TipsForSuccess: September 2008

TipsForSuccess: Why You Must Be Unreasonable

Why You Must Be Unreasonable

You succeed when you are unreasonable about your success. You neither give nor accept excuses. You insist on success.

L. Ron Hubbard defines reasonableness as "faulty explanations." When you agree with faulty explanations, you are too reasonable.

Examples of faulty explanations:

"I can't repair your furnace today as it might rain." The truth is, the repairman is going to a basketball game.

"None of the staff will work past 5:00." The truth is, the manager does not want to work past 5:00.

"I can't pay you as I promised as my wife is sick and can't fix our meals." The truth is, he is spending the money on a new boat.

Why Agree?

If you agree with faulty explanations, you agree to fail. Excuses, justifications and reasonableness produce nothing.

Yet disagreeing with failure, with problems and with excuses, helps you succeed.

"If you can't fix the furnace today because of the rain, I'll find someone who repairs furnaces, despite the rain."

"I believe lots of people will work past 5:00. You are the manager and need to handle the schedules. Do you need me to show you how to do it?"

"Well, I'm sorry about your wife, but don't see how that's related. You agreed to pay me today, so I'll have to get the money from you right now as you promised."

When you disagree with faulty explanations, when you are unreasonable about failure, the sun shines, the rainbows appear and everything improves.

Not only must you be unreasonable with others, you must be unreasonable with yourself. For example you think, "I'm tired because I work so hard."

You then say to yourself, "Too bad! I need to disagree with this silly explanation. I've worked harder than this and felt great! I'm tired because I'm working hard on the wrong things. I'm going to WAKE UP, stop wasting time and make this day a productive day!"

Statistical Justifications

The most important thing you must be unreasonable about is decreased productivity. When your statistics in life (how much you earn or produce) are going down, you fail if you make up excuses. You cannot accept faulty explanations for failure.

"Never JUSTIFY why a graph continues to be down and never be reasonable about it. A down graph is simply a down graph and somebody is goofing." -- L. Ron Hubbard

Justifications for failures are everywhere:

"Reading skills are getting worse in the United States because we have too many television channels."

"I had to close the business because of the economy."

"No one buys cars from Pete because he's too old."

If you are reasonable and accept these excuses, you cannot solve the problems.

However, when you disagree with explanations and find the truth, the solutions become obvious.

Examples:

"Television has nothing to do with reading skills. What else could it be? Oh! Are children taught to use a dictionary so they can understand what they read?"

"Your business didn't fail because of the economy. It failed because you didn't know what you were doing. Did you advertise? Did you deliver what you promised? Did you add new products or services that people wanted to buy?"

"People buy cars from salesmen older than Pete every day. Was Pete working every day? Has anyone trained him to sell?"

The barriers to your success are excuses, faulty explanations and justifications. As soon as you get unreasonable with these barriers, you find the solutions you need to become successful.

Exercises

In the examples below, decide which are reasonable explanations and which are the truthful statements.

"I have no money because (I spend more than I earn) (of the cost of gas)."

"I can't lose weight because (I'm too busy) (I'm lazy and addicted to chocolate)."

"I'm single and lonely because (I don't get out and meet people) (no one likes me)."

"I can't find a good assistant because I (am too busy) (am not taking the time to find one)."

"I let people boss me around because (I'm kind and caring) (I don't stand up to them)."

Recommendations

1. Write down a failure you have had in your life.

2. Write down all the excuses and faulty explanations you have invented or accepted for this failure.

3. Get unreasonable and disagree with all of them.

4. Accept full responsibility for the failure and find what you did or did not do that caused it.

5. Turn the failure into a success.

If you continue to be unreasonable with excuses, justifications and faulty explanations, you will make it go right and turn the failure into a success.

Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you.

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TipsForSuccess: To Succeed, You Need to Lead

To Succeed, You Need to Lead

You can lead those around you with this simple, yet powerful idea:

"The leader is that one who emotionally affects others most strongly toward positive action." -- L. Ron Hubbard

What is a positive action to which you would like to lead others? For example, if you encourage people to use drugs, commit crimes or cheat they system, you are leading them toward failure. This is negative action, not positive. If you encourage people to live healthy lifestyles, increase their skills or become happier, you are leading them in positive directions.

Other positive actions include leading people toward better jobs, better products and services, stronger groups, more income, greater ability, happier marriages and closer families.

What positive actions do you want others to take? Answer this question and you have your starting point to becoming a leader.

Next, you need to emotionally affect your followers in this direction. How can you do this?

If you look at how the greatest leaders in history have emotionally affected others, you will see they get their followers excited! They give them hope. They motivate them to do good things.

Which leaders do you love to follow? How do they emotionally affect you? How can you create those same emotions in others?

Combine those emotions with positive action and you are the leader!

For example, Terry manages the Safeway grocery store in Salem and Chris manages the Safeway store in Fresno. Both want to be Safeway's new West Coast Regional Manager.

Terry frequently tells people that they need to be on time, follow the rules and do their jobs.

Chris also tells people to be on time, follow the rules and do their jobs, but she stays late to teach her favorite staff members how to be managers themselves. She encourages them to have careers with Safeway. She helps them to get raises and promotions within the company. Chris also talks with loud enthusiasm.

Who would you rather work for? Whose store does best? Who does Safeway promote to the West Coast Regional Manager position?

If you want to be a leader, but feel timid about it, these two steps can give you the breakthrough you need.

For example, you wish your coworkers would stop complaining all the time. You decide the positive action to lead them toward is a more cheerful work environment. You will do this by showing your own cheerfulness at all times.

All day long you say things like, "Wow, you did a great job on that report!" "I think that's great about your son getting an award at school!" "If we get more work done than the other departments, at least we'll be the last department to get downsized." "Has anyone watched the movie Hairspray? We rented it last night and my one-year old danced all through it."

By the way, you do not need permission to be the leader. You just lead!

Recommendations

1. Decide on the positive actions toward which you wish to lead people.

2. Emotionally affect people toward those positive actions. In most cases, your passion, energy and enthusiasm will encourage people to move in that positive direction.

3. Take the lead.

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TipsForSuccess: Moving On After a Loss

Moving On After a Loss

Few things are more painful than losses. A close friend dies, your spouse asks for a divorce or your company goes bankrupt and you feel horrible. Many people still feel the grief from losses in the past: a childhood pet that ran away, the death of a grandparent, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a failed career, a horribly bad investment and so on.

Drugs, alcohol or just waiting for the loss to stop hurting are not solutions.

For example, Jim and Nancy fall in love at their first high school dance. They see each other every day and talk on the phone every night. Jim looks forward to their marriage and a life together.

The day after their high school graduation, Nancy says, "I'm sorry Jim, but I want to date other guys now. Please don't call me again."

Jim pleads, yells and sulks. He tries text messages, flowers and cards. He talks to Nancy's family and friends. Nothing changes Nancy's mind. He asks himself every hour, "How can I get her back? Why did she really leave me? What did I do wrong?"

Jim stops eating, stops smiling and refuses to talk to his friends. He loses interest in life and spends hours each day watching television.

His mother tells him not to worry. "Time heals all wounds."

But after a few months, Jim is not over his loss. He can't get Nancy out of his mind. Time heals nothing.

A friend says, "You need to wash away your troubles with some beer!" So Jim gives it a try. Jim feels better . . . for an hour. Then he sees a girl with hair like Nancy's and gets tears in his eyes. Another beer makes it worse. The next morning, Jim realizes beer is no solution.

Another friend says, "The best way to get over Nancy is to find a new girlfriend!" So Jim goes out on a date with Jill. Her perfume reminds him of Nancy, her laugh sounds like Nancy's. He wants to go home and just think about Nancy. The date is a disaster.

Jim sees an ad on depression. "Of course," Jim thinks, "I need professional help." So he goes to a psychiatrist who gives him a prescription. Even though the pills make him feel wooden, Nancy is still on his mind, 24 hours a day.

The psychiatrist tells Jim's dad that Jim needs to take the pills forever. Jim's dad gets angry and throws away the pills. He tells Jim, "Just get over it!" Jim goes to his room and cries.

----------------------------

L. Ron Hubbard discovered these two ways to resolve the emotional pain of a loss.

1. Release the Stuck Attention

After a loss, many people cannot get on with their lives. All they can think about is the loss. Their attention is fixed or glued to the loss.

You can help them feel much better and move on by doing the following:

"Tell the person you are going to help them. Tell him or her, 'Find something that isn't reminding you of ______ (name of person he or she lost).'

"Repeat the command, getting the person to find something else that is not reminding him or her of the person until he or she has a realization and feels better about the situation.

"This simple procedure can help the person recover from his or her lost love and begin to live again." -- L. Ron Hubbard

You decide to help Jim get over his break up with Nancy. You say, "Let me help you get over Nancy, okay? Here we go. Find something that isn't reminding you of Nancy."

Jim looks around the room for a little while. "That mirror doesn't remind me of Nancy."

You say, "Okay" and repeat the instruction: "Find something that isn't reminding you of Nancy."

"The drapes."

You say "Okay" and repeat the command: "Find something that isn't reminding you of Nancy."

"The couch. Oh, Nancy sat there. I sure miss her. Okay, that box of crackers."

"All right. Find something that isn't reminding you of Nancy."

"That plant. . . ."

After answering this question 50 times, Jim's eyes become bright and he smiles. "Nancy who? To heck with that. I feel better! Let's get something to eat."

In some cases, this procedure might take a few hours to work, but if you persist, your friend will snap out of the loss.

The technique works equally well with the loss of a job, a business, money -- anything you or the person you are helping has lost.

By the way, the procedure above is one of hundreds of counseling processes discovered by L. Ron Hubbard. Dianetics is another type of counseling procedure that you can use to improve your life and to assist others.

2. Erase the Emotional Pain

Harmful memories are stored in the mind at a conscious and unconscious level. These memories ruin marriages, careers and your confidence. They cause unfounded fears, unreasonable anger and irrational behavior.

You carry this mental baggage wherever you go. They pop into your mind when you least want to think about them. Harmful memories cause you to act in ways that are not really YOU.

Dianetics eliminates the influence of these destructive memories. The Grolier Encyclopedia defines Dianetics as: "A form of counseling for curing emotional and psychosomatic illnesses and enhancing life" (psychosomatic illnesses: health problems stemming from the mind).

When you receive Dianetics counseling, you talk about your past in a certain way until the emotional pain vanishes. The depression, grief and anxiety caused by losses disappear forever.

Benefits

When you reduce the emotional pain of memories, you enjoy these benefits:

* More energy
* Increased courage
* Interest in new activities
* More self-confidence
* Higher intelligence
* Better health
* Reduced need for drugs or alcohol
* Less fear of failure
* Greater success

To learn more about Dianetics, check out dianetics.org.

Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you.

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TipsForSuccess: Money Motivation

Money Motivation

Is making money your top goal? Is it your primary motivation? If so, you may get rich, but you won't be satisfied with life. You may not have a good marriage or happy family. You may not make any difference in the world.

In fact, if money is not your primary motivation, you might get rich . . . and be happy!

There's a big difference between getting money just to have money, and earning money to finance a greater cause. How does this work?

"Money is important in the world. But it is the grease on the machinery, not the motors."

"There is nothing wrong with having lots of money. There is everything wrong with having no money. But to work only for money is the dreariest thing there is, very short term indeed."

"The weakest motivation is money. People and businesses that are motivated only by money are wobbly people."

"The scale of motivation from the highest to the lowest is:

"Duty -- highest

"Personal Conviction

"Personal Gain

"Money -- lowest" -- L. Ron Hubbard

Let's examine these four types of motivation.

4. Money Motivation (lowest): You do whatever it takes to get and keep money. You only do things for money. You do not care if you do a good job, or not, as long as you get the money. If you are motivated solely by money, you may gather a lot of it and then either hide it or spend it on yourself, but you never use it to help others.

3. Personal Gain Motivation: You work for your own health and happiness. Your success, personal power and standard of living are more important to you than anything else.

2. Personal Conviction Motivation: You are convinced of the value or rightness of an idea or purpose and work to support that idea. For example, you feel strongly about the need for your service or product in the world and do all you can to get others to agree with your view. You take great pride in following your ideas.

1. Duty Motivation (highest): You work for a greater purpose than yourself alone. You are motivated to improve the world as a lover of all mankind; to support your country as a patriot; or to expand your group as a devoted member. For example, people who work for nonprofit organizations, to fight hunger, diseases or poverty are often motivated by duty.

When someone pretends to be motivated by a higher motivation, he or she fails. For example, a politician's duty is to support the people he or she represents. If instead, the politician is found to be using the position just to get money, that politician is kicked out of office.

However, a duty-motivated leader who works hard to accomplish that duty, has nothing to hide. His or her actions are consistently directed toward the purpose or duty. You can see statistical evidence of these accomplishments in terms of lives saved, people helped, children educated and so on.

The higher your motivation, the more energy you feel. You can work longer hours, do a better job and have more fun when you are motivated by a duty or personal conviction than you can when you work just for the money.

Recommendations

Make a list of your purposes that are greater than yourself. Which of these interest and excite you? How can you spend more time working on them?

If you think you are working just for money, take another look at your motivations. In many cases, you may find you are motivated to make money for other reasons. These other reasons are your real motivations.

Focus on them and strengthen them and you will feel more motivated than ever!

Provided by TipsForSuccess.org as a public service to introduce the technology of L. Ron Hubbard to you.

To subscribe, buy books, contact us or learn more about TipsForSuccess.org, click here.

TipsForSuccess: Why You Must Be Unreasonable

TipsForSuccess: To Succeed, You Need to Lead

TipsForSuccess: Moving On After a Loss

TipsForSuccess: Money Motivation

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