Below are some notes taken while listening to audio book "Lead the field" by Earl Nightingale.

Book has many chapters but my takeaway is divided into two Attitude and Goal. Here are the notes,

# 1. Attitude

• Our attitude tells what we expect from the world. How others respond is their attitude.

  • Dont expect other to come and talk to you. You go and talk and tell you are interested in any activity.
  • If you dont go, it means you are not interested.
  • In every action and response, show attitude.
  • People are important, interact with them.

• Your mind is your richest resource

  • go deep with what you already know before going on to something else.

• Serve the customer; serve the customer better than anyone else is serving the customer.

Few points to keep in mind,

• First, it’s our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will bring about its successful outcome.

• Secondly, our attitudes toward others determine their attitudes toward us. We’re all interdependent. The success we achieve in life will depend largely on how well we relate to others.

• Thirdly, before you can achieve the kind of life you want, you must think, act, talk, and conduct yourself in all of your affairs as would the person you wish to become. Keep a mental picture of that person before you as often as you can during the day.

• Fourthly, remember that the higher you go in any organization of value, the better the attitudes you’ll find. And that great attitudes are not the result of success; success is the result of great attitudes. Finally, the deepest craving of the human being is for recognition and self-esteem – to be needed, to feel important, to be recognized and appreciated. That includes our loved ones and everyone else with whom we come in contact during our days.

Some suggestions,

• Since your mind can hold only one thought at a time, make each thought you hold constructive and positive. Look for the best in people and ideas. Be constantly alert for new ideas you can put to use in your life.

• Don’t waste time talking about your problems with people who can’t solve them, or about your health unless it’s good or you’re talking to your doctor. It won’t help you. It can’t help others.

• Radiate the attitude of well-being and confidence, the attitude of the person who knows where he or she is going. You’ll find all sorts of good things happening to you.

• Lastly, treat everyone with whom you come in contact as the most important person on earth. Start this habit, practice it consistently, and you’ll do it – and benefit from it – for the rest of your life.

# 2. Goal

• Make sure you constantly reevaluate your goals and move forward
• Write down your goals
• Focus your thinking toward your goals. It will help you reach them.
• Work on one goal at a time.
• We become what we think about
• You are sum total of all your thoughts. Think about the right things and in time your sum total will encompass those thoughts.
• Just thinking about your goal moves your toward it.
• Thirdly, before you can achieve the kind of life you want, you must think, act, talk, and conduct yourself as would the person you wish to become.

Task : Take 1 hour per day and use it to think

• Write your primary goal
• write down ways in which you can improve upon your work each day
• Most ideas will suck
• This isn’t easy

• Start your day with this thought : How can i increase my service today ?

• There are better ways to do what I’m presently doing; what are they?

• How will my work be performed 20 years from now? Everything in the world is in a state of evolution; how can I do now what will eventually be done anyway?

• What a mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

• We become what we think about

• Have a goal, work towards it, with attitude.

• Do not waste time, worrying about things that will never happen. 92% of problem will never happen

• Happiness/Rewards comes from in service to others.(We need each other, we cannot live without one another).

• Assess whether you are working not only hard but intelligently.

• Integrity means to try, as best we can, to know ourselves, to examine ourselves as Socrates advised, and to make a true assessment of ourselves – an inventory of our abilities, our talents, our goals

• Being truthful to ourselves mean, taking the responsibility of making the best use of what we have, what do we have ? We have our Under utilized minds, Our abilities, Our talents, Time. These are our possessions. This is really an immense amount of wealth that belongs to each of us. And it’s the investment of our wealth that will determine our rate of return.

• And if you have days in which you find yourself depressed or confused, remember this comment by Dean Briggs

  “Do your work. Not just your work and no more, but a little more for the lavishing’s sake – that little more which is worth all the rest. And if you suffer, as you must, and if you doubt, as you must, do your work. Put your heart into it, and the sky will clear. Then, out of your very doubt and suffering, will be born the supreme joy of life.”

• There is nothing in the world can stop a plan backed by persistence and determination.

• Treat yourself like a business

  • research, production, and sales. They are the head, hands, and legs of a company.
  • A company growing at the rate of 10 percent a year will double in size in about eight years. What attention are you giving to the production of your personal corporation? Can you grow and improve as a person at least 10 percent a year?
  • An ongoing education is vital, if we are to stay vital.
  • To research – to the study of your work, your career? Can this be improved?
  • What about production? How can you vastly improve the way in which you conduct your work?
  • And how can your sales be improved? Sales entails more than selling a product or service; it includes the way in which we sell ourselves to everyone with whom we come in contact. It includes the way we get along with our associates, our spouse, our kids, our neighbors.

• The amount of money we receive will always be in direct ratio to the demand for what we do, to our ability to do it, and to the difficulty of replacing us.

• Improve vocabulary, learn words and how to use them. Say them loudly and precisely.

• Start

  • Language and vocabulary building
  • General area of interest

• Work as though you would live forever; but live as though you would die tomorrow.

• The best way for you to develop the security that lasts a lifetime is to become outstanding at one particular line of work.

• When he was asked the formula for success, the great steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie, answered, Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch the basket.

• Do your best each day.

# Exercise questions from the book

THE MAGIC WORD

1. Evaluate your attitude toward yourself and others, toward success and your career, and toward life in general.
2. Outline ways in which your attitude toward your family could be improved.
3. Outline ways in which your attitude toward coworkers and others with whom you frequently come in contact could be improved.
4. List other attitude-improvement goals.

ACRES OF DIAMONDS

1. List opportunities that surround you now, in your current work. Brainstorm; write down whatever comes to mind.
2. How can you increase your knowledge of your current job, trade, industry or profession?
3. How can you improve your job performance now?

A WORTHY DESTINATION

1. Make out a want list — write down everything that you would like to see come about in your life.
2. After you have completed your want list, number the items in their order of importance.
3. Make item number one as your present primary goal; use the balance of the list for later reference.
4. Write down your current goal on this commitment card, print it out, and carry it with you in your wallet or purse. Format could be

MY COMMITMENT TO MYSELF
I, ____, hereby commit to pursuing my goal of

---

Date & Signature ____

5. How will the achievement of this goal improve your life?

MIRACLE OF YOUR MIND

1. List all your worries and concerns.
2. From this list, determine which worries are needless and which are legitimate.
3. Outline a strategy for solving your legitimate problems.
4. Starting this week, spend one hour each day exercising your mind. That is, write down ideas for improving your present and/or achieving your current goal. Strive for 20 ideas each day
5. Test the ideas that you believe have merit.

DESTINY IN THE BALANCE

1. Evaluate how effectively you are serving others now.
2. Note one major way in which you can increase your service today, knowing that your rewards in life must be in exact proportion to your service.
3. Assess whether you are working not only hard but also intelligently

SEED FOR ACHIEVEMENT

1. Do you always look for the truth, wherever it leads? Do you check things out for yourself, weigh what others tell you, and make your own judgements?
2. Write down a task that you consider difficult and/or unpleasant. Resolve to do it to the best of your ability, just for the joy of accomplishment.

IT’S EASIER TO WIN

1. Analyze the key people in your environment, those who have an important effect on you in your family, in your community, at work, and socially. Who possesses qualities you want to emulate?

HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH?

Analyze your worth as a one-person corporation in three of four critical areas of operation: research, production, and sales. Then write down ways in which you can improve in each of these areas.

1. How are you doing in research? (For example, are you holding a regular career study hour?)
2. Plans for improvement:
3. How is your production? (Are you spending an hour a day brainstorming? Are you putting the best of these ideas to work to increase your productivity? Are you more productive, more effective, on the job this year than you were last year? Art you growing and improving every year?)

LET’S TALK ABOUT MONEY

1.How much money do you want? How much do you need to live in the way you want to live? There are three amounts of money that you should decide upon: (1) the yearly income you want to earn now or in the near future, (2) the amount of money you want to have in a savings and/or investment account, and (3) the amount you want as retirement income

2. Who in your line of work is now earning that amount of money? (If you know, you’ll have a good idea of what you’ll have to do to earn it.)

3. Continue to make plans for increasing your service to others, for making yourself more valuable. The money will follow!

ONE THING YOU CAN’T HIDE

1. Rate your knowledge of the any language. Is it “excellent,” “fair” or “poor” ?
2. Set goals for improving your vocabulary and usage. (Include books to read, audio programs to listen to, courses to take, a number of new words to learn each week.) Make a list of them here.
3. Set goals for increasing your knowledge of your area of interest, for upgrading your job skills. (Include books and periodicals to read, audio programs to listen to, courses and seminars to attend.) List them here.

TODAY’S GREATEST ADVENTURE

1.Try the $25,000 idea in your life: Write the six most important things you have to do each day, then number them in their order of importance. Print out this sheet. Work on item number one until it is successfully completed. Then move on to number two, and so on. When you’ve finished with all six, repeat the process. 2. Make certain that the tasks you spend your time on are important ones — tasks that will move you ahead, steadily, toward your goal.

• List below any tasks that you might be able to delegate to others or even eliminate from your agenda — tasks that, over time, have become unnecessary or obsolete

3. How well do you deal with interruptions and distractions? If you are often sidetracked during your day – by nonurgent telephone calls, drop-in visitors, etc. — plan a strategy for handling those diversions.

# References

• Working the Djinn