Success Rule Book

Go The Extra Mile

Your many skills go unused, your knowledge goes untapped and your creativity has been muzzled.

You desperately need a solution. And that solution exists. You must 'Go The Extra Mile'

'Going the extra mile' lets you get to these really important things. The things that make the difference between Mediocrity and Excellence. It's not altruistic, there's a great deal in it for you.

These tasks have the biggest pay-off, they the most difference to your life and those of others, and they utilize your skills, knowledge and creativity to the full.

Workloads often vary according to customer requirements and in-house deadlines such as promotion schedules. If you're usually busy, these temporary increases in workload will create a backlog of work. A little bit of extra work will save you the anxiety the backlog would cause you, and reduce the risk of confrontations and loss of credibility arising from missing deadlines and work delivered late, caused by the backlog.

Working a few extra hours occasionally frees up time during the working day, allowing you to cope with urgent work that may arrive. You'll be able to give your coworkers a better idea of when the work they have asked you to do will be done, as the answer will no longer be contingent on the end date of 3 or 4 more important or urgent pieces of work. The extra time in the working day helps you answer coworkers emails more quickly, and deliver on minor requests with minimal delay.

You can do what you want outside working hours. So when you work late you can ignore urgent but unimportant work, and concentrate on the non-urgent important work that gets shunted to the back of your to-do list. This non-urgent important work is often more interesting than the 'day to day' stuff that clutters you working hours.

Outside working hours you're be able to work in peace, without constant interruptions by coworkers and customers.

Being seen to work longer hours flags your commitment to your coworkers and bosses, and due to their feelings of sympathy/guilt they will tend to reduce what they demand of you, leaving you with a greater degree of autonomy.

You need not justify anything you do in your own time. So you can spend time on unrequested and speculative projects which could improve your company's products or services, or your own efficiency. You can spend time brainstorming, and engaging in 'blue sky' thinking. You can spend time on tasks and projects for which the pay-off is hard to predict, and making the business case would prove problematic.

You can spend extra time 'polishing' things. Many people spend hours researching and analyzing, leaving themselves little time to work on their PowerPoint Presentation or an Excel spreadsheet. Had they chosen to spend a little more time after work their presentation could have gone from mundane to memorable and remarkable. Half of success in business is in the presentation and communication.

Salary and Responsibilities are strongly related. If you want a good salary, you will need to gain responsibility. You will only gain responsibility within the workplace if your Boss feels you have the skills, knowledge, character and motivation required to handle any extra responsibility. In addition, they must be confident that you're coping well with your existing workload, and that the extra-responsibilities are not going to be neglected, or fulfilled at the expense of your existing work. No-one wants to delegate responsibility to someone who doesn't have the time to do the necessary work.

Volunteering to help others outside your area of action adds to your experience and understanding, but is rarely justified within the specialization-of-production / division-of-labor operated during working hours. If you do it in your own time, you don't need to justify it to your boss or others.

If you work long hours, no-one minds whether you are a bit late occasionally.

While scoffers may prefer to let work pile up and deadlines pass, I believe that do to so would be stupid and irresponsible. You cannot be a success in life if for 40 hours each week you are a failure.

Going the Extra Mile is a choice all life's winners make. And you can and must join them, and grab the great opportunities work offers you.

Schedule Your Goals

Most people do not have goals. Instead they have vague aspirations.

They'll start their own business. Some day.

They'll live in a much bigger house. Some day.

They'll travel the world. Some day.

They'll lose the weight, and keep it off. Some day.

Only 'some day' never arrives.

You can avoid their mistake by following a simple rule: Ensure that each of your goals is added to your diary/schedule, with the time and financial resources required for success clearly noted.

We all know people who write new year's resolutions only to give them little thought to them till the next New Year's Eve. By scheduling your goals, you force yourself to plan for their delivery, and set tasks in your diary that remind you of the goals.

Goals compete with one another for your time, energy, money and enthusiasm. Scheduling forces you to recognize this, and to prioritize your activities and your goals.

Woody Allen once said that 70% of Success is in just turning up. If you haven't been successful in reaching your goals in the past, it may be because you didn't dedicate enough time to the necessary work. Scheduling helps ensure the time is made available to do that work.

You don't need to schedule all your goals into the near term. For large goals the 'first chunk' is often sufficient for now.

Those 'goals' that aren't listed aren't real goals. They're aspirations that comfort those who are likely to fail. Thanks to scheduling your goals, you won't be one of them.

14 Keys To Success

For all the talk, there is not a single 'key to success'.

But there is a key-chain, full of character traits, working methods and skills that, like a host of skeleton keys, can open any locked door you will find between you and your desired destination

• Self-discipline (Sticking to ones to-do list and the rules one sets for oneself)
• Shortcuts (learning from mentors, coaches and experts. Outsourcing, Delegation, Automation, Calculated Omission)
• Outcome Clarity (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound goals)
• Daily motivation (to create a burning desire for change)
• Prioritization
• Hard Work (longer hours, unpleasant work, using failure as a teacher, willingness to persevere)
• Habit formation. Harmful Habit ceasing
• Regular progress monitoring, and corrective planning
• People skills
• Communication skills
• Skills / Knowledge acquisition
• Risk Taking, where the odds are favorable
• Logical and Creative Thinking skills
• Good understanding of Sales, Marketing, Negotiation Technique, Finance, Human Resources, Management, Technology and Law

What The Successful Have That YOU Don't

Success is no accident. The successful aren't lucky. Their success is down to one thing: Every day they follow the rules that determine success.

They're not more intelligent that you. They're not better looking. Yet they have jobs, homes, holidays and bank balances that outclass your own.

You've been making a mistake; a simple one. You've been playing life's game, without bothering to read the rule book that determines who succeeds. Every day you try to break the rules, and every day the rules break you.

Your dream life is waiting for you right now. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting.

Every day you move one day closer to the grave, and ever day you make little progress in your life. In truth, is your dream life ever going to happen?

You, my friend, have sold yourself out. Your work for a salary that is barely adequate to maintain your lifestyle. Your job is mundane. You know it's routine and does not challenge you. You have countless talents that go unused. Every day you come home from work tired, and have few hours to spend with your kids, your partner and your friends. Every Sunday evening your heart sinks. 'I have to go to work tomorrow' you mutter to yourself in resignation. You console yourself 'I have no choice', and believe your lie.

Let me tell you: I'm angry with you. Extremely angry. How DARE you have settled for this! How dare you have done this to yourself?! How much longer will you accept this from yourself? If anyone else had done this do you, you would call them an enemy. You would never want to see them again. Yet because the saboteur of your life is internal, you placidly accept the harmful behavior.

Your life is being wasted. Please, please, decide this day to declare: 'I will take this no more!'. Make today the day you finally accept full, complete, and total responsibility for your situation, for every aspect of your life that you dislike but do nothing about, for everything you do wrong, for all the painful consequences your have brought on to yourself. You may look like an adult, but internally you still act childishly. It's time for you to grow up, and to face the reality of your life, the good, the bad, and the ugly without excuses and without escapism.

Today, I want you to commit to radically change your life. To get that dream that you had given up on down from the attic, to dust it down, and resolve to plot its realization.

You can turn your situation around, starting today. You can choose to live the life you always wanted, a life where money is no longer a problem, where you can have the best of everything. Just imagine yourself four years from now, in a job where every day is rewarding and challenging. I can see you being in a position to give your partner, your children the things they deserve. You know how great they are, that they deserve the best, and soon you could give it do them.

If you want this dream to be a reality, you must learn the rules that govern success. Live by them, and your success is assured. Ignore them, and your status quo is assured.

The rules are simple. But in applying them you must confront your inner saboteur, the inner voice that forever lobbies against change, against work, against learning, the inner voice that calls for inaction, for the avoidance of any necessary discomfort, denial or risk-taking. That voice is truly your worst enemy. More than any person in the world, that voice has damaged your life, and that of your family. That voice must be drowned out.

There are obstacles on the road to success. You must tackle them. You must suffer the temporary bruising of your ego, the irritation of your temper, and you must deny yourself pleasures that are harmful or ill-timed. You must tackle any destructive behavior patterns that you have, head on. The rewards are worth it.

I am committed to helping you master the rules that can change your life. But it's up to you to take them off this page, and apply them to your life. I can't do that for you.

May you choose to change your life for the better by applying these rules.