“What do you think is your greatest asset? Many people think of their home or possibly their retirement account. For most, though, it’s your ability to earn. Your goals for financial security and freedom are often dependent on your ability to keep the paychecks rolling in so that you can sock away enough to compound into a substantial nest egg. A disability could seriously derail all that you have set up.”

Excerpt From: Tony Robbins. “Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook.”

Most books are written to entertain or inform. This book is written so that it might inspire. By virtue of the fact that you have come into possession of this book, there is the strong suggestion that you are already in the process of looking for something. There is also a strong possibility that there is something in your life you would like to change. Perhaps you feel that you are worth more than you are currently being paid or that you have more talent and ability than your current occupation permits you to use. Maybe you are wrestling with some personal dilemma that has you bewildered.

–The Five Major Pieces To The Life Puzzle

“Success is not a stereotype. Success is not a Ferrari. Success is not an automobile. It’s not a house. It’s not a place. It’s not money in the bank. It’s not a million dollars. That’s not success. Success is the continual unfolding of the design of your own life and pulling it off. That’s what success is. Being successful in whatever you want to do that makes sense to you, for you and your family. Take on responsibilities or refuse them, it’s all up to you. We’ve been given the power of choice.”

Excerpt From: Jim Rohn. “The Jim Rohn Guides Complete Set.”

“Ideas are funny in that they tend to have resonating effects. In this way, it is almost impossible to calculate what an idea is worth. This is why when you buy a book you are not buying the ideas. The publisher simply can’t charge for the ideas. They can only charge for the book. Determining what to charge for the ideas would be impossible. After all, you might make a million dollars from a book that only cost you $9.95, that’s just how ideas work. And that’s what makes ideas so grand.”

Excerpt From: Rohn, Jim. “My Philosophy For Successful Living.”

“You are programmed to be you, whatever you are, and it makes no difference to the program what your mind thinks you are. The program is not in the thinking mind. It’s in the body, in what we call the DNA, and in the beginning, you instinctively follow its wisdom. As a very young child, you know what you like, what you don’t like, when you like it, when you don’t. You follow what you like, and you try to avoid what you don’t like. You follow your instincts, and those instincts guide you to be happy, to enjoy life, to play, to love, to fulfill your needs. Then what happens?”

Excerpt From: Don Miguel Ruiz, Don Jose Ruiz. “The Fifth Agreement.”

Such persistence can be remarkably long-lived—the QWERTY keyboard, which has the letter layout inherited from typewriters, continues to dominate computer keyboards in spite of experiments performed by the U.S. Navy that show the Dvorak keyboard is 25–30% faster. That alternative keyboard arrangements are more efficient should not be surprising—the QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow typing in order to reduce typewriter jamming.

Competitive Solutions: The Strategist’s Toolkit

Did you ever wonder how to measure organizational motivation (in contrast to personal motivation)? The Motivated Organization Survey is an easily administered self-reporting instrument that provides a valid and reliable method for assessing motivation in any organization, department, or work unit. It consists of 60 items drawn from the characteristics of high-motivation organizations (Spitzer, SuperMotivation, AMACOM, 1995). When taken together, the items that comprise the survey provide a kind of vision, or operational definition, of the highly motivated organization.

The Consultant’s Toolkit

“In a given individual, a certain set of behaviour patterns corresponds to one state of mind, while another set is related to a different psychic attitude, often inconsistent with the first. These changes and differences give rise to the idea of ego states. In technical language, an ego state may be described phenome-nologically as a coherent system of feelings, and operationally as a set of coherent behaviour patterns. In more practical terms, it is a system of feelings accompanied by a related set of behaviour patterns.”

Excerpt From: Berne, Eric. “Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships.”

“How did the Wright brothers succeed where a better-equipped, better-funded and better-educated team could not? It wasn’t luck. Both the Wright brothers and Langley were highly motivated. Both had a strong work ethic. Both had keen scientific minds. They were pursuing exactly the same goal, but only the Wright brothers were able to inspire those around them and truly lead their team to develop a technology that would change the world. Only the Wright brothers started with Why.”

Excerpt From: Simon Sinek. “Start With Why.”

“With anger blood flows to the hands, making it easier to grasp a weapon or strike at a foe; heart rate increases, and a rush of hormones such as adrenaline generates a pulse of energy strong enough for vigorous action. With fear blood goes to the large skeletal muscles, such as in the legs, making it easier to flee—and making the face blanch as blood is shunted away from it (creating the feeling that the blood “runs cold”).”

Excerpt From: Daniel Goleman. “Emotional Intelligence.”