EVERYTHING I KNOW AT THE TOP I LEARNED AT THE BOTTOM

“A goal is a dream with a dead line”

Dexter Yager – a millionaire ‘many times over’ – is a frequent speaker on how to manage money to achieve financial success. His book “Everything I know at the top I learned at the bottom” is as much the whole story in a lime. Yager’s tips are on how to keep your momentum, importance of big league thinking and how you can prevent your dream from getting the best of you. You can learn valuable lessons for use in your career and your life.

The book has in all ten chapters apart from an introductory chapter named “You start at the bottom.” In this chapter the author writes that success isn’t a matter of getting lucky and he achieved success through hard work, risk taking and a dream that he had a long time ago and have cultivated through the years. He added that his success has been a life long process of learning, learning from others, learning from failures, learning by doing.  The author believes that there are no secrets to success. He simply shared his experience and included in this book tips and pieces of advice that might useful to all. They are not guaranteed formulae or recipes. They are just the basic ingredients. We have to put them in the bowl of our life and stir.

“An education is something a person gets for himself, not that which someone else gives or does to him”. Learning the principles of success depends on us and not on the author or on this book. We need to pursue the basic principles of success while we are at the bottom in order to know anything about the success at the top. The author wrote that success is something you dream of and them something you work for. He learnt a lesson when he was a kid and was in sixth grade, i.e. “If you have a dream, pursue it. Don’t let it go and don’t give it up without a fight.”

In the first chapter, “Decide what your Dream is”, the author stressed the need to have a dream to drive us to great heights of achievement in our life. Having a dream transports us out of the frustrations of the present into the possibilities of the future. Having a dream does three things. First, it gives us a future focus, second, it gives us energy and third, it keeps us from wasting our life – our talents, abilities and our creativity.

Many people don’t have great dreams and many people abandon their dreams early in life. They become ‘given ups’ instead of ‘grown ups’. When people don’t pursue a dream a little part of them dies inside. When people have dreams and nurture and develop them they become successful. It is that simple. So the author wrote, “You need a dream- a dream that will take your breath away. It is what can save you from meaninglessness. It is what can give you a happy, fulfilled life.

In chapter two, “Make a Plan”, the author shared his experience that most people are not comfortable with dreaming dreams. The problem is that for many people a dream seems impossible to achieve. According to him a dream should be larger than the life. It should seem impossible to achieve. It should be worth striving for. It should take your breath away. The author suggested a six step method of defining a goal.

1.   Write down your dreams

2.   Divide each dream into smaller, manageable, achievable units

3.   Create an action plan

4.   Identify the kind of man or woman you need to be to accomplish your goal

5.   Imagine yourself already having reached that goal

6.   Discover the goal behind the goal. What is your biggest goal right now? Picture it. Now imagine that this week you reached it. It’s done – you did it. Now that you have it, what is it doing for you? What result is it producing? When you identify that result, you will know the goal behind the goal.

In chapter three, “Overcome dream deflators”, the author wrote that there are all kinds of things in life that try to burst the bubble of our dreams. These are dream deflators and they are part of each one of us, behaviours that we have to fight to overcome. Otherwise these dream deflators will puncture our dreams every time. The author warned us about 7 serious dream deflators.

1.   The quick fix mentality - with this mentality our dream will never come true. This is the attitude that whispers, “Hurry up, you can’t wait, you can’t be patient, you don’t have time to work hard and pay your dues and you have to have everything right now.” If you want your dreams to work, the quick-fix mentality has got to go. If your goal is to become wealthy, don’t think it’s going to happen overnight. If you’re trying to become a great businessman, don’t aim to achieve success in a few months or a year. If you’re trying to become a great father and husband, don’t think that a few days of changed behaviour will turn around years of neglecting your wife and children. The quick fix mentality just won’t cut it.

2.   The trap of people pleasing – the author cautioned to avoid the trap of people pleasing. Some people don’t like your dreams. That’s ok; it’s your dream, not theirs.

3.   The manipulation of truth – first stop manipulating the truth with other people. You need the alliance of other people to help you reach your dreams and build your goals into success and reality. Second do not lie to yourself about the reality of your present situation.

4.   The firing of blame bullets – don’t blame others for your failures. First it takes energy away from your dreams. Secondly it alienates people you need to make your dream come true.

5.   Relationship poverty – many people fail to achieve their dreams because they have isolated themselves from other people. We need good relationships to help us grow, to enable us to see ourselves honestly and to give us encouragement.  So while you reach your dream, make sure that at least part of your dream involves your wife/husband, your children, your friends and also God. When you fail in relationships, you will fail in reaching your dream.

6.   Substance abuse – means dissipating or throwing away your energy on what doesn’t really matter. The author suggested to turn off TV, read great literature and religious books, fill life with other people, travel more, gain weight by following great causes and giving yourself to a tremendous purpose in your life.

7.   Tension intolerance – according to a study done on high achievers it was discovered that winners can tolerate tension in their lives while they are building their dream. That’s why tension intolerance is a dream deflator, because while you are building for the dream, you hurt – with impatience, frustration and rejection. Don’t let dream deflators let air out of your dream.

In the next chapter, “Build on the right foundation” the author mentioned five things that are very important in building our dream.

1.   You have to build belief in yourself – if you don’t think you are worth something, who else is going to think you are worth it? Gaze into the mirror, look yourself in the eye and say, “I believe in you” Make a list of things you see in successful people you admire and try to adopt and change. Fill your life with positive images and thoughts. Surround yourself with the right people. RSP – Reverse Success Pyramid – build your dream on the foundation of small successes. Stop listening to your failures, begin listening to your successes, and build a healthy belief in yourself.

2.   You have to make sure you have a clean dream – a clean dream is a dream that isn’t mixed with something God condemns. You want a dream that helps people, honors God and is morally sound.

3.   You need dream energy – great dreamers and great achievers take frustration and negative energy and turn them into positive energy.

4.   You need dream determination – you will reach your goal when your position and desire become so strong as to rise out of your body like a steam. The author quoted, “Some men succeed because they are destined to, but most men succeed because they are determined to”.

5.   You need to pay the price – the technique is: A-B-GO. That means right now you are at point A, and you want to get to point B. Decide how to get there and go. A-B-GO. Whenever you get stuck or lazy or frustrated, you are going to whisper to yourself: A (that’s going to remind you where you are) –B (that’s going to remind you where you’re going) – GO (that’s going to remind you what you have to do to get there). It’s simple but effective. Try it!

In the fifth chapter, “Keep your momentum”, the author wrote that success is the progressive realization of a worthwhile dream. Success always starts with a dream that seems impossible, but when that dream is pursued and worked at, over time it gradually comes true. Success takes time. It also takes effort and perseverance. Once you get your dream going, you have to maintain its momentum. You can’t afford to stop along the way. The author gave the following suggestions to maintain the dream.

1.   Learn from the best – identify those people around you who are experts in an area, and humble yourself enough to seek their advice.

2.   Strive for excellence, not perfection – perfectionism is a tempting parking place on the road to success.

3.   Touch your dream everyday – spend more time touching your dream so you won’t forget and so the inner fire never burns out

4.   Turn rejections into resources – don’t let negative comments sidetrack you from your dream. Turn rejections into resources

5.   Work harder than anyone else – Every person who has ever built anything significant has done so with labor – with the fuel and capital of hard work.

6.   Get your priorities straight – see that work and career don’t take priority over the place of God and family.

7.   Give God the credit – we should never forget the goodness of God – how he enables us to reach our dreams.

Don’t let yourself get sidetracked and parked somewhere on a road off the main highway to your dream.

In the sixth chapter, “Develop Big-League thinking”, the author wrote that too many people have big league dreams and little league ideas. He challenges everyone in pursuit of a dream to develop big-league thinking – the guts to set for oneself big-league goals and the gumption to achieve them, the kind of thing that one knows when one see it. It is a quality that’s hard to define but is nonetheless very real. The author suggested 4 steps to Big-league thinking.

1.   Change your ceiling image – it is your personal vision of how far you can go. The highest point you think you can achieve. See yourself as a greater individual than what you think you are. See yourself beyond the ceiling that has held you down so long. See yourself in the big leagues.

2.   Learn to communicate accurate information – this is an important part of the proper thought process that’s necessary for you to achieve your dream.

3.   Practice freedom speech – learn the difference between the can’t and won’t. Can’t is the language of weakness, won’t is the language of decision. With freedom speech you are speaking decisively.

4.   Develop a mindset of responsible action – poor attitude, fear of risk and inadequate preparation are three biggest reasons for personal failure. Take personal responsibility for failures, don’t be afraid to take calculated risks, prepare thoroughly and do your homework.

In the next chapter “Make yourself worthy”, the author wrote that truly successful people are those who are at ease with themselves, comfortable in their relationships and consistent in their personal values. He quoted H G Wells who said, “Success is to be measured not by wealth, power or fame, but by the ratio between what a man is and what he might be.”  The author suggested the following ways in which one can make oneself worthy of one’s dreams.

1.   Escape the temperament trap - this is when you identify yourself as having a certain personality that seems to be fixed in cement. If your personality is fixed in cement, so will be your progress, your journey toward your dream. Probably the clearest sign of failure in a person’s life is when he or she says, “I can’t help it. It’s the way I am. I was born this way.” Change the things in your personality that needs improvement.

2.   Learn to act contrary to your personality – not always but sometimes. It stretches your character.

3.   Make friends with your childhood – The author wrote that whatever be the past, we have to make friends with it. Otherwise they will haunt our dreams.

4.   Develop ‘stand-back-ability” – i.e. the ability to stand back and look at yourself objectively. See yourself achieving your dream.

5.   Develop the art of social intelligence – the ability to get along with people in a happy, healthy, productive way. It involves paying attention to the way somebody says something, never intentionally embarrass anyone; use good manners, learn the art of asking questions, watch your language; don’t win battles – solve problems and be positive with people.  That should be your approach with other people.

In the eighth chapter, “Prevent your dream from getting the best of you”, the author mentioned about the over inflated ego. He shared nine things that he had learned about preventing his dream from getting the best out of him. These are the ingredients of basic humility, the cure for an over inflated ego.

1.   Reject recognition resentment – Recognition resentment becomes a barrier to true success, and it’s an indication of an over inflated ego and a lack of self-confidence.

2.   Stifle the swagger – this is the body language of arrogance. You can tell by the way certain people walk and carry themselves.  It’s not the walk of confidence, it’s a swagger, the walk of an over inflated ego.

3.   Avoid the tendency of thinking you know everything there is to know – when you make a deliberate choice to shut off your learning, you are asking for trouble.

4.   Beware of the times when you can’t get enough of you – don’t talk too much about yourself. Don’t let your ability to learn get overwhelmed by your success. You have to develop a right attitude of humility to learn or you will never get to the top.

5.   Refrain from saying things about others privately that you wouldn’t tell them face to face

6.   Don’t tear down people publicly

7.   Avoid criticizing things you know nothing about.

8.   Reject reality resistance. Sometimes it’s just a matter of the work that you have invested that leads you to resist reality. When out work and dream seem to differ from the reality that confronts us, we tend to turn off the truth, and we embrace our dream blindly.

9.   Don’t treat the laws of God lightly. Often when people get a taste of success, they get so big-headed that they think they can get away with sin. You let your dream get the best of you; you begin to think you’re on top of the world. In fact you are not – God is.

In the last but one chapter, “Sometimes you have to fight”, the author says that most of the time we don’t need to be fighting other people and that instead we need to be concerned about what we are fighting for. The author suggested three things that are worth fighting for.

1.   You have to fight for the purity of your mind. The moral character of our nation starts with you and the things you allow into your mind. That’s why you have to guard what you allow yourself to watch and listen to and read. Fight for the purity of your mind.

2.   Fight for free enterprise in our country. A free enterprise system rewards creative thinking, initiative and hard work. Fight for the system that has made our country great and that makes it possible for you to reach your dream. (Though the author wrote about his country – USA, I think it is universally applicable to all countries).

3.   Fight for your dream – in order to protect your dream, you have to fight and you have to have a will to win.

In the last chapter, “Discover the special ingredient”, the author wrote that the special ingredient not a secret. It is available to everyone. It is personal relationship with God. He is the foundation of true success.

When a millionaire writes, you better read.  Dream Big!!!