A summary of several books on self-help, success, biographies and company profiles. All reduced to nine pages of all you need to be successful
The 7 Laws of Success
by: Joah Santos
I have invested heavily in learning about Business, Marketing, Philosophies and Success. Success is not just money sometime success is something as simple as getting out of a chair if it was thought impossible by some, just as Bruce Lee and many others did. I have taken the time to interview and study some of the most successful men in the world. I have become a knowing authority on Napoleon Hill's Law of Success by reading his 1000+ page notes over 5 times. I am writing this out not just for my own use but also to share with others. I am calling it the 3% Method because I’ve come to realize that only 3% of the people in the world hold themselves to the highest standard. I want to make sure I am surrounded by people that hold themselves to the highest standard and I believe writing this will help make sure of that.
There are 21 principles I have seen throughout my studies that men use for success. I am going to teach you 7 because these where traits all successful men shared. Some of the principles I have listed are really two principles in one. I am summarizing each principle as much as possible but feel free to reference the books on the last page for more in depth research. I have done this to make it easier for you. I am going to reference success here mostly in the terms of money but feel free to use your own definition of what success means to you. I have personally used these principles to grow a company from zero with no money to the best known loan company in a niche market and now a marketing company with some of the highest growth in the industry. The more successful men I talk with or read about the more I can see these principles at work.
“YOU ARE ONLY AS SUCCESSFUL AS YOU BELIEVE YOU ARE CAPABLE OF”
The Principles Are:
The Steps Are:
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Chief Aim Visualization Specialized Knowledge No Mistake Give Thankful Resist Resistance
What I Want Step Chief Aim Step Visualization Step Thankful Step No Virus Step My Quote Step Daily Step
THE 7 PRINCIPLES Chief Aim Principle Passion! Passion! Passion! What are you passionate about? Is it having a nice six pack stomach? Is it beating cancer? Is it being wealthy? Is it becoming a marketing guru? (that one is mine) What is your passion? Most people desire to be wealthy, be healthy, travel, and have a wonderful relationship but most people never make it their chief aim. They never wrote it down on a piece of paper and felt that desire running through their veins. Considerable research has been done on the subject of writing down your goals. There have been several studies done showing that writing it down creates ideas and prompts insight and initiative, even Dr. John Gray author of "Men are From Mars Women are From Venus" talks about the importance of writing things out even to help a relationship. Writing it out is vastly different from just saying it and thinking it. Marty and Helen Shih are brother and sister; in 1979 they opened a flower stall in Los Angeles. Their first day they made just $1.99 so they decided to start recording people's birthdays and anniversaries for their customers. This helped save their customers from embarrassing moments. They developed a very targeted database since they were targeting mostly Asian-American customers. They leveraged that database to do consulting to Fortune 500 companies. Today the Shihs have dropped the flowers and their annual sales are now more than $200 million form consulting alone. They had a chief aim of being extremely wealthy and they started with just selling flowers. Success is not a destination it is a journey. You must know where you are aiming before you can get started on your path. Who would have ever thought a man whose chief was to make an efficient hamburger could build one of the most successful and largest corporations in the world. This is exactly what Ray Kroc (McDonald's) did because he made a decision to be the biggest very early on that his partners didn't agree with and thought impossible. He mortgaged his home to buy out his partners. Visualization Principle Many of the world's top coaches now use visualization as a very important part of preparation. There is a coach that trains the top 3 100-meter dash runners. He has taught them all to visualize everything about the race the night before; the muscles in their legs twitching, the dirt lifting from their cleats, the crowd screaming, the smell of the air, the heat on their skin and every detail possible. This works because your subconscience doesn't know the difference between real and imagined. What is programmed in your sub-conscience is also very hard to break, that is why many smokers who quit still place things in their mouth because of the sub-conscience habit. Let’s show you how it works. I want you to picture a lemon. Now picture that lemon in your hands. Look at all the little dimples. Feel the texture with your fingers. Cut it open and listen to the little mist from the juices. You see a drip of the juice run off the lemon. Now bite into it. Your sub-conscience told you to make your mouth water because you bit into something sour even though it was imaginary.
Golfer Jack Nicholas visualizes every stroke before hitting a ball. Michael Jordan visualizes every shot, every move, every pass prior to leaving the locker room to play the game. Ellen Degeneris recently told Oprah that as a little girl she would visualize herself hosting the Oscars and she did in Feb. 2007. These people have all stated visualization as a primary tool for them. Do you think that is a coincidence? One of my favorite stories of writing it down and visualization is that of Jim Carey. Barbara Walters did a show on Jim Carey many years ago, that I still remember. Jim's childhood life was that of a normal upper middle class life until one day his father was laid off work. Things quickly became worse and the family was forced to move into a van, driving from place to place to find work. When he was old enough he decided to move to LA and pursue his dreams of acting. He wrote himself a check for $10 million dollars and in the memo he put "for acting services rendered". He kept this check in his wallet so that he could look at it and see his goal. He would take trips up to Mulholland Drive, overlooking Hollywood, and visualize what he wanted to the point that it felt real. In hindsight we now know that the $10 million check he wrote was as real as the $10 million check he received for "The Truman Show" because he used the principles written here J.K. Rowlings, author of Harry Potter, became a billionaire, it started with her own visualization while living from paycheck to paycheck. Simon from American Idol and Pop Idol also started visualizing while living in his car. Specialized Knowledge Principle Knowledge is just unorganized data, which gives you no power to make you successful. Wisdom is organized knowledge, which makes you valuable. You must first get knowledge in the area you are interested, in order to turn that knowledge into wisdom. Which would command a higher paycheck? A person who is good at programming, web page design, networking computers, computer security and management or a person who is in the top 3% of all the best programmers. That top programmer can virtually name his price. There is little value in today's world at being good at many things, but there is value in being one of the best in a specific niche. There are 3 ways to gather this knowledge:
Books There are millions of books of all different subjects. You can learn from some of the top people in the business without having to pay serious money. Can you afford a one on one with Sylvester Stallone’s personal trainer? No, but you can afford his book. Can you afford the $100,000 fee that the ex-CEO of Coca-Cola paid to attend Anthony Robbins' course? No, but you can afford his book. Books are an inexpensive way to learn from the best so use them as much as possible.
Brainstorming (Master Mind) Today they call it brainstorming. In the future it might be called mind melding, but 80 years ago Napoleon Hill called it the Master Mind. Today there is a book that Opera helped make very popular called The Secret. This book touches on this subject but does not go into the science and does a poor job of explaining it correctly. Science has now proven that thoughts are transmitted. If you are married or have a best friend, I am sure it has happened to you. You’re driving in the car thinking of where to eat and you both come up with the same place at the same time or you are sitting around and
your friend starts singing the song that you are singing in your head. These are signs of people transmitting their Thoughts. This principle also works for getting knowledge. If you sit with people that have the same goal, you will come up with something better than you could have come up with on your own. You can also do this by yourself. I have read several people that visualize a room of successful people. He pitches questions to them to see how they would answer. Try and see if it works for you. Picture Einstein, Bill Gates and your father in a room, visualize that room with them for 5 minutes then ask them a question. You will see how their answers vary and how they differ from yours. Brainstorming is not as important for specialized knowledge but it is a shortcut to coming up with solutions quicker. I was a partner in a commercial loan company for 2 years, but we all had different chief aims for the company. Our best year we had $250,000 in profit. After reading about these techniques, I found a loan program that achieved all of you Chief Aims. We took that loan program from virtually unknown in the industry to our company becoming the number 1 company in the world doing stock loans. Our profits went from $250,000 to over $750,000 in one year. This was possible because all of the people on board had the same Chief Aim. We even parted with a partner, he use to be a consultant to most of the Fortune 500 companies. He could have easily been more qualified than all of us but didn't have our Chief Aim. In order for your brainstorming to work, all of you must have the same Chief Aim. It is the leader's job to get us going on the same path. If all your people are not pulling the rope in the same direction it only slows you down. Most Fortune 500 companies have brainstorming sessions. They may or may not understand why it works but if the best companies in the world are doing it can you afford not to?
Experience This is talked about in the next principle but as you know nothing beats experience. Experience, if used correctly, will get you all the wisdom you need but may take you longer. No Mistake Principle Thomas Edison never made a mistake. He says he learned 2000 ways not to make a light bulb. He would have made a mistake if he repeated himself but he didn't. He learned from every failure. If he didn't fail 2000 times he would never gotten to the 2001 try when he was successful. Every great entrepreneur, athlete, inventor, relationship, country and (fill in the blank) has failed more than they succeeded. They learned from every failure. This is critical to success. Give Principle Every successful person I know gave one of two ways, through service or actual gift. I purchased 10 books from Amazon.com. I never received them, but I called them and they refunded my money with no questions asked. They gave me more than I paid for. They gave me my money back and incredible service, they took a loss on that transaction. They have been paid back 10 fold because I have told countless people that story. You must always sow more than you reap. You will receive dividends on
giving added value to your product. One good rule to follow is to never enter into transactions that are not mutually beneficial. The other way people give is through personally giving from their heart. You must do it without expecting anything in return. Give to give not to get in return. Your visualization only works if you believe it is real; if you believe you are successful you should help those in need around you with $5 for the Aids Foundation or buying a bum a coffee. This helps you put out positive energy. I'd like to commend Michael Yaron for his act of giving, anonymously, to help a son fulfill his father´s dream. Michael came to the USA with nothing and in the year he became my mentor netted more than a few A list Hollywood stars put together. Because of people, like Michael, acts very few people will try to bring them down. Their gifts defeat most of the restriction in continuing their success. They have given without expecting anything in return. They were given opportunity in return and capitalized on it. People like this deserve all the opportunity that comes their way. Thankful Principle We have been programmed over millions of years to be tribal hunters and gathers. People just never want you to leave the tribe. They start rumors about you (just like my own extended family has done to me), they tell you it's not possible, they tempt you with distractions; they place as much resistance in front of you as possible. These are very hard to deal with but there is an easy way. Being thankful for what you have, places you in good mood and gives you enough motivation to keep going. Michael Dell was a college student when he started Dell Computers. His father one day took all the computers from his dorm and forbid him from working on them because his grades were dropping and told him computers were a fad. Michael was thankful for the opportunity he had and decided to keep going. He continued even though someone he loved place a huge amount of resistance in front of him. He later became the fourth richest man in America. Being thankful for what you do have will help you deal with resistance. Resist Resistance Principle Resistance is the opposite of action. Resistance seems like a supernatural force. It causes us to be distracted, make excuses, become lazy and stops us from progressing. "My wife is pregnant, I'll start once she has the baby", "I’m feeling sick today", "It's such a nice day I want to go out and enjoy the weather", "My friends are going golfing, I should also go" there are millions of excuses and all of them are full of shit. If you allow resistance in today, it is twice as likely you will let it in tomorrow. The closer you get to completing your goal the more resistance you will come by. You must learn to let resistance navigate you to success. The objective you have the most excuses for should be exactly the thing you should do. That resistance is the barrier between you and your chief aim. Don't believe me? Then why is it that the right thing to do is normally also the harder thing to do? You will need to overcome resistance daily. Every day you need to do at least one thing
to get you closer to your goal. Henry Ford was illiterate, uneducated and dirt poor. I can't think of any man that had more excuses than that man did, but he refused to use them. He resisted and it made him wealthy. The principle works in reverse as well, if you resist resistance today your twice as likely to resist it tomorrow.
7 STEPS What I Want Step I want you to write down "What you want to be", "What you want to do" and "What you want to have" There should be 3 things for each including anything physical, spiritual or mental. You will now have 3 things you want to be, 3 things you want to have, 3 things you want to have. I want you to number each one in order of importance from 1 to 3 in each category. Chief Aim Step You are going to write out what it is that you want. Here is an example: I am going to be physically fit, wealthy, and someone everyone can admire. I am going to do everything in my power to help others succeed. I am going to have my name in Forbes and Inc. magazine as a out of the box entrepreneur These are printed out and placed on my "Dream Board". A dream board is a place you can look at and see all the things you want. You need to place it where you can see it daily. Example of a dream board would be: A check made out to you for $10,000,000. A picture of a dream house with a yacht on the dock with all the cars you want or a mockup of your picture on the cover of Forbes magazine along with your Chief Aim written out. An a quote that will help you get motive every day, for example "Inspire by Example" Visualization Step Just as you visualized in detail with the lemon you will need to do that here. You need to see it through your eyes just like it was really happening. Once you found your perfect visualization, record the details so you can play it over when you visualize. Example: You wake up and turn to your wife. You look in the mirror as you get ready and notice you have your abdominal muscles showing. You leave the house and notice all the nice artwork and furniture you have. You put on your prized watch before going to the garage to choose which car to drive today. You visualize the back of your hands
wrapping around the steering wheel as you hear the engine and music playing form the radio. You are now at work where you see everyone smiling because you are an inspiration to everyone. You have some success that day with your business. On the way home I pick up flowers to give my wife. The rest of the night is just a romantic night on the couch laughing and enjoying wine prior to going to bed. There are many details that are left out like the smell of the leather in the car, the feel of the flowers or the weight of the watch around your wrist. As you do this you will be more able to control the details. It is the same as meditating but instead of concentrating on breathing you concentrate on your chief aim. You will need to visualize in first person, visualizing in third person doesn't work. Try the lemon trick while visualizing yourself in third person, it doesn't work. Thankful Step As I mentioned before we need to be thankful for everything we do have. It puts us in a better mood and makes things easier. You don't need to write these out but you do need to say them on a daily bases. I normally do it as I am getting ready for work in the bathroom. Keep it sincere and say it every day. No Virus Step Misery loves company, friends will become jealous and people will say that you have changed. These are all forms of resistance. You need to realize this is just jealousy. People will say you are crazy, that doesn't work and all kinds of things. This is one of the hardest steps. You are not friends with everyone you were friends with in grade school are you? In life you build stronger relationships with some and some you don't, it still doesn't make it easy, but it is part of life. Just remember that if you want to see your true self just look at the people you have around you as friends. My Quote Step You need to find a quote that you can say to yourself a few times a day. My Quote: "I will resist resistance and get closer to my goal everyday in every way" Some other quotes I made up: "Success is not a destination it is a journey", "Inspire by Example" Famous Quote: "You are only as successful as you believe you are capable of" Famous Quote: "If you think you can, you will. If you think you can't, you won't" Daily Step You now have your definite Chief Aim and dream board. Use these steps on a daily basis: 1) When you wake up, visualize what you want as if you already have it. 2) As you get ready for work, say all the things you are thankful for. 3) Say your quote to yourself on the way to work a few times and while at work when you get distracted. 4) Look at your dream board a few times a day and take in everything you want to accomplish.
5) When you return from lunch visualize again. 6) At the end of the day, picture the day in your mind and figure out what you would have done differently 7) Before falling asleep, visualize again. This took me several drafts to complete. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for everyone. There are a lot of studies behind what I am saying here, but if you don't want to read it for yourself, just trust me. This document is not meant of sale it meant to be shared. Here are a list of the books, companies and people from which I came up with this e-book. Napoleon Hill (This is my Prophet) Richard Branson (My Idol) Dale Carnegie (Specialized Knowledge) Jeff Bezos (Give) Robert Collier Michael Dell (Give) Earl Nightingale William Wrigley, Jr. (Thankful) Mark Victor Hansen Jim Carey Jose Silva(Visualization) Steven Jobs (Specialized Knowledge) Wallace Wattles Andrew Carnegie Charles Haanel Sam Walton (No Mistake) Anthony Robbins J.K. Rowlings Dr. Stephen R. Covey (Resist Resistance) Southwest Airlines (Give) Steven Pressman (Resist Resistance) JetBlue Prentice Mulford The Google Guys (Visualization) James Arthur Ray(Chief Aim) Herb Greenberg Ph.D. Dr. Deepak Chopra St. Luke's Agency Norman Vincent Peele Michael Graves (Specialized Knowledge) W. Clement Stone IDEO (Brainstorming) Og Mandino Home Depot (No Mistake) Dr John Gray Muggsy Bogues Bob Proctor Henry Ford (Specialized Knowledge) Seth Godin(My Mentor)
Greene’s 48 Laws of Power (Great Book) Tom Peters Emil Coue Jim Collins Dr. Maxwell Maltz Sergio Zyman Albert Einstein (No Mistake) Regis McKenna Friendrich Nietzsche Don Peppers Niccolo Machiavelli Martha Rogers Voltaire Philip Kotler Fernando Trias de Bes Murray Raphel Otto Von Bismarck Emanuel Rosen Malcolm Gladwell Miyamoto Musashi Rosabeth Moss Kanter Han-Fei-Tzu W. Chan Kim Sun-Tzu Renee Mauborgne Ha Tae-Hung Jackie Huba Michael Gerber Jack Trout Geoffrey A Moore Dr. Thomas Stanley Faith Popcorn Larry Downes Guy Kawasaki Ikujiro Nonaka Lisa Johnson Niel Raphel Andrea Learned Clive Humby Tim Phillips
After reading Law of Success and the 17 principles it laid out, I noticed that all of these books, companies and people have used some of those principles to get ahead in life. You can use them also. – Joah Santos (www imnylon com)