Everyone wants to ‘make it happen’, do they not? In this segment of an interview between Dale Beaumont and the great Billy Graham find out his top five tips to ‘make it happen’ in your own life.
A former New Zealand and Australian light welterweight boxing champion, Billy has achieved international success through goal setting and determination and has turned common sense into an art form.
What are your top five tips for people to ‘make it happen’?
- Go to bed early. This is a must if you want to get your head into gear the next day.
- Have a really good breakfast because your brain needs protein. Sleep and food are really important, so develop good habits that involve these two things!
- Write down your goals or at least have a clear understanding in your mind about what you are going to do and how you are going to do it. I don’t actually write things down on paper because I got into a habit as a youngster of not writing. However, as a kid I was always going over boxing moves in my head – ducking, weaving, slipping and sliding, and I would often say to myself, ‘I’ll do more press ups than anyone else, I’ll run faster than anyone else, I’ll do all the things that other people won’t do’, because that’s how you get the winning edge. To gain the winning edge you need to be prepared to do what others won’t do. This is really important.
- Become friends with people that can help you. I often ring up people that I know who are in a field that I want to know about and become their friends. I’ll invite people around to my house, I’ll go to their house, and I’ll keep in contact with them. I find out their birthday and send them a card – ‘How’re you going, thinking of you, Billy the Kid’. That’s how I got my book written. I found out that the number one sports writer in New Zealand was Phil Gifford. I thought he probably didn’t know me from a bar of soap but I found his number in the phone book and rang him up. Now we’ve become the best of mates. People say you can’t use your friends, well I say you can’t use your enemies. There’s nothing I wouldn’t lend to someone because there’s nothing I wouldn’t borrow off someone.
- Don’t borrow to get ahead. Work harder than anyone else, save your money, go without if you have to, and earn it so that it’s your money. If you have to borrow to get ahead you’re really behind. I’m not saying you can’t borrow $5,000 off this brother and $5,000 off your father, but generally I say find your dream, have your goal, start saving toward it, and go without to get what you want. Then when you’ve conquered that goal, move on towards your second goal and conquer that one too.
For more of this interview and top tips to make it happen check out “Secrets of Great Public Speakers Exposed!“
