"Dear __________________, Before departing for wherever it is we end up, I hope my contribution to the world will be as valid and worthwhile as yours. Since it is clear that you are among the best on earth at what you do, I respectfully ask permission to take you to lunch or dinner so you can be my mentor for perhaps 30 minutes of articulate conversation.
Acknowledging that you are probably busier than a bag of bees, that is the extent of my hopes and anticipations. Should that not prove convenient for you, even five minutes on the phone interviewing you is likely to be a signal moment, something to build upon for many years to come, in an education I am determined will be from the cream of the crop of my lifetime.
Thanking you in advance, I appeal to the teacher that resides inside of most masters.
Sincerely,
_______________________________________
What do YOU think the majority of responses is likely to be? Oh, that's right, you have no experience in the matter, meaning your opinion has an absolutely DETRACTING value, a distinctly and indisputably negative value. Do you still, now that you consider yourself a thinking adult, still form opinions without the experience behind it? Do you form opinions with little or factual knowledge? Do you see the current results and circumstances of your life as being independent of this lifetime habit you have of believing something with no justifiable reason for believing it?
If so, I'm tempted to tell you you that you're out of your mind. Instead, I'll settle for stating clearly and with certainty that you have never used this huge, potent PowerGem.
I sent a variety of letters very much like that one out to a vast assortment of those you see me quoting most often, masters and champions, those who repeatedly lead... and their response has been both magnaminous, and magnificent.
Stop leaving the action to many who simply do NOT seem to be as smart as you.
It really is your turn now, this month, this week, this very day, and I'm suggesting you go get it from the horse's mouth.
If you are not an acknowledged master or millionaire in your field, you really do not possess a valid opinion on how to do it successfully.
There are people who pursue their highest calling with passion, and there are people who do not. We already KNOW what you are.... because of whatever you've done on a day to day basis for years now. It is the final dividing line, the shortcut to understanding the most critical, instantaneous forward motion toward supersuccess: those who know what to do, and those who shut up and do it.
Just like the thousands of Winners I've interviewed, and thousands more I've studied, your life is perfect proof of virtually every word you're reading. Stupid people are those who know exactly what to do; smart people are those who shut up and do it. Most people get only one life to live. Is it fair for us to say that you personally will probably only live one life? Have you estimated how many Augusts and Septembers you have left?
If you only have one of something, don't you want to treat it differently than you do something you have many of?
Do you understand (which means, do you ACT as if you understand) that life, like a piece of bread or light bulb, is made up of smaller components that are combined? With bread, for this example, it's the smaller components of flour, water, and
heat.
With the light bulb, it's a piece of wire, a couple of supports, a wire band, glass.
With life, the smaller components are what we call seconds, which rapidly become minutes and years.
Just as we can take the light bulb, and add it to other items to be part of a truck, the individual seconds of your life, and mine, and everyone who lives and breathes, those seconds become hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Add up
all the items, and the total is called "My Life." Because we add different amounts of different ingredients, the final product is also different.
Since you or somebody else paid for this presentation, it makes sense to use it. In the
next five minutes, let's draft out a proposed plan for your life. Yes, you. Five minutes. Write in the margins if you have to. PUT IT ON PAPER. It is one of the most compelling of all the shortcuts of power: it must be written. Never mind what's in your head. Does no good until it's outside of your head, under your control. For your sake. Scribble ideas and wishes in the margins. USE IT!!
You have already created or observed a detailed plan for most everything important that we do in our lives, from weddings and holidays to interstate travel.
In minutes, we begin drafting a plan for the most important journey of all: YOUR LIFE.
Stop and think about it: ever
been to a wedding? I would suppose that no less than 95% of all weddings go off wonderfully. Every wonder why? Think there might be a connection to the fact that the wedding or other affair was so carefully planned? The color and folding of the
napkins or type of lettering on the invitations to the honeymoon suite reservations, et alia: the event is planned, on paper.
It's broken down to smaller steps, correct?
Would you even dream of trying to make a
three-day deadline to travel 1500 miles without a definite, clear, written plan, sometimes referred to as 'a map;' sometimes referred to as 'Give me the directions?" Of course not. You make the deadline specifically because you knew precisely where you
were going, you found out which road to take, and then you persisted, even when you got lost, ran out of gas, or suffered other obstacles.
When you come to a red light, you stop your car (hopefully). At that moment, your forward
momentum has stopped. In fact, your trip has come, literally, to a halt. Do you end the trip? Do you turn around and go home? Well, before you sneer, stop and consider how many times in your life you may have taken a first step, even a second, third, or
ninth step towards doing or acquiring something, and suddenly your trip came to a halt. Proving once again that ninety-three percent of us are too stupid to act upon the knowledge that 100% of us possess, you quit. Because you quit, you failed, not the
other way around. In any and every worthwhile thing you personally have ever accomplished, and repeated at will, it is exclusively because you knew precisely what you wanted, you knew what you had to do to get there, and you did it as many times as it
took to get it done. Now, we get to use your skills for higher achievements, with results appearing as soon as the next hour or less... of YOUR life.
Just get the recipe correct. Like a corrected map or blueprint of your home,
we work backwards, live forwards. You would not bake a cake without a specific, QUANTIFIED recipe. You would not dream of driving to another city without a map. You would not consider building a house without a blueprint. How could you possibly
think of treating your life as something not worthy of building, rather than just taking as it comes?
What are the common factors here that YOU get to use to your advantage? Think as masters and millionaires do, persistently looking for the greatest shortcuts, developing teh greatest shortcuts as they go along, and not infrequently building upon the shortcuts of PREVIOUS masters and millionaires. Think as masters and millionaires do, and you will produce the same (or remarkably similar) ideas and shortcuts and plans.
When you put on your "masters and millionaires" shoes, and walk a mile in the shoes of people who think better, the one common trait of all these human activities that most of us engage in at some point in life... become crystal-clear to you.
Map to a place? Blueprint of your home or office? A good cake? What do they have in common?
They are written, and they are capable of being measured by QUANTIFIABLE smaller steps.
Period. 45,000 pages of research are crunched into 2100 pages. Quantifiable. Enough material for ten books. When you ask better questions, you persistently get better answers, whether you're asking the question of yourself, or someone else. It works. Use
it.
- Precisely (meaning precisely) what do I want?
