These are my notes from Jim Rohn's best year ever. I figured I'd share for two reasons: (1) it's good to review for myself, and (2) maybe it'll inspire you to move your life in the right direction at this difficult time.

Foundation:

Time is more valuable than money

Things don't just happen; things happen just

Best place to start is sincerity: Sincerity is not a test of truth.

Ideas + Inspiration

Ideas Can be Life Changing: Sometimes you just need one more idea to unlock it all.

Some do and Some don't; that's pretty much the philosophy.

Take the simple approach: Leave the why as a mystery.

Believers believe. Mocker's mock. The perplexed perplex: Don't fight it.

Principles:

1. Be Thankful: Thanksgiving opens doors, windows, channels.
   Here's what locks up the doors and channels: cynicism
2. Listen Well: Life is here, put attention here
3. Take Good Notes; Be a Good Student Today: I did not come to entertain you.
4. Don't be a Follower; Be a Student: Take advice, but not orders. Make sure what you do is the product of your own conclusion.

26:30

Five Major Pieces to Life Puzzle:

First: Philosophy (major determining factor in how life turns out): your personal philosophy is what determines what happens

Philosophy is the “set of the sail”

35:00

Blaming what you have will lead to disaster

Failure: A few errors in judgment, repeated every day will accumulate to disaster

43:00

Success: A few simple disciplines, practiced every day: this is the key to a whole new life, and will bring you untold riches

Eliminate errors, replace with good habits

Could, Should, Don't; Could, Should, Won't: unmitigated disaster

48:00

Second Attitude: How you feel about the past. Let the past be a school, not a club

• How you feel about the future. Set Goals. Without a future well designed, we take hesitant steps >> disaster.
• How you feel about everyone else.
• How you feel about yourself: understanding self worth
• must be educated to the point of where you've messed up.
• Could Should Don't; Could Should Won't >> You've messed up!
• If it isn't going well >> You've messed up!

54:00

Third: Activity/Discipline: G-d says if you plant the seed, I'll make the tree. You just have to plant the seed.

• Turning Wisdom from your Philosophy, and Inspiration (strengthening of attitude, faith), and invest it in activity >> miracles
• Putting Wisdom and Discipline and Attitude into Labor
• Do what You can.
• Do the best you can.
• What am I not doing that would be easy to do? That could greatly change my health, my wealth.
• What am I neglecting.
• Could, should, don't >> disaster
• Errors in judgment >> disaster
• A few simple disciplines >> wealth
• You want to hang out with people who say “No Problem.” They'll figure it out.
• Could should will: the earth belongs to you.

How to have a miracle:

• Get a list of the things you do; and go do it.
• Clean it up
• Don't postpone
• Take Action
• Do what you can.
• Do the best you can.

Fourth Results: Every once in a while you have to take a measure.

Let results teach you about your own activity, your own attitude, your own philosophy.

Here's what life wants from you:

• Make measurable progress in reasonable time
• Affirm the truth: I'm x years old and unemployed/single/broke/your version
• Lesson in life change: be willing to face the numbers.
• Acknowledge what's so: “I have messed up.”
• Success is a numbers game. Be mature enough to check your own numbers.

Fifth. Life Style: Fashion for yourself a life style/the good life

• If you wish to be wealthy, study wealth
• wouldn't you want a superior financial plan to take you where you want to go?
• If you wish to be happy, study happiness
• Happiness is something you design; Happiness is a study; Happiness is a practice; Happiness is an art.
• Culture is a study; Culture is an art
• Only study and practice make you wealthy and happy
• Become a two quarter person (shoe shine): if two sums come to mind for a job well done, give the higher one.

1:25

Ch. 2

It's not what happens. It's what you do about it.

Can't change circumstances; can change ourselves, what you do

What you have at the moment is what you have attracted by the person you have become.

If you will change, everything will change for more.

To have more, become more.

1:29

This is how I explain it to kids:

• Get paid for bringing value to the marketplace
• Takes time, but we don't get paid for time; get paid for the value we put in the time.
• Is it possible to become twice, three times as valuable? Of Course! All you have to do to earn more is become more valuable.
• Learn to work harder on your self than you do on your job: If you work hard on your job, you'll make a living. If you learn to work hard on yourself, you will make a fortune.
• Life and Business is like the Seasons
• Can't change the seasons; can change yourself
• History: opportunity mixed with difficulty

How will life change? When You Change

1. Learn how to handle winters, come right after fall, every year, all kinds of winters: economic, social, personal.
   • Get Wiser, Stronger, Better: anyone can, practice
   • Don't wish it was easier, get better
2. Take advantage of the Spring: Take advantage; don't miss the educational process
3. In the summer, learn how to nourish and protect.
   
   • Nourish garden; kill the weeds.
   • Deal with your enemies.
4. In the fall, learn to reap without complaint
5. Take personal responsibility.
   • No apology. Do your best. Don't apologize.
   • Physical:
     • treat body like a temple: take care of self
     • Vitality,
     • Appearance, people judge by how you look
     • Make sure the outside is a major reflection of what's going on inside.
   • Spiritual:
     • if you do believe in it, study it and practice it
   • Third Part: Mental:
     • Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich
     • Richest Man in Babylon
     • Mortimer Adler, How to Read a Book
       Includes a list of best books ever written.

   • Be a good student of history:

     • Durant, Lessons of History
     • Durant, The Story of Philosophy Don't just reat the easy stuff.
     • Read fiction, but skip the trash.
     • Biographies/Autobiographies: the Bible, a book on Ghandi, a book on Hitler: you need both sides.
     • Accounting
     • A little law
     • Culture
     • Education
     • Music

to Leave Behind:

1. Journal
2. Pictures
3. Library

Don't be a follower. Be a student.

Ch. 3

2:30

Five Abilities

1. To Absorb: Most people are trying to get through the day; I want you to get “from” the day. Whereever you are, BE THERE!
2. Learn to Respond: Let life touch you. Don't let it kill you, but let it touch you. Let sad things make you sad. Let Happy things make you Happy. Give into the emotions. Let the emotions strike you. Our emotions need to be as educated as our intellect.
3. Reflect: Over your notes; over your day; capture that day, get from the day, go back over the day.
   • Capture the Week
   • Take half a day at the end of Month
   • Take a Weekend at the end of the Year
   • Remember, Remember, Remember. Lock it in.
   • Can Reflect with Another
   • Reflect with Yourself
   • Sometimes you have to shut the door and wonder
   • Why? Make the past more valuable to make a better future
4. Act when the idea is hot and the emotions are strong
   • Everthing Affects Everything
     • Every Let Down Affects your performance.
     • Every New discipline affects the next
   • How to make a miracle happen:
     • Do What You Can
     • Do the Best You Can
     • Rest Very Little
   • Make rest a necessity, not an objective
   • Develop the Ability to Share

3:10

How do you fare? It's harder to do than say, but I'm working on it too.

3:12

Setting Goals:

• Your Vision of the Future
• Two ways to approach:
  • Anticipation
  • Apprehension - why? don't have it well designed.
• The Price is Easy if the Promise is Clear
• Don't leave your future to someone else.
• Here's the secret:
  • Decide What You Want; Write it Down
  • Set a goal to become a millionaire
• Why? For what it will make of you to achieve it.
• Greatest Value is not What You Get; it's What You Become

Decide What You Want; Write it Down !!

• Set the Kind of Goals that Will Make Something of You to Achieve Them.
• Don't Set Goals too Low; don't go with an easy crowd
• Go where demands are high
• Don't Compromise; Don't sell out
• Greatest Source of Unhappiness from inside
• Behold/Beware

3:32

• Keep Strict Accounts
• Read Your Audience
• Intensity: Words mixed with emotion; Put more of You
• Emotions must be measured
• Well Chosen Words mixed with Measured Emotion
• Negative not to be ignored, it's to be wrestled with; must do battle with the enemies inside and out.

4:14

The Four Parts to the Day that Turns Your Life Around:

1. Disgust: I've had it. If you can add an act to your disgust, it helps. Life changing day, day you say “Enough is enough.” (Shoots up old car).
2. Decision: Clean up a list of decisions.
3. Desire: Wanting to bad enough; sometimes desire waits for a trigger. Welcome all experiences; never know which will turn everything on. Don't put up a wall. The same wall that keeps out disappointment keeps out happiness.
4. Resolve: I will. Disraeli said, “Nothing can resist the human will.” Promising Yourself You Will Never Give Up.

Parting Philosophy:

• Until . . . Never give up until
• Learn to help people with their lives, not just their jobs.
• If you Work on Your Gifts, they Will make room for you.