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by Brian Tracy

Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Do you value life? Then waste not time, for that is the stuff of which life is made.” The value of anything that you obtain or accomplish can be determined by how much of your time, or your life, that you spent to acquire it. The amount of yourself that you use up in achieving the goals that are important to you is a critical factor to consider, even before you begin.

Only by discovering your innate strengths and developing and exploiting them to their highest degree can you utilize yourself to get the greatest amount of satisfaction and enjoyment from everything you do. Deciding what you want to do, what you can do well, and what can give you the highest rewards for your efforts is the starting point in getting the best out of yourself.

For example, a young man in one of my seminars came up to me and told me that he was working as a plumber for a large plumbing contracting firm. He made good wages, but he was very envious of the salespeople in his company who made more money, drove nicer cars, wore nicer clothes and had much better life-styles. He had completed all his training and had his journeyman’s certificate, and he was at the top of his wage scale.

The only way he could earn more money was by working longer hours. He realized, however, that that was not the answer. Instead, he wanted to get into sales, where his income could be higher and would not be fixed on an hourly basis.

I remember advising him that if he wanted to get into sales, it was up to him to learn how to sell and then to do everything possible to get his management to give him a chance at selling plumbing services. His future was up to him, but he first had to learn how to do the new and higher-paying job.

A little more than a year later, he attended another seminar that I was giving in that same city, and he told me his story. He had told his management that he wanted to get into sales. The managers had discouraged him, telling him that plumbers had very little aptitude for the hard, interpersonal work involved in selling a complex service. He then asked them what he would have to do to prove to them that he could sell well. To make a long story short, they helped him to learn how to sell their company’s services by having him study manuals and take extra courses on his own time. He bought books and listened to tapes and began spending time talking to the salespeople in the organization.

Now a year had passed. He had been a full-fledged salesman for about five months. He was already earning more than twice as much as the most he had ever earned as a plumber. But most of all, he was happier. He was more excited and more enthusiastic about himself and his work than he had ever been. He loved the field of selling, and he considered his career change to be one of the best decisions he had ever made.

This story is typical of countless stories that have been related to me over the years. In each case, the individual had discovered and developed his or her strengths and, subsequently, improved the quality of his or her life. And you can do the same. In fact, this may be one of the most important things you ever do.

Remember: Your goal is to identify your strengths so that you can deploy yourself in such a way as to increase your personal return on energy. One of the best mental techniques that you can use to accomplish this is to see yourself as a “bundle of resources” that can be applied in a variety of directions to achieve a variety of objectives.

As a bundle of resources, the amount of time and energy that you have is limited; therefore, your time and energy must be put to their highest and best use. Stand back and imagine that you’re looking at yourself objectively, as if through the eyes of another person, and you’re thinking about how you could apply yourself to bring about the best results. See yourself as your own employer or boss. What could you do to maximize the output of which you’re capable, and where could you do it?

Earl Nightingale said that the amount you’re paid will be determined by three things:

(1) The work you do,
(2) how well you do that work, and
(3) the difficulty of replacing you.

The laws of supply and demand also affect the labor market, of which you are a part. Employers or customers will always seek the very most for the very least. That means that you’ll always be paid the very least that is necessary to prevent you from moving to another organization.

Abraham Lincoln said that the only security a person can have is the ability to do a job uncommonly well.

In reality, you’re the president of your own personal-services corporation. You’re completely in charge of production, quality control, training and development, marketing, finance, and promotion.

Thinking of yourself passively, as being employed and, therefore, subject to the dictates of someone else, can be fatal to your long-term success. On the other hand, seeing yourself as self-employed forces you to see that you also are self-responsible and selfdetermining, that everything that happens to you happens because of your conduct and your behavior.

You’re in the driver’s seat. You’re behind the steering wheel of your life. It’s up to you to decide how to utilize your talents and abilities in such a way as to bring you the very highest return on investment of your time and energy. No one else is going to do it for you.

You’re the boss. Others can help you, guide you, direct you, channel you, point you in the right direction and even give you opportunities, but in the final analysis, no one can make the critical decisions that will determine your future and your fortune.

Here are four questions that you need to ask yourself on a regular basis:
(1) “What do I most enjoy doing?”
(2) “How would I describe my ideal job?”
(3) “If I could have any job at all, anywhere, what would it be?”
(4) “If I won a million dollars in the lottery and I had to pick a job to work at indefinitely, what would I choose to do with my time?”

In uncovering your strengths, ask yourself, “What are my unique talents and abilities?” What have you been good at in the past? What things do you do easily that seem to be difficult for other people? In what areas of work do you seem to get the best results, and do you derive the most pleasure from? The answers to those questions all are indications of how you might deploy yourself to increase your return on energy invested.

As a result of your genetic structure, your education, your experiences, your background, your interests and proclivities, you’re a unique and rare combination of talents and abilities. You can be extremely good at something. You’re responsible for finding out what that something is and then throwing your whole heart into it, without reservation or holdback. Only when you discover what you really enjoy doing and then commit yourself to it wholeheartedly do you begin to feel really alive and fully engaged in life.

What can you-and only you-do that, if done well, will make an extraordinary difference in your life? What can you do now, or can you learn to do in the future, that will give you the biggest payoff for the amount of time that you invest in it?

Remember: You were put on this earth with a special combination of talents and abilities that make you different from anyone who has ever lived. Whatever you’re doing today, it’s nowhere near what you’re really capable of doing. The key to a happy and prosperous life is for you to regularly evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, to become very good in the areas you most enjoy, and then to throw your whole heart into what you’re doing.

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