Tag Archives: Brian Tracy

Success Equals Goals, But How Bad Do You Want It?

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The goal-setting chapter in Brian Tracy’s book, ‘Maximum Achievement’, has been a favorite of mine for many years.
I also share Brian’s belief that “success equals goals and all else is commentary“.

But since goals don’t magically achieve themselves without effort and perseverance, how do you be(come) successful?

I like this answer from motivational speaker, Eric ‘the Hip Hop Speaker’ Thomas:

When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.

Of course, achieving BIG goals is never 100% sure, even with an iron will that mirrors your desire to keep breathing.
But the inverse is highly likely to occur i.e. no will, no success.

“Sleep? I don’t Sleep. Sleep is for Those Who Are Broke.”

To get an idea of how much you want to succeed at something, watch this five minute video with Eric’s answer (above) in your mind.

For the record, I believe it’s OK to NOT have goals – if that’s what you want. But it’s also OK to choose a path where talent, hard work and lady luck might take you a long way.

The choice is always ours to make.

- Mark McClure

PS – The young running back featured in the video has his own YouTube Channel.
Check out the trailer (released Jan 30th, 2012) for his latest documentary: “My Ambition”.

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Clutter is the Enemy of Successful Career Goals

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Christmas in Japan’s not a national holiday though some of the commercial aspects, but none of the religious, have been imported and successfully packaged.

For example, Xmas trees, decorations and pretty lights adorn many shops and street fronts, but are uncommon within domestic dwellings.

Some children get Christmas presents on Xmas eve but Santa’s buck stops early because a magical transformation happens overnight. If you’re curious as to what that is, I wrote a post about spending Christmas in Japan two years ago.

This is a country and culture of ‘matsuri’ (festivals – local, regional and national) and Christmas is therefore but one of many. And that’s fine.

So, with the Yuletide celebrations neatly wrapped up on Dec 24th, one of the customs I like most about the approach to Japanese New Year festivities is the ‘clean up’ that occurs in the final days of December.

Rooms are tidied, porches and cars washed, the unwanted put in recycling bins and transparent plastic bags. A new beginning’s clearly felt in the air.

I think this winter ‘spring cleaning‘ is excellent mental and physical preparation for the challenges and opportunities that await.

Why?

Because it’s frequently necessary to cast off the old before donning the new. There just isn’t room to physically and mentally store stuff that no longer serves us.

And it makes setting goals (or New Year’s Resolutions, if that’s your preference) a whole lot easier when mind and body are freed from clutter.

Success equals Goals and all else is Clutter.

goals-brian-tracy

Here’s my aging copy of Brian Tracy’s marvellous book, “Maximum Achievement“, sitting on top of a file of notes I made about it and his accompanying CD audio program, ‘The Psychology of Achievement‘.

Alas, our tatami room is not 100% clutter free and so there are things not seen that my better half would kill me for if I included more in the photo.

But hey, that’s life. We do the best we can, with what we have, right where we are.

“Tatami Goals”? Yeah, I like it!

And here’s a look inside that blue folder. I spent many hours reading, listening to and typing up what I felt to be the best of Brian’s work from the book and the CDs.

psychology-of-achievement

If you have the opportunity to do an end-of-year clean up, I urge you to give it a go and leave a comment here about what you did.

As ‘mental preparation’ for the menial tasks, take a look at these two posts.

“Success is not measured only in profit and growth.” A Ricardo Semler quotation.

And here’s probably my favorite line from Brian Tracy’s book.

“Success equals goals and all else is commentary.”

Happy cleaning!

- Mark McClure

PS – If you need help with goal setting, check out my online course, goal creation maps.

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Success Equals Goals And All Else Is Commentary?

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My first introduction to Brian Tracy’s personal development material was his CD Audio course, “Psychology of Achievement”.

I listened to that course many times during my “university on wheels” commute by train and made at least a dozen pages of notes, which I still have. And being an active student of different learning styles, I also read the book version, called “Maximum Achievement”.

One of Brian’s key points is that “the ability to set goals and to make plans for their accomplishment is the master skill of success” – see 1st paragraph, page 138 of ‘Maximum Achievement’.

In that same paragraph the following statement is italicized:

“Success Equals Goals And All Else Is Commentary”.

I’ve thought about that statement a lot since first hearing it (on the CD course) and plan to share some of those with you in a series of posts about goal setting.

For today, I’ll leave you with this conundrum:

Can it be possible that both Brian’s success statement and Ricardo Semler’s success statement (see bottom of that post) are true in a person’s life?

(Yes, I’m aware that words can be taken out of context but what I’m attempting to do here is explore success possibilities for anyone thinking about career change.)

- Mark McClure

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