Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy (born in
Canada in 1944) is a
self-help author who has recorded many of his works as
audio books. His talks and seminar topics include leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness, and business strategy.
He dropped out of school before graduating and spent several years as a laborer. He then got a job on a tramp steamer and traveled around the world for eight years, eventually visiting more than eighty countries on five continents.
When he could no longer find laboring jobs, he went into sales and struggled at first. So he began asking salesmen who were successful what they did and emulated them. After one year he was a top salesman. After another year he was made a Vice President in charge of 95 people. At the time he was only 25 years old.
[1]
When he was 30 he attended the
University of Alberta, eventually earning a master's degree in business;[
citation needed] he is now the Chairman of Brian Tracy International, a human resource company based in
Solana Beach, California, with affiliates throughout the United States and in thirty-one other countries.
In 1981 Tracy assembled his "success system" called The Phoenix Seminar. Three years later he released the seminar as a self-help audio tape called "The Psychology of Achievement".
Tracy's book
Maximum Achievement was included as one of 50 success, motivation and leadership classics in the book
50 Success Classics[2] (2004) by
Tom Butler-Bowdon.
Tracy is a member of the board of trustees for the
Heritage Foundation, an influential
Washington, D.C.-based public policy research institute.
[3]
Much of Tracy's self-help material is based on the works of other "success" gurus such as
Earl Nightingale,
Jim Rohn and
Denis Waitley. He has recently launched Brian Tracy University, an online syllabus designed to focus primarily on entrepreneurs, business owners and sales professionals.
The Brian Tracy College of Business and Entrepreneurship at
Andrew Jackson University (a
distance learning school based in
Hoover, Alabama), is named after him and based on his teachings.