12 Week Year

I just finished reading the book The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington. I blogged earlier about the Emotional Cycles of Change, which the authors describe in this book. But there are many other wonderful quotes and business planning ideas here that I highly recommend to any entrepreneur.


Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

"The more personally compelling your vision is, the more likely it is that you will act upon it...In order to tap the incredible power of your vision you need a future that is bigger than the present...It is your personal vision that keeps you in the game when things become difficult."

"Long-term results are created by the actions you take every day...you have greater control over your actions than you do your results. Your results are created by your actions...The physical universe will not respond to your desires, no matter how passionate or intense they are. The one thing that moves the universe is action."

"Weekly plans allow you to structure your activities so that you are focused on...tasks that are truly important...The weekly plan...reflects the critical strategic activity from your 12 week plan that needs to take place this week in order for you to achieve your goals."

"We keep track of scores, measurements and stats to determine success and identify areas for improvement...Too often in business we fail to keep score, and without some objective measure, we cannot know for certain if we are being effective."

"Effective measurement captures both lead and lag indicators...Lag indicators - things like income, sales, commission dollars, pounds lost, body fat percentage, overall cholesterol levels - represent the end results that you are striving to achieve. Lead indicators are the activities that produce the end result...While it's true that we control our actions and not our outcomes, our results are created by our actions."

"Once you have an intense desire to accomplish something, you then need to identify the core actions that will produce the result..."

"[Studies show that] faced with the imminent threat of death, an overwhelming majority [90%] of people still failed to consistently make more productive choices. There was a group that had a much higher success rate - almost seven times greater. These patiest were involved in peer suport sessions, and they had a success rate of almost 80 percent."

"As long as you see the solution to your greatness as being outside of you, you will remain powerless to change. The reality is that the only things you control are the way you think and the way you act...Personal accountability...is the single most important thing that you can do to become great."

This book is full of great tips and execution strategies that will help anyone get more out of life, and more success in any area of their life, after they commit to making a change. If you want to improve your life, your real estate business, relationships, health or whatever, I would highly recommend this book.

Happy Investing!