Tracy - Reinvention: how to make the rest of your life the best of your life

How to Make the Rest of Your Life
the Best of Your Life

BRIAN TRACY

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tracy, Brian.
Reinvention: how to make the rest of your life the best of your life / Brian Tracy.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-1346-3
ISBN-10: 0-8144-1346-3
1. Self-actualization (Psychology) 2. Life skills 3. Change.
4. Success. I. Title.
BF637.S4T73 2009
650.1dc22

2008045967

2009 Brian Tracy
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.

This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of AMACOM, a division of
American Management Association, 1601
Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

Printing number

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is fondly dedicated to my friends and partners, John McClelland and Bill Rowland, who have done more to help people reinvent themselves in a positive way than anyone I know.

INTRODUCTION
Your World in Transition

CHAPTER ONE
You Are Remarkable

CHAPTER TWO
Who Are You?

CHAPTER THREE
What Do You Want?

CHAPTER FOUR
What Are You Worth?

CHAPTER FIVE
How to Get the Job You WantIn Any Economy

CHAPTER SIX
How Do You Get Ahead?

CHAPTER SEVEN
How Do You Get the Most out of Yourself?

SUMMARY
What Do You Do Now?

THE SUBJECT OF REINVENTION is very dear to my heart. When I was 21 and working as a construction laborer, getting up at 5:00 a.m. in the middle of a cold winter and taking three buses to work all day carrying building materials from place to place, I had a revelation that changed my life. I realized that I was responsible for myself and for everything that happened to me.

Sitting in my little one-room apartment, it was like a flashbulb going off in my face. Imagine! I was responsible. Anything I ever wanted to accomplish from that day forward was completely up to me. No one was going to do it for me.

At that moment, I decided to put my past behind me and reinvent myself for the first time. I looked as far into the future as I could and asked, What do I really want to do with my life?

Of course, I wanted all the usual things: A job that paid well doing something that I enjoyed, happy relationships, good health, and eventually, financial independence.

I remember going to a bookstore on my lunch break from my construction job and buying books on subjects that I thought would be helpful to me. I started with business books, then books on psychology, philosophy, economics, and personal success. Because I was single, I had lots of time on my hands, so I spent hours each night reading and underlining.

The more I learned, the more my confidence grew. I began writing letters to companies applying for white-collar jobs. For a long time, I got no responses, but eventually someone hired me in direct sales of office products. That was my start.

Over the years, I have reinvented myself in different jobs and in different industries, moving up through sales into sales management and eventually the vice president of an international company with the responsibility of developing six countries. Later, I got a real estate license and reinvented myself as a real estate developer, reading books, finding financial partners, and ultimately developing more than 100 million dollars of real estate over the years.

I reinvented myself as an importer and a distributor, bringing in a complete line of Japanese cars and setting up 65 dealerships to sell tens of millions of dollars worth of automobiles.

At each stage of reinvention, I sat down with a blank sheet and made a decision about my next step or next career. Then I went out and read books and articles, interviewed people and asked questions, explored the business industry as much as I could, and plunged in.

What I learned about reinvention was that it does not proceed in a long, straight line. There are numerous setbacks and difficulties, and even temporary failures. What seems to be a good course of action often turns out to be a dead end, but something else always appears in a different direction.

I learned that the key to reinvention is to go onto the continuous offensive. Get a good idea of where you want to go and take action. Try, try again, and try once more. Never give up. Keep moving forward.

In this book, you learn some of the most helpful thinking tools ever discovered to enable you to save months and even years of your life in reinventing yourself and becoming the kind of person you always wanted to be.

Brian Tracy

Wherever we are, it is but a stage on the way to somewhere else, and whatever we do, however well we do it, it is only a preparation to do something else that shall be different.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, SCOTTISH NOVELIST AND POET

The future may be uncertain, but as you read this book, one thing I can assure you of is that the rest of your life is going to be the best of your life. Whatever you have accomplished up to now is merely a shadow of what you will be able to achieve in the exciting months and years ahead. Understand and take comfort in knowing that whatever changes are taking place in your life today, they are part of a larger plan to lead you onward and upward to fulfilling your potential.

ALBERT EINSTEIN was teaching at Princeton University and had just administered an exam to an advanced class of physics students. On the way back to his office, the teaching assistant carrying the exams asked him, Dr. Einstein, wasnt this the same exam that you gave to this same class last year?

Dr. Einstein responded, Yes, it was.

The teaching assistant, in awe of perhaps the greatest physicist of the twentieth century, then asked, Excuse me for asking, Dr. Einstein. But how could you give the same exam to the same class two years in a row?

Einstein replied simply, The answers have changed.

At that time, in the world of physics, with new breakthroughs and discoveries, the answers were changing at such a rapid rate that the same exam could be given two years in a row and have different answers.