I had a REALLY interesting conversation with a client recently:
Client: Nobody is a 6 Figure X in the UK
Me: Your right, there is nobody in the UK currently running a 6 figure business in the UK doing X…..YET!
That one word makes EVERYTHING possible. You see, nobody originally believed that man would ever run a sub 4-minute mile. Until in 1954 Roger Bannister ran 1,760 yards in 3.59.4. Yet since then more than 20,000 people have been recorded as running a sub 4-minute mile, with the current work record some 17 seconds less than 4 minutes!
You see, unless you set Big Fat Hairy Audacious Goals, you’ll continue to believe the words NOBODY, and CAN’T and UNACHIEVABLE.
I recall being back in school, and the “Career’s advice team” talking to us about our future potential and options:
“If you keep your head down and really work hard, you might be able to get the necessary grades you move into higher education. Where, if you continue to work and study hard you could achieve the grades required to be a real asset to any employer. Work hard at your job, and achieve promotion, and continue to work hard so you can afford a mortgage to provide for you and your family!”
Lets analyse that statement for just a brief moment. Work hard, Study, Train, Necessary Grades, Afford a mortgage, provide for your family! It all sounds very….. LAST CENTURY!
Interestingly, throughout my employment (prior to switching to becoming an employer) I was always told they would set SMART goals. My KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) to determine if I was an asset and on what criteria my potential for promotion was annually based, would be on SMART goals! Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Driven. I remember in one particular senior management role I worked within, where my line manager (The Area Director) simply divided his own KPI’s up across the 3 of us as Area Managers and said “I’ll let you have a percentage of my bonus, if we all work to achieving them!”
However, the work of Andrew and Dale Carnegie alongside work conducted by Napoleon Hill and Jim Collins all concurred; NON of the top richest and/or most successful people in the world could even recite what SMART was nevermind set a SMART goal! “Why would you ever set out to achieve achievable or realistic Goals?” many of them asked! What purpose is there is achievable and Realistic, surely the whole purpose of business is to set completed unrealistic and unachievable goals, only to prove that they were actually achievable! Edison and the light bulb for example, over 900 ‘failed’ attempts and every time he refused to acknowledge any one of them as failure, only a prototype! A Sub 4min mile wasn’t considered either achievable or realistic prior to 1954! Landing and returning successfully from the moon wasn’t considered either achievable or realistic until Armstrong and Aldrin in 1969 and in the 1950’s we had already sent unmanned crafts to land on Mars, ahead of the current plans for astronauts to make a ‘one way trip’ to begin a colony on Mars in 2024!
I often ask clients “What would you do if you had an endless supply of money?” All of a sudden they reel off a whole host of exciting and adventurous goals and ambitions, their whole face lights up, their whole body engages into the conversation with passion and drive and inspiration, yet when I say “So why don’t you then?” all of that stops, they return back to Achieveable and Realistic! giving a thounsand and one reasons why they CAN’T and UNACHIEVABLE! We have become so entrenched in our own limiting beleifs that it takes DREAMS to allow us to even consider WHAT IF?
“A goal is but a dream, without a target and a deadline!”
So whats your BFHAG? Whats your Big Fat Hairy Audacious Goal? What did you dream of doing when you were at school? whats your life’s ambition? What would you do if money and time were no barrier to achieving what you WANT to achieve?
Share it here, because sharing it with others is the first step to making a dream a reality!…..
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