Tag Archives: Self-Help

Zig Ziglar Goals

Goals : Setting And Achieving Them On ScheduleDriving back from San Francisco, I realized I had an audio book I didn’t get to hear in library returns bag: Goals : Setting And Achieving Them On Schedule.

The CD was a very pleasant surprise. First of all, the seminar is filled with hilarious tidbits and combined with his accent, listening is pure pleasure. The content is even better. Stories and powerful statements that get you to change your life. In the tape he gauranteed that if one hears the tape and doesn’t set a goal, that person won’t be able to sleep. He was right, I thought about, said, and wrote down a quite a few. The tape’s motivation and insight is very powerful. He starts off, after introductions, about reasons why people don’t set goals and in so doing motivates people to see their problems from a third person view, meaning they’ll far more easily fix them. The entire tape is like a little speech booster. I could see someone holding a copy of these tapes and just playing them over and over each week. Although, the point of the audiobook is practice not just listening.

It’s been an insane week for goals, goal-setting, and questions, and the Zig Ziglar Goals CD’s are a perfect catalyst to get even more accomplished. It’s the fourth mentor this week to remind me that we must strive toward greater goals to live a truly meaningful existence.

Update: It seems as if there’s a hidden power in goals. As soon as a plan is set, if it’s written down, it’s as if the world moves to both help and test you. Two phone calls came this morning. I can’t be more specific at the moment, but those who set goals know what I’m talking about. As soon as they’re set, opportunities start coming at you. It’s very pleasant, but one needs to stay focused and know which follow the plan and which don’t. One should read the goals and the plan of action at least daily and re-evaluate the goals and the plan at least weekly, to have full confidence in where one is going and that one is on the right path to getting there.

Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow RichThink and Grow Rich” by Napolean Hill is an amazing plan-making, goal-setting, entrepreneurial book. It comes from one of Dale Carnegies’s (How to Win Friends & Influence People) industrious students. The book really focuses on how to create plans, see visions, and realize them. At times it gets a bit long, perhaps the author didn’t know that most people don’t remember lists of more than seven things, but the content is fantastic. I had my first business idea after reading the book and following its steps and because of this I learned about patents, product evaluation, goal setting and following through on plans.

I got the recommendation for this book from Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad“. After reading that book, I realized that my web development job was going nowhere and just wasting my time. I was eager to start a new business. The plan was to teach SAT’s, however that wasn’t exactly a business rather a self-employment thing. Still not sure about what to do and excited to learn more I followed up with this book. The first thing it said was to set a goal, visualize it, and make a plan for it. My short term goal was to make twenty thousand in assets by the end of February. Since I was planning on studying for the GMAT and teaching SAT’s (the two help each other out quite nicely), why not make a new innovative product. The idea finally came, a special card game for memorizing new facts and words. I wrote down the plan to accomplishing it, and read the commitment to it and the steps every morning and evening.

Among the first steps was to read a book on patents. I accomplished this in the first week, even with work destroying my energy. By the following week I started a website and started thinking about the design. Eventually I did an analysis and realized that manufacturing and distribution of the game would force a fairly high price on everything and perhaps it would be better to get the whole thing going online. After about a week of planning and brainstorming, everything seemed clear. I told my roomate and we sat down to see the closest competition. Then came the big lesson. Someone had already created such a website a few years back. It actually had all the ideas we had and worked really well. It also charged about twice as much. At that point I joined a small start-up and had no time to work on any other projects until I quit my day job. On one hand it was a bit disappointing not being first, on the other hand it was an important lesson about doing one’s research. The lessons learned through this experience and inspired by the “Think and Grow Rich” book were priceless. The book gets kind of strange at times, but nonetheless if one follows its steps, he or she will surely gain a wealth of knowledge.