“There is a special way that you can accelerate your progress toward becoming the highly productive, effective, efficient person that you want to be.”

Valuing Yourself and Your Needs (As a Parent): This is about taking care of your OWN needs as a parent because when you consistently put yourself last to be taken care of and habitually continue to sacrifice your basic necessities to make everyone else happy…Essentially, what you’re teaching your children is that they’re here to be of service to others, then themselves. In other words, you’re teaching them to take advantage of you and use you as they please, which in turn communicates to them that they’re most likely to be used. To prevent this from happening, you need to set consistent limits that protect you from demands that could be overbearing and unfair. That way, you’re communicating that your basic needs are just as important as theirs. It’s true…often times parents that are constantly sacrificing themselves are idealized and praised by other parents. You know… the ones that have no hobbies, no friends and no avenue of enjoyment. Is this really desirable? Parents constantly stressed about the needs of others in the family are usually irritable, and unmotivated to try anything new, fun or exciting. How can parents do this long term with no outlet? Instead, us parents need to enjoy ourselves and focus on being re-energized. When you take good care of yourself, you provide the means to take better care of your children. Going out to dinner or cocktails, trips to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, date night with your spouse or even some alone time reading or going for a walk allows you to be a more productive, interested and patient parent.”

“The ability to concentrate singlemindedly on your most important task, to do it well and to finish it completely, is the key to great success, achievement, respect, status, and happiness in life. This key insight is the heart and soul of this book.

“Your thoughts, vividly imagined and repeated, charged with emotion, become your reality.”

“The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.”

“It is impossible to succeed without failing.” 

“The very act of accepting responsibility short-circuits and cancels out any negative emotions you may be experiencing.”

“The starting point of great success in your life begins, in the simplest terms, when you discipline yourself to think and talk about only the things you want and refuse to think and talk about anything you don't want.”

“Ideas are a mode of transportation, a vehicle that you can use to take yourself from wherever you are to wherever you want to go.”

“Never complain, never explain. Resist the temptation to defend yourself or make excuses.”

“The fact is that your productivity begins to decline after eight or nine hours of work. For this reason, working long hours into the night, although it is sometimes necessary, means that you are usually producing less and less in more and more time. The more tired you become, the worse the quality of your work will be and the more mistakes you will make. At a certain point, you can reach “the wall” and simply be unable to continue, like a battery that is run down.”

“Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.”

“Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to  you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something  bigger and better than your current situation.”

“Your decision to be, have and do something out of ordinary entails facing  difficulties that are out of the ordinary as well. Sometimes your greatest asset is  simply your ability to stay with it longer than anyone else.”

“The biggest enemies we have to overcome on the road to success are not lack of ability and lack of opportunity but fears of failure and rejection and the doubts that they trigger.”