The Twelve Pillars By Jim Rohn and Chris Widener

Tell me something, do you feel stuck in your life? Is life handing you sour lemons instead of the sweet nectar you had been dreaming of since your youth?

This is exactly how Michael Jones felt a few moments before he met the man who would change his life forever.

Michael, the lead character in this novel, was an average 40 year old salesman living an average life.  Naturally, he was unhappy with his share in life.  Friends, family, job… everything seemed like it was going downhill until…

After Michael’s crappy car runs out of gas in the middle of nowhere on his way to a sales call, he meets Charlie, an old man who is the caretaker of a humongous estate, The Twelve Pillars Estate.  This house belonged to a certain Mr Davis who apparently was very wealthy and successful.  Charlie shares with Michael the incredible secrets that made Mr. Davis the super-successful person he had become.

Mr. Davis’ home, The Twelve Pillars, represents his philosophy of success building.   Each pillar represents a different area of success that is important for a happy life.

Here are some of the critical elements

discussed by Michael and Charlie:

Charlie teaches Michael that working harder on yourself than you do on your job is the first pillar of success.  In short, success begins with personal development.  You don’t have to put in 80-hour weeks doing the same things you’ve been doing for the past ten years.  What you need is to develop your skills and become better.  Start by reading books to increase your knowledge, attend seminars and conferences, associate with top achievers in your industry.  Learn how they became great, and model your behavior accordingly.

In this chapter we learn about three-dimensional health.  Total well-being is made up of three parts, as the authors put it: “The Body, The Soul and The Spirit.” We need to nourish all of them equally if we are to obtain any measure of happiness.  Jim Rohn says “Take care of your body, it is the only place you have to live.”

 “Time, effort and imagination must be summoned constantly to keep any relationship flourishing and growing” is the chapter quote on page 35.  It sums up, beautifully, the crux of what Michael learns about relationships.

Both personal and professional relationships need to be tended to in order to keep them healthy and alive.  The truth is that you cannot succeed by yourself.  In this book we learn how to properly nurture the meaningful relationships in our lives.

Goals are the things that make life worthwhile.  Your life becomes dull and meaningless when you have nothing to hope for – nothing to work towards – nothing to jump out of bed and work your ass off to accomplish.  You will learn all about effective goal setting, starting from your bucket-list and narrowing it down to achieve focus and coherence. You will learn how to tell if you have chosen the right goals, why and how to choose goals that will inspired and motivate you.  You will learn how to get unstuck in your career, and how to live your best life.

One of my favourite quotes from Jim Rohn is this, “We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret”.  Michael learns that discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.  We all know that time is a finite resource. “Days are expensive,” Charlie warns Michael, “when you spend a day you have one less to spend, so make sure you spend each one wisely.”  Charlie teaches us how to properly invest our time and not squander it like the many unsuccessful people who spend their time on the urgent but unimportant things in life.

There are many more wonderful tools and strategies contained in this book about becoming successful and living your best life.  Among them are tips about how and why you should surround yourself with only the best people.  Consider your friends and associates, analyze the impact each one of them is having on you.  Are they helping you up or pulling you down?  Every relationship, we learn, is an association.  Each association has either a positive, neutral or negative effect on you. 

Categorize all your relationships into these three groups. 

Based on your findings about each person, you must limit, expand or terminate the association.  This is not easy to do, but it comes back to the same old question: How bad do you want to succeed?

In my opinion, this is a wonderful book to start your journey to prosperity and happiness.  It is a very short read, 126 pages in total.  The book deals with success from a wide spectrum, not just wealth and money.

The Twelve Pillars is power-packed.  Best of all, it is written in simple language, making it easy to read and understand.  Plus the novel format keeps you entertained.  It helps you to identify with the characters in the book.  You are able to put yourself in their shoes and to experience the emotions they are going through. Grab yourself a copy. You won’t regret it.