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Ignoring this Brian Tracy rule cost me over $400,000

AntiGuru

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File under "not my proudest moment", but I was telling a friend about this on the phone earlier today and I decided to blog it:

There are two kinds of “success coachesâ€, those that are speaking from real world business experience and those whose real world experience consists solely of being…â€a success coachâ€. Charlatans like Joe Vitale or the wannabe Steve Pavlina are typical of the latter.


Brian Tracy is the exemplar of the former. I love Brian Tracy, his core message is pretty much the same throughout most of his work, but it’s a good one. Sometimes I need to hear something about a dozen times before it finally sinks in (just ask my wife).

His Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires is a fantastic entry-level seminar which I make a point of re-listening too every few months or so.


I was recently recounting the story of a particularly disastrous CXO level hire at one of my companies to a longtime mentor and I mentioned Brian Tracy’s maxim on hiring and firing:

Question: When is the appropriate time to fire somebody?
Answer: The first time it crosses your mind.


When I heard that I chalked it up as draconian and figured I had to agree to disagree with him on that one.


There is an old adage (I think it was coined by Canadian political satirist Ben Wicks) who once quipped

“Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need itâ€.


Well now I no longer disagree with Brian Tracy on it. He was right, I was wrong to disagree, and my ill-informed opinion on the matter cost me close to $500,000, maybe more.


That’s right, had I just followed that advice the first time I heard it, I’d be nearly half-a-million bucks richer now. And believe me, I’m not one of those super-rich dot com guys that can blow a half-mil on lunch, blow and hookers. Half a million bucks to me is non-trivial money.

(It's long, but the upshot is I never fired the guy even though it crossed my mind after a few months. Hilarity ensues.
The rest is on my blog: http://antiguru.com/success-101/ignoring-this-brian-tracy-rule-cost-me-over-400000 )
 
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HenkHolland

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AntiGuru, this is a post that will prove to be very valuable for many entrepreneurs on this forum, provided they accept Brian Tracy's maxim right from the start.

I fully agree with Brian Tracy, based on my own 'experience' (defined in accordance with the adage mentioned in AntiGuru's post). It didn't cost me half a million to get this experience, but certainly cost me about two hundred thousand dollars.
 

Brander

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The only lesson here as far as I am concerned is - either have your people where they can be monitored - that usually means a physical office or give them clear targets to meet by x date.
 
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TheFrancophile

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File under "not my proudest moment", but I was telling a friend about this on the phone earlier today and I decided to blog it:

There are two kinds of “success coachesâ€, those that are speaking from real world business experience and those whose real world experience consists solely of being…â€a success coachâ€. Charlatans like Joe Vitale or the wannabe Steve Pavlina are typical of the latter.


Brian Tracy is the exemplar of the former.

I have one question : what is exactly Brian Tracy an expert on, other than speaking for high fees and doing feel-good motivational videos on YT ? What entreprises, in what industries, has he founded, led, and made prosper?
 

AntiGuru

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I have one question : what is exactly Brian Tracy an expert on, other than speaking for high fees and doing feel-good motivational videos on YT ? What entreprises, in what industries, has he founded, led, and made prosper?

If you listen to his live speeches (not audiobooks) you'll hear references to his career before public speaking and consulting. It was a lot of sales (by his own admission, the only work you could get when you're largely uneducated and unemployable).

Eventually he brought Suzuki cars to Canada and had 6 dealerships (number from memory, could be wrong) across Canada, his last gig before embarking on his current track is cited widely as "COO of a $275 million software development company", although I can't quite figure out which one that was.
 

OldFaithful

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Thanks @AntiGuru for this thread, and for sharing this bit of your experience. I couldn't help but to be curious so I spent some time today browsing your blog too. It's good work, you should post more often.

I hope to have the opportunity to put this advice in my toolkit in the near future.
 
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Jon L

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My favorite paragraph in that post:

"Instead, I held off and hoped. Hope is evil. Hope is for losers. When you find yourself “hoping” for an improvement that should be your cue right there that you’ve taken a wrong turn and you need to course correct immediately. Hope is different from optimism. Optimism is having a healthy confidence that your plans will bear fruit, even in light of some speed bumps. Hope is when you know, deep down, that things have gone pear-shaped but you want them to somehow, magically improve without you having to making a tough decision or a painful course correction."

Pure gold.
 

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