Life is all about creating skills and value and taking them to the marketplace to see what they return for you.
One day my mentor, Mr. Earl Shoaff, said to me, "Jim, if you want to be wealthy and happy, learn this lesson well: Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job." I must admit that this was the most challenging assignment of all. This business of personal development lasts a lifetime.
You see, what you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, "What am I getting?" Instead, you should ask, "What am I becoming?" What you become directly influences what you get.
Think of it this way: Most of what you have today, you have attracted by becoming the person you are today.
I've also found that income rarely exceeds personal development. Sometimes income takes a luck jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle.
It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development. So here's the great axiom of life:
The marketplace is a demanding place. There is plenty of opportunity, but you've got to get ready for it and prepare for it. We've got to spend a portion of this year getting ready for next year, and we've got to spend a portion of this decade getting ready for the next decade. Hopefully the reason why we're here, looking well, doing fairly well, is because we spent a portion of the last decade getting ready for this decade.
So a big share of life is spent getting ready, getting prepared, and part of it is the development of skills. I've got a good key phrase for you to start with in developing skills that make for success in the marketplace. First, it starts with personal development, self-improvement, making measurable progress.
Personal development is a push. It's a struggle. It's a challenge. There wouldn't be any winning without a challenge. That's what life is all about. It's the struggle and the challenge to develop ourselves and our skills to see what we can create in the way of value in the marketplace.
I've divided personal development into three parts.
I know when you talk spiritual you can get in an argument most anywhere, but I have a single belief that says humans are not just animals. Some people believe we're just an extensions and an advanced form of the animal species, but I believe humans are unique. Spiritual qualities make us different from all other creations. Now I'm an amateur on that side of it, so I can't give you a lot of advice there, but I would recommend you be a student of the spiritual side of your nature. And whatever you have to read and assimilate to develop in that area, I would strong suggest you do.
The mind and the body work together, so we've got to give some attention to both, mind and body. Development of mind and body. On the physical side, you've heard the phrase that says treat your body like a temple. A temple. Not a bad word. Something you would take extremely good care of. Treat your body like a temple, not a woodshed, right? A temple. Take good care of it.
The only house we have to live in currently is the physical body we have and that's part of success in the marketplace. That's physical well-being. It's feeling good about yourself physically, so that you stride into the marketplace with a sense of self-worth, self-confidence, having taken care of that end of it. It covers several parts, including good nutrition. Physically you can do extremely well if you just pay some attention. Read all the books about nutrition to make up your own mind. There are a lot of weird conflicts in the nutritional aspect, but you just have to read and decide for yourself a good plan for you, a good health plan.
Then there's physical appearance. Be skillful enough to take care of your appearance in the marketplace. It has a lot to do with your acceptance. A big share of it is how you appear to other people—on the job, performing, company, community. You say, well, people shouldn't judge you by your appearance. Well, let me tell you, they do! Don't base your life on should and shouldn't. Only base your life on realities. Sure, when people get to know you they'll judge you by more than what they see, but at first they're going to take a look. So, physical appearance is part of the physical side of personal development.
There's a certain point that we need to be conscious of ourselves, take care of it, then let it go. Some people worry about their appearance all day and it detracts rather than adds. So take care of it, and then let it go. Do the best you can, and let that get the job done. Be conscious of ourselves, but not to the point of being self-conscious.
Here's the third part to personal development: the mind. Stretching your mind, developing good thinking habits, good study habits, pursuing ideas, and trying to find ways to apply them to human behavior and the marketplace. All of that takes mind-stretch and mind-exercise. Part of it is stretching yourself in reading habits.
We call that mind-stretch.Your willingness to tackle subjects that are difficult and that most people have decided to let slide gives you an extraordinary edge in the marketplace. How can you master part of the high skills, the extraordinary skills that make you an unusual performer in the marketplace? It takes mind-stretch. Some people skip poetry and literature, history and a lot of things that seem a little difficult to attack. But if you always back away from something that seems a little difficult at first, you leave yourself weak. You leave yourself unprepared in the marketplace. So, don't be afraid to tackle the heavyweight stuff. It may be a lot easier than you think once you get into it and learn skill after skill.
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