He first inspired me when I read about him in the first Chicken Soup for the Soul book.

At 15 he created a life list of 127 things he wanted to do, and like many young people, they were probably “unrealistic” to us adults.

But not to John Goddard.

In his early eighties now (and still going strong — we hiked the San Gabriel mountains together all day this past June and he never missed a step), he’s accomplished almost all of the original 127 goals PLUS more than 400 other ones he set along the way.

Like…

He climbed Mt. Kiliminjaro, The Matterhorn, and most of the other major mountains of the world.

John has flown aircraft at the speed of sound, and still holds more than 40 civilian air speed records.

He dove the Great Barrier Reef where he photographed a 300-pound clam.

He learned to play the flute and violin, speak Spanish, French and Arabic, read the Bible cover to cover and almost the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica.

He was the first person in the world to go the full length (4,200 miles) of the Nile River. And he did it in a 16-foot kayak, battling crocodiles, hippos and unhappy natives the entire way.

And I could go on and on – including a goal he didn’t count on – beating cancer.

John Goddard is one of the reasons I am so excited about this year’s Claim Your Power Now Weekend in Los Angeles. If John were the ONLY speaker of the weekend, it would be worth traveling from the four corners of the earth to hear him speak.

Then you’d learn how this modest, unassuming man has lived such an incredible life. And it wouldn’t take long around John before you knew that you, too, can do anything you want to. No matter how unrealistic or impossible it may seem today.

Watch this seven-minute Dateline NBC video on John. Watch it and get inspired…then get registered for Claim Your Power Now… and see John Goddard for yourself.

Lisa Leguenec posted the following to this month’s eTips:

I was reading some potential short stories for My Daily Insights and one of my authors Michael T. Smith sent me one about a game of Scrabble with his wife Ginny. You will see the entire story later this year on MDI but today I wanted to share part of it with you.

“Life is full of tiles. They’re scattered in front of us, but they’re upside down. We don’t know what they are until they’re picked up. We can’t handle too many at one time. We’re only allowed to choose seven.

Imagine having seven tiles of life in front of you. You stare at them and think to yourself, “Life starts here.” They’re lined up, but they make no sense. You move them around, trying to arrange them into something logical, but you struggle. The first move has to be right.

The letters come together into a word, but it’s a small one. Will you use it or keep struggling and make a bigger word? This is the beauty of the game – you get to replace the tiles you use. Are you going to make small moves, only to pick up a couple of tiles? Remember, the more you use, the more you can pick up – more opportunities.

Time goes by. The last tile is placed on the board. The game is over, but the words you created live on. They are the children fostered, decisions made, friends found, work done, and the life lived. We start with the same number of tiles. How we use them is up to us.”

My thought to you…how are you using your tiles?

“If we don’t have a dream, we have nothing.” Those are just some of many memorable and inspirational lines from The Astronaut Farmer.

I don’t normally watch the in-flight movie on cross-country or international flights because they’re usually just too much pablum. But when I saw the trailer for The Astronaut Farmer on a flight from the West Coast yesterday I thought it might be a little different than the norm. And was I ever right.

I won’t describe the storyline (you can get a good idea from watching the trailer below), but I will tell you that I was so inspired by the movie that I pre-ordered the DVD that releases on July 10. This will be a permanent part of my collection of inspirational movies like Rudy, Braveheart, Hoosiers, Akeelah and the Bee, Miracle and more.

Now don’t get me wrong. This is not an Academy Award winning movie (but it’s star, Billy Bob Thornton, has won an Academy Award and does a great job in this role). In fact, it’s a little “cheesy” in spots. But the inspiration and positive messages of the movie more than make up for it. Best of all, this is a family-oriented movie (though rated PG) that every older child should see.

Watch the trailer below (be sure and check the name on the side of the rocket) and then pre-order it from Amazon or other source. But more than anything, live by the theme of the movie — no matter what those around you say or believe, never give up on your dream!

I watch very little television but do manage to catch some big events occasionally, like this year’s Academy Awards.

Forest Whitaker, who won the Oscar for Best Actor, caught my attention with some key lines from his acceptance speech:

“When I was a kid the only way I saw movies was from the backseat of my family’s car at the drive-in,” Whitaker said.

“It wasn’t my reality to think I would be acting in movies, so receiving this honor tonight tells me it is possible,” he said. “It is possible for a kid from East Texas, raised in South Central L.A. and Carson who believes in his dreams, commits himself to them with his heart, to touch them and to have them happen.”

Read that last line again carefully and commit yourself to the idea that it’s possible for you too, “who believes in his (her) dreams, commits himself (herself) to them with his (her) heart, to touch them and to have them happen.”

Remember when you thought you could do and be anything? The innocence of early childhood is perhaps the last time you were unencumbered by perceived limitations and labels. Personal goal setting was simple, and there was no doubt you could achieve anything.

When asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” you would have responded with whatever struck your fancy that day, whatever you were “in to.” You did not concern yourself with how you would do it, if you could do it, or if you should do it. Your dreams were based on what you wanted, pure and simple. You set personal goals based on wonder and curiosity, not practicality.

The dreams of childhood were big dreams. Travel into space, win a medal at the Olympics, become a rock star. Soon enough the dreams become modified to reflect what is practical and expected of us. This is precisely when most people start having trouble setting personal goals. The dreams are no longer larger than life, so why take steps to achieve them?

Read more here….

I’m a big believer in yellow legal pads. I have scads of them around my house for jotting ideas and doing mind maps and the like.  John Goddard became the world’s #1 Goal Achiever starting with a legal pad, so its use is not such a bad idea.

During this time of reflection on the year just passed and in anticipation of the year to come, here are five probing questions you should commit some serious effort to while recording the responses on a trusty legal pad.

1) What do I really enjoy doing?  What seems almost effortless to me?

2) How can I monetize it (create income from it)?  Don’t automatically assume you can’t make any money from it.  That’s probably just an old paradigm raising its ugly head.  Elaine Hodgson loved to play video games and found herself increasingly drawn to the idea of creating them.  Her company, Incredible Technologies, now has $60 million in sales.

3) What are five things I can do this week to determine the feasibility of #2?

4) Who can I get to help me?

5) What is my deadline to “fish or cut bait?”

With a New Year just around the corner, here are some goal setting tips to keep in mind:

• Make goals meaningful. Goal setting for the sake of goal setting almost always ends in disappointment. Goal setting is simply a tool to use in achieving a favorable outcome — what some people call a “Dream.”
• Use positive language and the present tense when setting a goal. It is better to say “I weigh a healthy, trim and fit 185 pounds” than “I want to lose 20 pounds.”
• Always put your goals in writing. Every expert agrees that setting a goal without putting it in writing drastically reduces your chances of success.
• Goal setting should take place in every area of your life, including Health, Relationships, Spiritual, Career and Financial.
• Setting Life Goals will add dimension, excitement and texture to your life.
• Failure doesn’t always mean that you did something wrong in your goal setting or implementation. It may just mean that the time you allotted for success wasn’t adequate. A thorough review process should be undertaken before setting the goal again.

And when you’re looking for a goal planning solution, be sure an check out all of our outstanding goal setting programs for 2007… 

It took me many, many years to learn this secret. So pay close attention. It’s worth my weight and your weight in Gold.

Yesterday as we were getting ready for our big Champions Club 2007 launch, we were working feverishly to meet our launch deadline and had no time to spare. We’ve spent months and many man hours preparing for the event and now on the last day before kickoff everything started to go awry. First, the video wouldn’t work on our test page. Then we had shopping cart problems. And on and on it went. Then to tie a nice little bow on top of everything, I sent someone off in my fairly new Escalade to go do an important errand. When they turned the key nothing happened. It’s completely dead. So after quickly ascertaining it wasn’t the battery, I called the Cadillac dealer who hauled it away on the back of a truck. And I went back to the chaos.

Now, if this had happened twenty years ago (and similar things did), or even ten years ago, I would have gotten so caught up in everything that was going wrong that I would have (1) been in a terrible mood and (2) lost all my focus on the task at hand.

Not so this time. No, this time I actually smiled to myself on one occasion and out loud said, “this launch is going to be huge!”

How could I say that?

Because I’ve learned (after many bumps, bruises and tears) that when I am in hot pursuit of a long-held goal, and things start going haywire, it probably means I’m on the edge of something BIG —- if I don’t get distracted.

In fact, James Allen, who wrote the classic As A Man Thinketh, says as much. In describing successful people he says, “They hold fast to an idea, a project, a plan, and will not let it go; they cherish it, brood upon it, tend and develop it; and when assailed by difficulties, they refuse to be beguiled into surrender; indeed, the intensity of the purpose increases with the growing magnitude of the obstacles encountered.”

And that last sentence is the true secret:

“indeed, the intensity of the purpose increases with the growing magnitude of the obstacles encountered.”

If you can internalize and apply that secret, you will have one of the true “keys to the kingdom.”

How did it turn out for me this time?

Well, when we opened the doors to the Champions Club earlier today we were signing people up at the rate of one per minute in the early going. Things have slowed down some, otherwise we would have been out of spots in the first two hours.

As it is, more than half the spots are spoken for (in the first seven hours!) and registrations are still pouring in. It has been an incredible launch and a great bunch of interesting members for 2007.

Here is the link one more time if you missed it:
http://www.goals-2-go.com/champClub2007.htm .

And if you haven’t yet gotten your copy of the widely acclaimed 13 Secrets of World Class Goal Achievers, get it here: http://www.goals-2-go.com/13secrets.htm

There aren’t a lot of movies that are great lessons in the power of having a Big Dream and a Big Goal…of the power of belief, even when the odds are against you. Akeelah and the Bee is worth owning (and watching) everytime your Dream seems too far away.

Order DVD from Amazon…

If an unemployed, twenty-something could turn a simple, red paper clip into his dream of owning a home, what can you do with your dream?