Knowledge

Brian Tracy

is one of the world's leading authorities on
personal and business success. Read his important insight on
how to prepare for the future:

'To position yourself for tomorrow, here is one of the most
important rules you will ever learn: 'The future belongs to the
competent.' The future belongs to those men and women who are
very good at what they do. Pat Riley, in his book The Winner
Within, wrote that, 'If you are not committed to getting better
at what you are doing, you are bound to get worse.' To phrase it
another way, anything less than a commitment to excellent
performance on your part is an unconscious acceptance of
mediocrity. It used to be that you needed to be excellent to
rise above the competition in your industry.

Today, you must be excellent even to keep your job in your
industry. The marketplace is a stern taskmaster. Today,
excellence, quality, and value are absolutely essential elements
of any product or service, and of the work of any person. Your
earning ability is largely determined by the perception of
excellence, quality, and value that others have of you and what
you do. The market only pays excellent rewards for excellent
performance. It pays average rewards for average performance,
and it pays below average rewards or unemployment for below
average performance. Customers today want the very most and the
very best for the very least amount of money, and on the best
terms. Only the individuals and companies that provide
absolutely excellent products and services at absolutely
excellent prices will survive. It's not personal. It's just the
way our economy works.

To earn more, you must learn more. You are maxed out today at
your current level of knowledge and skill. However much you are
earning at this moment is the maximum you can earn without
learning and practicing something new and different.

And here's the rub. Your accumulated knowledge and experience
is becoming obsolete bit by bit, day by day. The knowledge in
your field is doubling every three to five years. That means
that your knowledge must double every three to five years just
for you to stay even.

The solution to the dilemma of unavoidable change and
restructuring is continuous self-development. Your personal
knowledge and your ability to apply that knowledge are your most
valuable assets. To stay on top of your world, you must
continually add to your knowledge and your ability. You must
continually build up your mental assets if you want to enjoy a
continuous return on your investment. And only by building on
your current assets do you stop them from deteriorating.

By engaging in continuous self-improvement, you can put yourself
behind the wheel of your own life. By dedicating yourself to
enhancing your earning ability, you will automatically be
engaging in the continuous process of personal development. By
learning more, you prepare yourself to earn more. You position
yourself for tomorrow by developing the knowledge and skills
that you need to be a valuable and productive part of our
economy, no matter which direction it goes.'


To your Success!