“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I’ll give you a man who will make history. Give me a man with no goals and I’ll give you a stock clerk.” J.C. Penney
The great entrepreneurs have always been effective in setting and accomplishing great goals. Fred Smith, FedEx founder and CEO, came up with an idea for overnight express delivery while in college in the early 1960s. Smith wrote a paper about the idea for a project in one of his classes. It has been reported that his professor was not impressed, and Smith received a lackluster grade for the paper. Despite this setback, Fred Smith did not give up on the idea of starting a company that would provide overnight express delivery.
Today, FedEx is a thirty-billion-dollar company with operations around the world. Smith provides some insight on how he accomplished such amazing things: “If your business revolves around one idea, keep that idea foremost. Hammer away at it.” Fred Smith knew exactly what he wanted to do, and he was extremely effective at keeping that one thing his primary focus.
The entire process of setting goals takes an idea and shines a spotlight in your mind on that particular idea every day. When an idea takes center stage in your mind, you now have focus. Goal setting creates focus. Focus is a very powerful thing, because a person’s actions almost always come from that person’s focus. This is the real secret of goal setting, and it’s the reason great entrepreneurs have used this process with such great results.
God, the Creator of all things, reveals this great secret in the Bible: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.” If you want to change your actions, you have to start by changing your mind, by renewing your mind. Goal setting begins first in the mind and then leads to action. If you can control the focus of your mind, you can control your actions.
Fred Smith kept his idea for FedEx at the forefront of his mind, and this process was a key ingredient to his success. John Mayer, a Grammy Award-winning musician, became so focused on guitar as a child that his parents took him to see a psychiatrist twice just to make sure he was all right. Mayer’s singular focus on music and guitar has paid him some serious dividends!
In 1504, Michelangelo created the statue of David, one of the most renowned works of art from the Renaissance. When asked how he sculpted such an amazing piece, it is reported that Michelangelo replied, “I eliminated everything that was not David.”
When your mind becomes focused on the important things in your life, you will not only begin to accomplish amazing things, but you will be accomplishing those things that are most important.
This is an excerpt from Do Great Things by Aaron Broyles. Copyright ©2012 Aaron Broyles. Published by Deep River Books.
