Vic Johnson, founder of Goals-2-Go.com and co-founder of the popular Champions Club, will be “riding along” with NASCAR’s John Andretti during this Sunday’s Checker Auto Parts 500 Nextel Cup race in Phoenix.

Andretti’s #49 Dodge Avenger will sport the image of Johnson along with six other experts from the website HealthLife.com which launches in December. Johnson was chosen by HealthLife to be its resident expert on goal setting.

“I’m really excited to be a part of the HealthLife team,” Johnson said, “and I’m honored to be included on the #49 car during a major NASCAR race. Racing, especially at the Nextel Cup level, has a lot of lessons for all of us who are looking for ways to achieve bigger goals and dreams. Focus, persistence, commitment, preparation and belief get you across the finish line first on the race track and on the life track as well.”

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My friend Mark Victor Hansen has achieved some remarkable success (including selling 130+ million copies of the Chicken Soup books) and there’s no question that he had to build a great team to do it. In this excerpt from his great newsletter, Rich Results, he talks about the importance of concentrating on what you do best and letting others do the rest.

In my experience, this is one of the very best (and most important) lessons you can learn that will instantly translate to success. Within weeks, and even days, of adopting this principle, you will begin to see dramatic increases in production and results. Put it to work today!

“Focusing on your primary goal is your job – it is what you have to devote most of your time to. You can’t be great at everything, so while you’re concentrating on what you need to do, hire others to do the things you don’t have time to do, or aren’t talented at doing.

For example, if someone’s primary goal is to write a book, that’s what they need to focus on – writing. If they are spending the majority of their time balancing books and sorting through their finances they’re not writing. That person should hire a bookkeeper – someone who has a knack for numbers.

Or take, for instance, someone is a brilliant businessperson, but they don’t enjoy (and aren’t very good at) making sales calls. That person would have an experienced, successful telemarketer or telemarketing service make their calls for them.

THIS WEEK’S LESSON:
Concentrate on What You Do Best – Pay Someone Else to Do the Rest

Why bother doing something yourself that you don’t love to do, are not talented at, and takes up your valuable time and energy?

Delegate undesirable activities to those who can do them faster and better than you can. The principle is: delegate or stagnate.

THIS WEEK’S ACTION STEP

A good way to decide what to do with tasks is to label them as they come in – don’t let them pile up. A great system is the 4-D Formula:

1. DO IT – these are urgent tasks that need to be taken care of right away. Take action immediately and finish the task.

2. DELEGATE IT – these are things that need to be done, but don’t have to be done by you. Hand these over to someone else immediately so you don’t have to think about them at all. Make that person responsible for these tasks from start to finish.

3. DEFER IT – these things need to be done, but not right away. Put them in a pile marked “later” and handle them after the urgent tasks have been completed.

4. DUMP IT – these are things that you don’t want to do and don’t necessary have to be done at all. On your computer it’s the ever-present “delete” key. That handles our junk e-mail.

As you really get going on your primary aim, the workload is going to increase. If you are a person who wants complete control of every little thing in your life and business you’re going to be in trouble. Control is an illusion. No one controls anyone or anything. You will need to continue to focus on your primary goal and allow others to help you. It will help to practice the 4-D Formula.”

“Build your own dream team. It starts as a concept, but it projects your future into reality.”
- Mark Victor Hansen

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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.

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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?

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“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!

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A lot of people have a dream as a child of growing up to be a doctor.

Most people never realize that dream — many of them because they allow their circumstances to get in the way of the dream.

Kellie Lim was one who didn’t, even though she had plenty of “circumstances” in her life. At eight years old she became a triple amputee with an 85% chance of dying in the next few months.

What’s happened over the past 18 years is the stuff that dreams (and movies) are made of. Just ask Dr. Kellie Lim who just graduated from UCLA with her medical degree.

You can find the whole story (and a few more surprises) here…

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It’s rare for Hollywood to produce a movie that inspires us, and from all accounts, The Ultimate Gift does that and more. Appearing in theaters across the U.S. and Canada it stars Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin, Drew Fuller, James Garner, Ali Hillis and Brian Dennehy. Based on the best-selling book by Jim Stovall, The Ultimate Gift is an unforgettable, involving story that has already created a strong grass-roots movement of giving and inspired millions of dollars of donations to charity. Watch this preview and then get to a movie theater and see for yourself.

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Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the massive Chicken Soup for the Soul series, recently wrote some very powerful words about how easy it is to get into action:

“Doing doesn’t need a lot of definition! It means action, taking steps toward your goals! Once you understand your beliefs and thoughts … once you know what it is you want to be and who it is you wish to become … once you are clear on your dreams and begin living those very visions in your mind … you’ve already opened the door to action.

Action actually begins when you put that initial thought energy out there. The next step might be researching the activities you want to do. It might be networking or meeting people who are in the arena you’re interested in becoming a part of. It might be signing up for a seminar within your specific interest. It might entail researching the career position you wish to hold and finding out how – exactly – to get there.

When you take initial action, it doesn’t mean that you have to climb the entire mountain next Saturday. When I decided to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro last fall, I didn’t just decide to show up at the trailhead one day with a Powerbar in my back pocket. I started with small steps several months in advance. I began to change my diet; I incorporated exercise that increased my cardio endurance; and I started doing research on shoes and equipment used by those who had succeeded before me.

It’s not the size of the step that gets you there. It’s the fact that you’re taking the step.”

There’s an outstanding DVD of Mark Victor Hansen included with the Professional Edition of Goals 2007.

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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.”

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My friend Loral Langemeier has helped a lot of people build seven-figure wealth and I found this excerpt from her last newsletter to be “spot on,” as my U.K. friends would say.

The Vision Thing

An important step on the path to becoming a millionaire is to create and refine your vision, which is a description of what you want your life to be at any given moment. This may seem like a superfluous task but it’s really not since it concerns the financial infrastructure that supports your ultimate goals. Describing your vision should make you excited and proud. What does yours look like?

Become A Landlord

If you like being a homeowner, then you may love being a landlord. In addition to tax deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes, owners of rental property also enjoy deductions for homeowner’s insurance and property depreciation. Bottom line: you get a steady stream of income on an appreciating asset, pay less in taxes and keep more of your income.

Get A Mentor

Why would someone want to mentor you? Maybe they wouldn’t —but you’ll never know unless you inquire. At the very least, a potential mentor will be flattered you asked. Moreover, enlightened professionals understand that it never hurts to make an ally, even a newcomer to their industry. Plus, it could be the start of a lucrative referral source for both of you. After all, everyone has a specialty. For example, lawyers are often the best source of referrals for other lawyers.

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