together an enterprise. And the key to leadership is teach people how to deserve it. Teach them how to take the steps. Teach them how to make the moves. And we only ask for token moves. We only ask for limited activity. We only ask for steps in the right direction. But without the steps, we have no promise. So this is one of the most important things you can do for children is to teach them how to deserve good things, how to deserve the favors, right? You got to pay the price. Prices is how you deserve it.

Here's the next key in building a successful team. You must learn when you've got too many. It's a simple story. It comes from the Bible. Now, being an amateur, you sort of have to take my way of putting it. But good Lord said, "Just take my word for it. You got too many." And Gideon said, "Well, what should I do?" And the good Lord said, "Try this. Get the 32,000 troops together and give them your last final ringing speech. We're off to fight the Midianite." Something like that. And he said, "When you finish the speech, finish it like this. Now then, that we're off to fight. If there's anybody here that's afraid and you think we're about to lose this battle upcoming with the Midionites, you can be excused this time. Go home. Can't use you this time. Gideon said, "Clever. Should have thought of that myself." Gets the 32,000 troops together, gets up, gives his last ringing speech, and says, "We're off to fight, but if there's anybody here who thinks we're going to lose, you can be excused this time. You can just go home. We're just going to take what's left." And Gideon waits. And sure enough, some went home. and the number was 22,000. Gideon says, "Wow." Hey, if you've got 32,000 and 22,000 think you're going to lose, guess what? You're going to lose. You got too many. Here's the key to leadership. In haste, it's possible to recruit losers. It doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means it's possible. You say, "Well, why is that?" It this is called one of those things when you're moving. No telling who you collect, right? So, here's part of the test. You know, who thinks we're going to lose? You can be excused this time. So, Gideon's got 10,000 left. He says, "No problem. We'll do it with 10,000." Good Lord says, "Well, you still got too many." Gideon says, "Well, what now?" And the good Lord says, "Try this. March the 10,000 till they're hot and thirsty down to the river. And those that are careless just drop their shield and spear and dive in the water and start drinking. You can't use them. They're too careless. But the ones that keep the spear and the shield and lap the water like a dog, keep looking and alert. Those are the ones because they're trained and ready to go." Gideon said, "Clever." And he marches the 10,000 till they're hot and thirsty down by the river. Sure enough, when he gets to the river, some are hot and careless and they just throw down their spear and shield and jump in the water. And the number was 9,700. Key to leadership in haste, it's possible to recruit the careless. It doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means it's inevitable. This is called one of those things. Now, if you've got an important battle, you got to know who's careless. And this was part of the test. So Gideon says, "You 9,700 home." And he sent him home. Dripping home. Now he's got 300 left. Gideon said, "No problem." From 32,000 to 300. Gideon is still willing to try it. We call that courageous leadership. You've got to read the story. I don't have time to give you the whole scenario, but it was a fascinating story with 300. The battle plan was the most strange, unusual battle plan ever designed. But he won the day, chased off the Midianites. Gideon becomes the military Jewish hero of the day. His story provided for us to read one more time which says as a leader remember there are times when you may have too many. This is called inevitable.

Next, don't linger too long. If you've got a job to do, sometimes you have to be fairly swift in your analysis of who will and who won't and who can and who can't. Jesus said in putting the Christian philosophy to work, "Two of you take a city and you two take a city and you two take a city and walk into the city and tell the story. And if they respond fairly soon, stay. And if they don't respond fairly soon, don't stay." He advised them to leave the city that didn't respond fairly soon. So, you got to put some time. Now, you got to be a judge of how much time you give someone to respond or something to respond. This is part of the unusual skill of leadership, learning time dimensions. how much time to give. But Jesus was fairly clear. Said, "Don't stay too long. If the city doesn't buy the story," he said, "Leave." And I think the reason was fairly clear. There are too many cities that will to linger with those who won't. It's called the law of averages. Play the law of averages. Don't stay too long. Now, he gave them some other fascinating instructions that who knows what it all meant. He said, 'When you walk out of one of these cities that doesn't buy the story, wipe off your shoes. Whatever that meant in those days, no telling what that meant. If you walked out of somebody's house and wiped off your shoes, I mean, no telling what that meant. There's probably some modern gestures that are just as good, but uh, you know, who knows? I don't know. I'm an amateur on this stuff. So, but what it does mean leaders must have a sense of timing. We call it measurable progress. You got to be smart enough to measure progress. And you've got to also be smart enough to understand reasonable time. We can't be unreasonable with time. The enterprise may be lost for lingering too long and not understanding the law of averages.

Here's [Music] [Music] the last part. Leaders must understand the fact that there is both good and evil. It's part of the life scenario to understand good and evil. And however you wish to describe good and however you wish to frame your ideology of evil, there are a lot of ways to put it. For some people, evil is too strong a word. I don't know. This is part of your own philosophical conclusions that you have to come to in trying to evaluate this earthly struggle. Evil, good, tyranny, liberty, sickness, health, winning, losing, life, death, opportunity, tragedy. It's part of the life scenario. And part of it is described in rather philosophical terms on a fairly higher plane called the great war between good and evil. Now, here's part of the scenario. When the founding fathers put this country together, they said, "We want maximum liberty and minimum law, but we do have to have minimum law to restrain that mysterious dark side of our nature." Because sure enough, even though we've got a good thing going called America, there are probably some people who are not going to run by the rules. So, not only will we build some cities, we probably better build some jails. Why? Just to be bright enough to understand this clash, this scenario of good and evil. And all good leaders must understand this clash, this scenario. However you wish to describe it, whatever terms you wish to call it, we must understand it.

Now, here's part of the understanding. Some people have sold out to the evil side. For whatever reason, you don't have to spend much time with why. All you have to do is spend time with who. I went to my 30th year class reunion a few years ago. Little small village, right, I grew up in, there was only about 150 in the graduating class. And after 30 years, almost half of the graduating class was at the reunion, which was pretty good. We had a two-day celebration. I'm master of ceremonies. On the second day, we had a little moment to remember those who had deceased. I think there were eight. And I knew them all. So, I gave a little scenario, a little story about each one. And then we took time just a little moment of silence to remember because some of them were very very unique human beings but they were gone. I thought later eight out of 150 after 30 years is that about average? Guess what I discovered? It's about average. So after 30 years out of 150 it's not will eight be missing. It is only who will be missing. So in part of the scenario of understanding leadership, the key is to not be surprised when the inevitable occurs. Because if you become too surprised, we will call you naive. If the sun goes down, the guy says, "What's happened? What's happened?" It means he hasn't been here long, I guess, right? Or the guy is naive. Come on. Come on. There are some things you don't want to look surprised, especially in public. If you say why did John do that you say come on come on about so many after so much time are going to and it's very sobering as to why some have chosen to give themselves over to evil and we call it simply one of those things but the key to leadership is to understand and the key to leadership is to also be alert and be bright enough to spot it and to see All good leaders must understand the story of the frog and the scorpion. It's one of the most important stories for a leader to understand. According to the story of the frog and the scorpion, the story scenario says the frog and the scorpion appeared on the bank of a river about the same time and the frog was about to jump in the river and swim to the other side. And along comes the scorpion and he sees what's about to happen and he engages the frog in conversation. And the scorpion says to the frog, "Mr. Frog, I see that you're about to jump in the river and swim to the other side." And the frog said to the scorpion, "That is correct." And the scorpion said, "Hey, hey, hold it. I would like to get to the other side, but unfortunately I'm a scorpion and I can't swim. Would you be so kind as to let me hop on your back and you swim across the river and deposit me on the other side? I would be grateful." And the frog looked at the scorpion and said, "No way." The frog said, "You're a scorpion, and scorpions sting frogs and kill them." He said, "I'd get out there halfway with you on my back and you'd sting me and I'd die. You think I'm crazy?" "No way." The scorpion said, "Hey, hey, hold it. Hold it. With your frog brain, you're not thinking. If I was to sting you out there halfway, sure, you'd die and drown, but so would I since I'm a scorpion and I can't swim. That'd be kind of foolish. So, I'm not about to do that. I just want to get to the other side. The frog thought over that reasoning and said, "That makes sense. Hop on." And according to the story, the scorpion hops on the frog's back. They start across the river. And sure enough, halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog. They are now both about to go down for the third time. The frog cannot believe what happened. And he said to the scorpion, "Why did you do that? I'm about to die and drown, but so are you. Why would you do that?" And the scorpion said, "Because I am a scorpion." So all leaders must understand the story of the frog and the scorpion. There are shepherds and there are sheep and there are wolves and wise leaders must understand some wolves are so clever they've learned to dress up like sheep. But do not miss the story of the full drama of life called good and evil. It's part of the test of leadership skill, awareness, sensitivity, understanding, knowing the scenario, and being on the lurch for what is called the inevitable.

Let me give you now just in sort of quick succession some studies that leaders should engage in. Let me just give you the list. We won't expand on this, but I'm sure you can expand on it in your own good time and in your own good way, but let me give you this list of studies leaders should engage in. Number one, the study of possibility. Possibility. It's so important for leaders to play the what if game. What if we had enough people? What if we had refined people? What if we had leaders? What if we had a good team? What if we went to the market? What if we accomplished our goal? What could we accomplish? What are the dimensions? What's the size? What's the promise? We call it the whatif game. Possibilities are all around us. We must all be students of possibility. Dr. Shooter calls it possibility thinking. It's not a bad subject for study. Possibilities. Number two is opportunity. Leaders must always be conscious and aware of the expanded potential for opportunity. And sometimes opportunity is closer than you think. The next subject of study is ability. Leaders must be good students of ability. Their ability and the people that are in their charge, their influence, their ability. Sometimes it's easy to have somebody right close to you and you've never discovered all of their talent and their potential. I discovered a young man in Canada, Harold Dyke, many years ago. He worked for the railroad. I think he was making about $300 a month. He'd been there 10 years. Now, this was a long time ago, but I discovered him. He became a good friend of mine and I recruited him and he joined my company, joined my business. The second year he was with me, he made $45,000. And now he's a leader in the community and he's gifted and skillful and he's financially independent and he's a unique gentleman. Now the railroad had him for 10 years and they didn't know who they had. They didn't have this in-depth survey of trying to find the people that are right close around who may have some unusual gifts and capacities that nobody has yet discovered. So leaders must be students of ability and find ways to uncover somebody's unusual ability that may have been there for a while and you've just got to find a way to uncover all of that. Part of the key to leadership subject number four, inevitability. All of us should be students of inevitability. Without kidding myself, if I keep up my current daily practices, where will it take me in 10 years without being disillusioned? I don't want to just cross my fingers and walk the wrong road. I got to learn to look into the future called inevitable. Inevitability is being 200 ft from Niagara Falls in a little boat with no motor and no oes. It's called it's over. Now, the key to that tragic story and scenario is what a tragic place to find yourself. If somebody would have painted you this scene when you were still upstream and painted the roar of the falls in your mind and would show you what a tragic place it is, you might not have drifted this far into what we call now the inevitable. We've got to help people by painting the roar of the falls long before they get 200 ft in a little boat with no motor and no wars. You say, "Well, the roar of the falls is a long ways off." Yes, but the people that are around you are drifting, drifting. And by perception, you've got to see it. And you've got to level and you've got to speak the truth so that you can give them alternate choices while there are still alternate choices. It's called the gift of leadership. Helping people in life change, career change, helping people in thinking change, helping people with attitude change to paint the inevitable. It's a key to leadership. Number five, an important subject for leaders to study is called rationality. Being able to rightly conclude based on information a rational, sensible course I've got a good clue for you. Make sure what you do is the product of your own conclusion. Take advice, but not orders. Let everybody around you be helpful, but then put that through your own mental computer and make sure what you do is the product of what you've concluded based on all the input. We call this a true sense of leadership. Developing rationality based on all the input. These are not easy tasks. But they're tasks that are possible. This is called walking the summit of leadership skills. And most people don't want to engage in these extra disciplines. But I'm here to promise you that the treasure and the equity is so unique that what small price is paid in these early disciplines is small compared to the treasure that accumulates as the days unfold. Both for your heart and your mind and your purse.

To finish, let me give you some challenges. In wrapping all of this up, I've got some good challenges for you to consider. Here's the first one. Let other people lead small lives, but not you. In the challenge of leadership and stepping up to the responsibility and the opportunity to touch somebody else's life to help give somebody else light and direction and refinement of thought and character and activity, potential, opportunity, dreams, price. In all of this, let everybody else lead the small lives, but not you. Let everybody else cry over small hurts, but not you. Let everybody else argue over non-essentials, but not you. Deal in things that matter. The larger challenge, the larger opportunity. Here's my next challenge. As leaders, let's learn to help people not just with their jobs, but with their lives. I think we have a two-fold responsibility to help people with job skills, but I think the greater responsibility is to help people with life skills. Let's don't just teach people how to work. Let's teach people how to live. How to assimilate and accumulate far greater treasures than just a paycheck. The treasures of awareness, understanding, setting goals, reaching into the future, growing, changing, expanding. If we'll touch people's lives as well as their skills, if they stay with us a week or a month or a year or a lifetime on whatever occasion they should choose to leave, you want them to leave by saying, "My experience there was the greatest experience of my life." And it wasn't just what I earned, it was what I learned. And last, I have an ancient scenario to give you. It comes from the Bible. And here's what it says. If you work on your gifts, they will make room for you. If you practice your gifts, your gifts will make a place for you, a place of leadership, a place of influence, a place to touch someone else, to make a mark, to further an enterprise, to build a dream. Someday if you work on your gifts, we will call you noble. We may give you rewards you cannot even now imagine. Plaques to hang on your wall, trophies to remember, but most of all the gift of knowing yourself that you did the best you could with what you had. The expansion of your mind and your heart and your soul and your touch and your reach and all the gifts that you possess. Your gifts, if you work on them, will make a room for you. And I've got to be one of the better examples of that. Look where my gifts have brought me. I was raised in obscurity, a little small village in Idaho. I now get to travel around the world. My gifts have brought me to this room. And what an experience it is for me to have a chance to touch you. One of the most challenging experiences in life is seeing what you can do to help someone else. And one of the greatest thrills in life is to be able to invest life into life. And you've given me that opportunity tonight. And I want to thank you for that. I've invested a bit of my life into your life. And I've considered it worth it. I want to thank you for giving me this chance and this opportunity. I wish you leadership. I wish you influence. I wish you treasures of the soul and the spirit and the mind and the purse. And hopefully what we've had to share with you today has given you a sense of extra perception in sharpening your skills and making your life unique. Let's go touch somebody else. Thank you.

[Applause] [Music] Thank you. [Music] [Applause]