Goals

10.5 years ago I cashed in my Army Green chips to become a civilain and worship the Golden Calf.

I remember taking my last dip of Copenhagen with my good friend Eddie Noland and giving him a hug goodbye in North Carolina. From there I picked up the wife and kids from our good friends the Campbells said another sad goodbye and headed back to Texas. I had spent close to 10 years with both of these guys, deployed world wide for training and combat and drank many beer and I condsider them dear friends to this day.

10 years ago, I atteneded my first Brian Tracy and Zig Zigler seminar, with Poppa Bush as a guest speaker. It was quite interesting. During this seminar they asked us to write down 5 goals and not look at them for 5 or even 10 years. I've lost the list, but remember the 5 goals.

Considering I was coming from below the poverty line in the Army and with some credit card debt these were some stretch targets.

1. Make 80k a year - Being a commission sales guy, that number is way in the rearveiw mirror annually.

2. Own a 250k house - this equates to quite the spread in Texas. I've bought and sold several by now.

3. Be debt free - other than cars and the house ( and now a college loan) we always pay cash or pay off the bill every month.

4. Be able to afford college for the kids - I can, but choose to use the dollars that are available to borrow.

5. Get a college degree - Well, failed this one so far. Seems in order to accomplish 1 -4, there has not been enough time for my own self development.

So, I'm going to post something below that I just read by Brian Tracy. In a nutshell, if I want more, I have to develop myself. If you do what you've always done, you will be where you've always been.

Anyway, time to create some new goals, figure out whats next in this marathon that is life and as they say in Shawshank, "get busy living, or get busy dying".

For your self developing pleasure:

"Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job" -Brian Tracy

Since I heard that I've been working on my own personal development. And I must admit that this has been the most challenging assignment of all.

This business of personal development lasts a lifetime.You see, what you become is far more important than what you get. The important question to ask on the job is not, "What am I getting?"Instead, you should ask, "What am I becoming?" Getting and becoming are likeSiamese twins: What you become directly influences what you get. Thinkof it this way: Most of what you have today you have attracted by becoming the person you are today.

I've also found that income rarely exceeds personal development.Sometimes income takes a lucky jump, but unless you learn to handle the responsibilities that come with it, it will usually shrink back to the amount you can handle.If someone hands you a million dollars, you'd better hurry up and become a millionaire. A very rich man once said, "If you took all the moneyin the world and divided it equally among everybody, it would soon be back in the same pockets it was before."It is hard to keep that which has not been obtained through personal development

So here's the great axiom of life:--To Have More Than You've Got, Become More Than You Are--