I pretty much know that I’ve gone as far as I’m going to go with what I currently know. To go a little bit further, I’ve got to learn a little bit more. The super successful people that I know consider themselves a work in progress – they never get complacent or lazy, they never think they know it all, or even enough. I watch my high achiever friends strive for constant and never-ending improvement, even greater understanding and more knowledge.

Earl Nightingale said that an hour a day is all it takes; one hour of study in your field will put you at the top in 3 years, 5 years of learning and improvement will make you a nationally recognized expert and 7 years makes you one of the very best.

Most people tend to over-estimate what they can accomplish in one year and under-estimate what they can accomplish in ten years. Reading a book that makes you better at what you do for just an hour a day works out to be about a book a week. A book a week works out to be about 50 books a year and 50 books a year works out to 500 books over 10 years. What kind of expert will reading an hour a day make you? The “500 books in 10 years” kind of expert – if you do it consistently. Just during your first year of doing this, you will become one of the most knowledgeable, educated, up to date and literate people in the field … someone who has something to say – and said right – becomes someone who people want to listen to.

Getting Started:

1. Think of the smartest, most successful people you know and ask them for book recommendations. Make a list.

2. Go buy those books, in hardcover if possible – you’re building the most important thing you can own; your library. Read those books with a highlighter in one hand and a notebook in the other.

3. Write down what you’re learning – notes are OK, a journal or notebook is better and a Blog might be better still because it will force you to distill what you’re learning in an attempt to teach it. As you’re going through this process you will come up with some great ideas – write them down and take immediate action on the best ones. By writing what you’re learning, chronicling the best ideas and taking some sort of immediate action cements the learning, gets some momentum going and will produce results.

The “Action” is the easy part – learning more about something you enjoy and getting better at it is fun – and fun is easy. The consistency part is a bit tougher. Once you decide to do it every day, the only question is when. It works. I promise.

A year from now things will be different – absolutely positively different. Stands to reason – things were different a year ago, right? The question is: “Do you want to take charge of  ”How Different” your life is going to be?”

By investing an hour a day in yourself you can determine where you’re going – you can live your life just the way you want to in a manner and direction you choose. Consistency – it’s simple, not always easy. The results are worth every bit of the discipline.