Kekich's Credo
One of my favorite copywriters is a gentleman named Joe Polish. If you paid attention to the supplement industry in the early 90's you probably got some of Bill Phillips direct mail pieces, first for Met-RX and later for EAS. Well, Joe was the writer behind those pieces that pulled tens of millions. (You didn't think Bill wrote those all by himself, did you?)
A while back Joe shared a list of 100 success secrets that a friend of his by the name of David Kekich created. I keep a copy of this list and re-read it from time to time - so I thought I'd share it with you. Due to it's length, I'm going to break it up into four posts of 25 'success secrets' - with one post per day. So here is your first installment. Enjoy!
KEKICH'S CREDO
1. People will do almost anything to stay in their comfort zones. If you want to accomplish anything, get out of your comfort zone. Strive to increase order and discipline in your life. Discipline usually means doing the opposite of what you feel like doing. The easy roads to discipline are 1) setting deadlines, 2) discovering and doing what you do best and what's important and enjoyable to you and 3) focusing on habits by replacing your bad habits and thought patterns, one-by-one, over time, with good habits and thought patterns.
2. Cherish time, your most valuable resource. You can never make up the time you lose. It's the most important value for any productive happy individual and is the only limitation to all accomplishment. To waste time is to waste your life. The most important choices you'll ever make are how you use your time.
3. Think carefully before making any offers, commitments or promises, no matter how seemingly trivial. These are all contracts and must be honored. These also include self-resolutions.
4. Real regrets only come from not doing your best. All else is out of your control. You're measured by results only. Trade excuses and "trying" for results, and expect half-hearted results from half-hearted efforts. Do more than is expected of you. Life's easy when you live it the hard way... and hard if you try to live it the easy way.
5. Always show gratitude when earned, monetarily when possible.
6. Produce for wealth creation and accumulation. Invest profits for wealth preservation and growth. Produce more than you consume and save a minimum of 20% of all earnings. Pay yourself first.
7. You're successful when you like who and what you are. Success includes achievement… while choosing and directing your own activities. It means enjoying intimate relationships and loving what you do in life.
8. Learn from the giants.
9. A little caution avoids great regrets. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Keep fully insured physically and materially and keep hedged emotionally. Insurance is not for sale when you need it.
10. Learn the other side's needs, offer as little information as possible, never underestimate your opposition, and never show weakness when negotiating.
11. Never enter into nor invest in a business without a solid, well-researched and well thought-out written plan. Execute the plan with passion and precision. Plan and manage your life the same way.
12. Success comes quickly to those whom develop great powers of intense sustained concentration. The first rule is to get involved by asking focused questions.
13. Protect your downside. The upside will take care of itself. Cut your losses short - and let your profits run. This takes tremendous discipline.
14. The primary purpose of business is to create and keep customers. Marketing and innovation produce results. All other business functions are costs. Prospecting and increasing the average value and frequency of sales are the bedrock of marketing and business.
15. If it's not proprietary, it won't work. Pay only on performance. Proprietary interest is one of the most powerful forces ever known. Whatever you reinforce or reward, you get more of.
16. Competence starts with guaranteeing your work.
17. Life operates in reverse action to entropy. Therefore the universe is hostile to life. Progress is a continued effort to swim against the stream.
18. Find out what works, and then do more of it. Focus first on doing the right things, and then on doing things right by mastering details. A few basic moves produce most results and income.
19. Use leverage with ideas (the ability to generalize is the key to intellectual leverage), work, money, time and people. To maximize profits, replicate yourself. Earning potentials become geometric rather than linear.
20. Rationalizations are generally convenient evasions of reality and are used as excuses for dishonest behavior, mistakes and/or laziness.
21. Always have lofty explicit goals and visualize them intensely. Assume the attitude that if you don't reach your goals, you will literally die! This type of gun-to-your-head forced focus... survival pressure mindset, no matter how briefly used, stimulates your mind, forces you to use your time effectively... and illuminates new ways of getting things done.
22. The value of any service you have to offer diminishes rapidly once it's provided. Protect your compensation before performing.
23. Incalculable effort and hardship over countless generations evolved into the life, values and happiness we take for granted today. Every day should be a celebration of existence. You are a masterpiece of life and should feel and appreciate this all the way down to your bones. Aspire to create, achieve and build onto the great value momentum taking place all around you.
24. Enthusiasm covers many deficiencies - and will make others want to associate with you.
25. Working for someone else gives you little chance to make a fortune. By owning your own business, you only have to be good to become wealthy.
More tomorrow!
A while back Joe shared a list of 100 success secrets that a friend of his by the name of David Kekich created. I keep a copy of this list and re-read it from time to time - so I thought I'd share it with you. Due to it's length, I'm going to break it up into four posts of 25 'success secrets' - with one post per day. So here is your first installment. Enjoy!
KEKICH'S CREDO
1. People will do almost anything to stay in their comfort zones. If you want to accomplish anything, get out of your comfort zone. Strive to increase order and discipline in your life. Discipline usually means doing the opposite of what you feel like doing. The easy roads to discipline are 1) setting deadlines, 2) discovering and doing what you do best and what's important and enjoyable to you and 3) focusing on habits by replacing your bad habits and thought patterns, one-by-one, over time, with good habits and thought patterns.
2. Cherish time, your most valuable resource. You can never make up the time you lose. It's the most important value for any productive happy individual and is the only limitation to all accomplishment. To waste time is to waste your life. The most important choices you'll ever make are how you use your time.
3. Think carefully before making any offers, commitments or promises, no matter how seemingly trivial. These are all contracts and must be honored. These also include self-resolutions.
4. Real regrets only come from not doing your best. All else is out of your control. You're measured by results only. Trade excuses and "trying" for results, and expect half-hearted results from half-hearted efforts. Do more than is expected of you. Life's easy when you live it the hard way... and hard if you try to live it the easy way.
5. Always show gratitude when earned, monetarily when possible.
6. Produce for wealth creation and accumulation. Invest profits for wealth preservation and growth. Produce more than you consume and save a minimum of 20% of all earnings. Pay yourself first.
7. You're successful when you like who and what you are. Success includes achievement… while choosing and directing your own activities. It means enjoying intimate relationships and loving what you do in life.
8. Learn from the giants.
9. A little caution avoids great regrets. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. Keep fully insured physically and materially and keep hedged emotionally. Insurance is not for sale when you need it.
10. Learn the other side's needs, offer as little information as possible, never underestimate your opposition, and never show weakness when negotiating.
11. Never enter into nor invest in a business without a solid, well-researched and well thought-out written plan. Execute the plan with passion and precision. Plan and manage your life the same way.
12. Success comes quickly to those whom develop great powers of intense sustained concentration. The first rule is to get involved by asking focused questions.
13. Protect your downside. The upside will take care of itself. Cut your losses short - and let your profits run. This takes tremendous discipline.
14. The primary purpose of business is to create and keep customers. Marketing and innovation produce results. All other business functions are costs. Prospecting and increasing the average value and frequency of sales are the bedrock of marketing and business.
15. If it's not proprietary, it won't work. Pay only on performance. Proprietary interest is one of the most powerful forces ever known. Whatever you reinforce or reward, you get more of.
16. Competence starts with guaranteeing your work.
17. Life operates in reverse action to entropy. Therefore the universe is hostile to life. Progress is a continued effort to swim against the stream.
18. Find out what works, and then do more of it. Focus first on doing the right things, and then on doing things right by mastering details. A few basic moves produce most results and income.
19. Use leverage with ideas (the ability to generalize is the key to intellectual leverage), work, money, time and people. To maximize profits, replicate yourself. Earning potentials become geometric rather than linear.
20. Rationalizations are generally convenient evasions of reality and are used as excuses for dishonest behavior, mistakes and/or laziness.
21. Always have lofty explicit goals and visualize them intensely. Assume the attitude that if you don't reach your goals, you will literally die! This type of gun-to-your-head forced focus... survival pressure mindset, no matter how briefly used, stimulates your mind, forces you to use your time effectively... and illuminates new ways of getting things done.
22. The value of any service you have to offer diminishes rapidly once it's provided. Protect your compensation before performing.
23. Incalculable effort and hardship over countless generations evolved into the life, values and happiness we take for granted today. Every day should be a celebration of existence. You are a masterpiece of life and should feel and appreciate this all the way down to your bones. Aspire to create, achieve and build onto the great value momentum taking place all around you.
24. Enthusiasm covers many deficiencies - and will make others want to associate with you.
25. Working for someone else gives you little chance to make a fortune. By owning your own business, you only have to be good to become wealthy.
More tomorrow!
posted by Pat Rigsby at 7:37 AM
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