Get Smart!: How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and Highest-Paid People in Every Field

Then work back to the present, and determine the exact steps you will have to take to achieve this goal. If you increase your income or grow your business by 2 percent per month, 26 percent per year, you will double it in three years.
If you are working and you increase your productivity, performance, and output by one-half of 1 percent per week, this will translate into 2 percent per month, 26 percent per year, and a doubling of your income in thirty-six months.
Back from the Future
The starting point of developing long-term time perspective is for you to practice back from the future thinking. Imagine you could wave a magic wand and make your life perfect sometime in the future. What would your perfect life look like How would it be different from today?
Then comeback to the present and ask, What would have to happen,
starting today, for me to create my perfect life sometime in the future?”
Practice idealization. Imagine that there are no limits on what you can accomplish sometime in the future. Analyze your life in the four most important areas (1) business and career (2) family and relationships (health and fitness and (4) financial independence.
Project forward five years and imagine that your business, career, and income are ideal in every way. How much would you be earning What sort of work would you be doing Where would you be in your career What kinds of people would you be working with?
Y
OUR
F
IVE
-Y
EAR
F
ANTASY
Peter Drucker said, People often overestimate what they can accomplish in one year. But they greatly underestimate what they could accomplish in five years.”
Once you are clear about what your ideal career and income would be five years in the future, look back to the present, and decide the steps you will have to take to get from where you are today to where you want to be in the future.

Then take the first step. The good news is that you can always seethe first step. You don’t have to see every step on the staircase to begin climbing. You just have to take the first step. And when you take the first step, the second step will appear. And when you take the second step, the third step will appear. You will always be able to see one step ahead, and that’s all you need. But you must take the first step.
Confucius said, A journey of a thousand leagues begins with the first step The first step is always the hardest. It requires tremendous determination and willpower for you to do something more than and different from what you have ever done before. But once you take the first step, the second step is easier. And then the third step. Soon, you find yourself moving steadily forward, accomplishing more in a few months than you might have accomplished in past years.
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OUR
F
AMILY
AND
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ELATIONSHIPS
Wave your magic wand again, and imagine that your family and relationships were ideal in every way. What would they look like Whom would you be with Whom would you no longer be with If you were married, what kind of a home and lifestyle would you have with your family What sorts of vacations would you take, and what kind of a life would you want to provide for your family?
Then look back from the future to where you are today and ask, What would have to happen, starting today, for me to create my ideal life sometime in the future?”
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XCELLENT
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HYSICAL
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EALTH
Think about your health and fitness. If your health was perfect sometime in the future, how would it be different from today What level of fitness would you enjoy How much would you weigh What sort of diet would you eat What sort of exercise regimen would you be following What kind of rest and relaxation would you practice, including vacations?
Then comeback to the present and ask, What would have to happen for me to enjoy superb health and fitness sometime in the future?”

Then take the first step. Do something. Do anything. Step out in faith.
And you can always seethe first step.
F
INANCIAL
F
REEDOM
The fourth area of concern is your achievement of financial freedom,
financial independence. Project forward into the future and ask, How much money would I need to have to be comfortable sometime in the future?”
In my seminars with business owners, we teach the concept of the number which was also the name of an excellent book on the same subject. It simply asks, What is your number What is the specific amount that you want to earn, save, invest, and accumulate over the course of your working lifetime Especially, exactly how much will you need to support your lifestyle on a month-to-month and year-to-year basis?
There is a simple formula for financial independence. First, determine exactly how much it would cost for you to support your current lifestyle for one month if you had no income at all. More than 70 percent of adults are unsure and unclear about exactly how much it costs them to live on a month-to-month basis.
ANNUAL EXPENSES
Once you have determined your monthly requirements, which may take a bit of investigation into your current expenses, regular and unexpected, you multiply this number by twelve to determine how much you would have to have saved up or invested if you had no income for an entire year.
If you need $5,000 per month after taxes to support your current lifestyle, multiplied by twelve, you would need $60,000 per year to be comfortable if you had no income at all.
Finally, multiply your annual amount by twenty—the approximate number of years that you and/or your spouse are going to live after you retire. To continue with this example, if you need $60,000 per year to live comfortably, multiplied by twenty, you would need $1.2 million to retire at your current standard of living. (You can deduct any pensions that you might have coming from your monthly/annual requirement.)

TAKE THE FIRST STEP
Then take the first step. Open a retirement account, a financial freedom account. This is an account into which you deposit money and never take it out, for any reason. Seek out the services of a financial adviser. Learn to live on 85–90 percent of your income and save or invest the balance. Set this as one of the most important goals of your life, to achieve financial independence and hit your number at a specific time in the years ahead.
The very act of determining your number, making a plan to achieve it,
taking action on your plan, and continuously saving and investing will increase the probability that you achieve that number sometime in the future by as much as ten times.

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