Brian Tracy on the Future of Freedom

hello I'm Brian Tracy and I'm very happy to be recording this message for my friends at students of Liberty I have given more than 5,000 talks and seminars and workshops in 77 countries and I've spoken to more than 5 million people I've also written 77 books and recorded more than 1,000 hours of audio and video programs some of which you may have seen on YouTube well when I started my life I started coming from a poor family we didn't have any money my father was not always employed and our favorite song in the family was we can't afford it we can't afford it at the age of 10 I went out and began working in the neighborhood doing gardening jobs and washing windows and cleaning sidewalks to earn a little bit of money so I could buy my own clothes the only clothes my parents could afford were used clothes that they got from used clothes stores one of the worst things that happened to me was when I went to school someone recognized clothes that her parents had given away and that my parents had bought for me to wear to school so I didn't finish high school and I could only do laboring jobs my first job was washing dishes and then washing cars and then washing floors and from there I worked in factories and I worked in Sawmills I worked on farms and ranches I worked in construction and on a ship in the North Atlantic when I was 23 years old I was working as an itinerate Farm laborer during the Harvest and itinerate farm labor is someone who uh Works only during the Harvest and after the Harvest I was once more uneducated unskilled and unemployed and then I got into sales and I struggled in sales until I began asking the question why is it that some people are more successful than others especially why are some people more successful in sales than others and so I began to ask them and take notes and practice what they told me and then I began to read the books of other successful salespeople and then I began to attend their seminars and I kept taking notes and every time I learned something new I would run out and try it out immediately then I began to ask why are some businesses more successful than others why is that 20% of businesses earn 80% of the profits in every industry worldwide and I began to study business thousands of hours in my 30s I went back and got an MBA from a top university on how to succeed in business since then I've built managed developed more than $250 Million worth of businesses for myself and others but then I began to ask in my 20s why is it that some countries some societies are more successful than others and I began to study economics and you might be interested the first book I read was a book called Human Action by ludvik Von mises and I had never studied economics before and you may know that ludvic Von misus was the professor who taught Frederick Von hyek early in his career Von misus I think was the great genius and as I read Von misus I realized that all of Economics is just basically people acting in a particular way as individuals and groups and as Nations so I spent the next 4,000 hours reading every single book that ludick Von misus had ever written every book that Frederick Von hyek had written every book that William hazet had written I began to read economic books I lived economics for years I attended the Mont pin Society meetings I joined some of the biggest conservative organizations in the world I attended some of the top conferences had dinner with people like Milton fredman and George stiglet and Gary Becker all Nob Nobel prize winning economists so I immersed myself in the subject and then I began sitting down and I thought there must be a simpler way to explain how freedom and free enterprise and free market economics works and I began searching and searching thousands of hours and I finally discovered what I call the Unified field Theory Albert Einstein said all of his life that he was looking for one Theory or concept that explained all of the world of physics and gravity and Mathematics and he never discovered but I discovered a unified field theory that explains all of Economics history politics wealth poverty riches Rich Nations and poor Nations and I call it the E factor or the expedience factor and this goes right back to Von misus and it goes forward to another 5,000 hours of study that I did in Psychology is how is it that people think and act and get results and I put it all together and this expediency Theory says simply this is that people are neither good nor bad they are merely expedient and that people always seek the fastest and easiest way to get the things they want immediately with very little concern for long-term consequences and sometimes no concern at all you may or not may not know but Dr Edward Banfield of Harvard studied successful people for 50 years he found there was one quality of people that assured that they would increase their income and their social status over time and that was long time perspective in other words they gave a lot of thought to the consequences of what they were doing in the short short term to assure that they would achieve greater success in the long term in William uh and Henry hazlett's book called uh economics in one lesson he said the primary way of thinking of the top people is to think about what are the likely consequences that will happen he pointed out that in economics politicians say here's a wonderful plan or policy or regulation or tax that looks and sounds very good in the short term but the long-term consequences can be terrible and far worse than if the politicians had done nothing at all well I put this all together in a book called something for nothing which I wrote a few years ago many people have said this book something for nothing which is which says that this is the um allc consuming desire that turns the American dream into a Social Nightmare this book is now being read and published in all foreign languages because they recognize that the prin something for nothing principles apply everywhere to everyone at all times and they explain all the problems in World economics and in personal economics today the main problem is that people engage in activities today that have long-term consequences that are far worse than that than if they had never done anything at all this is explained as what we call the law of unintended consequences perfect example people say people who are poor and have no money and have no food and and so should be helped by the government and nobody disagrees with that I always like Ronald Reagan saying a handout rather than a hammock but nobody agrees with helping the less fortunate so we help the less fortunate and then people say well we should help the less fortunate even more and we should give them even more and each time they run for office it's like an auction each time a politician runs for office they ask for your vote by you're giving them your vote in exchange for them spending somebody else's money on something that you think is a good idea all modern democratic politics today is vote buying unfortunately on both sides of the aisle so therefore we say well let's give the unfortunate some money so we give the unfortunate some money and instead of it being a hand up it become hand up it becomes a hammock so they start to work less and less and we say well this is not good we must help these people so we give them more money and keep giving them more money and every election people say vote for me and I'll give more money to the less fortunate now where are you going to get this money well we'll punish those who are more successful and they have this idea some of them that success is something like rain it just Falls and sometimes it falls on some people and sometimes it falls on others so it's really very much a matter of luck and if you work 10 or 20 or 30 years 10 or 12 or 14 hours a day six or seven days a week and finally become a millionaire every self-made millionaire in America takes 22 years of hard non-stop work to become a millionaire starting from zero they say well if you become a millionaire you're just lucky and you're really not entitled to that money that money should be taken from you and given to those who are less fortunate well a lot of people buy this because most people have no idea about long-term consequences so what happens to the people who receive the money well they become dependent on the money and then if you give them more money and food stamps and all kinds of other welfare policies they become dependent and then their children become dependent and the children grow up and all they see is adults who don't work and who spend their time unfortunately engaging in let us say unhealthy behaviors and so they learn that the way the world works is that you just get money from the government and you don't work at all and then they raise their children so very soon we have three and four generations of people who don't work and their children don't work and the grandchildren don't work and nobody works it's the most amazing thing the primary reason for poverty today in America is people don't work is the most poor people don't work at all there's no workers in the family anyway so it seemed like a good idea to give people who are less fortunate more money but the long-term consequences were to destroy those people destroy their pride destroy their dignity destroy their children turn many of their children into criminals and do addicts and so on so it seemed like a good idea the long-term consequences of it were a disaster and this happens in every part of life a person eats a little dessert and it tastes good and they eat more dessert and it tastes good and they eat a whole dessert and then they eat two or three desserts and pretty soon they're grossly overweight and 60% of Americans Now American adults are overweight 30% are morbidly obese what does that mean it means that they are so overweight that they are close to serious physical illnesses including heart attacks diabetes and so on so it seemed like a good idea at the beginning uh turns out to be not a very good idea at the end so I began to think what are the characteristics of human nature people say well that's just human nature you can't deny human nature so going back to the work of Von misus and Von hyek and others I concluded that there are seven qualities of human nature that explain economics and all behavior and remember the expediency factor is that people always always choose the fastest and easiest way to get the things they want as soon as possible with little or no concern for the long-term consequences this e factor is the most destructive of all factors both in individual life and in the life of societies so we say that human beings have seven common qualities number one is that human beings people are lazy now lazy is not either a good word or a bad word it's just a fact people are lazy some people are so lazy that they won't do anything to help themselves but what lazy means in our economics is lazy means that people always seek the fastest and easiest way to get the things they want nobody can based on human mentality nobody can take a harder way if there's an easier way that's available so human beings always seek easier ways to do things because people are lazy now because people are lazy this this is the main reason for all of the advances in human science and invention and physics over the years is that inventors are always looking for ways to help people get the things they want easier than ever before and people are willing to pay for that whether it's an iPhone that enables you to communicate with the world whether it's a television that enables you to look up 350 channels whether it's a car or modern appliances everybody wants to do things easier so there's nothing wrong with it it's neither good nor bad it's only bad if it undermines your long-term health and happiness the second quality that people have in common is that they are greedy now religions and people in different political parties try to say that if someone is greedy that is bad the fact is that greedy is neither good nor bad it's just a fact and what does this mean it means that people prefer more to to less if I offer you $5 an hour or $10 an hour you will choose $10 an hour does that mean that you're greedy no it means that you are a normal natural human being with a natural human mentality that always prefers more to less sometimes in my seminars I talk about selling I say the favorite word in the English language or in all languages is the word more everybody wants more of certain things usually more good things so it's neither good or bad except how it is manifested so now we know from the beginning that everybody's lazy and greedy all right the only question is how do they go from point A to point B and I'll explain this I call it the ABC Theory a is the way people are B is the different ways that they can achieve their goals and C is the goals that are important to all people now the third quality is normal and natural is that people are uh are are are selfish human beings are selfish in that they think about themselves most of the time so they're lazy inred and they think about themselves and what is best for themselves I just listened to an interview on the way down here and it said that anybody who thinks that people are not self-seeking selfish is simply living in a fantasy land so it's not whether it's good or bad it's only how you express your selfishness if your selfishness is that you want to earn a lot of money and the key way to do it is to serve a lot of other people with what they want and earn a profit so you can live in a big house then selfishness is a very good thing the fourth quality is that people are ambitious what does that mean is that people want to improve their condition every Human Action according to Von mises is an attempt to improve your position or your condition in some way a human being will not act unless they believe that after acting they will be better off than they were before other than that it simply become passive great example with the welfare system today if you take a job then for everything you earn from your new job it's deducted from your free money that you're getting from the government so why would a person take a job that's that's doesn't improve my condition now I've got to get up and go to work 40 hours a week and I'm no further ahead than if I sat at home and watch television so you can't if you say well you must get up and take no you're asking a person to act contrary to human nature now the fifth quality is that human beings are vain in other words people think very highly of themselves normal and natural they think highly of themselves they think that they're smarter 75% of people think they're smarter than the average 75% of people think that they have better leadership qualities than the average 75 to 80% of people think they're more attractive than the average everyone is vain and vanity is a good thing it's the foundation of all fashion and all taste and all cut cosmetics and perfume it's the F it's furniture and beautiful homes and cars and offices in other words a wanting of Beauty for yourself is very good there's nothing wrong with it except If You're So Vain that you think you're absolutely right and everybody who disagrees with you is absolutely wrong and must be punished well then your vanity is not serving you or others the sixth quality that all human beings have is they are impatient they want things fast they want things now they want things in a hurry if you offer somebody a choice to get something quickly or to get it slowly they always want it fast if you offer people money today or money tomorrow they want it today and this is a fundamental factor in all of Economics all interest rates by the way are originally designed to encourage people to hold off immediate consumption so that they can have higher amount of money to consume a year from now because of interest and finally number seven is everybody's ignorant is everybody nobody knows everything there is to know about anything and so therefore every human decision that you make is based with an enormous amount of ignorance you know very little about your own health structure of your own body the economics or dynamics of your own industry the way things work in politics how other people think and feel and the worst thing you can do is to think how smart you are Albert Einstein was once asked if he had 1 hour to solve a problem that was going to destroy the world how would he spend his time and he said I would spend the first 59 minutes understanding the problem and the last one minute solving the problem so people are lazy greedy vain amb selfish uh ambitious uh impatient uh V and ignorant and so what is it that they all want with these seven qualities so what is it everybody wants well this is the other side of Economics everybody wants the same seven things worldwide throughout all of history number one based on Mow is they want safety everybody wants to be safe they want to be safe from harm especially safe from dying there's nothing that makes a person more nervous or more afraid than the possibility that they will not be safe the second thing they want is survival is people want enough food and water and clothing and other things to survive alive to not be hungry to not be destitute the third thing that people want is security and security once a society like ours has provided for safety and uh survival needs so that most people are safe and most people don't have to worry about surviving the next thing people want is security and all the drive towards savings and life insurance and investment and finance and and and retirement plans is all aimed at achieving security so there's nothing wrong with it wanting to achieve these things now the fourth thing we want once we have satisfied our our needs for safety survival and security is Le is Leisure is we want to take it easy we want to put our feet up we want to relax and of course the Leisure industry is enormous trillions of dollars every cruise ship and Hotel and Resort and every game and Sport and online uh video gaming and television and entertainment is all to satisfy human beings great desire for leisure once they feel secure now the next thing we look for is love once we have the first five covered safety survival security uh and Leisure then we want love we want the love of others in general but especially we want the love of one important person in fact if you are not in a loving relationship if someone does not love you that you love then you always feel the tremendous ache need and emptiness so we you were we born to be loving human beings to love others but you can't love others if you're hungry and you can't love others if you're fatigued and you can't love others if you're insecure or afraid so the next thing that naturally happens is once our basic needs are taken care of and we can relax first thing we think of when we have Leisure is to go out with other people to meet other people of the opposite sex to have fun to enjoy our social relationships well the next thing we need is respect and respect is very important as a matter of fact lack of respect is a major reason for anger frustration uh Wars uh gang fights uh uh individual attacks in fact many of the Great problem peoples of the world are screaming for the respect of other people the only way that people are respected today is if they do something that is worthy of respect like in the mafia they call a very high level person a person who is worthy of respect in our society the people who make the greatest contributions and contribute the most value toward the well-being of others are usually the most respected people unfortunately because of the expediency factor and enormous number of people demand respect without ever doing anything to deserve it without Ever Lifting a finger or or making an effort and this is a big problem today now if you don't get the respect that you want because you have haven't deserved it you almost automatically click into negative emotions and the two worst negative emotions in our economy are envy and resentment you'll find that almost all of the laws and regulations that are imposed to punish successful people are based on envy and resentment recently you've heard Bernie Sanders with his national campaign attracting thousands of young people saying tax the rich tax the rich tax the rich free free free for everything free for everything and will take the money away from those who are earning it and people who don't have any money most young people don't think that's a good idea I like that idea if it's possible to do it which of course it is not if you taxed away all of the money of the all the richest people in America and you divided it all up there'd be enough to run the country for about five weeks and after That's Country like North Korea would simply collapse into impoverishment for years the only place where you can raise money in our society is you've got to tax people who are working for the money and that means the middle class and eventually you have to tax everybody so the final thing that people want is fulfillment and this goes back to Abraham maso's desire for self-actualization this is what drives people to paint pictures and sing songs and and write books and and and create works of art is human beings want to fulfill their complete potential and you'll only be truly happy when you have covered everything else and you have enough time and you have enough money and intelligence and ability so that you can do what you love to do and fulfill your full potential so this is what I began studying I wrote it in my book something for nothing the fastest way to get all of the things that you want is something for nothing the lowest price is free so the most popular word in any language aside from more is the word free it's used in thousands of advertisements every day because every human being is geared to want to get as much as possible for the lowest price possible and the lowest price is free so what is the difference between one society and another well we assume as the founders of America did that this is the way people are human nature we don't try to change them people people are lazy greedy selfish ambitious ignorant Vain and impatient and they all seek safety security uh safety security uh survival Leisure love respect and fulfillment now how do you get those things the fastest and easiest way to get all the things that you want in life being the person you are is with money and power so the question is how do you get money and power everybody knows know that money and power is the high road the fast trck to getting all the things you want including fulfillment and love and respect so how do you evaluate a society I call this the ABC method a is the way people are C is the way people uh what people want and then B is how you get from here to there when America was set up it was designed so that PE person could come here and start with nothing and by working hard upgrading their skills telling the truth saving their money building a reputation for honesty and integrity they could create a wonderful life for themselves as Anne ran said when I read her when I was 21 which I'm ha say it's 52 years 51 years ago she said America was the first country in the world where the words make money were invented up until that time all of money was looted with war after war after War right up until World War II even the Korean War it's all those wars were driven by the desire for plunder and loot and free land and free homes and free gold and free artwork the United States created a society that was governed by law where a person who lived within the law and worked hard and told the truth could actually become successful and so the United States created more millionaires than all the rest of the world put together and more billionaires than all the rest of the world put together because there are so many opportunities for people in the free market free enterprise system to go out and find ways to succeed so in a society where the way you achieve all the things you want by serving other people is a society that's free and that's growing and prosperous and happy and the most successful people are the people who serve the greatest number of people in the very highest and best way and the wonderful thing about our Society is that anyone can enter into our economic system at any time with an idea to serve other people with something that they want and need and are willing to pay for and they can become a big success as well you know look at some of the richest people in America Bill Gates why is Bill Gates so successful it's because he developed software Microsoft operating system and opened it up to all the developers in the world so that more people could use more computers easier and faster at a lower price than ever before dreamed of and his SLE mission was a computer on every desktop and today we have computers in our iPhones we have computers in our iPads we have computers everywhere and we can communicate with the entire world so Bill Gates is the richest man in the world and nobody resents Bill Gates success they think isn't that great and they look at Mark Zuckerberg Mark Zucker you know 30 years old and multi- multi multi-billionaire by the age he was age of 20 25 nobody resents his succcess because he created a social media tool that everybody in the world can use to communicate with their friends and family so there's a direct onetoone relationship between the value of your service and your rewards if you want to increase your rewards in life increase the value of your service now I found over time that the way to increase the value of your service is to upgrade your skills one of the things that I teach in my seminars I ask this question what is your most Val valuable financial asset and the answer is your earning ability it's your ability to earn money it's your ability to get results that people will pay you for and so what determines your financial success in life is your ability to get results and so what you find going back to the 8020 rule is the bottom 80% of people will learn their job in the first year according to DEC 25 years of research and then they level off and they never get any better and 10 years after they started their job they're no more productive than they were after one year so as a result their income can only go up at the rate of inflation and inflation is you know one or two or 3% as long as you remain employed the people in the top 20% according to Gary Becker the Nobel prizewinning Economist who I mentioned earlier Gary said that the top 20% PE of people increase their income by 11.8% per year on average now some increase their income 15 or 20 or 25% but 11.8% on average means that if you're 20 years old and you just keep learning and upgrading your skills which is what he said they did then by the time you're 26 six years you'll be earning twice as much as the average person and or twice as much as the people you started off with by the age of 32 you'll be earning four times as much by the age of 38 you'll be earning eight times as much by the age of 44 you'll be earning 16 times as much you be in the top 20% just just simply by learning and upgrading your skills one or two hours each day five or six days a week rather than watching television or playing with social media upgrading your earning ability now people who don't want to upgrade their earning ability who want to have fun fun fun who want to play all the time lazy greedy ignorant and so on uh these people resent those who work hard to upgrade their skills who come in early and work a little harder and stay a little later and spend time in the evenings and weekends upgrading their skills and learning how to get better results they don't want to do that work but they resent the people who do and this explains our political situation just like if there is a need in the marketplace a company will usually emerge to fulfill that need if there is a need or a demand in the political Marketplace politicians will emerge and say vote for me and I'll give you free money and that's basically the cause of all of our problems in the United States stes Canada Europe give you an example for about two decades now all the Western countries have been bankrupt they've been bankrupt on paper because of Social Security they offered back in the 30s and 40s and 50s to allow people to retire comfortably if they just PID a little bit in each year so people did but then the politicians instead of investing that money so that it would grow and be ready the politicians said well I use this money to buy free boats so what they did is they blew it all in every country so now the Social Security Reserve fund or trust fund has zero doar it has no money at all so if you just took a look at how much Americans owe on paper based on government promises which they did not charge you for or if they did they spent the money the lat latest estimate was $17 trillion Business Week a couple of years ago calculated that unfunded liability of federal and state governments is about $220 trillion if we have an average economy of 18 trillion that means that we can never pay it off and why it's because of something for nothing politicians realize that by the time the money comes to they'll be long gone and they have beautiful retirement programs completely aside from Social Security so no matter what happens to the economy they have beautiful retirement programs beautiful medical plans beautiful security forever all you have to do is serve two terms and you never have to worry about money again so this brings it around to the free Society the free Society is based on creating a structure where the only way that people can achieve the things that they want being who they are is by doing things that serve and and improve and enhance the lives of other people business people are only successful to the degree to which they serve people and they serve people with products and services that they want and need to improve the quality quity of their lives and a free Society is a society where there's lots of people offering the same uh Pleasures or benefits so a free person can choose as therefore the only way a business person can survive is if somehow their product or service is superior to that of anything else that's offered now I read a wonderful line by Henry hazet many years ago he said those who will not serve people choose rather to uh rule over them those who will not serve people work in the private sector choose rather to go into government where they never have to work or serve anybody else for the rest of their lives and the great problem that we have with the fact that the average income is not increasing for 10 or 20 or 30 years or whatever they say when they're running for office is very simple at one time 90% of the American population was working and only 10% was handling all the government and administration and all the teaching and what we might call the nonproductive sector how they resent these words but basically if you took all the government servants in America or any country and you took them 50 miles offshore and dumped them off an ocean liner the society would continue to function pretty well because most of what they do is not important but what has happened now is we've gone from 10% of people basically managing and administrating which is not bad 10% in the Bible it says render under Caesar what is Caesar's which was 10% and they reckon that the Roman Empire could run on 10% of tax revenue today what we have is we have 50% of people or more who are now living off the other 50% and no matter how much the other 50% produce they can never produce enough for our overall income to go up because each time they do they pass more taxes we have some of the highest tax rates in the world my tax rates in California are 63% believe it or not and you know what they say in Sacramento where I live is we've got to raise taxes on people who are earning money that taxes have got to be higher so what is happening everybody with half a brain except me is moving out of California to Florida where there's no income tax or Texas where there's no income tax or Nevada where there's no income tax and surprise surprise those economies are booming because people always seek the fastest and easiest way to get the things they want as quickly as possible with little concern for long-term consequences anyway so that's my little diet tribe on economics your job as a student is first of all to understand the primary reason for left-wing politics is to get something for nothing the primary reason that people run for office today is to offer something for nothing in exchange for votes now when they get to office if they get into office they all arrive in Washington or London and they say well what did you promise to get here well here's my laundry list how about well here's my list well good grief how are we going to give all this free stuff to all these people well we're going to have to negotiate we're going to have to log rolling is what it's called we're going to have to go back and you vote for my bill then I'll vote for your bill and we'll give a little bit from your bill a little bit from your bill so all of Washington is elites who are negotiating over paying the people who voted for them just enough so they'll vote for them again next time now that sounds cynical but if you can find a better explanation you know then by all means find it this is why we have a brexit the British people finally said no we're not going to live under the governance of thousands of faceless bureaucrats in Brussels who control 70% of British life and in the United States we're having this let's say turmoil in our political system because the average person has realized that he's been taken for a ride he's a sucker these people in Washington they're an elite that live like kings that live like the royalty of old that have no need to satisfy anybody just to stay in office so anyway your job my job and I spent thousands of hours at it is to understand how our free market works and then to support people who believe in our ideas who believe in the importance of freedom and free enterprise and limited government who believe in personal responsibility and working hard in telling the truth who believe in honesty and integrity and continual self-improvement so look for people who believe in those things and there are people there and the more you support those people as they say in the Bible give me 10 men who are stout-hearted men and'll give you 10,000 more if you support these people who believe in our principles who believe in Liberty and freedom and Justice if you believe and support those people then more and more of those people will stand up and say if you elect me I'll fight for you thank you very much for being with me today and I wish you a wonderful meeting

Channel: Students For Liberty

Views: 158,484

Keywords: Brian Tracy, liberty, libertarian, politics, welfare state, self determination, professional development, personal development, self help

Id: 9z8mZHibyVU

Length: 38min 27sec (2307 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 13 2016