Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James Trotter owns two companies and is a real estate investor. In his spare time, he leads a Bible study group and is looking forward to transitioning into a full-time ministry position one day. He lives with his wife and daughter in a suburb of Wichita, Kansas.

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You Must!

Trafford Publishing

Contents

Chapter 1: You Must Take Action.............................................1Chapter 2: You Must Have a Goal.............................................7Chapter 3: You Must Take Personal Responsibility............................11Chapter 4: You Must Realize Where Motivation Comes From.....................19Chapter 5: You Must Be Teachable............................................23Chapter 6: You Must Read Books..............................................31Chapter 7: You Must Count Your Blessings....................................37Epilogue....................................................................45

Chapter One

You must take action! If you learn nothing else from this book, I hope you will learn this most important point: You Must Take Action! If you stop reading right now and apply this one principle, it will make a difference. The loftiest goals, the best laid plans, the best of intentions, whatever it might be. Without action, it's all useless. If you are not going to take action, please stop wasting your time reading this book.

So many times, people have come up with fantastic ideas, goals, and dreams only to do nothing with them and watch those fantastic ideas and dreams die. Ideas that may have changed the world as we know it (or at least their world as they knew it), but without action, nothing happened, nothing changed; the world stayed the same. The Reverend W.A. Nance said, "Failure can be divided into those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought."

Every year, millions of people make New Years'

Resolutions. "This year I'm gonna ..." Fill in the blank for whatever you promised last January. Most of these people have a few things in common:

1. They're sincere. They really believe this year will be different. They believe this year will be the year they get it in gear and do something. And, they really do want it to be different.

2. They have a desire. They have a reason to do whatever they are resolving to do. Maybe it's losing weight to be in better shape. Maybe it's eating healthier for better overall health. Maybe it's to get out of debt to reduce stress. Maybe it's to start recycling to cut down on the amount of trash going into landfills. Maybe it's to invest so they won't have to rely solely on Social Security when they retire (if it's still around). Maybe it's to give to one of those charities you see where you can feed a hungry child and send them to school and so on. Whatever the resolution, I believe most people want whatever it is they are resolving to do, but desire alone is not enough. (We'll discuss this more in another chapter.)

3. They know it can be done. The evidence is everywhere. People are doing exactly what other people have resolved to do, so it's not like it's impossible! You don't have to go too far or look too hard to see someone who is losing weight, eating healthier, getting out of debt, recycling more, investing, whatever it is. Just ask someone at work, or a neighbor, or even someone at the grocery store and I'm sure they would love to tell you about their sister's boyfriend's cousin's uncle's new wife who's had amazing success with blah, blah, blah. Every time you turn on the TV, there's another infomercial trying to teach you how, "You, too, can ..." (again, fill in the blank).

Let me just say these things are not bad. You need to be sincere. You need to have a desire, or in other words, you need to want to do something. If you want to do nothing, that's what you'll do. You need to know or feel that there's at least some chance of success. (This is not always the most important thing. Many of the things people have accomplished were done so when everyone else said it couldn't be done. Imagine telling someone in 1960 that a man would soon be walking on the moon. You might have literally been laughed out of the building, or even out of town! Yet, one decade later, men walked on the moon, not just once, but several times over! But that's another story. Just remember the old saying, "If you can dream it, you can do it!" But a little common sense and doing your homework also goes a long way. Someone once said, "There are two kinds of people in the world: doers and thinkers. The thinkers need to do more and the doers need to think more.")

Unfortunately, most of these people have one more thing in common: They did not take action. They were sincere. They truly believed change was coming, and they sincerely wanted that change to come! They had a desire to make a change, and reasons why the change would be good. And they had evidence that it could be done (in most cases), and in some cases, had even seen the evidence first hand by someone close to them making good on their resolutions. So what happened? The sincerity, the desire, and the evidence were just not enough. You've heard it before, and you will hear it again: You must take action!

All the sincerity your soul can muster, with all the desire of all the people in the world, put together with all the evidence anyone could ever need, is still useless without action! It's like starving at a Las Vegas buffet. The food is there, but you must eat! Without the action of putting the food in your mouth, you will die of starvation surrounded by mountains of food. "What irony!" some would say. "What foolishness!" others would say. "What a tragedy!" still others would say. They would all be right.

I like to read. One of the best books I have read is called "The Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach. The book is great, and has lots of good ideas, strategies, advice, and "Aha moments." However, the thing I like the most about this book is the end of each chapter. This is how David put it in the book's introduction:

"As you'll see in the next few hours, because of its unbelievably simple approach, this is an unbelievably easy book to get through. What's more, each chapter ends with a short summary outline I call Automatic Millionaire Action Steps, which makes crystal clear exactly what you can do today to start yourself on the road to accumulating real wealth."

There are a few key words in the paragraph above. First, each chapter contains the Action Steps. Not some, or half, or most of the chapters; each one has a place where it says, "Take action!" Second, the action steps are what you can do today. Stop waiting. Stop worrying. Stop playing the "what if" game. General George Patton said, "A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow." Your plan of action may not be perfect, but that's OK. Go! Do it! Today!

"But what if I fail?" Everyone faces failure. The question is, what will you do when you encounter it? Only you can determine whether the failure overcame you, or you overcame the failure. Grace Hopper said, "A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for." You will never accomplish what you want if you are only concerned about safety and security. Failure is not final or fatal unless you allow it to be. Remember the words of Henry Ford: "Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently."

Third, the action steps are clear. They are not...