The Triangle Method: Brian Tracy’s Framework for Effective Leadership
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The man, the myth, the legend, Brian Tracy. Welcome. Thank you so much. You've had an amazing impact on millions of lives through the books, right? One of the great things in my books is the idea, dream big dreams. Only big dreams have the power to motivate you and excite you.

and get you up in the morning and drive you forward. Brian Tracy is a legendary figure in personal development and business strategy. As the founder of Brian Tracy International, he spent decades helping individuals and organizations sharpen their goals, grow their income, and lead with confidence. With decades of experience and over 80 books to his name, Brian remains committed to helping people unlock their full potential and achieve success. I had a man come up to me at a seminar recently. He said, this last year, I earned 10 times

what I was learning when I came to your seminar and everybody else in the seminar who practiced it has increased their income 10 times. If someone's trying to either become a millionaire or pursue their goals and build a legacy, what words of encouragement or tips would you give them? I get emails and letters from people saying, you may be a millionaire when you told me this. The answer is no.

My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast, and I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. Hello and welcome back to another epic episode with a true legend. You know who this man is. You've probably read one or more of his books.

The man, the myth, the legend, Brian Tracy. Welcome. Thank you so much. Yeah, I'm very excited. This has been a long time coming. I moved to America and I read pretty much binged a lot of your books. And it really just amplified my mindset. I left England because the mindset I had was so unique there. People didn't think like me. And then when I moved to America reading your books, it really solidified. I was in the right place and I was doing the right things.

And you've had an amazing impact on millions of lives through the books, right? Thank you. I love your story because one of the great things in my books is the idea, dream big dreams. Only big dreams have the power to motivate you and excite you and get you up in the morning and drive you forward. Dream no little dreams, dream big dreams.

Why do you think, let's start there, why do you think most people in life go through life with little dreams? The number one problem that I discovered which changed my life was that it's criticism as a child that causes people to grow up with the fear of failure and the fear of rejection or disapproval and to hold themselves back and not allow themselves just to go for it.

Give you an example. Both Barbara and I, my wife, grew up in homes where there was a lot of criticism. So people were poor and they stayed poor because they just didn't try anything. So we decided that our children are going to be different. And our children have been praised and encouraged and told that we love them and never been criticized in their whole lives.

and golly and then they have children of their own and they do the same thing and if you never criticize anybody in your life never it's extraordinary the psychological environment that you create

Well, what's interesting about that, so let's stay on that, that a lot of people through their childhood have been criticized, but your books and personal development in general can rewire the brain a little, right? And it can change the outcome. Yes. So how does someone start to do that apart from obviously reading the books? What would be some tips you'd give them? Well...

The most important discovery in all of human history is that you become what you think about most of the time. So when you read books, attend courses, listen to audio, have conversations,

they affect your thinking and what goes in comes out. Now here's the second part, and this is to answer your question, is that you become what you say to yourself, positive affirmations are what they're called, you become what you say to yourself most of the time. So you can actually transform your life almost instantaneously like a magic trick by saying four things. Number one, over and over, I like myself.

I like myself, I like myself, I like myself. And just say that. Have your kids say it. Have your staff say it. Because when you say, I like myself, you cancel, cancel all negative thoughts for the amount of time that that lasts. Number two, you say, I can do it.

I can do it, I can do it, I can do it. And that kills your fear of failure. I can do it. Now, your fear of failure will come up and you push it back down again. Number three is there are no limits. There are no limits. There are no limits. I can do it. There are no limits. And the last one, which is my favorite of all, and people have asked me, you know, what is the most important quality you can have?

The most important quality, I would do this for 1,000, 2,000 people. I would say the most important quality you can have is to be unstoppable, to become unstoppable. That's the key to success. Now, how do you become unsolic? This is a huge one. It's 5,000 times. You fight the

I did this for 4,000 people in Las Vegas last week. I say the way you become unstoppable is you say the magic words, I am unstoppable. You say it every day. You say it at every call. You say it with every difficulty. You say, I am unstoppable. And you know what happens? Is you keep repeating that, and no matter how much fear you have, you wear it down. You wear it down. And at a certain point, there

30 days is usually the average. You become unstoppable. You can do anything. You're completely fearless. You never give up. And that's another one. Never give up. I never give up. I never give up.

If you say these things, they become true for you. Whatever you say with feeling becomes your reality. Brian, I know there's this story about how you got into sales at 10. You started selling soap. Tell me about that. Well, my parents didn't have very much money. So what they did is they joined me.

to the local YMCA so I would go there after school because there was nobody at home to take care of me. So I would go from three to five and get home at six.

YMCA had a summer camp and it cost of, I don't know, $50, $100 to go to summer camp. And most of the kids were poor, so they came up with a sales system. And the sales system was you could sell soap, little boxes of Roosevelt Beauty soap with four bars, 50 cents at that time, and you go from door to door selling soap.

Well, the first year I went out and I would go from door to door and I would hear what everybody hears, don't want it, don't need it, can't use it, can't afford it, not for us, we have our own way, and so on. So I'd go from door to door, I'd say, would you like to buy a box of soap? Help me go to YMCA camp. And so that was my reaction. I sold about a third of my way to YMCA camp and somehow, miracle of miracles, my parents were able to come up with the balance.

Next year, I went out and sold my way to YMCA and three other kids. I sold 300, 400 boxes. Next year, I sold six kids. They wouldn't give you any credit, but they would credit it to other poor kids who hadn't sold enough.

I sold more soap. I broke every record for Rosamel Beauty Soap in the nation. And so people ask me, how do you do that? I mean, I was a selling machine. I had a wagon full of little boxes, and I'd go from door to door, and I'd put the wagon in between three houses, and I'd run out to the house, sell one, take a third, and...

Anyway, so what was my deal? Well, I would knock on the door. I'd say, I'm working my way to YMCA camp selling Rosamel beauty soap. And then I'd step back and I'd look up and I'd say, but it's strictly for beautiful women. And she would be ready to close the door. Don't want, don't want, don't need, can't use. I'd say, what did you say?

I say it's strictly for beautiful women. She said, well, that wouldn't be for me. I mean, how much is it anyway? And I started to sell them. And if I felt the right thing to say, I'd say, and if you're really beautiful, you buy two. And I sold so big. They actually would follow me along on the sidewalk to take pictures. They had nobody in the nation who was selling so much. So if it was a man answered the door with the wife in the evening,

I would look at him and I'd say it's strictly for handsome men as well. And they all said, "Oh, it's not for me or anything. "How much is it anyway?" I sold so much. So here's what I learned is that if you can conclude a great marketing technique

You can sell all that you want. And if you can't, you can't. Brian, I think people see people like myself and you really successful and they think we've always been successful. But I know in your 20s, you were sleeping on the floor, not selling. You hadn't mastered sales. And there was a pivotal moment. Can you talk about that for a second? I was sleeping on the floor of a friend's one bedroom apartment.

It was really hot outside, so I was sitting in there. It had a little bit of air conditioning, and there was an old magazine, and the magazine said, if you want to be successful, you've got to have goals. And if you're serious, write down 10 goals that you'd like to achieve in the present tense, which I've talked about.

So I had nowhere to go, nothing to do. I was broke. At that time, I lost something like 15, 20 pounds because of I couldn't eat because I didn't have any food, because I didn't have any money to buy food. I say that lack of sales skills or sales training, which I was doing, is one of the greatest weight loss programs in the business because

because I would knock on doors. I wasn't afraid to knock on doors. I had no fear, but I didn't know what to say. So I wrote down 10 goals, and surprise, surprise, when you do this, your first or second goal will be financial, because if you have enough money, you can do anything. If you don't have any money, you can't do anything. So I wrote down, I earned X number of dollars a month, which was outrageous. I'd never earned that much in my life. And...

nine more goals, and I lost the list. And however, one month later, I'd accomplished all 10 goals. I was earning more money. Now, what happened? Well, this is really important. What happened is, I teach people this, say, if you could achieve any one goal within 24 hours, which one goal would have the greatest positive impact on your life?

I'm forcing people to write this down. I said, now, imagine you have a magic wand. This is my technique. Imagine you have a magic wand and you could wave a magic wand and you could be absolutely excellent at any one skill. Which one skill would help you the most to achieve your most important goal? Write it down, discuss it, talk it.

Now you know exactly what you want and how to get it. So my answer to that was earning a certain amount of money. My skill was closing the sale.

I did not know how to close the cell. I was not afraid to knock on doors and talk to people. I used to call on an average of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 70 people a day, 70 calls a day. I would call on homes and offices and apartment buildings, 70 people a day. And I would almost actually run from place to place. I used to joke so I could be reprimanded.

rejected more often and faster. So I was making the calls and making the presentations and talk about how good my product was. And people said, well, let me think it over. And the words in business, let me think it over, mean goodbye forever. We will never meet again.

And so people said, well, let me think it over. Well, let me think it over. Let me think it over. And I thought the whole city was thinking about my product, and nobody was. I couldn't close the sale. So I decided one skill would help me the most.

is closing the sales. So for the next year, I did what they call in basketball a full court press. That's all I did was study sales closing techniques, of which, by the way, there's about 104 techniques. So I began to sort them out. I became an expert at closing sales. My income doubled and then doubled again and then went up five times. And then the next two years, it went up 10 times. I never earned so much money in my life.

thousands and thousands of dollars. It was wonderful. I went from sleeping on the floor, I had my own furnished apartment overlooking the river. I went to the best restaurants. I was single, and so I met lots of nice girls. It was just wonderful. I flew around on planes. I flew around the world, first class. I never earned so much money.

Love that. And, you know, we talked a bit about the personal development mindset side, but you're also very famous and influential on sales, right? You've done hundreds of millions yourself from stages and with all your programs and books. What are just, you know, if you can only give a few tips, what are your best tips in a couple of minutes? Well, I didn't learn this until many years later, but once upon a time, a major Fortune 500 company had a very, very,

in-demand product and they had a very hard support this form of sales and were basically high pressure and they thought that their sales system was so good because it was so basically ass-kicking I mean they were really high pressure and and then their product went off patent and competitors entered with a cheaper better product and the company almost collapsed

But in the company, Fortune 500 company, everybody knows the name. I won't tell you the name, but it rhymes with Xerox. And so this guy, sales guy, went to my seminar, public seminar, where I taught what I'm going to answer you right now. And he said, this is the way to sell. He said, not the way they teach us.

And he began to sell differently from the company. He began to move up. He got promoted and promoted and promoted. The end of the story, and I only learned this recently, is he became the president of Xerox, and then he threw out the entire sales system and put my system in place. My system is based on three key things at the beginning. Number one,

is to define your prospects clearly. Who are the people who can most benefit from your product or service? No point trying to sell to someone who is the wrong prospect. Number two is establish a high-quality relationship with the prospect based on respect and trust.

is until the customer trusts you, they are not open to anything you say. After the customer trusts you, they will stay with you forever. So everything in life is based on trust, which is why they embrace this system and transform their business by billions of dollars.

IBM already had it. IBM was already a high-trust sales company. So then the third thing is, how can I help this person achieve their goals faster in a cost-effective way? It's kind of a simple thing. There's more to my sales system than this. But those are the three. First of all,

make sure you're talking to the right person, someone who can and will buy and pay within a reasonable period of time. Number two, focus the entire first conversation or second or third conversation on building a relationship based on trust and respect. And then number three,

See yourself as a helper. Your job is to help people to improve the quality of their life and work. And if you can do that, they will buy from you and buy again and tell their friends. And you're going to live in a big house on the hill, put your kids in private schools.

and take your vacations in Paris and Tahiti. Brian, you have this like unique triangle method, right? This system that I love how you break it down. I mean, it's so impactful. Can you break down this triangle method for the audience? What I found very young is that there's three keys. Number one key is for you to accept complete responsibility for your life and everything that happens to you.

That means no excuses, no blaming, no putting off on other people or other circumstances.

The magic words, the power words for leaders in every field worldwide based on studies are the words, I am responsible. I am responsible. That's what the leader is. I'm responsible. Company gets into trouble. They need somebody to take over to save the company. And they get a leader, and a leader walks in and says, I'm responsible. And he makes whatever changes are necessary. Second part of the triangle is goals.

You've got to understand goals. Goals are a miracle. There are so many wonderful things that you can do.

I have to tell you a quick story. A woman came here in my living room a month ago from Ukraine. And lovely woman, 39 years old, two children, married and happy. And she said, I've got, and she brought her whole team to do videotaping and interviews and so on. And she said, I have to tell you my story. She said, three years ago, I was earning $500 per month, $500 per month.

And then I read your book, and then I read that exercise in your book, and so I decided to try it out. And the exercise is simple. You take a spiral notebook, and you write down today's date and 10 goals. Tomorrow morning, you turn to the next page without looking back at the past page, and you write down your 10 goals again.

And you go to the next page. You never go back. You never read back. Eight and ten goals in the present tense as though they are already true. So I had nothing to lose. I was only earning $500 a month. So I began doing that every day. This is three years later. Last month, I earned $500,000 a month.

$500,000. And she's got one of the most successful, fastest growing companies in Ukraine, which, as you know, has got

problems with warfare today. She's earning $500,000 a month. And I could tell you she was so happy. She was so thrilled because she never dreamed that she could make that kind of money. And my client who arranged the interview said, this woman is a phenomenon. She's accomplishing things that nobody ever believed possible. She's wealthy. She lives in a big, beautiful house and has got a staff. I mean, and she told me,

She re-emphasized, she repeated, just writing down 10 goals every day in a spiral notebook without looking back. Now, why am I so excited about this? Because I've been teaching this exercise, very simple, and handing out spiral notebooks to my audiences for the last few years. And I've heard that story, not always.

as great as her story, $500 to $500,000 a month in three years. But story after story after story, you made me rich, you made me rich, you made me rich. So I tell people, please, please do this. Do this for 30 days. Psychologically, it takes 30 days to lock in a habit. I learned this technique, by the way, when I was 19 or 20.

And if you go into my study, you'll find rows and rows and rows of spiral notebooks where I wrote down my goals every day, every day, every day. Does it work? Yes, it works. And the cost, the downside of this method is zero. In other words, I'm not asking you to invest a fortune and cut off one arm. All you do is take three to five minutes each morning and

Rewrite your goals without looking back. And every single person who ever does this has a success story that blow your mind. Love that. So last bit. Number three. I'm sorry. Number three is continuous learning. Is keep reading and learning and going to courses and seminars and listening to audio programs in your car. Never stop learning. Never stop.

coast. You know, what we say is interesting is you can coast if you like, but you can only coast in one direction.

You can only coast in one direction. Don't coast. It's set the bar for yourself and keep raising the bar. Last question for you. This is a broad and a big one because, you know, this is a kind of mini episode and we don't have long. If someone's trying to either become a millionaire or pursue their goals and build a legacy, what words of encouragement or tips would you give them? I'm so glad to hear this question. I love this stuff.

The answer is, and by the way, I've worked with thousands and thousands of people who are millionaires. I get emails and letters from people saying, you may be a millionaire when you told me this.

Number one, write it down, write it down, write it down. Harvard did a study on successful people. They found that only 3% of graduates of Harvard had written goals and plans to achieve them. Ten years later, they were earning an average of ten times as much as all the others put together.

Ten times. Imagine your income today. And I teach a system how to increase your income by ten times. And we'll do this another time. But basically, imagine you could increase your income ten times. Absolutely slam dunk guarantee. Like a recipe that always works. Imagine you could do that. People go,

I thought, what? And then I show them how you do it. And first of all, you crawl, and then you walk, and then you walk faster, and then you start to run. And I had a man come up to me at a seminar recently, and I remembered him because he's a really nice guy. He said, Brian, he said, I came to your seminar, he said, and you said I could increase my income 10 times. He's in sales, car sales. I could increase my income 10 times.

using your system? I said, it didn't work. I tried it every day, every day, year after it did not work. I said, really? He said, yeah, it only took six years. He said, this year, this last year, I earned 10 times what I was earning when I came to your seminar. And everybody else in the seminar who practiced it increased their income 10 times. But in six years, five years,

So, does it work? Yes. And that's what you're going to learn on this program, is you're going to learn these secrets and methods by the most successful people. And what is so wonderful is that they're simple. This is not rocket science. You don't have to be a genius.

All you have to do is do certain things which create value for others and keep a little of it for yourself. And then, as they say in shampoo, wash, rinse, repeat. Do it again. And each time you do it, sometimes I say, you want to double your income and you're in business? Talk to twice as many customers as you're talking to today. Okay.

According to the research, the average professional salesperson full-time or entrepreneur talks to two new prospective customers per day. Wow. Two per day. Crazy. So let us say that you are...

The average, all right? Some are below that. I've met salespeople who talk to two per week. But let's say that you're the average. Now, how do you double your income? Well, instead of talking to two, which is one every four hours in the daytime, you talk to four, which is one every two hours. Can you do that? Say yes. Of course you can't.

Anybody can do that and I've had people again. I've spoken to Millions of salespeople in all over the world. I bet people going to be said that's nonsense I see other words in to certain. I said that's a nonsense. I've been in my business ten years I you can't tell me a double my end. I just like talking to more people I said here's my magic question. Why don't you just give it a try? Mm-hmm

It cost nothing to give it a try. And then they come back to me. They come back to my seminar. One guy came up to me in Dallas. He said, I followed your advice. He said, within seven days, I was hearing twice as much as I've ever heard. And then I thought, well, what if I quote three times as many people? He said...

Can I take you to the airport? And he took me out in a brand new, beautiful Mercedes sedan. He said, that's what your advice got me. It's this beautiful, brand new Mercedes. I'll take it to the airport. I still remember that. Does it work? Of course it works. Do things fall down or fall up? I always say this, like gravity. Just gravity. Do things fall down or up? They fall down. How often do they fall down? 100%.

If you call twice as many people, how often do you double your income? 100%. Now, here's one more question. If you...

call on twice as many people, what happens to your skill level as a professional salesman? - That increases too, more reps, more swings at the back. - So you get better and better and you may be even more sales. - And I mean we have 50 sales people in my organization. - Wow. - And I've noticed too, it also builds momentum and confidence. So probably quadruple sales 'cause now they're more confident, they have more of a rhythm, more momentum, more drive. - Yes, and they get better and better at doing it.

It's really wonderful because what we're teaching is so simple. Yeah, yeah. It's...

People just have to implement it. That's the gap in most of society is the implementation gap, right? Yes. Well, I had an experience with a large organization. This guy came in. He was from the university. He had classes and into an aggressive sales organization. And he went out and they kind of joked because he's a bit shy and so on.

Within a month, he was the number one salesperson in the company. And they couldn't believe it. They said, how do you do that? He said, well, I write it down. I have a plan for every day, and I write down everything that I do at the end of the day. I analyze my plan, and I get a little better here and work harder there and start. And

They just shook their head and said, "Just write it down, write it down, write it down." If you're not writing down your plans and goals and your process of achieving them, then you're... It's like trying to go to the airport and find your plane without knowing what plane you're on. You're just wandering around through life.

The 80-20 rule, and this is so important, the 80-20 rule says that the top 20% of people earn 80% of the money in any field, especially in entrepreneurship. The bottom 80% have to split the 20% that's left over. And I remember a man telling me this, and this is one of the most important things

turning points in my life. I can remember it now. It's like a great shiny moment. And he said, and he was top guy in our company. He said, you know that the top 20% of people earn 80% of the money in sales. And I said, no, I've never heard that. I was about 23, 24. He said, I've never heard that. Oh yeah, it's pretty common. Everybody knows it was a law from 1895.

And I said, well then, I'm going to be in the top 20%. And my life was never the same. To this day, to this day, I still remember that moment. The sun was shining on the sidewalk and he was looking at me. Here's the key.

Make a decision to be in the top 20%. No matter where you are, everybody in the top 20% started where? Where did they start? Bottom. The bottom 20%. Make a decision. Make a decision with an exclamation point that by come, I am going to be in the top 20%. That decision is like crossing a line in your life. There's before you made the decision and after you made the decision. Once you've made the decision...

I say this to my audience. Once you've made the decision, nothing can stop you from joining the top 20%, top 10%, top 50%. I say, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There is one person who can stop you from getting in to the top 20%. Yes, sir. And who would that be? A thousand people. No.

I'm the only one who can stop you. Wow. Yeah, I mean... And they laugh. They laugh and they never forget it. And they make a decision. I mean, I love that. Yeah. And guys, it all starts with you. And I think that's a great theme for this episode and everything you've done and the lives you've impacted. And, you know, we are going to wrap there. But if you've not already, go and binge all of Brian's books because it helped change my life in my early 20s and create the mindset now that I think is so fundamental for my success.

Brian, it's been such a pleasure to make this happen. I'm so excited for this to go live. And as always, keep working hard, build a legacy, change lives, and I'll see you guys soon.