Self Transformation The Tom Hopkin’s Way

I have just come across author Tom Hopkins. And the guy has been enthralling me with the wisdom embedded in his book, The Official Guide To Success. I’d like to share with you the one he titles, The Painfully Obvious Answer.

I started off as a failure at college. That is Tom talking to you now. Then I didn’t make any money in my first attempts to break away from hourly paid jobs – in the beginning of my sales career I was a failure. Many of the people who knew me well years ago have asked, ‘Tom, what happened to change your life so completely?’

The answer is almost painfully obvious to me now. But it certainly wasn’t obvious back when I was struggling desperately – not to make an outstanding income – simply to get by. If anyone was ever ready to succeed, it was me. That’s the first step to success – you have to be utterly determined to succeed. But that’s not the explanation of how I turned my life around.

Here’s the painfully obvious answer: since I didn‘t know how to become a success, that’s what I had to learn. Some people think that becoming a success means learning a job skill. The truth is that job skills play only a small part in anyone’s success – a necessary part, certainly, but still only a small part. Success is ninety per cent self-discipline, attitude, and self-image – and only ten per cent job skill.

The greatest talent in the world is useless if the self-discipline to use it is lacking; the finest opportunity turns away when it meets a poor attitude; the best training leads only to failure if the self-image is bad.

If you’re truly ready, the day will soon come when you turn your entire life around. You will open the right book, meet the right person, find the right need that you can fill, or see the right problem that you can make a fortune solving. You will become involved in the right experience and your life will change completely. If you’re truly ready now, this book can start that process working for you today.

That’s what happened to me. The start of my change came when I went to my first seminar. I had no money left. I was depressed. Luckily, a representative had come in some days previously and sold me on the seminar. The man teaching it was the late J. Douglas Edwards. Later he became my dearly loved friend.

When Mr. Edwards walked out to begin that seminar, we were all in awe of this man because we had heard of his great success. He started off by saying, ‘The one common characteristic that all successful people share is that they have their goals and their life outlined in writing.’

I felt guilty right away because I didn’t have any written goals. It had never occurred to me to write any down – no one had ever suggested that to me, or told me how to do it.

Douglas Edwards taught me how and I started goal-setting. At the time, I was driving a beat-up old automobile convertible with a rip the full length of the top. I had no money so I repaired the rip with silver tape – it looked like a racing stripe! The car was a junker and I was embarrassed to drive it, so for my first goal I wrote, ‘I want a nice car.’ After the seminar I got specific by touring the agencies and picking out the make, model, colour, and options I wanted.

When I mentioned this later to my friends, some of them said, ‘Tom, don’t drive an expensive car. People will think you’re slick.’ Average people don’t want you to have anything better than they have. But I wrote down the expensive car as my first goal anyway. Ninety days later I got it. At first I thought it was just luck, but I said, ‘I’ll write another goal down, just in case.’ In 1966, I wanted to be the top real estate salesperson in California as to the volume of transactions, so I wrote it down. I worked day and night to reach that goal. When I did reach it I thought, ‘Maybe this is luck too.’

Gradually I began jotting down not only annual-income goals and status-symbol goals, but also personal-accomplishment goals of every kind. The day came when all of a sudden I could see exactly how goal-setting operates when you’re truly ready. Then I started making a big thing of goals – getting them all down, adding details frequently, and making the hard decisions that are required to get rid of conflicts among them.

Focusing on goals to that extent caused me to start doing another vital thing; I began studying for a few hours every morning to learn the skills that would allow me to make all those goals come true.

And I always kept my goals with me. Very few people can reach into their wallet; pull out a card, and say, ‘Here is my goal card. This is what I am well on the way to accomplishing.’

When you put your goals down in writing, you have set your direction. If you’re ready for success, you will dwell on your goals; you will plan how you are going to reach them; you will learn what you have to learn; you will do everything that’s required to make them come true.

Why did you think I have to bother you with Tom Hopkin’s thoughts? Because I believe you deserve to succeed. I want the readers of SuccessDigest to know that it is their birthright to succeed… if only they’re ready to pay the price.

First Published in May, 1996.