Millionaire MBA Day 13: Goals & Focus
by
Millionaire MBA
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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Copyright © Millionaire MBA 2011
First Published 2011 by ELW Publishing Bath, UK
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Contents
Introduction
A few years back, 50 leading UK entrepreneurs and business owners were interviewed in their homes, offices and hotels. The purpose of the interviews was to find out exactly what made them successful, and how other aspiring entrepreneurs could replicate their business success.
Those digitally recorded audio interviews were turned into a 'timeless' business mentoring programme called Millionaire MBA. Millionaire MBA is regarded as one of the best programmes in the world to teach entrepreneurial thinking and the 'millionaire mindset'.
Millionaire MBA is a rich, deep mentoring programme which existing and aspiring entrepreneurs listen to over 40 days. Literally tens of thousands of entrepreneurs (like you) around the world have benefited from this programme.
In this ebook, you’ll find the actual transcription from one whole day of the mentoring programme.
To find out more about the full business mentoring programme or to listen to the audio version, please visit http://www.millionairemba.com/
Day 13: Goals & Focus
Welcome to Day 13, "Goals and Focus."
Let's start by asking, What are goals? Quite simply, goals are dreams with deadlines.
They're written statements of what you want to achieve by a stated date.
They're messages which are used to programme your mind for success. Written goals are the most powerful tool you can use to realise your dreams.
Most people drift through life with no clearly defined or written purpose. It's therefore unsurprising that they fail to fulfil their potential and fail to achieve the success they're capable of.
It's widely recognised that an uneducated person with clear written goals and a burning desire to achieve can outperform an educated person who lacks direction and ambition. It's the power of goals that allows this to happen.
Setting goals programmes the conscious and subconscious mind and gives you laser-sharp focus.
Assuming your goals are supported by a burning desire to achieve them, they'll act as a magnet for success with your subconscious mind working overtime to conspire to achieve them.
Written goals can deliver results like no other means. Think only of President Kennedy's stated ambition back in May 1961 for America to land a man on the moon before the decade was out.
This simple phrase encapsulates the very essence of goal-setting. It's specifically defined, it's hugely ambitious and a considerable stretch, and it's supported by a time frame.
More importantly, America had a burning desire to make it happen. If that goal had never been stated by President Kennedy, do you think America would have put a man on the moon in July 1969?
Let's hear now from some of our entrepreneurs in what they see as the benefit of written goals.
Tom Hunter
Unless you set out where you want to be, you'll never get there, and you won't know you've got there once you've got there, if that's not a contradiction.
But setting the clear goals - and this starts from day one, which is, "Let's get through the day" to "I want to be here in five years" to whatever your strategic goals are.
But that and being able to measure where you are against it, is fundamental.
Glenda Stone
If you don't have a road map, you don't know where the hell you're going.
My mobile phone, I switch it on in the morning - I mean, usually it's still on - but every time I switch my mobile phone on, it's got one of my core objectives that flashes up at me.
Not that I'm going to forget, but it's there. You need to be so clear about what it is that you want that you do wacky things like that.
In fact, I met someone the other evening and... He's a senior manager in a tech company, and he carries around in his wallet his four core goals. They're with him all the time.
If he ever is wondering about decisions to make, he goes back to that. He goes back to what he stands for. He knows what they are, but he physically carries them around in his wallet. And I think that's very important.
The number of people that you can ask, "What do you stand for? What's important to you? What are your core values? What's inside?"...
You get funny sorts of answers that maybe people haven't had the opportunity or inclination to think it through or have not had the necessity to need to think it through, perhaps, in their minds.
But for me, you have to know exactly what it is that you want.
And you have to know yourself.
You have to know - I mean, this company is based on some core values that are so aligned with me being the founder and what I want to achieve, and they don't change.
They are your - it's like building a house; if you don't get the foundations right, it will topple over at some point. And you need that kind of grounding to know where you stand.
And not be shy about making known where you stand.
Karan Bilimoria
You've heard these statistics about, you know, people who have written goals are so much more successful than people who don't. And there have been various surveys that have been carried out.
I am a great believer in writing things down. Always.
Even before I started in business, I had to write down my ideas. I sketched out the added value that I could bring as an individual by literally drawing a picture with India and Britain and drawing lines between the two.
So drawing pictures, writing things down, actually, in a way, articulates your thoughts, clarifies your thoughts. And I do it to this day, on a regular basis.
And then you set targets for yourself, you make out lists, and I had my list of business ideas when I started. Top of that list was my beer idea, but I had lots of other ideas.
And I built up experience in business in the first year with other products, not with a beer.
And then on an ongoing basis what I - what you always do is that you set yourself targets, you set yourself goals.
I remember even before the first container of Cobra was shipped from India, I sat in the brewery's computer room and did my own forecast month by month for the first five years of how many containers I would export from India to the U.K..
So that goal-setting started even before the first container was shipped, and it never stops.
And those plans are short plans, daily plans; we used to do daily cash flows. We still do daily cash flows. And we've set ourselves business - we always have a business plan, with a minimum of three years, looking three years ahead on a month-by-month basis.
And then I had my longer-term plans. So, for example, at the moment I have my 2010 plan, which is called my Grand Canyon plan because I actually drew this out and wrote it out while I was flying over the Grand Canyon.
So you're always planning, always looking ahead, always setting targets.
Sir Christopher Evans
All entrepreneurs have goals, definitely. Even if they don't even know they've got them, you know, at the back of their mind... Mine are normally at the front of my mind; I know exactly what the goal is.
It's rarely one goal, by the way. There's a whole range of them, and they're all there.
I look at 2004, and I can see five or six already because it's Christmastime and, when I get sentimental, I start thinking of my goals. I can think of five or six, and I really want to pull them all off in 2004.
I may only pull out four out of the six, maybe - maybe half of them. But I'll tell you, if I do half of them, everyone will be delighted. So they're there and my aim is to get all of them done, all of them done.
I'll tell you, by the time I get into 2004, I reckon I'll have about 10, 10 or 12 of these things all rattling around in my head, and I write them down.
I'll show you the book I put them in. I get these little books; I get them in Venice - beautiful.
And I write all these things down, and I doodle with them, and I change them around, and I refer back to them, and I tell you, they are important annals - they are.
I'll auction them in Sotheby's one day and people will think, "God, look at this guy, mad as a hatter. Look at the things he said he was going to do. He couldn't possibly do that in a year."
But, of course, as the year develops, you have different opportunities and breakthroughs for changing. So I'll always do that. I love it.