The Ten Times Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure

17. Embrace Change
Successful people love change, whereas the unsuccessful do everything they can
to keep things from changing. But how can you create success when you are
trying to keep things from becoming any different? It is impossible. Although
you never want to alter the things that are working, you should always look for
ways to improve what you are doing. The successful keep an eye out for what is
coming next. They seek out potential, upcoming market transformations and
embrace them instead of rejecting them. The successful look at how the world is

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shifting and apply this to how they might improve their operations and grow
their advantage. They never subsist on yesterday's successes. They know that
they must continue to adapt or they won't remain victorious. Change is not
something to resist; it's something that should keep you excited. Apple's Steve
Jobs is a great example of this. He changes his products before a competitor can
catch up or his consumers can get bored with them. The willingness to accept
change is a great quality of the successful.
18. Determine and Take the Right Approach
The successful know that they can quantify what works and what doesn't work,
whereas the unsuccessful focus solely on “hard work.” The right approach may
be to institute a public relations program that softens the market, provide
consumers with the right tool, or compel management to make the most
powerful connections, find the best first investors, or hire the highest-quality
staff. Whatever the method may be, the successful don't think in terms of hard
work (even though they 
are
, of course, willing to work hard). Instead, they
figure out how to work “smart” and handle the situation by finding and using the
right approach until they succeed. The unsuccessful always find work to be
difficult because they never take enough time to improve their approach and
make it easier on themselves. The first three years of my life as a salesperson
was hard work and gave me sporadic results at best. Then I committed two years
and thousands of dollars to improving my approach—and selling was no longer
“work”!
Successful people invest time, energy, and money in improving themselves. As
a result, they don't focus on how hard the work is but rather on how rewarding
the results are! When you are winning because you have perfected your
approach, it won't feel like work; it will feel like success. And nothing tastes as
good as the victory of success.