BSC Book Review: Maximum Achievement

In Brian Tracy’s “Maximum Achievement” you’re taken through laws, principals, goal setting and mental exercises that, when applied, can help keep you focused and positive about completing tasks critical to your success. As a building service contractor, I can put everything from “Maximum Achievement” into use daily. Three suggestions, in particular, really struck me during my last reading that I believe can help BSCs.

• “The Law of Forgiveness” — Specifically, forgiving one’s self. I’ve made poor decisions. Who hasn’t? As a BSC, one may have taken on a project that was too large, too early; or perhaps you’ve bid a project poorly. Mistakes happen when you’re building a business and while these mistakes are costly, they’re more so when you can’t put such poor decisions behind you. As a leader, I have to put past mistakes in perspective. Sure, we learn from those mistakes, but by truly forgiving yourself, you free your mind to try new tactics and take new risks. Without such forgiveness, a BSC may be afraid to try what could be the next innovation to grow his or her business.

• “The 12 Step System” for goal setting is a comprehensive plan for how to set down your goals, visualize them and take the action steps required for success. A good nugget is about setting realistic goals. For instance, a BSC who provides services to three facilities totaling 30,000 square feet may have a long term goal of providing service for 10 percent of their metro area. In the short term, however, this is not a realistic goal. A better, more achievable goal might be for that BSC to add an additional facility to their service portfolio within three months.

• “The Law of Superconscious Activity” — Once you’ve set your goals, you need to think about them all the time. Eliminate negative thoughts that stand in the way. For BSCs, this may be difficult because one may get bogged down in the day-to-day struggles inherent in our business. To achieve success and unlock the power of your superconscious mind, you must focus on only the things that you want.

Tracy writes “A successful life is merely a series of successful days, hours and minutes; minutes during which you think about your goals and your desires, about health and happiness and prosperity, and refuse to dwell on anything that you do not want to see manifested around you.”