In the effort to achieve personal, business and entrepreneurial success, the most important and most valuable work to do is thinking, world renowned motivational speaker and trainer, Brian Tracy has said.
“Your thoughts control your entire world; your thoughts control your choices and determine how you interpret things; your thoughts control your goals, your dreams and your level of persistence; so you become what you think about most of the times,” he said.
Addressing corporate executives and entrepreneurs at the 9th MTN Business World Breakfast Meeting, in Accra, August 29, Tracy noted that people who do things that have big potential consequences are oftentimes the few successful people, while the bottom 80% that choose to do things of low potential consequences obtain results of low consequence and little value.
“Of all the things which have consequences, thinking is the most important. The quality of your thinking determines the quality of your decisions; the quality of your decisions determines the quality of your actions; the quality of your actions determines the quality of your results and in the world of work results are everything.
“All successful people are intensely action oriented and are always thinking, how do I put this great idea into action immediately?” Tracy said, outlining seven key thinking skills for leaders to obtain full power and maximum achievement at work.
They include being clear about one’s position, competence , constraints, creativity and constraints , among others.
“First, you have to be absolutely clear about two things. Who you are; and what you want. You have to be clear and this requires thinking. It is hard work to decide who you are; what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are.
“What are you good at and what can you be good at? How do you like to work and how are you most productive? Where did you get the best result? ,” Tracy mentioned as some questions to start probing in order to achieve success, asking further; “are you going to invest your life like you invest money? When you invest money, you expect the highest returns.”
He said about 95% of companies today have obsolete business models. “What it means is your model to achieve results is either obsolete or partially obsolete.
“The markets change so drastically that you need to do things differently and quickly to maximize your profitability. Your model could possibly be wrong so the next question to ask is could there be a better way for you to achieve your most important goals.
“What smart companies are doing now is that every year they drop the bottom 20% of their products because they are taking too many resources in producing them so they cut them off. And then they take that to develop new products that customers would like to pay top money for,” Tracy said.
The next thing to think about is your level of competence. What is your competitive advantage? That is what you do better than your competition that your customers really value. What makes you unique, special, and different, excellent and desirable?
“When you discover what is your best skill, that which makes you better than the others, you better start developing your next skill because that best skill is already becoming obsolete,” Tracy added.
The next challenge is to identify what constitutes your constraint or what is called choke point. Focusing on dealing with one choke point will get you faster to your goal than several other things that you do. So instead of working on a hundred little things, identify the one thing that hinders your speed.
You need to ascertain the speed at which to achieve your goal, what the limiting factor is and apply the 80/20 Rule; which says that 80% of the constraints are within, either in yourself or the business and only 20% on the outside.
Tracy explained that after being clear on your goals, you enhance your competitiveness by identifying your constraints and then creatively delivering value to your customers by mind-storming on every problem; concentrating on your most productive activity or product by focusing your talent and resources for the best results possible; and continuously learning new things every day.
“Read and review your ideas daily and work towards realising your goals. That is one sure way to personal, business and entrepreneurial success,” Brian Tracy said.