How to have your best year ever is a 4 hour 22 minute video of a presentation by the late Jim Rohn in Fort Worth, Dallas.

It is incredible from a number of angles.

Firstly, Jim Rohn is a great speaker but it wasn’t always that way.  He tells the story of when he first stood up to give a talk and ‘his mind sat down’.  So you can learn a lot by just watching his method of delivery.

In particular, notice how he weaves stories about his life into the presentation – that’s a fabulous lesson for the content we create.  This is the key to the success of most good copy and most excellent presentations.

The content of Jim’s presentation is also excellent – I found the first session to be the best where he covers the 5 keys to success:

1. Philosophy – he called this ‘setting the sail’.
2. Attitude – how we feel about ourselves and other people and our situation.
3. Activity – take your philosophy and attitude and invest it into ACTION.
4. Results – be willing to face the numbers – success is a numbers name.
5. Lifestyle – with your results, fashion for yourself a good life.

On money – we get paid for binging value to the marketplace.

In the second session of how to have your best year ever, he covers areas of personal development and towards the end of the session throws out ‘the 3 treasures to leave behind’:

• your pictures – the help tell the story.  A picture is worth a thousand words.
• your library – your stepping stones out of the darkness into the light
• your journals – make notes so you can revisit the wisdom that you learn (- I actually do make notes in notebooks so I’m ahead of him on this one!)

In the third session of how to have your best year ever, Jim covers the 5 abilities that we need to nurture:

1. the ability to absorb – soak it all up – be like a sponge.  Wherever you are, be there.
2. learn to respond – let life touch you. Give in to emotions – our emotions need to be educated as well as our intellect.
3. learn to reflect – go over your notes, your day, your week, your month, your year.  Lock in the experiences.  Get some solitude to reflect.  Make the past more valuable so you can invest it in the future.
4. develop the ability to act – act when the idea is hot and the emotion is strong to counter the law of diminishing intent.  Everything affects everything else – nothing stands alone.  Every let-down or neglect affects the rest of our performance.
5. develop the ability to share – when you ‘turn on other peoples lights’ both you and they win.

Setting goals – goals are your vision of the future. Decide what you want and write it down.  The price is easy if the promise is clear.  The price is a few simple disciplines practised each day.

Set goals that will make something of you to achieve them. If you don’t need much, you don’t need to become much.

In the fourth session, Jim says never spend more than 70 cents in the dollar.  With the other 30%, put 10 cents aside for charity.  The next 10 cents is active capital – try to make a profit yourself – buy and sell.  Profits are better than wages.  Wages make you a living – profits make you a fortune.  The next 10 cents is passive capital – savings and investments.  Let someone else try to make a profit and pay you interest and dividends.

Touch something and leave a profit.  It’s not the money, it’s the plan that counts.

He finally talks about the importance of good communication – there are 4 parts:

1. Have something good to tell
2. Say it well sincerity, repetition, brevity and vocabulary are all important.
3. Read your audience by what you see, hear and their emotional signals.
4. Intensity – words mixed with emotion are powerful

This is just a short summary of over 4 hours of powerful content – imagine that – being able to hold the attention of an audience for over 4 hours!

His final words were, learn to help people with their lives, not just their jobs.  Help them with their dreams, not just to hang in there.  Also, if you work on your gifts, they will make room for you.

Hopefully, this video will inspire you to have your best year ever – if you have not yet signed up to my free product, The Sky Inside, then you really ought to if you want more great content like this.