by Brian Tracy
SET YOURSELF FREE
You can clear your mind and heart of the negativity you have built up over time with one decisive action: Issue a blanket pardon to everyone for everything that they have ever done to hurt you in any way.
The doorway that opens to a life of love and joy is forgiveness. Your ability to freely forgive other people, and to let the hurt go, is the true mark of integrity, courage, character and a fully developed personality.
Many people cling to their resentments because they feel that they have paid so dearly for them that they cannot possibly give them up. Sometimes people’s entire lives are built around their past hurts and suffering. They have little else to talk about, and they dwell on their negative experiences continually.
Eventually, these people make themselves physically and mentally ill. Their repressed anger and negativity sooner or later erupt and spoil any new relationships that they try to build. They sabotage their own futures. And, in every case, there is only one solution and that is to forgive and let it go.
Forgiving another person is a perfectly selfish act. You do it so that you can be free. You forgive so that you can experience the happiness and joy for which you were created. And here is a little test: If you have truly forgiven another person, you can demonstrate it to yourself by doing the other person a favor, or sending the other person a gift. Only in this way can you prove to yourself, once and for all, that you are finally free of the negative emotions associated with that person. (Refer to “the letter” described in Chapter Five.)
If you find that you still cannot bring yourself to do a kindness for the other person, this should tell you something about your true feelings. This inability to forgive might be holding you back from loving yourself and other people. You might have your own foot on the brakes of your own future happiness.
THE GREATEST OF THESE
One of the most beautiful descriptions of love from the Bible is First Corinthians, Chapter Thirteen. We had this entire passage read at our wedding:
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.
Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Love does not behave itself unseemly, love seeketh not her own, love is not easily provoked, and love thinketh no evil;
Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Many wise and intelligent men have written long explanations of the inner meanings of First Corinthians, Chapter Thirteen, but it is safe to say that what this passage tells us is that when we become totally loving human beings, we will understand all, forgive all, and experience true joy in every part of our lives.
THE TESTING TIME
One of the most important times to be loving is when you feel the least like loving. The time to draw on your reserves of patience, kindness and compassion is when you are the most displeased with another person. Obnoxious or unpleasant behavior is usually a cry for help and understanding. It is a way of expressing the frustration of not feeling truly loved and accepted. There is wisdom in the words, “A gentle answer turneth away wrath.”
When you deal with a difficult person in a calm and loving way, you will often see a human miracle. You will often see his or her attitude and behavior change. You will often see a difficult person soften up and see his or her personality brighten. But, most important, when you act in a loving way, you maintain your own personal and emotional integrity. You feel good about yourself. You feel in charge of your inner and outer life.
A SIMPLE QUESTION FOR GUIDANCE
Some years ago, the best-selling book In His Steps was written about a small town in America where everyone began living the highest values they knew. Before saying or doing anything, each person in the town would ask himself or herself the question, “What would Jesus do?”
In other words, what would a person who was truly honest, truly kind, truly loving, truly patient, all-compassionate and all-wise do in this situation?
It was a wonderful story. After the initial problems of being misunderstood were surmounted, everyone in the town experienced greater peace and happiness. People and businesses were more prosperous. Misunderstandings were quickly cleared up. Throughout the entire town, there was a feeling of joy, happiness and peace.
CHANGE YOUR WORLD
You cannot change the world, but you can present the world with one improved person, yourself. You can go to work on yourself to make yourself into the kind of person you admire and respect. You can become a role model and set a standard for others. You can control and discipline yourself to resist acting or speaking in a negative way toward anyone for any reason. You can insist upon always doing things the loving way rather than the hurtful way.
You can use the cognitive control method to keep your mind calm and positive by thinking kind and loving thoughts about others. You can short-circuit your anger by thinking kindly about those who hurt you. By saying, “God bless him,” or “God bless her,” rather than thinking about how much he or she is exasperating you, you can neutralize your negative emotions, restore your calmness and increase your clarity of mind. You take another step on the pathway toward becoming an exceptional human being.
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
“With all thy getting, get love.” Everything you ever read about the meaning and purpose of life brings you back to the idea and the importance of love. Everything you do that makes you love and respect yourself makes you more capable of expressing love toward others. Every time you do or say anything kind or loving toward another person, you increase the amount of love you have for yourself. The action is reciprocal. One generates the other.
Every time you engage in a loving act, you make the world a better place in which to live. Each time you express love toward someone else, whether they seem to need it or not, you enrich and enhance the quality of his or her life. You simultaneously enrich and uplift the quality of your own. You put yourself on the side of the angels. You make your life a blessing to others and a wonderful experience for yourself.
One of the finest pieces of writing on love is “The Golden Gate” by Emmet Fox. It has been a source of inspiration for me for many years.
Love casts out fear.
It covers a multitude of sins.
It is absolutely invincible.
There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer;
No disease that enough love will not heal;
No door that enough love will not open;
No gulf that enough love will not bridge;
No wall that enough love will not throw down;
No sin that enough love will not redeem.
It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble,
How hopeless the outlook,
How muddled the tangle, how great the mistake.
A suffici
ent realization of love will dissolve it all.
If only you could love enough, you would be the happiest
and the most powerful being in the world.
If you truly want to be successful and happy in everything you do, in every part of your life, you must learn and practice love on
A SIMPLE QUESTION FOR GUIDANCE
Some years ago, the best-selling book In His Steps was written about a small town in America where everyone began living the highest values they knew. Before saying or doing anything, each person in the town would ask himself or herself the question, “What would Jesus do?”
In other words, what would a person who was truly honest, truly kind, truly loving, truly patient, all-compassionate and all-wise do in this situation?
It was a wonderful story. After the initial problems of being misunderstood were surmounted, everyone in the town experienced greater peace and happiness. People and businesses were more prosperous. Misunderstandings were quickly cleared up. Throughout the entire town, there was a feeling of joy, happiness and peace.
CHANGE YOUR WORLD
You cannot change the world, but you can present the world with one improved person, yourself. You can go to work on yourself to make yourself into the kind of person you admire and respect. You can become a role model and set a standard for others. You can control and discipline yourself to resist acting or speaking in a negative way toward anyone for any reason. You can insist upon always doing things the loving way rather than the hurtful way.
You can use the cognitive control method to keep your mind calm and positive by thinking kind and loving thoughts about others. You can short-circuit your anger by thinking kindly about those who hurt you. By saying, “God bless him,” or “God bless her,” rather than thinking about how much he or she is exasperating you, you can neutralize your negative emotions, restore your calmness and increase your clarity of mind. You take another step on the pathway toward becoming an exceptional human being.
upon. Your job is to live joyously, and this is only possible by filling your mind with thoughts of love, compassion and forgiveness.
Only one life that soon is past;
Only what’s done with love will last.
This is the secret of the ages, the true foundation of all human greatness. It is the core value and the essential unifying principle of truly exceptional people. And the most wonderful thing about love is that you can fill your life with it by deciding to do so. The choice is yours. It always has been.
I wish you luck. I wish you success and happiness. And above all, I wish you love.
APPENDIX A
Brian Tracy / Speaker
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Brian Tracy is one of the most popular professional speakers in the world. He addresses more than 100,000 men and women each year in private and public talks and seminars. His fast-moving, informative and entertaining seminars on personal success, sales, leadership and motivation draw capacity audiences in the U.S., Canada, and throughout Europe and Asia.
Brian speaks regularly for corporations, associations, annual meetings and conventions. He has addressed the executives and staff of hundreds of organizations large and small, carefully customizing each talk to the special needs of the audience. His clients include Ford Motor Company, Federal Express, Southwestern Bell, Northwest Mutual Life Insurance, IBM, Million Dollar Round Table, United Van Lines, Culligan, Baxtor-Travenol, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Domino’s Pizza, Arthur Anderson, Hewlett-Packard, and many others.
If you are interested in having Brian speak for your organization, please phone 619-481-2977 and request a complete information kit, including an audio and video demo tape, biographical data and client list.
APPENDIX B
Brian Tracy International
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Brian Tracy has produced more than 100 audio and video learning programs covering the entire spectrum of human and corporate performance. These programs, which have taken more than twenty-five years of research and experience to develop, are some of the most effective learning tools in the world.
Brian’s multimedia training programs are used in companies and organizations large and small to improve managerial effectiveness, increase sales and empower individuals to achieve higher levels of performance. They have been translated into fourteen languages and are presented in thirty-one countries.
Each program is designed to ensure rapid learning and immediate results. Using a unique video-assisted format with Brian personally instructing each part of every program, combined with a special facilitation process including exercises, role plays, self-analysis techniques and audiotape reinforcement, each student emerges from the training at a whole new level of performance.
The training programs can each stand alone, or they can be combined into a training series presented over several months for maximum impact. Each program is content rich and designed to be custom tailored to the specific needs of the individual client.
The Phoenix Seminar on the Psychology of Achievement
This seminar/workshop, based on the principles taught in this book, is perhaps the most powerful exercise in personal and corporate transformation in the world today. This video-assisted, person-centered workshop empowers individuals to achieve at their maximum potential. They emerge with a greater sense of clarity, personal responsibility and commitment to themselves and the organization.
Participants become more positive, purposeful and self-directed. They learn to set goals, organize themselves for greater effectiveness and function as members of high-quality teams.
The Phoenix Seminar program consists of twenty-seven sessions with detailed workbooks, instructor’s guide, exercises, and audiotape reinforcement for each person. It is fairly easy to present and very enjoyable to take. It can be given by certified in-house facilitators or by outside professionals.
Professional Selling Skills—The New Psychology of Selling
This is the world’s best-selling audiocassette program on sales. Since it was upgraded and put into a video-based training format, it has been called “The most effective professional selling course ever developed.”
The power of the course lies in its simplicity; it is stripped of theory and jargon, and based on twenty-five years of selling on the street. Participants, even experienced professionals and university graduates who’ve been selling for some time, are amazed at how well the ideas taught in this course help them to make more sales.
Individuals and corporations report immediate and sustained sales increases of 10 percent, 20 percent, and 30 percent per year after participating in this program. It has rapidly become the foundation training for many organizations. It is flexible, economic, and relatively easy to install.
The New Psychology of Selling includes thirty-five sessions with application exercises that allow the course materials to be tailored to the needs of the client company. Preprogram analysis includes a survey of the company’s salespeople, sales managers, customers, products and services, and the competition. Based on this information, the course is organized around specific needs to solve specific performance problems.
The seminar is given over a three-day period in a classroom setting. It can be facilitated by certified in-house personnel or by outside professionals. Sales results are immediate, measurable and long lasting.
Advanced Selling Skills—The New Psychology of Selling II
This is the graduate program for the experienced professional who sells complex products or services in a rapidly changing, cost sensitive, highly competitive marketplace.
Advanced Selling Skills is a state-of-the-art, modern sales-training program that brings together the most helpful ideas and sales methodologies ever developed to assist salespeople with multicall, multidecisionmaker selling. It blends twenty years of research with a lifetime of practice to create a thoroughly practical, nontheoretical approach to selling in a tough, sophisticated market.
This is the perfect complement to Professional Selling Skills. It is a
multimedia program with twenty-four sessions on video, accompanied by individual workbooks, application exercises and audiotape reinforcement. It can be conducted by certified in-house personnel or by outside professionals.
Strategic Planning for the Sales Professional
This unique program virtually ensures that each salesperson achieves his or her sales quota on schedule and on budget. The ten parts of this program are designed to take each person through a strategic planning process for the upcoming sales period. It shows them how to set clear goals and make detailed plans. It shows salespeople how to organize their daily, weekly, monthly activities to achieve dependable, predictable sales results.
This approach to planning exactly how sales goals are to be achieved is both powerful and effective. Salespeople emerge with greater clarity, purpose and personal determination and higher morale. Strategic Planning for the Sales Professional virtually guarantees a high return on the company’s investment in sales training, marketing, advertising, promotion and product development.
The seminar is designed to be conducted over one or one-and-a-half days by in-house facilitators or outside instructors.
