Jim Rohn and Brian Tracy are well-known motivational speakers. Together, they share nuggets of wisdom that will help you feel good about yourself and make you want to really take action and improve yourself.
The following 10 habits and qualities are what these speakers recommend you need to have or develop in order to be unstoppable in your pursuit of success in life.
1. Positive Mental Attitude
Having a positive mental attitude equates to better physical and mental health. It provides you with greater resistance to sickness and to have lower levels of pain and distress. In addition, a positive mental attitude makes you more alert, less stressed out, and have a lower risk of depression and other mental health problems.
What makes a positive attitude
Being nice and cheerful
When you are a positive person, you are cheerful. And when you are a cheerful person, you attract people to your side. So whether in your personal or career life, being a cheerful person will give you a big boost for success.
What percentage of people’s decision-making is emotional what part is rational? It’s a hundred percent emotional. Human beings are 100% emotional and they’re inordinately affected by the way other people treat them. People are like moths to a flame. People are attracted to positive people. People who are friendly, people who are cheerful.
Do you know what the number one word is used to describe the most successful people in sales or business? Number one word, whether it’s a restaurant, whether it’s a store, whether it’s a salesperson, a business owner, you know the number one word, rhymes with spice and rice? Nice. He or she is a nice person. Why do you go to that place? Well, they’re nice people. Why do you go to buy from them? Well, they’re nice people.
– Brian Tracy
Not criticizing others
Being a positive person also means not criticizing others. What you do is look for the good in every situation but you never criticize other people. And when it comes to money, positive people do not begrudge the rich their fortune or downplay their wealth by saying that they are not happy with all that money.
When you criticize the rich, it will not hurt them. But your criticism will most definitely hurt you.
You develop a negative force field of energy around yourself that repels success experiences. You actually shoot yourself in your own foot. Bang! And go around telling everybody what a good shot you are. So don’t ever criticize successful people.
– Brian Tracy
As a positive person, you will be better off admiring and learning from successful people.
Look up to successful people. Are successful people perfect? No. Are you perfect? No. So, therefore, don’t expect successful people to be perfect.
Just look at what they’ve done to be successful and if there’s something you can learn, learn it. Read their books, listen to their tapes, and go to their courses.
But don’t ever get into conversations criticizing people just because they’re successful because it hurts You. It doesn’t hurt them at all but it destroys your possibilities and as you know in society, it becomes very common that people who are successful are pulled down and attacked and so on.
Stay away from that because that’s how losers think and so just if all you do is make a resolution you’re just never going to say anything negative about anybody.
– Brian Tracy
2. Always be on the lookout for opportunities
You have to develop the ability to see opportunities all around you. Do not be blinded by the activity of just keeping yourself busy or waylaid by just getting by that you fail to see what’s possible and what’s available.
The interesting thing is that life is very much like a marathon. We all start off at the same line. We’re all ready to go and we start running and everybody’s got pretty much the same abilities and the same opportunities. We go to the same schools, we go to the same colleges, and yet some people get way, way ahead. The mass stays in the middle and some people fall so far behind they think they’re first. And so why is this? And well, this has been studied year after year and we find this one single difference is the way you think.
– Brian Tracy
What differentiates successful people
Success is not a matter of physical attractiveness, education, or intelligence. The one thing that will set you apart and bring you success is to think differently.
Train yourself to find the opportunity in every situation. Develop the habit of thinking differently because when you do, you learn to think better, and make better decisions. You get better results.
How to look for opportunities
Some of the ways you can train yourself to be always on the lookout for opportunities are the following:
- Be observant. Pay attention, be curious, and observe what is going on around you. Look for things that can make work tasks or processes faster, easier, better, or less expensive. Keep an eye out for situations or ideas that correspond to your skills and interests. If you take the time to look for it, an opportunity may already be available.
- Challenge your ideas about how things should work.
- Read. You may be able to identify new opportunities in your industry if you are well-educated and up-to-date on them.
- Have a vision session. Write in a journal, create a video, sketch—anything that lets you explore what excites you most.
- Learn a new skill. Continued education can help you gain the knowledge and skills you’ll need to pursue new opportunities. Participate in online courses or workshops that teach new skills or technologies or cover important industry topics.
- Turn your focus from something don’t want to something you do want. This allows you to shift your energy from complaining to taking action.
- Try new activities.
- Start something you always assumed it was too late to do. If it moves you, get started today.
- Speak up in a meeting, even if you don’t feel confident or you’re afraid you’ll be embarrassed. Your ideas can only take shape if you put them out there.
- Attend a networking event or conference that’s big in your industry.
- Learn how to do anything that interests you.
- Offer to help someone else. Tell people how much you enjoy certain projects or doing your best. You never know what you’ll learn along the way. Furthermore, they may consider you when opportunities related to your strengths arise.
3. Character
Character is what makes you unique and distinct from other individuals. It is the collection of your moral beliefs, behavior, thought patterns, and actions that make up your personality. And a great quality to have as part of your character is INTEGRITY.
What is integrity
Integrity means those inner qualities that you do not compromise. The inner qualities that keep you steady when sometimes everything around you is falling apart. The integrity that helps you to maintain character.
All of those qualities that give you a chance to be better than you are at the moment on into the future. Integrity within yourself, integrity within the way that you do business, integrity within the way that you operate and conduct the business of the day.
That little small voice inside that tells you, you’ve crossed the line, that tells you this wouldn’t be the right words to use, this would not be for the betterment, this would not be win-win, this is going to destroy, this is not going to develop. To listen to that inner voice, so that we can stay on the moral court.
– Jim Rohn
Importance of character and integrity
Your character and your integrity is the most important thing you have and one of the decisions that you make is you never, never compromise your integrity. You never say anything that’s not true and you never do anything that’s not correct no matter what the financial temptation. You’re adamant you’re not going to compromise your integrity.
Now here’s the wonderful thing in Psychology, they say that your level of self-esteem, how much you like yourself and respect yourself is largely determined by your self-image. And if your self-image is that of a person of character every single time you behave with character you do what is the right thing you like yourself more and you respect yourself more and you feel happy inside and you feel strong. You feel powerful, you have a strong handshake, your self-confidence actually goes up, and you have greater confidence when you are living in truth with yourself and others than anything else. So there’s a real payoff.
If you ever sacrifice your integrity for a short-term pay off you lose two things, first of all, you never get the thing you sold your soul for and the other thing is it destroys your self-esteem. You don’t like yourself very much and the most important thing you can do is like yourself. So character.
– Brian Tracy
4. Contacts
Your contacts, interpersonal relationships with others, social network, connections, and the people you know and who know you all play a role in your success.
You cannot succeed by yourself. You know you can’t make your fortune all alone, it takes many, many hands, many voices, and many people to support one success story.
Here’s what’s important to understand, people are where the fortune is. In fact, you could just interchange the two words- fortune, people. People fortune. Fortune is not in the digging of gold, gold all by itself has no value. Nothing has value unless a human being gives it that.
– Jim Rohn
Importance of people to success
To understand that people are where the fortune is, I talked to a banker one time and he said I’m in the banking business and I said, well does a corporation borrow money from you? You know, do the banks and the offices and the office chairs, and the systems of the corporations borrow the money and he said, “No, someone from the company comes and fills out a loan and I loan money to the company.” Then I said, “really what you’re in is the people business. You’re not in the money business or the banking business, you’re in the people business” and so it’s true with all of us. We’re in the people business.
So that’s where you have to take great care of your business. Yes, to take care of your money, yes, to take care of your system but here’s what you’ve got to do if you really want to make a fortune- take care of your people.
Because people are where the fortune is. If you help them grow they’ll help you grow. If you develop them under you, they will lift you up. You can lift up sales and it’ll fall back down. You can lift up volume and it’ll fall back down. Lift up the people and you won’t fall down. You’ll have the foundation. There you’ll be ready for the future.
– Jim Rohn
5. Image
The dictionary defines image as the general impression that a person, organization, or product presents to the public. And your image is made up of how others perceive you as well as your view of yourself.
Your image to other people
How others see you is important as it will affect how they will react to you. So if other people see you as a leader, you will have their attention. If they see you as in command, they’re more likely to trust you. They will follow you if they believe you know where you are going and what you want to achieve.
If you have the image of someone who is in charge, in control, in control of your life, your future, your destiny, in control of the situation, if they see that, that kind of image is powerful, it helps to win the day.
People are drawn to someone who exudes strong leadership qualities. People want to be around people who are in charge, and who are powerful but use their power wisely. They are drawn to someone who is influential but knows how to use that influence effectively. So having and developing that kind of image is extremely important.
Your image of yourself
Your self-image is also very important. How you speak, your thought process and your ability to learn are all important factors. All of this contributes to your perception of yourself.
It is your image that, if something needs to be learned, you can learn it. If a skill needs to be learned, you get on right to work and master the skill. It’s the kind of self-image in which you constantly strive to be the best you can be in order to be successful in the future.
Sure, how you appear to others is important, but one of the most important places to look is in the mirror, where you see yourself. That is the type of image that will assist you in developing self-reliance.
6. Self-confidence
Self-confidence is an attitude whereby you believe in yourself and your abilities. It comes from feeling good about yourself.
How to develop your self-confidence
Jim Rohn offers the following advice on how to boost your self-confidence:
Not neglecting small daily disciplines
Self-condifence really comes from feeling good about yourself. And the best ways to feel good about yourself is at the end of the day to know that you poured it on, you did your best.
If you conducted a meeting, you did the best you could. If you made a phone call, it was the best phone call you could possibly make. If you wrote a letter, it wasn’t a casual letter, it was your best letter. At the end of those kind of days, when you feel good about yourself, self confidence starts to rise.
You know that if you can have this kind of a good day,you can have another one the next day and those days become the weeks, the weeks become the months, and the month becomes a powerful year.
Self-confidence comes from the lack of neglect. If you will not neglect to do the small daily disciplines, that’s where self-confidence comes from.
– Jim Rohn
Being healthy
Part of good health is self-confidence. I know I’m going to be healthy, I eat the apple a day, I walk around the block, I do the jogging on the beach.
At the end of the day, when you’ve really poured in on and you’ve done all the stuff, self-confidence grows. That self-confidence affects your health, it affects your future, it affects your psyche.
– Jim Rohn
Willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve
Some people say well I’ll do it for a little while and see what happens. You know, I’ll try a couple of things, if that doesn’t work I’m out of here. And all of us know that kind of person doesn’t have much of a future.
But if you’re willing to do whatever it takes, if I have to learn a couple of things, I will learn those things. If I got to learn 5 or 6 things, I’ll learn all 6. If I have to take an extra class I’ll take an extra class, if I’ve got to read the books, I’ll read the books.
If I have to consult with people who know more than I know, I will do the necessary consulting. Whatever it takes, I will do. That starts to develop unbelievable self-confidence.
– Jim Rohn
Being resilient
Self-confidence also comes from the ability to rise above your circumstances. To rise above what happens.
The petty little things, the discouraging things that would sink everyone else’s ship except yours. That would cause someone else to quit early in the day but you keep going. That kind of willingness to overcome all circumstances, whether it’s the little challenges or the big challenges. If you’re willing to do that, I promise you, this kind of power will work for you. And in you the variable, it’ll make a difference.
– Jim Rohn
7. Good work habits
In terms of increasing your probability of success, the fact that you work well and work hard and get a lot done, nothing can replace that.
That means that you manage your time and you set priorities and you concentrate on your highest-value tasks and you start earlier. You work harder and you stay later. There’s no replacement for that.
– Brian Tracy
8. Appearance
Human beings are highly visual beings. Based on what we see, we act, react, judge, and make decisions. As a result, it is critical to make a good first impression. Although it appears shallow, it is simply a natural tendency. One that you should take advantage of.
Importance of appearance
The fact is that when you first meet a person, he makes a judgment about you in approximately 4 seconds and his judgment is finalized largely within 30 seconds of the initial contact.
In a survey of the members of the American Personnel Association, those men and women who are responsible for hiring people for large companies, members generally agree that they made their decision to hire or not to hire a person within 30 seconds of the first meeting. So everything contributing to the way you look on the outside is important. If it’s not helping you, it’s hurting you.
While you cannot control your physical features, you have total control over your dress and grooming. In fact, we generally assume that a person consciously and deliberately makes a personal statement about himself with every part of his appearance that he can affect in any way.
Your clothes are responsible for 95% of the first impression that you make on someone because in most instances your clothes cover 95% of your body. So therefore because you are in complete control of your dress and grooming, how you dress and groom is a statement to the world about the person you are inside.
– Brian Tracy
Managing your appearance can provide you with the personal or professional presence you require to succeed. What you wear and the way you look can have an influence on your thoughts, feelings, behavior, and how others react or respond to you.
You can certainly use the power of appearance to your benefit. You can create an affordable, attractive appearance that is authentic, appropriate, and acceptable for both you and the occasion or expectations of others, an appearance that will help you achieve your goals and objectives, with thought and practice.
9. Courage and persistence
I said before, the biggest single obstacle to success is the fear of failure. The antidote to the fear of failure is the habit of courage.
And what we know is that you need two types of courage to succeed. The first type of courage is the courage to begin. It’s the courage to launch with no guarantees of success.
Someone once said that if all obstacles must be first removed nothing will ever get done. So successful people are willing to think, plan, make decisions, and then take action with no guarantees. We say leap and the net will appear. Take action with no guarantee and then learn.
The second part of courage is the courage to endure. It’s the courage to persist. It’s the courage to keep on keeping on. It’s to make the decision in advance that you will never give up. No matter what happens you’ll never give up.
You will get knocked down over and over again but you’ll never give up and the interesting thing is if you make that decision in advance, you’ll find yourself continually bouncing back. So courage means the courage to begin and the courage to endure.
– Brian Tracy
10. Self-discipline
The quality of self-discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do and when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not. The quality of self-discipline is the quality that will make you a big success.
It’s the ability to force yourself to do what you know you should do. And here is the wonderful discovery, it’s persistence is self-discipline in action.
Every time you persist you build your self-discipline, every time you practice self-discipline, you build your ability to persist. And the two of them are tied into your self-esteem, so the more you persist, the more you like yourself, and the more you like yourself, the more discipline you have in practice the more you like yourself. As a result, the more you persist and eventually, you get an upper spiral where you become absolutely unstoppable.
You reach the point where you know you can achieve the goal and nothing in the world can stop you and every step that you take forward makes you stronger and stronger and stronger until finally, people say I know one thing about him, I know one thing about her, you cannot stop him or her once they decided they want something. They will not stop until they get it.
And when you develop that quality, there will be nothing that is impossible to you.
– Brian Tracy
Conclusion
To become successful, you must possess the qualities and habits that will make you unstoppable in the pursuit of your goals and objectives. And it is these qualities and habits that two of the most influential motivational speakers, Brian Tracy and Jim Rohn, advise you to have or develop.
- Positive mental attitude,
- Always looking for opportunities,
- Character,
- Contacts,
- Image,
- Self-confidence,
- Good work habits,
- Appearance,
- Courage and persistence, and
- Self-discipline.