Training

It should be illegal to engage in serious thought on Fridays; serious tax thought, at any rate. Next week I’ll present more tax saving tips. So today I will discuss an important habit of successful people: training.

I have the enviable position of working with people at various levels of success in their personal and business life. Certain traits highlight each group. As an optimist, I’ll focus on the winners.

One of the most common traits of the successful person is training. Profitable and growing business owners, even in tough economic times, almost always spend time training with seminars, audio tapes, and videos. The winners never stop looking for good ideas and implementing them.

It is interesting how winners train. A roofer may listen to regular doses of motivational tapes in addition to classes on new industry products and procedures. Your friendly accountant takes insurance classes, tax and accounting seminars, listens to motivational, spiritual, and business audio and video programs. Winners consider it wise to build a solid base of knowledge for the inevitable day when unforeseen difficulties arise.

And the one thing successful people do less than any other demographic is watch TV. Of the TV they do watch, much of it is viewing training and personal or business development videos. In their car they listen to tapes that further their career, build their business, or motivate.

Turning off the TV is not enough. Taking action is the one necessary key to get anything done. Success is a result of actions taken. You might fail. But as Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss one hundred percent of the shots you never take.” And if you are well trained, you will make a good number of those shots.

Enjoying a fulfilling marriage and raising intelligent, moral, decent kids takes work. I know work is a four letter word, but not all four letter words are dirty. Work is a good word. To have a marriage second to none and to raise successful kids requires more than a piece of paper (marriage license or birth certificate). Modeling marriages that last the duration and families with kids that grow up as valuable citizens of the community is important. There is nothing wrong with taking classes on being a better parent, husband, or wife. You don’t need to wait for disaster to attend a seminar on building and maintaining a wonderful marriage. You don’t need to wait for your kids to try drugs before talking with them about these issues and listening to self-development programs for teens. Doing these things is not an admission of defeat, rather a commitment to a great family life.

Challenges will arise. You need to be prepared. And if things always go well for you, you still had the opportunity to learn, grow, and enjoy.