1. The power of setting goals by Chris Jones According to Dave Kohl, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech, people who regularly write down their goals earn nine times as much over their lifetimes as people who don’t, yet 80% of Americans say they don’t have goals. Sixteen percent do have goals but don't write them down. Less than four percent write down their goals and fewer than 1% actually review them on an ongoing basis. Too many people are simply passengers in the game of life, wondering what just happened when the ride comes to a stop. Life can easily slip by if you don’t live your life on purpose. I believe that goal setting and persistence are the key ingredients to achieving success in all areas of one’s life. As we embark on the 2009 holiday season, it is natural to reflect on 2009 and start thinking about the things we want to do and become in the new year. If you have not done so already, I encourage you to thoughtfully consider and make deliberate choices about what you want to do and become in 2010 and beyond. What will you do next year? What could you do next year? Life is about the choices you make, choose wisely. With proper planning, focus and commitment, I truly believe you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. Back in 1990, working as a sales rep at MCI in Arlington, VA, I was inspired by a mentor, Rick Ellenberger. He told stories of peak performers in all fields sharing certain traits—the biggest being a belief that goal setting is the key ingredient to achieving excellence and success in one’s life. The more I studied biographies of successful people, the more I experienced the accomplishment of my goals and the heartache of just missed goals, the stronger my conviction has become that written goals and unshakeable determination are the key ingredients to help make every year a great one. What defines a great year? Before you can score, you must first have a goal. As you have heard me say, life and sales are a game of inches, and the opportunities to grab those inches are everywhere around us. And when you are not where you want to be in life or sales, you need to fight and claw your way back one inch at a time. In the end, it’s all those inches added up that gives you the edge and makes the difference between winning and losing, between accomplishing a goal or not, between mediocrity or excellence. In the battles of life, the guy who is willing to die for that inch, who has unshakeable determination and let’s nothing get in the way of grabbing that inch, that’s who wins. Many of you are phenomenal stewards of your personal and professional goals. Others tell me this “project” of goal setting seems daunting, like eating an elephant. So they avoid it. Start one bite at a time. In Steven Covey’s The 7 habits of highly effective people under habit #3—First Things First—he writes… “What one thing in my personal life, if I started doing it immediately and consistently, would have the biggest positive impact? What one thing in my professional life, if I started doing it immediately and consistently, would have the biggest positive impact?” Write them down. Do them one day, and then a second and so on…As the saying goes, “The journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.” Something magical seems to happen when you put pen to paper on what you are going to do.