7 Wealth and Happiness Strategies by Jim Rohn Book Review | Wealth Strategies
Discover 7 effective strategies for wealth and happiness from Jim Rohn's insightful book review. Learn how to enhance your life with proven techniques that lead to financial success and personal fulfillment. Wealth strategies. happiness strategies. Jim Rohn book review.
BOOK REVIEWSMONTHLY STATEMENTS
This month, I bring a completely different approach to my monthly statements. I am doing a BOOK REVIEW for the book entitled , '7 STRATEGIES FOR WEALTH AND HAPPINESS' by Jim Rohn as read on 18th November 2013. I recall clearly that I could barely multitask while reading this book. Even with my favorite snack by my side, hunger rumbling my belly up, tempting smartphones, etc; I read through this book twice in one sitting (less than a day which is a quarter the time I usually read each of the over 5000 books I have read. I was astonished by his view on the 36 points below:
1) There is a thin line between faith and folly. Affirmations without action are the beginnings of self - delusion.
2) Priorities (Page 45)
One of the difficulties we face in our industrialized age is the face that we've lost our sense of seasons. Unlike the farmer whose priorities change with the seasons, we have become impervious to the natural rhythm of life. As a result, we have our priorities out of balance. Let me illustrate what I mean:
For a farmer, springtime is his most active time. It's then that he must work around the clock, up before the sun and still toiling at the stroke of midnight. He must keep his equipment running at full capacity because he has but a small window of time for planting his crops. Then comes winter when there is less for him to do to keep him busy.
There is a lesson here. Learn to use the seasons of life. Decide when to pour it on and when to ease back, when to take advantage and when to let things ride. It's easy to keep going from nine to five year in and year out and lose a natural sense of priorities and cycles. Don't let one year blend into another in a seemingly endless parade of tasks and responsibilities. Keep your eye on your own seasons, lest you lose sight of value and substance. Don't spend your winters looking for summers.
3) Majors and Minors
An important part of setting priorities is learning to separate the minors of your life from the majors. Here is a good question to ask yourself whenever you have to make a decision. Is this a major or a minor? By asking this, always with your goals in mind, you'll reduce the risk of spending major time on minor projects.
4) Several sophisticated people have learned how to gather up the past and invest it in the future.
5) To become self educated since standard education only bring standard results.
6) Repetition is the mother of skill.
7) To ask 'what is it worth?' and not 'How much does it cost?'
8) To find rich men to feed since success leaves behind clues.
9) You don't get paid for the time, you get paid for value, for your productivity. You are mistaken if you say, 'I make twenty dollars an hour.' That's not true! If it were true, you would just stay home and have them send over the money. So you don't get paid twenty dollars an hour. You get paid twenty dollars for the value which has been placed on the hour you work.
10) It's not what you get by tricks that counts. Its not what you get by demanding that counts. Its what you get by productive performance that counts.
11) The Seasons of Life (Page 72 - 75)
Here are two phrases I want you to consider: The first is, 'Life and Commerce are like the seasons.' The second is, 'You cannot change the seasons but you can change yourself.' Now, with these two phrases as guides, let's take a look at the seasons of life and how you can best handle them:
Winter: A Time to Grow Strong
First and foremost, learn to handle winters. There are all kinds of winters. There are economic winters, when financial wolves are at the door, there are physical winters, when our health is shot; there are personal winters, when our hearts are smashed to pieces. Wintertime. Disappointments. Loneliness. That's how the Blues were written.
So the big question is how do we handle the winters. Some people go to the calendar, tear out the month of January, and pretend it isn't there. But that's the childish approach. It solves nothing. Let me tell you what mature people do: They get stronger. They get wiser. They get better. Not a bad idea - to use the winter for personal development.
Before I understood this, I used to spend my winters looking for summers. I didn't understand. Then, finally, when I was going through a sales slump, Mr Shoaff said, 'Don't wish it were easier, wish you were better. Don't wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills. Don't wish for less of a challenge, wish for more wisdom.' Since then I can't honestly tell you that I've welcomed the winters, but I can tell you that I've used them to gear up for spring, which always comes after winter.
Spring: A Time to Take Advantage
Learn to take advantage of spring. What a great place for spring to be, right after winter. Opportunity follows difficulty. Expansion follows recession - just like clockwork. God is a genius.
Spring is the time to take advantage. Make a note of these two words. TAKE ADVANTAGE. Don't let the balmy weather confuse you. If you want to look good in the fall, this is the time to plant the seeds. In fact, we all have to excel at one of the two things. Either we become good at planting in the spring or we learn how to beg in the fall.
So, get busy in the spring. There is just a handful of spring for each of us. The Beatles wrote, 'Life is so short.' And for John Lennon on the streets of New York, life was extra short.
Summer: A Time to Take Care
Learn to nourish and protect your crops all summer. You can bet that as soon as you've planted, the insects and weeds will try to destroy your crop. And they will succeed, unless you prevent them. Part of succeeding is learning to protect what you've created. And that's the greatest lesson of summer.
Here are two truths you will learn during your summers:
FIRST, you'll learn that all good will be attacked. Don't press me for the reason. I don't know why. But I do know that it's true. Every garden will be invaded. Not to understand this is naive.
SECOND, you'll learn that all values must be defended. All values - social, political, marital, commercial - must be defended. Every garden must be tended all summer. Unless you defend what you believe in, come fall you'll have nothing left.
Fall: A Time to Take Responsibility
Fall is the season where we reap the results of our spring and summers. Maturity can be defined by our ability to take full responsibility for the crops we have tended, either bountiful or meager. Accepting full responsibility is one of the highest forms of human maturity - and one of the hardest. It's the day you pass through childhood to adulthood.
Learn to welcome fall without apology or complaint - without apology if you've done well and without complaint if you've not. It's not easy, but it's the mature thing to do.
12) Cost is not your problem. The problem is that you can't afford it.
13) A man can get all excited about lifting two hundred pound weights until he gets to the gym. Then he needs a new kind of excitement, long-term excitement excitement that will keep him training until he can lift the two hundred pounds. We call this kind of excitement discipline.
14) There is a difference between true excitement and hopeful panic.
15) Don't send your DUCKS to EAGLE school. Why? Because it won't work and you'll get unhappy ducks.
16) The power of free enterprise system.
17) A deeper understanding on taxes (Page 92).
18) The role of equipment, products and equity.
19) If you are not financially independent by age forty or fifty, it doesn't mean that you live in the wrong country. It doesn't mean that you live in the wrong community. Nor does it mean that you live in the wrong time or you're the wrong person. It simply means that you have the wrong plan.
20) You can only waste today, not tomorrow.
21) To stop looking for the rising sun on the west.
22) Don't let your mouth overload your back. Learn to say no.
23) There is nothing shameful about admitting that you aren't good at everything - as long as you are wise enough not to let your weaknesses stop you from accomplishing your goals.
24) Make sure the telephone is there primarily for your convenience. Gain control over who can reach you and when.
25) Buying a computer to balance your cheque books or keep telephone numbers is like getting into a car and driving over to visit your next - door neighbors.
26) The real causes to important problems are usually buried several layers deep.
27) Don't start your day until you have it finished.
28) The art of learning how to live.
29) For a sophisticated person, quality is more important than quantity.
30) Lifestyle is a matter of awareness, values, education and disciplined taste. Lifestyle is style over amount, lifestyle is culture.
31) To always tip good service. T.I.P acronym could mean To Insure Promptness. Sophisticated people don't take a chance on good service. They assure good service by tipping upfront.
32) There is no reason in having wealth without character, industry without art, quantity without quality, enterprise without satisfaction and possession without joy.
33) The difference between the four emotions; Disgust, Decision, Desire and Resolve.
34) Whatever you do, don't camp at the fork in the road. Decide. Its far better to make a wrong decision than to not make one at all. Each of us must confront our emotional turmoil and sort out our feelings.
35) Resolve means promising yourself you will never give up. Think about this! How long should a baby learn how to walk? How long would you give the average baby before you say, 'that's it, you've had your chance?' You say that's crazy? Of course it is. Any mother in the world would say, 'My baby is going to keep trying until he learns how to walk!' No wonder every baby ends up walking. They don't get frustrated because they fell over and over.
36) The whole world loves to watch those who make things happen, and it rewards them for causing waves of productive enterprise.
I wish you a HAPPY NEW MONTH, JULY 2014. But always remember, FAITH makes all things POSSIBLE, HOPE makes all things worth ENDURING and LOVE makes all things EASY.
Tonny Rutakirwa,
Chairman,
Tonniez Group of Companies.