8 Rules for Achieving Remarkable Results

“I want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to get rich.”

So said Gertrude Stein. I’m not familiar with her financial portfolio, so I don’t know whether she ever actually got rich, but I am familiar with this statement.

Most 99 percenters think like this.

They like to complain, blame The Man, quote clichés like “nice guys finish last”, and generally believe—because of what they learned consciously or unconsciously in their early years—that they won’t ever get ahead.

But complaining, blaming, quoting and disbelieving won’t pay your rent. Believe me, I’ve tried. But what many 99 percenters have never tried is taking specific—and different—actions to turn your life around. Don’t worry, I’m not judging. I mean, how could you have when no one ever taught you these rules to achieve results? The only financial lessons I learned growing up is that “money doesn’t grow on trees”. Right. Try creating a reality show based on that financial advice. Watch out Donald Trump!

Barbara Stanny’s book Overcoming Underearning is the financial plan I never got in all my years on this planet—not from my parents, not from school, and certainly not from all the institutions that eagerly loaned me money. This book is dense with information, stories and a plan to build a richer, fuller life (in it she refers to underearners or 99 percenters as “dawdlers”). 

Check out her 8 rules for achieving remarkable results:

1. Make a vow to yourself: underearning is no longer an option.
• Dawdlers may swear they want to change, but ignore the work and don’t do anything different.
2. Keep your commitments.
• Dawdlers often fail to keep their promises, especially to themselves.
3. Use disruptions to practice the five steps*.
• Dawdlers let themselves be derailed by even the smallest distractions.
4. Enroll your spouse or significant other in this process.
• Dawdlers avoid conflict at all cost.
5. Put yourself first.
• Dawdlers deplete themselves for the sake of others.
6. Keep passages from this book or other inspirations where you can easily see them.
• Dawdlers rely on out of sight, out of mind.
7. Rigorously observe your actions and thoughts.
• Dawdlers are experts at justifying, rationalizing and making excuses.
8. Do what you dread.
• Dawdlers go to great lengths to avoid the unpleasant, fearful or uncomfortable.

Does this list make you uncomfortable? It should. Fear and discomfort are simply alerting you that this is something you need to do. Do you want to stretch? Do you want to grow? Do you want to have a more enjoyable life? It’s up to you.

Let me leave you with two quotes (that you can use for #6!).

“The number one requirement for financial success is simply this: you’ve got to be willing to be uncomfortable.”

                                                                                                          - Barbara Stanny

But remember, this discomfort is only temporary!

"People who make money often make mistakes, and even have major setbacks, but they believe they will eventually prosper, and they see every setback as a lesson to be applied in their move towards success."

                                                                                                          - Jerry Gillies, author

* Stanny outlines a five-step plan to a richer life in her book.