John’s Reviews

I attended Brian Tracy’s “Performing at Your Best” seminar, yesterday. It was presented using Microsoft’s Live Meeting technology which allows you to call into a conference call and have a shared Powerpoint presentation displayed to you over the web with a few features for interactivity and feedback.

Brian Tracy is one of the big guns in the world of Time Management, Life management, and success. It was one of the larger audiences that I had seen at just under 600 participants. Brian discussed his approach to life and success in a common sense style that was rather effective. I particularly liked some of the goals that he suggests. Double your income and double your time off. Offering some key goals differs from other presenters that usually just discuss the importance of goals and the mechanics of how to create them. I plan to personalize these goals to fit with my life, but I liked the foundation for them.

Another key take-away was the need to get clarity. The ability to be clear on your goals, your priorities, and your plans, will allow you to apply effective time management skills to move you in the proper direction. It’s difficult to be effective without having a clear direction. At this point, he told us to write down 10 goals. Then pick the most important goal from that list of 10. And finally, focus our thoughts on how we are going to achieve that goal and take immediate action. The real secret of effectiveness is the ability to focus your thoughts and actions on that most important goal until you complete it.

Prior to this seminar I had a few goals defined. I had been reviewing my goals on a regular basis. I wasn’t seeing the results that I had hoped for. I would say that my missing link was the daily focus on how to achieve my most important goal and taking regular, relentless action towards it. I have always tried to be a bit more balanced, but I realize now that I should work on focusing that attention more and pursuing my goals with a more urgent, more relentless fashion. I need to put a bit more emotion into the equation as well.

Overall, I was happy with the information presented. I have a few take-aways. A few new things to work on. A new favorite word, “relentless”. If you want to review the recording of this seminar, Microsoft has an archive of previous Live Meeting Seminars. You’ll eventually see Brian Tracy’s seminar as well as seminars by other business leaders like Stephen Covey and even Donald Trump. And yes, it’s free. Microsoft is doing this to promote Live Meeting.