This is probably one of the most legendary events and stories of my life. It involves a person who had such profound influences in my personal growth and mental survival, Brian Tracy.
It started when Keith Howard, a Lambda sales rep, gave me a copy of bootleg tapes by Brian Tracy on the Psychology of Selling. I took those 12 tapes with me to the Montreal Gift Show in about 1983. Since my French language was not enough to hold an in depth discussion of crystal and how to sell it, I would let my local French speaking sales reps handle the show and I would be there to meet with the largest customers. With time on my hands, I took the tapes, and the first laptop computer to a lovely hotel and sat in a room and transcribed the entire set of tapes. At the end, I internalized the material and applied the sales techniques to the subsequent trade shows. The results were incredibly amazing! I sold three and four times previous sales.
Several months later, I discovered on my brother Mike’s bookshelf, a set of tapes called the Psychology of Achievement by Brian Tracy. I borrowed them and transcribed much of the material to apply to my life. One of the most profound exercises from Brian was a list of personal goals, including what would you do if you had six months to live. I shortened it to what would I do if I had 60 minutes to live. You can answer that for yourself. All I can say is that if I were not with the most important people in my life, I would surely be in communication with those people. It dawned on me that if they were that important to me, then why was I spending all my time not with them.
I later attended Brian Tracy seminars and became a facilitator for his material. I traveled to San Diego and spent an entire week in a small room at his headquarters, with Brian speaking to 7-8 trainers. Awesome!
Recently, I reminded myself that it is past time to revisit his material on achievement.