An Excellent Read – “The Success Principles” by Jack Canfield

This book is easily, one of the best Self-Development books I’ve read in awhile.

It was well written and comes complete the strategies required to make the appropriate changes. A must read for anyone’s Library, regardless of which stage of your life you’re in.

What actionable strategies does The Success Principles offer readers?

1. Take 100% responsibility for your life. Canfield teaches that Event + Response = Outcome and says successful people respond differently to events in order to get the ideal outcomes they want.

2. Decide what you want. Define the exact goals you want to achieve in specific terms—i.e., invest $20,000 a year, finish my doctorate by June 30, 2006, etc.

3. Develop a mastermind group. Follow Carnegie, Edison, Ford and others in forming a group of five to six people who meet regularly to brainstorm and motivate each other.

4. Focus on your core genius. Determine what you love to do and do well — then delegate everything else. If you don’t have your own staff, try outsourcing, trading for services or hiring occasional part-timers in order to free your time and enjoy life more.

5. Create a breakthrough goal. Determine one accomplishment that would uplevel everything you do—then pursue that goal with passion.

6. Surround yourself with successful people. Canfield says, “You become like the people you spend the most time with.” Seek out the top people in your field. Attend industry conferences. Find mentors who’ve succeeded at the goals you want to achieve.

7. Clean up your incompletes and messes. Clutter, projects left undone and unresolved relationships take up attention units and decrease your ability to focus on goals. Dedicate one weekend a month to organizing, resolving and finishing.

8. Redefine time. Restructure your calendar to add more days when you spend 80% of the time focusing on your core genius. Schedule preparation days where you delegate or get ready to be productive. Then schedule rest and recreation days. The goal? Super high productivity with more free time. If you control your own work schedule, stop working weekends, take two 14-day vacations, then add seven long holiday weekends. That’s 146 days off each year.

9. Ask for feedback. Ask your boss, spouse, co-workers and others to rate your relationship on a scale of one to 10. What are you doing right? What can you improve on? Where you rate less than a 10, ask what would it take to get to 10.

10. Develop a positive money focus. Decide what “wealth” means to you, then make a conscious decision to build a thriving, wealth-producing career. Find out the cost to finance your dream life, then focus on achieving it using principles in the book.

Each chapter of The Success Principles is a quick-read filled with illuminating stories from some of the world’s most famous achievers—all noting in detail how they created their lifestyle, business and personal successes.