Introduction:
Success Is Goals

Welcome to the second edition of Goals! Since this book was first released in 2003, it has sold hundreds of thousands of copies and been published in more than twenty languages. It has become the bestselling book on goal-achievement in history.

We have now decided to rewrite and upgrade Goals! to make it more helpful and faster acting for people living in more uncertain economic times. Three wonderful professional writers and critics have reviewed this book from cover to cover and offered excellent ideas to make it more helpful to more people. I want to thank Katherine Armstrong, Sara Jane Hope, and Janice Rutledge for their insights and wisdom. This new edition is immeasurably improved as a result.

I especially want to thank my friend and colleague Cord Cooper for going through the manuscript of the book to revise, rewrite, add new material, and generally make the entire structure more enjoyable and easier to read.

This book is for ambitious people who want to get ahead faster. If this is the way you think and feel, you are the person for whom this book is written. The ideas contained in the pages ahead will save you years of hard work in achieving the goals that are most important to you.

I have spoken more than five thousand times in fifty-four countries before audiences of as many as twenty-five thousand people. My seminars and talks have varied in length from five minutes to five days. In every case, I have focused on sharing the best ideas I could find on the particular subject with that audience at that moment.

After countless talks on various themes, if I was given only five minutes to speak to you and I could convey only one thought that would help you to be more successful, I would tell you this: “Write down your goals, make plans to achieve them, and work on your plans every single day.”

This advice, if you followed it, would be of more help to you than almost anything else you could ever learn. Many university graduates have told me that this simple concept has been more valuable to them than four years of study. This idea has changed my life and the lives of millions of other people. It will change yours as well.

The Turning Point

A group of successful men got together in Chicago some time ago to talk about the experiences of their lives. All of them were millionaires and multimillionaires. Each of them had started from nothing many years before. Like most successful people, they were both humble and grateful for what they had achieved and for the blessings that life had bestowed upon them.

As they discussed the reasons why they had managed to achieve so much in life, the wisest man among them spoke up and said that, in his estimation, “success is goals, and all else is commentary.” After a few moments of silence, each of the others nodded and agreed.

Your time and life are precious. The biggest waste of time and life is to spend years accomplishing something that you could have achieved in only a few months. By following the proven processes of goal setting and goal achieving laid out in this book, you will accomplish vastly more in a shorter period than you ever imagined before. The speed at which you move upward will amaze you and all the people around you.

Follow the Leaders, Not the Followers

By following these simple and easy-to-apply methods and techniques, you can move quickly from rags to riches in the months and years ahead. You can transform your experience from one of poverty and frustration to one of affluence and satisfaction. You can go far beyond your friends and family and achieve more in life than most other people you know.

I have found, over and over, that a person of average intelligence with clear goals will run circles around a genius who is not sure what he or she really wants.

My personal mission statement has not changed in years. It is “To help people achieve their goals faster than they ever would in the absence of my help.”

This book contains the distilled essence of all that I have learned in the areas of success, achievement, and goal attainment. By following the steps explained in the pages ahead, you will move to the front of the line in life.

For my children, this book is meant to be a road map and a guide to help you get from wherever you are to wherever you want to go. For my friends and readers of this book, my reason for writing it is to give you a proven system that you can use to move onto the fast track in your own life.

Welcome! A great new adventure is about to begin.