BOM - Get Smart by Brian Tracy

Brian Tracy has developed a massive following over the years because he has figured out how to connect with his audience. He’s studied with the likes of Jim Rohn, Les Brown, Og Mandino, Zig Ziglar, and Wayne Dyer. He’s part of that upper echelon of self improvement gurus.

Brian Tracy’s book is “Get Smart: How to Think and Act Like The Most Successful People and Highest Paid People In Any Field”.

Core to this book is the notion that there is a correlation between successful people and their time horizon. Successful people plan further into the future and are highly future oriented. Everyone, and I mean everyone is on a quest to improve their situation. How they approach that improvement is where the differences lie. The alcoholic seeks to feel better in the moment and uses a drink to get an immediate change in emotional state. The further in the future, the greater the impact and the greater the compound effect of working toward a specific goal.

Brian Tracy’s premise is that your most powerful tool is the one you carry with you everywhere you go. The ability of the human mind to develop solutions simply by thinking is unparalleled in our universe.

Thinking is the hardest work we do as humans, which is why so many people avoid it at all costs. There are those who think. There are those who think that they think. Finally, there is the vast majority who would rather die than think.

It’s not enough to think. We’re thinking all the time, but most of that thinking is useless stream of consciousness. One random thought after another. Some people think quick, some think slow. Both have their place. Driving a car requires quick thinking. It’s almost instinctive natural reaction. But quick thinking is not the way to develop a strategy, to solve a difficult problem. This requires slow thinking, and slow thinking is best accessed in solitude in stillness.

The author contrasts informed thinking versus uninformed thinking. He compares goal oriented thinking versus reaction oriented thinking. He compares result oriented thinking versus activity oriented thinking.

These are just some of the ideas explored in the book Get Smart by Brian Tracy. In the book the author illuminates the path to the habits that when made part of you will enable you to access your best self, to harness your inner potential.

Brian Tracy simplifies his ideas and makes them almost universally accessible. If you’re going to embrace an idea and translate it into action, you need a very specific reaction.

You need to say to yourself, “I can do that”. If on the other hand you say to yourself, “I don’t know if I can do that. It seems pretty hard to me” chances are you won’t embrace it. But if you can visualize the idea and see how you can make it part of your daily practice, it becomes possible.

Brian Tracy is a master at communicating the same idea in multiple different ways. It doesn’t matter whether your preference is analytical, philosophical, story based, or methodical, he finds a way to connect with the broadest possible audience. He brings an idea into the open and shows it up to the light from several angles, without being repetitive or boring.

If you’re looking to diagnose why you might be stuck in some areas of your life, the book “Get Smart” may just open the door you’ve been looking for.