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We are very honored to have an article in the August/September issue (pages 34-35). This new issue (as all issues do) includes a FREE DualDisc™ (CD & DVD in one) featuring personal development icons John Maxwell, Jack Canfield, Charlie “Tremendous” Jones, Napoleon Hill, Terri Sjodin and Les Brown.

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- Vic Johnson

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Setting Means Getting – By Tom Hopkins

The average human being has the ability to achieve almost anything. Lack of basic capability is rarely the problem, but rather finding out what you want and being willing to sacrifice, change, and grow to satisfy the want. In the sales training seminars I conduct throughout the country, I teach a 20-step system of goal setting to help people achieve and I firmly believe it can be applied to all walks of life. Here it is:

1. If it’s not in writing, it’s not a goal. An unwritten want is a wish, a dream, a never-happen. If it’s in writing, it’s a commitment.

2. If it’s not specific, it’s not a goal. Broad desires and lofty aims have no effect. It must be concrete.

3. Goals must be believable. If you don’t believe you can achieve a goal, you won’t pay the price for it.

4. An effective goal is an exciting challenge. It must demand your best and a bit more or it isn’t going to change your ways and elevate your lifestyle.

5. Goals must be adjusted to new information. Adjust them down if they become unbelievable or up if they’re too easy.

6. Dynamic goals guide our choices. If you want it badly enough, you’ll turn off the TV and get to it. Goals will show you the right way to go on most decisions.

7. Don’t set short-term goals for more than 90 days. If you set a short-term goal that takes more than 90 days, you may lose interest.

8. Maintain a balance between long-term and short-term goals. Long-term goals tend to be hidden in a fog of the future, so have some short-term goals – like clothes, cars, vacations— to keep your excitement up.

9. Include your loved ones in your goals. Involve them and they’ll buck you up when you need encouragement.

10. Set goals in all areas of your life. Have other goals besides career objectives.

11. Your goals must harmonize. Whenever you detect a conflict, set priorities that will eliminate the conflict.

12. Review your goals regularly. Remember, long-term goals can only be achieved if they are the culmination of short-term goals.

13. Set vivid goals. Define not only what you want but by when you want it, and concentrate on it for a few moments every day.

14. Don’t chisel your goals in granite. Sometimes you have to change goals to conform to your growing awareness of what’s really important in your life.

15. Reach out into the future. The idea of goal-setting is to plan your life rather than taking it as it comes. Begin by setting 20-year goals. Then 10-year, five-year, 30-month, 12-month, monthly, weekly, and finally goals for tomorrow and each day for the coming week.

16. Have a set of goals for every day, and review results each night.

17. Train yourself to crave your goals. Visualize yourself possessing what you’ve set your goals for.

18. Set activity goals, not production goals. Activity will lead to production by itself.

19. Understand luck, and make it work for you. Expect good things to happen, and they probably will.

20. Star now. Give goal-setting two hours of concentrated through today. Then set aside 10 minutes a day for the next 21 days to review and revise. After that, two minutes a day and one hour a week is all it will take to keep you on track.

Try this system if you want to achieve your goals and within 21 days you’ll be well on your way to an immensely greater and richer future.

Go to www.TomHopkins.com for a great Tip of the Day…

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And some of the best help you’ll ever get will be available in Chicago on 5/2-5/3 at Donna Krech’s Life Success Event. Start with Dr. Denis Waitley (who has helped me reach many a goal) and Loral Langemeier (The Millionaire Maker) and finish with a whole host of world class trainers, and it’s guaranteed to get you back on track.

I’m excited to be joining this stellar cast on stage so get your ticket today and meet me in Chicago…

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Amit Chaudhary had a great post on his blog about Toastmasters and his experience and I have included most of it here:

Toastmasters International is an organization of clubs around the world which help members in public speaking. The clubs tend to be small in size to ensure everyone gets a chance to speak.

Late Jan 2008, I went ahead and attended the Yahoo ToastMasters club in Sunnyvale, called Yapsters as guest. It was definitely worthwhile and I became a member and have delivered my first speech.

It is obviously about public speaking, however it is useful in many ways:

As Amit mentions, Toastmasters can help you even if you don’t have any intentions of using in for public speaking. It will give you tremendous confidence and most importantly — you will be surrounded by like-minded people — and that’s a huge key to success.

If you would like to find a club near you go here….

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Here’s part of a story from Psychology Today: “When it comes to working out, you might think trying your best would be the way to make the most of your exercise time. But you’d be wrong. For a study at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University that pitted several motivational techniques against each other, researchers had 56 female undergraduates attempt to do as many sit-ups as possible in 90 seconds. Those who were given the vague directive “do your best” averaged about 43 sit-ups on each day of the four-day study. On the other hand, women assigned specific long-or short-term targets–”do 10 percent more than you did last time”–managed 56 sit-ups by the last day’s session.”

And it doesn’t just apply to sit-ups. Being as specific as you can possibly be “turns on” an internal system much like the homing device in a guided missile — it makes it far easier to hit your goal when your system is “on.”

To read more from the Psychology Today story go here….

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Now, if you’re a football fan, there’s no doubt you’ve heard of “The Play.” You’ve certainly probably seen it on television whether you’re a football fan or not.

It happened in 1982. California and Stanford are playing in a big game, and for all practical purposes, the game appears to be over. Stanford, with the future NFL Hall of Fame quarterback, John Elway, drives the length of the field, they kick a field goal to go ahead with just four seconds left in the game.

They’re going to kick off to California and everybody thinks the game is over, everybody except the California football team.

They get the ball, they lateral, they lateral, they lateral, five times they pass the ball off to one another. And, if you remember, the Stanford band thought the game was over and they ran onto the field and the California player ran through them and he scored in the end zone.

That’s just an example of the idea that it ain’t over till it’s over.

December is a month, folks, that you shouldn’t write off when it comes to your goals. A lot of people do.

I’ll give you a good example. I know that there are a lot of people in the real estate business who just kind of check out for the month of December.

They assume people aren’t interested in houses in December, they’re interested in the holidays, they’re interested in shopping.

Well, I’ll tell you a little secret. A lake house that I bought two years ago, I bought in December not long before Christmas because of an ambitious realtor who recognized that there are people looking for property during that period of time.

He didn’t assume that I would be shopping. He didn’t assume that I would be too caught up in the holidays. And that’s a common misconception.

Let me just share with you that there’s a lot less competition in December, in whatever business that you’re in, unless you’re in a retail business going head-to-head with Walmart or a big department store.

If you’re in insurance sales, for instance. A lot of people take off in December. If you’re in any type of sales business, in most cases, people take off in December.

If you’re in the direct sales business, and you’re recruiting people, December can be one of the greatest months of recruiting. Why? Because money’s on people’s minds. And you’ve got a way to show them how to make more of it!

They’re out there and they’re looking at their gift list one part of the time and then they’re looking at their budget. Their gift list and their budget; they don’t meet up. They’re thinking about money. It’s a great time to show them your opportunity.

If you decide December is going to be a big month, it’s going to be a great month.

What can you do to swim against the tide? What can you do to set yourself apart from your competition?

See, if you’re out there and you’re running hard in December, people are going to notice. Your customers are going to notice. Your prospects are going to notice.

You can also use December to get a running start on the New Year.

A lot of people wait till January before they ever sit down and start their goals, for goodness sakes.

Well, I’ll tell you what happens on January 1st for me and members of the Champions Club. We zoom by the start line. While everybody else is trying to figure out when they’re going to get started, we’re at a full-tilt sprint. We’re running by. And that’s because we use December to get ready.

Evaluate the goals you worked on this year and you haven’t made much progress with. Did you put the wrong date on it? Sometimes the goal’s not wrong, it’s the date that is wrong. So, we just reset the date. There’s not a problem with that. There’s no loss of esteem for doing that. We just reset the date and we go after it again.

Ask yourself, if I keep doing what I did this year, will success eventually come? Sometimes the answer is, “we’re just doing the wrong things.” Did I engage in the wrong activity?

Many times you’re out there busy, you’re working hard, but you’re doing the wrong things. What can I do differently next time I go after it? That’s what you have to ask yourself as you go into the New Year.

December is a month that can give you the greatest results you’ve had this year, regardless. This is fourth and goal. This is your play. So, go for it. And never forget — it ain’t over till it’s over!

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Andretti’s #49 Dodge Avenger will sport the image of Johnson along with six other experts from the website HealthLife.com which launches in December. Johnson was chosen by HealthLife to be its resident expert on goal setting.

“I’m really excited to be a part of the HealthLife team,” Johnson said, “and I’m honored to be included on the #49 car during a major NASCAR race. Racing, especially at the Nextel Cup level, has a lot of lessons for all of us who are looking for ways to achieve bigger goals and dreams. Focus, persistence, commitment, preparation and belief get you across the finish line first on the race track and on the life track as well.”

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In my experience, this is one of the very best (and most important) lessons you can learn that will instantly translate to success. Within weeks, and even days, of adopting this principle, you will begin to see dramatic increases in production and results. Put it to work today!

“Focusing on your primary goal is your job - it is what you have to devote most of your time to. You can’t be great at everything, so while you’re concentrating on what you need to do, hire others to do the things you don’t have time to do, or aren’t talented at doing.

For example, if someone’s primary goal is to write a book, that’s what they need to focus on - writing. If they are spending the majority of their time balancing books and sorting through their finances they’re not writing. That person should hire a bookkeeper - someone who has a knack for numbers.

Or take, for instance, someone is a brilliant businessperson, but they don’t enjoy (and aren’t very good at) making sales calls. That person would have an experienced, successful telemarketer or telemarketing service make their calls for them.

THIS WEEK’S LESSON:
Concentrate on What You Do Best - Pay Someone Else to Do the Rest

Why bother doing something yourself that you don’t love to do, are not talented at, and takes up your valuable time and energy?

Delegate undesirable activities to those who can do them faster and better than you can. The principle is: delegate or stagnate.

THIS WEEK’S ACTION STEP

A good way to decide what to do with tasks is to label them as they come in - don’t let them pile up. A great system is the 4-D Formula:

1. DO IT - these are urgent tasks that need to be taken care of right away. Take action immediately and finish the task.

2. DELEGATE IT - these are things that need to be done, but don’t have to be done by you. Hand these over to someone else immediately so you don’t have to think about them at all. Make that person responsible for these tasks from start to finish.

3. DEFER IT - these things need to be done, but not right away. Put them in a pile marked “later” and handle them after the urgent tasks have been completed.

4. DUMP IT - these are things that you don’t want to do and don’t necessary have to be done at all. On your computer it’s the ever-present “delete” key. That handles our junk e-mail.

As you really get going on your primary aim, the workload is going to increase. If you are a person who wants complete control of every little thing in your life and business you’re going to be in trouble. Control is an illusion. No one controls anyone or anything. You will need to continue to focus on your primary goal and allow others to help you. It will help to practice the 4-D Formula.”

“Build your own dream team. It starts as a concept, but it projects your future into reality.”
- Mark Victor Hansen

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At 15 he created a life list of 127 things he wanted to do, and like many young people, they were probably “unrealistic” to us adults.

But not to John Goddard.

In his early eighties now (and still going strong — we hiked the San Gabriel mountains together all day this past June and he never missed a step), he’s accomplished almost all of the original 127 goals PLUS more than 400 other ones he set along the way.

Like…

He climbed Mt. Kiliminjaro, The Matterhorn, and most of the other major mountains of the world.

John has flown aircraft at the speed of sound, and still holds more than 40 civilian air speed records.

He dove the Great Barrier Reef where he photographed a 300-pound clam.

He learned to play the flute and violin, speak Spanish, French and Arabic, read the Bible cover to cover and almost the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica.

He was the first person in the world to go the full length (4,200 miles) of the Nile River. And he did it in a 16-foot kayak, battling crocodiles, hippos and unhappy natives the entire way.

And I could go on and on - including a goal he didn’t count on - beating cancer.

John Goddard is one of the reasons I am so excited about this year’s Claim Your Power Now Weekend in Los Angeles. If John were the ONLY speaker of the weekend, it would be worth traveling from the four corners of the earth to hear him speak.

Then you’d learn how this modest, unassuming man has lived such an incredible life. And it wouldn’t take long around John before you knew that you, too, can do anything you want to. No matter how unrealistic or impossible it may seem today.

Watch this seven-minute Dateline NBC video on John. Watch it and get inspired…then get registered for Claim Your Power Now… and see John Goddard for yourself.

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