# No Excuses! by Brian Tracy: 3 Ideas That Changed How I Lead

> Source: [https://icharles.com/articles/no-excuses-by-brian-tracy-3-ideas-that-changed-how-i-lead](https://icharles.com/articles/no-excuses-by-brian-tracy-3-ideas-that-changed-how-i-lead) (canonical)
> Author: Chuck — iCharles, https://icharles.com
> Published: 2015-09-22 · Updated: 2026-07-07

## Why I picked this one up

Brian Tracy doesn't have a flop in the bunch. Time management, marketing, sales, leadership — the guy has written something like 60 books and he actually does what he preaches, which is rarer than it sounds in this space. I'd already gone through *Eat That Frog*, so when I saw *No Excuses!* I knew what I was getting into.

The cover is the best I've ever seen on a business book. No subtitle, no gimmick. Page one says exactly two words: **no excuses.** That's it. I was reading this on the subway in New York, and I watched person after person look up, read the cover, then look back down at their phone. That reaction told me everything about why this book needed to exist. Everyone's got an excuse running — the weather, the economy, their kids, their hair. I don't care who you are, you've got one loaded and ready.

## The idea that hit hardest: an excuse is just a story

Going in, I already hate excuses. But I'm not exempt — I probably run more excuses than most people I know. The difference, and this is the thing Tracy nails, is that I catch myself doing it.

Here's the real example: fear of rejection. I tell myself I don't want to make that call, or I don't want to approach someone, because of some reason I've built in my head. And I believe it in the moment. That's the trap. Most people never get to the part where they call it out — they just accept the story and let it decide what they do that day. "I'm too tired." "She's probably married." "They're not going to pick up anyway." None of that is true. It's a story you told yourself so you didn't have to feel the discomfort of trying.

## Leadership is vision plus courage — and courage does most of the work

I run my own real estate company here in New York City, so the leadership chapters are where I slowed down. Tracy's point, and I agree with it completely, is that you have to become the person you want in your colleagues, your employees, your clients. Not manage them into it — model it.

I'd put a number on it: leadership is maybe 40% vision and 60% courage. The vision means nothing if you don't have the courage to push it forward, to feel the fear and do it anyway, as Susan Jeffers puts it. I actually had a real-time version of this with a colleague recently — he told me he's "just not good on camera." I told him that's his story, not a fact. Nobody's born comfortable in front of a lens. It's a learned skill, same as Tracy says leadership itself is learned, not innate. I'd already believed that about leadership. Hearing it laid out chapter by chapter made me actually apply it instead of just nodding along.

## Who should read it

Every chapter in this book is titled "Self-Discipline and ___" — success, character, responsibility, and on through what feels like twenty-plus areas. It's not a long read, pushing 300 pages, and you can skim the chapters that don't apply to where you're at.

If you've read a hundred self-development books and actually applied what's in them — not just consumed them — this is a solid review. I'd give it four out of five for that reader. If you're newer to this and you're still running on excuses, it's a five out of five. There's real gold in here on character, integrity, and courage that a beginner won't have heard packaged this directly anywhere else.

Pick it up if you need someone to hand you the mirror. That's really all this book is.