Radio Sales Café

Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber:

Some of the most successful people I know -- Brian Tracy and
Mark Ford among them -- repeatedly stress the importance of
setting goals.

So I am almost ashamed to make this confession, but since my
guiding principle as a writer is to always tell the unvarnished
and brutal truth, here it is:

I have never had goals. Never. Not when I started in business.
Not throughout my career. And not today.

Does this doom me to failure?

In a recent issue of his newsletter, Matt Furey explained, far
more eloquently than I could, how many folks have no goals and
are still successful. He calls them "unconsciously successful."
Matt writes:

"Person finds his passion. He begins to practice. He realizes,
early on, he has a talent for what he's doing that is above and
beyond the norm. Ideas come to him no matter what he's doing. He
doesn't know who or what turned this on in him. It just IS.

"Based upon his own level of awareness, he doesn't visualize,
dream, imagine, or 'think positive' in any way about what he's
doing. He just does it.

"Oddly enough, the unconsciously successful person does not
relate to or understand those who set goals, visualize, or do
their best to be positive. He doesn't see any of it as
necessary, valid, valuable or useful. He thinks of it as a
complete waste of time.

"Look at some of these big time athletes. Oozing with ability.
They can't explain how they do it. Can't teach at all. Only do.
I'm betting Mozart didn't have goals either.

"Napoleon Hill is wrong. First of all, thinking doesn't work.
Second, Hill makes no room for 'flow' people. Third, he doesn't
cover the basic premise of setting a sensible goal based on your
strengths" -- instead, insisting that anyone can do anything they
desire, which anyone with a lick of sense knows is not at all
the case.

So if I don't focus on goals, what do I focus on? Answer:
projects. Specifically, the immediate project on my desk at the
moment.

I learned this success technique -- focusing on the work at hand,
not on long-term goals -- from Burt Manning, CEO of J. Walter
Thompson ad agency, when I interviewed him for a book years ago
and asked him for the secret to his success. Manning said:

"Unlike a lot of people who have been successful in business,
I've focused almost exclusively on the immediate assignment or
project in hand.

"My mode of operation was to take whatever that assignment was
and try to do it better than it had ever been done before in the
history of the world. That was it.

"Then I'd try to do the next one the best. The projects, in my
mind, were never a means to an end -- they were the end."

We had that talk in 1981. It was a revelation, and I have
followed Manning's modus operandi ever since. Here's my theory
on why project focus is better than goal focus:

Focusing on goals, you focus on you -- what you want, what you
like, what you need.

Focusing on projects, you focus on the client -- what he wants,
likes, desires, and needs.

And the quickest road to success is to give others what they
want. If you make them successful, they will in turn make you
successful.

In this one thing, Napoleon Hill got it right. He said, "It is
literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping
others to succeed."

Sincerely,