The Four Ifs

Jim Rohn is my favorite motivational speaker, everything he says just makes so much sense to me and really motivates me.  Here is a passage from one of his audio cds that I wanted to share.

The four ifs that make life worthwhile:

#1 - Life is worthwhile if you learn.  Life is worthwhile if you know.  What you don't know WILL hurt you.  Ignorance is not bliss.  You've got to have learning, information, in order to exist, let alone succeed.  Life is worthwhile if you learn from your own experiences, negative or positive.  We learn to do it right sometimes by first doing it wrong.  Life is worthwhile if you pick up the information, whether it's from negative or positive experiences.  Here's something unique about a negative experience, it could turn out to be positive.  Here's what we call it, a positive-negative.  So don't be afraid to try, don't be afraid to fail, don't be afraid to make a mistake, because that could be the greatest period of learning.

Life is worthwhile if we learn from other people's experiences.  No use confining yourself just to your own learning, your own experiences.  Learn from other people, negative or positive.  Too bad failures don't give seminars, they would be very valuable.  Now we don't want to pay them so they don't give seminars.  The information would be valuable.  If a guy's messed up his life for 40 years you have to say "John, would you spend a day with me? And I'll bring my journal and take good notes.  Teach me for a day.  Good lookin' guy like you, beautiful family, and you threw it all away.  Teach me for a day how you messed it all up."  And you just take good notes.  Sure enough, the things that messed up his life you may think "wow I'm doing a bit of that, I better make some changes."  So learn from someone else's experiences, negative or positive.  I say we learn 3 ways, here's how you learn.  By what you see, pay attention.  Next by what you hear, be a good listener.  And in that I say be a selective listener.  Don't let anyone just dump anything into your mental factory.  Next we learn from what we read.

#2 - Life is worthwhile if you try.  You can't just learn, now you've got to try something to see if you can do it.  Try to make a difference, try to make some progress, try to learn a new skill, try to learn a new sport.  Attempt, try.  Doesn't mean you can do everything, but there's a lot of things you could do if you just try.  If you don't get it the first time, you have to try again.  Ingenuity, try it another way. Keep trying till you find a way.  Try to win the game.  See if you can be best, see if you can score more points.  Try your best, give it every effort.  Why not go all out?

#3 - Life is worthwhile if you stay.  You've got to stay from spring till harvest.  Some people plant in the spring, leave in the summer.  Or the guy builds a foundation then he leaves it, goes off and builds another foundation.   He's got these foundations scattered across the country.  Never stayed to put up the walls and the roof and finish something.   If you've signed up in the spring, stay till the harvest.  If a team is behind 30 points in the 3rd quarter, they don't say, hey looks like we're gonna lose, we're out of here.  So if you've signed up to play the game, play till it's over.  See it through.  If you signed up to watch the game, watch till it's over.  That's good practice.  Sometimes we need not just the results but the practice.

#4 - Life is worthwhile if you care.  If you care at all you'll get some results.  If you care enough, you can get incredible results.  Care enough to make a difference, care enough to turn somebody around, care enough to start a new enterprise, care enough to change it all, care enough to be the highest producer, care enough to set some records, care enough to win.