1장
Unlocking Your Potential: The Secret Formula to Maximum Achievement
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to effortlessly achieve success while others struggle despite equal or greater talent? Brian Tracy's "Maximum Achievement" isn't just another self-help book-it's the culmination of decades of research that has transformed millions of lives worldwide. This masterpiece has become required reading for executives at companies like IBM and Ford, while celebrities from Tony Robbins to Oprah Winfrey have cited its principles as foundational to their success. What makes this book so powerful is that it doesn't just tell you what to do-it provides a complete system for reprogramming your mind for extraordinary achievement in every area of life.
2장
The Seven Ingredients of Success: Creating Your Life Masterpiece
Success isn't an accident-it's the predictable result of following specific principles that have worked throughout human history. Tracy discovered this truth during his remarkable journey from high-school dropout to international business consultant who dined with presidents. The foundation of his system revolves around seven key ingredients that comprise a truly successful life.
Peace of mind stands as the highest human good and the ultimate measure of success. Without inner harmony, nothing else matters much. This isn't just philosophical-it's practical. When you're aligned with your deepest values and convictions, you experience this natural state of well-being. Companies where employees feel good about themselves and their environment are invariably more productive.
Health and energy represent your natural physical state. Your body has an innate bias toward wellness when not interfered with by poor habits. Visualizing yourself at your physical ideal-how you'd look, feel, what you'd weigh-can transform your reality, as demonstrated by the forty-year-old businessman who visualized himself completing a marathon and, within a year, did exactly that.
Loving relationships form the true measure of your success as a human being. The quality of your connections with others who care about you determines most of your happiness or unhappiness. The simplest gauge of relationship health is laughter-when people are truly happy together, they laugh frequently. In business, this principle applies equally-high-performance organizations are characterized by people who enjoy each other and their work.
Financial freedom means having enough money that you don't worry about it constantly. While money ranks fourth on the success ingredients list, financial stress significantly impacts the first three elements. You owe it to yourself to develop your abilities until you earn enough to eliminate financial worry. Freedom is essential for achieving other important goals, and you cannot be truly free until money concerns no longer preoccupy you.
Worthy goals and ideals fulfill your deepest subconscious drive for meaning and purpose. True happiness requires commitment to something larger than yourself. As philosophers have noted, happiness is "the progressive realization of a worthy ideal." You can only be truly happy when working step by step toward something genuinely important to you.
Self-knowledge has always been linked with inner happiness and outer achievement. Understanding who you are and why you think and feel as you do enables peak performance. You need to comprehend the forces that have shaped your character since childhood and understand why you react as you do to people and situations.
Personal fulfillment comes from becoming everything you're capable of becoming-moving toward realizing your full human potential. Psychologist Abraham Maslow called this "self-actualization" and identified it as the primary characteristic of the healthiest, happiest and most successful people.
These seven ingredients provide clear targets to aim for. When you define your ideal life and courageously decide exactly what you want, you begin unlocking your hidden powers and painting a masterpiece on the canvas of your life.
3장
The Seven Laws of Mental Mastery: Programming Your Mind for Success
Despite abundant information on success being available today, only 5 percent of people achieve financial independence, while 80 percent would rather be doing something else. Why do so few people live up to their potential? The answer lies in understanding the mental laws that govern achievement.
The Law of Control states that you feel positive about yourself to the degree you feel in control of your life, and negative when you feel controlled by external forces. Your thoughts determine how you feel, which determines your behavior. You can regain control by either taking action to change a situation or walking away from it.
The Law of Cause and Effect, called the "Iron Law of the Universe," reveals that for every effect in your life, there's a specific cause. The most important application is: "Thoughts are causes and conditions are effects." Change your thinking quality, and you change your life quality.
The Law of Belief establishes that whatever you believe with feeling becomes your reality. Your beliefs create tunnel vision, filtering out information that contradicts what you've decided to believe. Even if these beliefs are completely false, believing them makes them your reality.
The Law of Expectations demonstrates that whatever you expect with confidence becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy. Your expectations exert a powerful influence that causes people and situations to conform to your anticipations. Dr. Robert Rosenthal's famous "Pygmalion in the Classroom" experiment proved this dramatically when randomly selected teachers were told they had the brightest students, resulting in 20-30% academic improvement from these average students.
The Law of Attraction positions you as a living magnet, invariably drawing into your life people and situations that harmonize with your dominant thoughts. The more emotion attached to a thought, the greater its vibrational power and the faster it attracts corresponding elements. By disciplining yourself to focus on what you want rather than what you fear, you change your dominant thoughts and therefore your destiny.
The Law of Correspondence states "As within, so without"-your outer world perfectly reflects your inner world. Everything flows from inside out: relationships mirror your true personality; health reflects mental attitudes; financial achievement corresponds to inner preparation.
The Law of Mental Equivalency states that thoughts objectify themselves. Your thoughts, vividly imagined, repeated, and emotionally charged, become your reality. Nearly everything in your life has been created by your thinking. You become what you think about most of the time.
These laws work whether you know about them or not. When your life goes well, you're aligned with these laws; when you have problems, you're violating them. By understanding and applying them consciously, you take control of your destiny.
4장
The Master Program: Understanding Your Self-Concept
Your personality, achievements and circumstances are determined by how you think and use your mind. Individual potential can be expressed as [IA + AA] x A = IHP. Inborn Attributes (natural tendencies) plus Acquired Attributes (developed skills) multiplied by Attitude equals Individual Human Performance. While inborn attributes are fixed and acquired attributes change slowly, attitude can be improved immediately and almost without limit.
Your self-concept-the bundle of beliefs about yourself and your world-functions as the master program of your subconscious. This belief structure determines how you see reality and predicts your performance in every area. You always act consistently with your self-concept, whether positive or negative. By changing your beliefs in any area, you immediately begin changing your expectations, attitudes, behaviors and results.
There's a direct relationship between performance and self-concept in any area. You perform exactly as well as you believe yourself capable of performing. Your self-concept consists of three critical parts: your self-ideal (who you want to become), your self-image (how you see yourself daily), and your self-esteem (how you feel about yourself). Exceptional people have clear self-ideals that guide their growth, while unsuccessful people have fuzzy or nonexistent ideals.
You weren't born with a self-concept-everything you know and believe about yourself today has been learned since infancy. The story of the 32-year-old woman with amnesia illustrates this perfectly. After losing all memory of her shy, stuttering past self, she transformed completely, developing a new positive, self-confident personality.
Children are born with two remarkable qualities: fearlessness and uninhibitedness. They have only two innate physical fears-loud noises and falling. All other fears must be taught. This fearlessness and spontaneity is actually your natural state. Children learn primarily through imitation of their parents and by moving away from discomfort toward comfort (Freud's "pleasure principle").
Destructive criticism is one of the most harmful human behaviors, lowering self-esteem and undermining performance. The average parent criticizes children eight times for every praise. Children who are criticized develop negative associations with activities and begin to criticize themselves. Two major negative habit patterns learned in childhood affect everything you do: inhibitive patterns ("I can't") which create fear of failure, and compulsive patterns ("I have to") which generate fear of rejection.
To achieve different results, you must become a different person by changing your goals, ideals and self-image. The greatest obstacle is your "homeostatic impulse"-the unconscious tendency to remain consistent with past behaviors and stay within your comfort zone. Growth requires willingness to feel awkward while creating a new comfort zone at a higher level of effectiveness.
You can transform your mind by saturating it with positive influences that align with your desired self. Begin with visualization-the most powerful technique for self-image modification. Four elements determine its effectiveness: frequency (how often), vividness (clarity), intensity (emotional investment), and duration (how long). Other powerful techniques include affirmations (positive, present tense, personal statements), verbalization (speaking aloud), acting the part (behaving as if you've already achieved your goals), feeding your mind with positive content, associating with positive people, and teaching others what you're learning.
5장
The Master Mind: Harnessing Your Subconscious Power
Your outer world reflects your inner world-what happens externally largely depends on what's happening inside you. To visualize your subconscious mind, imagine two balls stuck together-a golf ball (conscious mind) on top of a basketball (subconscious mind), representing their relative power and capability.
Your conscious mind is your objective thinking mind with no memory, holding only one thought at a time. It performs four essential functions: identification (receiving information through your senses), comparison, analysis, and decision-making. Your subconscious mind functions as a vast memory bank with virtually unlimited capacity, permanently storing everything that happens to you.
The Law of Subconscious Activity states that any idea accepted as true by your conscious mind will be unquestioningly accepted by your subconscious, which immediately works to bring it into reality. The Law of Concentration teaches that whatever you dwell upon grows and becomes part of your reality. The Law of Substitution gives you control over your emotional life by allowing you to deliberately substitute a positive thought for a negative one.
Several powerful techniques can accelerate subconscious reprogramming. The Written Affirmation Technique involves writing out a clear, present-tense description of your major goal exactly as you'd like to see it in reality. The Standard Affirmation Technique involves reviewing goal cards twice daily in a quiet place. For each goal, close your eyes, repeat it five times, visualize it as achieved, and create feelings of happiness about accomplishment.
Autogenic Conditioning involves systematically relaxing your entire body before mental programming. In a comfortable position with closed eyes, speak to six body parts sequentially while breathing deeply. This ten-minute process induces alpha state relaxation, perfect for overcoming fears, building confidence, or developing skills through mental rehearsal.
Bulgarian psychologist Georgi Lozanov discovered that when both brain hemispheres work harmoniously in the alpha state (8-13 brain waves per second), with gentle classical music playing, learning accelerated dramatically. By combining his discoveries with affirmations, music and relaxation, you can accelerate goal achievement and personality development.
Your biggest job is maintaining the self-discipline to keep thoughts focused on what you want rather than what you don't want. When you combine all these techniques with confident expectations, you create a positive mental attitude and a satisfying life. As Sir Isaac Newton said when asked how he made such significant scientific contributions: "By thinking of nothing else."
6장
The Master Skill: Setting and Achieving Goals
The ability to set goals and make plans for their accomplishment is the master skill of success-more important than anything else you could develop. Intense goal orientation characterizes all high achievers in every field. You cannot realize your potential until goal-setting becomes as natural as brushing your teeth.
Humans are goal-centered organisms, motivated by purposes and desired end states. We're engineered to move progressively from one goal to the next, and we're only truly happy when pursuing something important to us. Your brain contains a goal-seeking mechanism that guides you toward objectives, automatically correcting your course like a missile guidance system.
Oil billionaire H.L. Hunt offered a simple formula for success: first, decide exactly what you want, and second, determine the price you'll need to pay to get it, then resolve to pay that price. Most people never clearly define what they want or consider whether they're willing to pay the full price. Success requires paying the price in full and in advance-not after you've achieved it.
Despite the importance of goals, fewer than 3 percent of people have written goals, and less than 1 percent review them regularly. There are seven reasons people don't set goals: they're not serious, they haven't accepted responsibility for their lives, they have feelings of unworthiness, they don't realize how important goals are, they don't know how to set goals properly, they fear rejection or criticism from others, and most commonly, they fear failure.
Five principles are essential for maximum achievement in goal setting. First is congruency-your goals must align with your values for high performance and self-esteem. Second is finding your area of excellence-the unique talent where you can excel and that brings you joy. Third is the "acres of diamonds" concept-your greatest opportunities likely lie right under your feet. Fourth is balance-you need goals in six critical areas: family/personal, physical/health, mental/intellectual, career/work, financial/material, and spiritual. Fifth is determining your major purpose-the single most important goal that will help you achieve all others.
Tracy's powerful twelve-step goal-achieving system begins with developing intense, burning desire-the motivational force that overcomes fear and inertia. The intensity of your reasons for achieving goals determines your motivation and success. As Nietzsche wrote, "A man can bear any what if he has a big enough why."
To plan effectively, project yourself forward to your completed goal and work backward to the present. The Law of Compensation states that for everything you do, you'll be compensated in kind-you get out what you put in. The Law of Reciprocity shows that people are internally driven to reciprocate for anything done to or for them.
A proper plan is a list of activities organized by time and priority, starting with the first action required and continuing through to the final task needed to achieve your goal. Accept that your initial plan will have flaws-don't fall victim to "perfectionitis." Persistence is essential to goal achievement-never consider failure as an option. Your ability to persevere through inevitable obstacles often becomes the deciding factor in your success.
7장
The Master Power: Accessing Your Superconscious Mind
The superconscious mind is a power that enables us to solve any problem, overcome any obstacle, and achieve any sincerely desired goal. Throughout history, great thinkers have recognized this power under different names: "the secret doctrine," "the oversoul," "infinite intelligence," or the "God-mind."
The superconscious mind is the source of all pure creativity. All truly classic art, music and literature flow from this source. Emerson's essays seemed to "write themselves," Mozart could see and hear music in his mind and transcribe it perfectly. It drives new inventions and scientific breakthroughs-Edison regularly tapped this power for his hundreds of successful inventions.
When your superconscious mind works on a problem or goal, it can access all information stored in your subconscious. It has the remarkable ability to discriminate between true and false information, using only what is accurate to bring you correct solutions. The superconscious mind can access knowledge beyond your personal experience-it exists outside your brain and conscious/subconscious minds.
We're surrounded by a universal mind containing all intelligence, ideas and knowledge that has ever existed or will exist. This explains why different people in different parts of the world often develop the same ideas simultaneously. Your superconscious mind works continuously, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Once you program a goal or problem into your subconscious and release it, it transfers to your superconscious which begins working on it.
Your superconscious mind responds best to clear, authoritative commands or "positive affirmations." Every time you affirm a goal or desire from your conscious to subconscious mind, you activate your superconscious to release ideas and energy to manifest that desire. Your superconscious mind automatically solves every problem on the way to your goal, provided your goal is clear.
Your superconscious operates best in a mental climate of faith and acceptance. When you confidently expect problems to be solved and obstacles removed, your superconscious functions at its peak. Paradoxically, the more relaxed you are about outcomes, the better they resolve-often in unexpected ways.
Three powerful ways to stimulate superconscious activity: First, think about your goals constantly to maintain focus and generate motivational energy. Second, practice solitude-sit perfectly still for an hour without distractions. Though initially difficult, after 30 minutes you'll experience profound calm followed by a river of creative energy and insights. Third, visualize your goal as already achieved, creating a clear mental picture that becomes a command for your superconscious.
A superconscious solution has three distinct characteristics: First, it's 100 percent complete, addressing every aspect of your problem while remaining simple and within your capabilities. Second, it appears as a "blinding flash of the obvious"-so simple you wonder why you hadn't thought of it before. Third, it arrives with a burst of joy and energy that makes you want to take immediate action.
8장
The Master Decision: Taking Complete Responsibility
The master decision is the key to personal liberation, happiness and achievement. It begins with accepting complete responsibility for who you are and everything you become. You must recognize that you are where you are because of yourself, and if you want change, you must change first. Your thinking determines your attitude, conduct, and ultimately your success or failure.
Everyone has "white rabbits"-excuses that prevent them from setting clear goals and making total commitments to what they truly want. These self-limiting ideas include thoughts like "I'm too young," "I'm too old," "I don't have enough money," or blaming external circumstances. Test your excuses by asking: "Is there anyone with my problem who has succeeded despite it?" If yes, your excuse is invalid.
Accepting complete responsibility is both frightening and exhilarating-like making your first parachute jump. Initially, you feel vulnerable, but soon experience a rush of excitement and freedom. You can never give away responsibility, only control. By blaming others, you surrender control over your emotions while remaining responsible for outcomes. Everyone is self-employed, regardless of who signs their paycheck.
Negative emotions rob life of joy, causing underachievement, failure, illness, and destroyed relationships. Eliminating them should be your highest priority, as peace of mind only exists in their absence. The most common negative emotions include doubt, fear, guilt, resentment, envy, and jealousy. All eventually manifest as anger-the most destructive negative emotion.
Negative emotions have four main causes. First is justification-explaining why you're entitled to feel angry or upset. Second is identification-taking things personally. Third is lack of consideration-feeling others aren't giving you proper respect or acknowledgment. Fourth and most fundamental is blaming-99 percent of negative emotions depend on blaming someone else for your unhappiness.
The Law of Substitution offers a simple way to short-circuit negative emotions: your conscious mind can hold only one thought at a time, and you can deliberately choose that thought. By substituting a positive thought for a negative one, you push the negative thought out completely. Whenever you feel negative or angry, immediately say, "I am responsible."
Guilt, created by destructive criticism and lack of love, manifests in five ways: feelings of inferiority, destructive self-criticism, susceptibility to manipulation through guilt, using guilt and blame with others, and developing a "victim complex." Five powerful strategies can free you from guilt: eliminate all self-criticism, refuse to blame anyone for anything, refuse manipulation by guilt-throwers, refuse to discuss others' guilt or participate in gossip, and practice forgiveness.
The Law of Forgiveness states you're mentally healthy to the exact degree you can freely forgive and forget offenses against you. Inability to forgive lies at the root of guilt, resentment and most negative emotions. To fulfill your potential and liberate your energies, you must forgive everyone who has ever hurt you, refusing to continue paying emotionally for past experiences.
9장
The Master Goal: Achieving Peace of Mind
Peace of mind is the highest human good and the master goal of all your efforts. Your ability to achieve and maintain inner peace is the best measure of your success as a person. When you make inner peace your highest goal and organize all activities around it, you'll be happier and more effective than under any other circumstances.
The key issue in stress management is control. You feel positive when you feel in control of what's happening, and negative when you feel controlled by external factors. The areas of greatest peace and satisfaction in your life are those where you feel most in control, while the most stressful areas are those where you feel powerless.
Seven major causes account for 95-99 percent of all unhappiness. The first is worry, a sustained form of fear caused by indecision. Combat worry by living in "day-tight compartments"-one day at a time. The four-step "Worry Buster" process helps eliminate worry: First, clearly define your worry situation in writing. Second, determine the worst possible outcome. Third, resolve to accept this worst-case scenario if it occurs. Fourth, immediately begin improving upon the worst by taking actions to minimize negative consequences.
The second major cause of stress is having no clear meaning and purpose in life-no goals to which you're committed. The third major stress source is the "incomplete action." We have within us a "compulsion to closure" that makes us happy when we finish tasks and unhappy when we leave things undone. The solution is simple but requires tremendous discipline: begin the task and stay with it until completion.
The fourth major cause of stress is fear of failure, which manifests as indecisiveness, anxiety and worry. Combat fear by affirming "I can do it!" and then confronting what you fear. The fifth major cause of stress is fear of rejection, showing up as overconcern for others' approval. The sixth major cause of stress and negativity is denial-refusing to face unpleasant realities in your life.
Anger, the seventh source of stress and negativity, is perhaps the most destructive emotion. It can cause heart attacks, strokes, ulcers, migraines, asthma, and skin diseases. The remarkable thing is that anger is largely unnecessary-it comes from within, not from external events. No one "makes" you angry; anger is a response you choose.
To become a low-stress, high-performance personality, use cognitive control methods. Apply the Law of Substitution by deliberately thinking positive thoughts that displace negative ones. Repeat affirmations like "I like myself" or "I am responsible." Keep your mind focused on goals, which are inherently positive. Take complete charge of your inner life by making peace of mind your highest goal. Organize your entire life around this principle.
10장
Mastering Human Relationships: The Key to Success and Happiness
The most important and highest-paid form of intelligence in America is social intelligence-the ability to get along well with others. Fully 85 percent of your success depends on social skills that help others cooperate with you. While poor social skills cause most career failures, most joy comes from happy relationships and most problems from unhappy ones.
A healthy personality has three key markers: deliberately looking for the good in people and situations, freely forgiving those who've hurt you, and getting along easily with many different kinds of people. Your personality health directly correlates with your self-esteem-the more you like yourself, the more you like and respect others.
The Law of Indirect Effort states that you achieve relationship goals more easily through indirect approaches. Rather than trying to impress others directly, be impressed by them. Instead of seeking others' interest in you, become interested in them. Happiness comes not from pursuing it directly but from making others happy.
The key to raising others' self-esteem is making them feel important. When you consistently look for ways to make others feel valued, you become popular and welcome everywhere while experiencing greater happiness, lower stress, higher energy, and improved self-respect.
There are seven positive behaviors you can practice to improve relationships. Being agreeable makes others feel valued and respected. Practicing acceptance helps others feel safe with you. A genuine smile communicates "I accept you as you are." Expressing gratitude makes others feel valuable and competent. Expressing approval or praise raises self-esteem more than almost anything else.
For maximum effectiveness, praise should be immediate (as soon as possible after the behavior), specific (targeting exact actions rather than general compliments), and public (whenever possible). Praise what you want repeated, and do it promptly. Admiration is the fifth powerful tool for raising others' self-esteem. You can admire personality traits, possessions, or accomplishments.
Attention is the sixth way to make others feel important. The most powerful form of attention is listening-the "white magic" of human relations. Good listening builds trust, raises the other person's self-esteem, and develops self-discipline in the listener. Effective listening requires four specific behaviors: listen attentively, listen without interrupting, pause before replying, and question for clarification.
Whatever genuine emotion you express toward others will eventually return to you. Express positive sentiments, and they'll come back to you like a boomerang. Resist criticizing, condemning or complaining. Instead, be agreeable, express appreciation, approval and admiration, and listen attentively.
11장
Mastery: The Power of Love
Love is the most important thing in the world-the mark of emotional maturity is recognizing this fundamental truth. Love permeates every aspect of success: peace of mind comes from loving yourself and others; health and energy flow from self-love and acceptance; relationships thrive on love; financial achievement often stems from doing what you love; self-love leads to setting worthwhile goals; and self-understanding grows from self-acceptance.
The mental laws governing achievement are all connected to love. The Law of Belief shows that loving yourself enables belief in your capabilities. The Law of Expectations demonstrates that expecting the best from yourself and others-a loving attitude-creates self-fulfilling prophecies. Through the Law of Attraction, loving thoughts draw kind people into your life.
The Bible teaches "God is love" and "perfect love casteth out fear." This matters because fear is humanity's greatest happiness thief-fear of failure, rejection, criticism, losing love or respect, ill health, not meeting expectations, and not being good enough. To fulfill your potential, you must diminish fear's role in your life and decisions, aiming to fear nothing.
The ancient Greeks categorized love into three types: Eros (self-love), which most people never transcend due to low self-esteem; Filia (love of others), the natural progression when one loves oneself, marked by generosity and big-heartedness; and Charis (universal love), the rarest form exemplified by figures like Jesus and Buddha who had tremendous positive impact on mankind.
Love isn't just something you feel-it's something you do. Through the Law of Reversibility, loving behaviors toward others deepen your feelings of love for them. The Greek concept of "Praxis" means the practice of actions accompanying an emotion actually creates the emotion itself. You can act your way back into love by treating someone as you did when you most intensely felt in love.
The happiest people continually look for ways to show love and kindness to others. They're not only the most loved and respected but also the healthiest and most blessed. You can never have more love for yourself than what you express to others. Love grows only by sharing-the more you give away, the more you have.
The doorway to a life of love and joy is forgiveness-issuing a blanket pardon to everyone who has ever hurt you. This ability to freely forgive marks true integrity, courage, and character. Forgiving is actually a selfish act that frees you to experience happiness.
You cannot change the world, but you can present the world with one improved person-yourself. You can become the kind of person you admire and respect, serving as a role model and setting standards for others. By disciplining yourself to resist negative actions or speech and always choosing the loving way over the hurtful way, you can transform your corner of the world.
"With all thy getting, get love." The meaning and purpose of life always returns to the importance of love. Every loving act or expression enriches both the giver and receiver, making the world better. When you express love toward others, you simultaneously enhance your own life quality, putting yourself "on the side of the angels."
