Map Out Your Plan

As you start setting goals, your mind will automatically begin to work on achieving them by mapping them out. A goal is a dreamy destination with a deadline. You have to be definite, positive, and specific about your goals, and they have to be measurable. You also have to write them down, and be flexible with your time frames.

How To Do It

Jack Canfield and I started our plan for Chicken Soup for the Soul by writing 1,094 yellow stickies with our ideas on how to sell a million and a half copies in a year and a half. We then stuck them on the wall in front of us and prioritized them. A year and a half later, we had sold 1.3 million copies. We had outrageous ideas when we wrote those little yellow stickies, like asking a hundred friends to buy a hundred copies of Chicken Soup for the Soul to give away. It worked. Our sales started by word of mouth, and we dreamed of partnering with Coca-Cola and Campbell Soup, and we did. We also dreamed of our TV show, and we got one on Pax TV.

Everything starts with a dreamy destination, and you have to have a definite, positive, and specific goal to get there. You have to write your goals down, announce your future, and be flexible with your time frames. You may encounter people who say your goals are unrealistic, but everything was once unrealistic until it was realized, like cars, telephones, planes, wireless communication, and computers.

Two of the best goal setters I have met were George Karr and Bob Barth, who led Equitable Advisors life insurance sales from their Philadelphia offices. They had a personal and corporate monthly goal written in front of them in a Lucite block that sat in the center of their desks. Similarly, the late Ben Feldman, considered the world’s greatest insurance salesman, personally sold nearly two-thirds of all the policies that came in the door at the great New York Life Insurance Company. Each night he wrote down the names of ten people he would see and sell the following day, as he knew that his subconscious mind never slept and that thought projections were already moving out ahead and doing the selling for him.

Ben always hit the amount he would sell, although he might miss selling person number seven and person number nine. He sold more in one year than 1,500 of the 1,800 life insurance companies, and that’s why Fortune Magazine put him on the cover as the world’s greatest salesman. Ben once told me that people could earn $100,000 a year by working 250 days and earning $400 a day. A person who earns $1 million a year working 250 days earns $4,000 a day. The difference was only one zero to move you from a six-figure to a seven-figure earning. One zero makes you somebody who can earn a million dollars a year.

W. Clement Stone, the billionaire, philanthropist, and business tycoon, said, “You figure out how much you can earn in a year; say that’s $100,000. Once you know how to make a hundred grand a year, you squeeze it down into a month. Now you make a hundred grand a month. Now you squeeze it down to a week: you make a hundred grand in a week. Now you squeeze it down into a day: you make a hundred grand in a day. Then you figure out how to make a hundred grand an hour, and then in a minute.”

Setting goals and mapping out your plan is crucial to achieving your dreams. A goal is simply a dreamy destination with a deadline, and you have to be definite, positive, and specific about them. Writing them down and being flexible with your time frames can help you stay focused and motivated. As shown by successful goal setters like George Karr, Bob Barth, and Ben Feldman, having a clear plan and taking action can help you achieve your wildest dreams.

So dare to dream big, set your goals, and take action towards realizing them!

-Mark

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