The Book in Three Sentences

1. The secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but grit: a special blend of passion and persistence.    
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3. Grit is about having passion and perseverance for long-term goals.
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5. Gritty people are able to maintain their determination and motivation over long periods despite experiences with failure and adversity.

The Key Ideas

You are what you are because of your own doing — this is what Million Dollar Habit by Brian Tracy primarily teaches readers. Nothing ever happens by accident or destiny. Your predicament, financial ranking, social status, and personalities are all defined by your choices. So if you want to become successful, you must take an active and conscious effort to get there, like all the other Millionaires who started from scratch.

But you may ask, where do you start? Author Tracy takes a step-by-step guide on developing a set of habits to begin your journey to financial independence. He provides all the essential theories, strategies, tips and explanations behind every Millionaire success story, and encourages readers to put it into practice.

Early on the book, Tracy discusses that raising your self-concept is important in achieving your fullest potential. The first component of the self-concept is the self-idea, which are your goals, dreams, and hopes about your future self. The second part is your self-image, which is how you see yourself in the present situation. The third component is self-esteem, which is the measure of how much you like yourself. The greater your perception is in these three components, the easier it is for you to adopt the Million Dollar Habits.

Key Lessons

Lesson 1: You are what you think

Most of what happen to our lives is the result of our actions and decisions. Whatever we feed our minds, we inevitably manifest. Therefore, the more we think positively, the more we do greater things.

Lesson 2: Habits make you successful

The only difference between successful people and unsuccessful people are habits.

Each one of us has the capacity to be successful; some just have not yet realized it. If we develop the set of habits stated in this book, we will set out on optimizing our fullest potential.

Lesson 3: Habits are difficult but essential to adopt

The keys to shedding old habits and developing new ones areperseverance and patience. It takes time, but it’s always possible if we don’t give up.

Lesson 4: Raising your self-concept motivates you to do better

We are more capable to improve ourselves once we boost our self-esteem.

Lesson 5: Importance of Self-discipline

Self-discipline is necessary to initiate your journey to success.

Planning is the first step to self-discipline. Don’t be haphazard in making choices. Things done in an organized and careful way assures a higher success rate.

Lesson 6: Make it happen

Don’t wait for things to happen; make it happen.

Lesson 7: Successful people have healthy relationships with people

Celebrating success by yourself does not yield that much happiness. Always keep the people you love close by yourself. Share success and happiness with others.

Lesson 8: Develop a healthy lifestyle

Above all, you must take care of your physical, mental, and emotional health.

Conclusion

You are capable of being successful, and you shall discover how to fulfill that potential by reading this wonderful book.

Although Million Dollar Habits seems centered around financial prosperity, this book tackles every aspect of a successful life. It is not simply philosophical and introspective, but actually gives out essential information and scientific data that may help us gain a positive outlook. Moreover, it is action-oriented, loaded with specific tasks and exercises for readers to practice in real life. This is a must-read for all entrepreneurs who are in the early stages of starting their own businesses. 

Click here to read the book

The Procrastination Equation

• Different people procrastinate for different reasons, corresponding to the different variables in the Procrastination Equation: Motivation = (Expectancy x Value) / (Impulsiveness x Delay). Procrastination results from lowering Motivation too much.
  
  • Expectancy = how likely you think you are to reach your goal
  • Value = the value you place on the goal
  • Impulsiveness = how influenced you are by short-term vs. long-term gratifications
  • Delay = how far into the future the goal is

• Understanding why you procrastinate is a major first step towards reducing procrastination.
• The book has an assessment tool you can use to help you identify why you procrastinate.

• Reasons for procrastination

  • Low Expectancy (= lack of optimism): Some people procrastinate because they lack the optimism that they’ll be able to achieve their goals, so why try too hard? 
  • High Expectancy (= overconfidence): This is the opposite of lack of optimism. People with this issue delay because “I can always do it later”. 
  • Low Value (= lack of enjoyment): Many people procrastinate because the goal isn’t high enough value to make them want to do the unenjoyable steps that lead up to it.
  • Tiredness (#1 reason for procrastination): This is really just a special case of the work being unenjoyable – people who are tired just want to relax and/or rest, not work.
  • Impulsiveness: People who are impulsive find it hard to focus on long-term goals and to keep from getting distracted or tempted along the way.
  
  

• Suggestions   Goals should be:

  • Attainable but challenging (challenging is the more important)
  • Meaningful (tied to larger goals / values)
  • Short-term
    • [This reduces the Delay part of the Procrastination Equation.]
    • Day goals are good
    • 5-10 min. goals if main challenge is getting started
  • Specific
  • Break down large goals into sub-goals
  • Goals can be inputs (time worked) or outputs (words written) or both (e.g., whichever comes first)

  • Good habit formation makes work routine, subconscious, and effortless
    • Have a predictable environment, especially time and place
    • State an explicit intention to act, even just “if X happens then I’ll do Y” (really works!)
    • Habits are hard to start, and only start working after a bunch of repetitions, so keep that in mind when coming up with excuses for the first few times
    • Might be worth extra money to pay someone (coach, personal trainer, etc.) to help get it up and running

• Set good goals

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Your ‘frog’ is your biggest, most important task
2. If you have two frogs, eat the ‘ugliest’ one first
3. If you have to eat a frog, don’t procrastinate on it

Arnold’s way to embrace failure

One lesson from Arnold I liked very much was when he talked about how to embrace failure with a big smile instead of feeling bad.

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Lessons from the book

1. Forget Competing – Go into a battle to win and not compete.

2. Your mind is what is holding you back. Once you believe in yourself, all you need is a second person to believe in you, and you can achieve amazing feats.

3. Life is reps. The psychology of success that Arnold learned as a bodybuilder was something he used in everything else he went on to do in his career. Bodybuilding is about building muscle by doing repetitions (known as reps) of a certain exercise.

4. Staying on top of the hill is harder than climbing it. Once Arnold reached the top in bodybuilding, he found himself at one point where he got lazy, complacent and distracted by study because he had already achieved his big goal. For him, it was harder to stay on top of the hill than climb it.

5. Smile no matter what. Even when Arnold was lifting huge amounts of weight, he always had a smile on his face. The pain he must have been enduring in order to push such heavy weights should have made him look angry or frustrated. The reason he wasn’t angry or frustrated was because he had something on the other side of his goal to smile about.

6. Passion hides the audience. The first time Arnold did a proper TV interview he told the pre-interviewer that he doesn’t see the audience because he’s so passionate about what he’s talking about. By having the audience blocked out in his mind, he is able to minimise the nerves and stay focused.

7. When they say no you hear yes. This could seem quite stupid, but it allows you to act in a way that is humble, brave, and unwavering in your pursuit. In a way, Arnold was lying to himself. He did this often, and these lies to himself are what allowed him only to see what he could do rather than what he couldn’t.

8. Think beyond your own career. What was unique about Arnold’s bodybuilding career was that he felt it was his responsibility not just to make himself successful, but to use his success as a way to elevate and promote fitness. This is one of the primary reasons why he took part and became the star of the “Pumping Iron” documentary.

9.  Make your peculiarities into assets. Instead of being embarrassed by his peculiarities he embraced and acknowledged them. He was vulnerable enough to trust his own abilities and to stay focused on how he could achieve his vision. The aspects that make you different can be utilised in the same way.

10. You get harder and more durable the more you struggle. He knew that just like his muscles couldn’t grow without the struggle, neither could his mind or his life.

11. The Whole world is not focused on your failure. Your failure will consume you if you spend every waking minute thinking about how people are reacting to your pitfalls in life. Instead, focus on your next win and don’t dwell on the past.

12. We need to look less at ourself and more at each other.  Entrepreneurship and life is not about you. This is why Arnold has been able to have so much success, and the people that have followed his footsteps have done the same. It’s one of the only secrets to success you need to understand to mirror his achievements.

13. Be part of a cause that will outlive you. Find your cause, exploit it to your full potential, and serve the greater good.

14. Celebrate the circumstances that traumatised you. Our struggle defines us. In Arnold’s life, his father always put him down and physically hit him. When he was a kid this upset him, but as he grew older, he figured out that this pain and struggle is what motivated him to leave Austria and become world famous.

Click here to read the book

Motivation, positive attitudes and self beliefs together mold the success of individuals. Prakash Iyer’s Habit of Winning does not show the path to success, instead it shows one how to travel in the path towards success. 

For this purpose, he has used the life stories of many achievers in diverse fields as evidence. Not only has he mentioned famous figures, but he has also cited examples of ordinary people. Success cannot be confined to a single aspect; it has many dimensions. This is the concept he delivers in each one of his stories. He has also written about goal planning, which is a crucial element for success. The Habit of Winning has made use of many interesting anecdotes throughout.

Prakash Iyer has also included incidents from his personal and professional lives. Perception is an important factor which influences our attitude; he has illustrated this point in different ways. He also emphasizes the fact that strong determination and guts, along with a positive attitude can help everyone accomplish their goals in life. Using Rohit Sharma as an example, he has shown how a person can overcome mental barriers that inhibit our success.

The various examples he has mentioned include cricketers such as Suresh Raina, Robin Utthapa, Navjot Singh Sidhu and Anil Kumble. In addition, he has also talked about what we can learn from the nature of animals such as cows and dogs. He has used the analogy of a caterpillar’s struggle to break out of the cocoon and emerge as a butterfly. 

Key Features

• His reference to famous individuals and how they fought the battles of their life is highly inspirational.
• The Habit of Winning explains the key to success with proven examples from various people’s lives who have achieved their goals with persistent motivation.