Here is a very interesting assessment, by Daniel Levis of The Total Package, of one of the world’s most renowned businessman.
As you may be aware, Jim Rohn, America’s foremost business philosopher, passed away over the weekend – at the age of 79.
I can’t say I knew Jim. But every time I read one of his books or listened to one of his masterful presentations, I felt I knew him.
He had this wonderful talent for captivating your attention with little parables from his life … creative metaphors … analogies … and clever word play. He knew how to connect with you … opening your eyes to new concepts, or simply re-impressing upon your mind success principles you already knew but were failing to apply.
By his own admission, nothing Jim taught was original. He simply stated the truth. And as he pointed out – the truth is old.
Here are a few of the truisms that Jim has been spreading for the last 40 years. To honor his memory, I spent a couple of hours reflecting on them and writing a few thoughts of my own.
“It can be dangerous to weaken the strong in our attempts to strengthen the weak.”
Have you ever wondered why they ask you to fasten your own oxygen mask first on a plane in the event of an emergency? That way you’ll have enough oxygen in your blood to help the people around you who may need help. It’s just common sense.
Yet today, many parents go into massive debt giving their kids every advantage in life without question or demand. As nations, we hand out dole to financially faltering people and companies instead of demanding they pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and learn from their mistakes.
The ironic result is more weakness, not less, and an escalating cycle of dependency.
If you want a strong society, the answer is simple and straightforward: Let the market do the rewarding. It will naturally favor people who take initiative and who find ways to make other people’s lives better before demanding anything in return.
“The real genius to make a marketplace flourish doesn’t come from government. It comes from the individual genius of the people.”
When governments meddle in things they have no business meddling in – pushing levers and turning cranks in an attempt to “regulate” the economy – it’s a recipe for gargantuan public debt, doom, and disaster. The temptation to print money for no other reason than to buy votes is just too great.
Some say that greedy bankers and Wall Street tycoons brought down the economy and that it’s government’s responsibility to regulate and restrict the market still further to protect us from every possible wrongdoing.
This is like putting the wolves in charge of the hen house. Human nature is human nature. The thieves in Washington are no different to the thieves on Wall Street. They just have more power.
“Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you’ve got.”
How much better off would we be as a society if more people knew this and lived it?
Right now, tens of millions of people are unemployed … and millions of business owners are wringing their hands in despair – waiting around passively for the economic storm clouds to blow over.
How many of them are aggressively looking for more effective philosophies … better ideas … enhanced skills … systems … and strategies for making themselves more useful and valuable to the people around them?
Precious few.
It just never occurs to them that in order to improve our current circumstances, first, we must improve ourselves.
“When you know what you want, and you want it badly enough, you’ll find a way to get it.”
Most people have no idea what they truly want. Or what they’re capable of achieving. They’re like leaves in the wind, floating through life, waiting for things to happen to them.
Others seem driven to achieve some goal or another … but it’s not really their goal. It’s a goal set for them by someone else – parents perhaps, a spouse, or society. And because it’s not their own goal, they seldom find the drive and determination to achieve it.
“Formal education will make you a living.
Self-education will make you a fortune.”
The average young person today looks at education as “accreditation.” You go to school and you get a piece of paper that proves you can do a particular job. And that’s it. School’s out. The formal education system pre-supposes that you fit into some pre-defined pigeon hole in society.
If you buy into this, it stifles your personal autonomy and makes you feel small and powerless. It cuts off the entrepreneurial spirit we need so badly right now – that’s essential to innovation and the creation of wealth.
Learning is a lifelong responsibility. You can obtain and develop self-acquired knowledge and skills that can be customized precisely to the achievement of any desired outcome. You don’t need permission or validation from anyone but the marketplace. Why can’t more people see this?
“Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.”
I used to be terrible at planning because I figured: What’s the use? Nobody can predict the future. Something unexpected always comes up to derail the best laid plans of mice and men. Better to just wing it.
But Jim made me realize this is totally missing the point of planning. The power of planning is that it exercises your creative imagination. It forces you to visualize the accomplishment of your goals in detail.
This gives your sub-conscious mind the guidance it needs to work through the many problems and challenges that are part of the achievement of any worthwhile goal.
As long as you realize that your plan is a living, breathing thing that you will be continually revising as you go along, you can’t help but succeed.
“We must risk going too far to discover how far we can go.”
In every project you undertake, your prime motivation should be to push yourself to your limits – and then extend them. Few people do this. They’re looking for the path of least resistance, trying to find out how little they can do and still get by. And therefore, they never grow, or discover their true potential.
In testing the boundaries of my own capabilities, I have often discovered that those boundaries are self-imposed, created by my own mind. And if I push myself to my limits, I am often able to extend those limits beyond what I believed them to be.
I was lucky enough to be in the audience at one of Jim’s last presentations. At the age of 78 – when most people have largely given up on being useful to those around them – he was still swinging for the fences … giving his all to the audience … pushing himself to his limits … and beyond.
On visiting Jim’s website after hearing of his passing I was struck by this quote from Harold Dyke, one of Jim’s long time close friends, “As Jim is ending one life he is simultaneously being birthed into a new life. One that he has talked about over the years and anticipated with great joy in his last remaining days.”
Here was a man who knew his time was short, and was ready to die – with no regrets.
By the power of his will, Jim had pushed himself to live his life to its fullest. He had changed thousands of lives for the better. He had done what he had set out to do.
And I got to thinking: Will I be able to feel this way in those final weeks, days, hours before shedding this mortal coil and floating off into the mystic – in just a few short decades, or less? …Will you?
Makes you appreciate the value of time, doesn’t it? Makes you want to put more life in your life, to be more … and give more … and achieve more – don’t you agree?
I have a feeling that’s the way Jim would have wanted it.
Here’s a 7 minute YouTube minute video that will give you a flavour of Jim Rohn. There are a number of others, of him, there too. This video has some great lessons for business and for life. We can all learn by watching it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZru3_vygc0&feature=player_embedded.
Kind regards,
A. Ian Dainty
416.623.9588
www.b2bbusinesscoach.com
ian@b2bbusinesscoach.com
