Key Words to Remember: Weigh, Count and Measure

As a leader knowing how you measure your team’s activities is critical to your long term success. It’s just as important to take time to measure your own activities to see if you’re working on the right things or just working. One of the first things I do with my executive coaching clients is have them draw up a list of goals they want to achieve while working with me. I work with them to determine how to measure progress and how much time it should take to reach those goals. We then agree to the performance metrics and work together to see how they are doing toward achieving their goals.

This accountability allows for accelerated growth and sustained success for clients. I learned this from Jim Rohn. You can’t just write your goals, you have to build some measure of accountability into the process. The following article by Jim Rohn explains why you need to measure your progress.

Key Words to Remember: Weigh, Count and Measure by Jim Rohn

Three key words to remember: weigh, count and measure. Now why weigh, count and measure? To see what your results are from your activity, your attitude and your philosophy. If you find that the results are not to your liking there are only three places to look. Your philosophy needs to be fine-tuned; your attitude needs to be strengthened or your disciplines need extra skill. But that’s it. Activity, attitude and philosophy create results.

Now, on results I teach that life expects you to make measurable progress in reasonable time. But, you must be reasonable with time. You can’t say to someone every five minutes, how are you doing now? That’s too soon to ask for a count. Guy says, “I haven’t left the building yet, give me a break!” Now you can’t wait five years – that’s too long. Too many things can go wrong waiting too long for a count to see how you’re doing.

Here are some good time frames:

Number one – at the end of the day. You can’t let more than a day go by without looking at some things and making progress. New Testament says – if you are angry, try to solve it before the sun goes down. Don’t carry anger for another day. It may be too heavy to carry. If you try to carry it for a week, it may drop you to your knees. So some things you must get done in a day.

Here’s the next one – a week. We ask for an accounting of the week so we can issue the pay. And whatever you’ve got coming that’s what you get; when the week is over. Now in business there are two things to check in the course of the week. Your activity count and your productivity count. Because activity leads to productivity we need to count both to see how we’re doing.

My mentor taught me that success is a numbers game and very early he started asking me my numbers. He asked, “How many books have you read in the last ninety days?” I said, “Zero”; he said, “Not a good number.” He said, “How many classes have you attended in the last six months to improve your skills?” And I said, “Zero.” He said, “Not a good number.” Then he said, “In the last six years that you’ve been working, how much money have you saved and invested?” I said, “Zero” and he said, “Not a good number.” Then here’s what he said, “Mr. Rohn, if these numbers don’t change your life won’t change. But” he said, “If you’ll start improving these numbers then perhaps you’ll start to see everything change for you.”

Success and results are a numbers game. John joins this little sales company. He’s supposed to make 10 calls the first week just to get acquainted with the territory. So on Friday we call him in and say what? “How many calls?” He says, “Well.” You say, “John, ‘well’ won’t fit in the little box here. I need a number.” Now he starts with a story. And you say, “John, the reason I made this little box so small is so a story won’t fit. All I need is a number because if you give us the number we’re so brilliant around here we could guess the story.” It’s the numbers that count. Making measurable progress in reasonable time.

Here’s the best accounting. The accounting you make of yourself. Don’t wait for the government to do it, don’t wait for the company to do it. But you’ve got to add up some of your own numbers and ask, “Am I making the progress I want and will it take me where I want to go now and in the future?” You be the judge!

To Your Success,
Jim Rohn

This article is by Jim Rohn. Well over 20 years ago, Jim Rohn revealed some of the most potent success principles known to man in a 2 day leadership weekend seminar. This presentation was recorded on video tapes, but in the late 1980’s they disappeared. They have now been recovered and contain some of the most powerful success principles ever shared. In those tapes, Jim Rohn shared the secrets that helped him achieve millionaire status by the age of 30. To view some sample clips from this amazing event and also learn more about this lost footage go to: http://classic.jimrohn.com

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