Goal Setting Speech Excerpts
Gary Lewis
Asset Design Center
My message to you today is surely nothing new. Many of us are self-employed, thus we are constantly seeking ways to motivate ourselves. Most of us have read self-help books, positive attitude books and so forth. Which book has not said that the first step is to write down your goals? We all know this, we all have heard it before but yet a study I read stated that only a small percentage of us actually have written goals.
I see it every day in my profession as a financial planner. I write and review financial plans every day and hardly ever do I see specific financial goals. It’s always that I want to retire comfortably or I want to pass as much wealth to my children as possible or some other nebulous goal. Never do I see, I want to retire in the year 2020 with an after tax income of $60,000 a year that will inflate by 3% annually. Or I want to pass $3 million to each of my children in inflation-adjusted dollars. A portion gifted during my life, another portion gifted at my death and a final portion 10 to 15 years after my death. (I want to control from the grave!!!)
The truth is, most of us do not have written goals because it is extremely difficult to define our goals. Yes, we all want to make a sufficient amount of money, we all want to retire, we all want to have a happy life, but what does this exactly mean? Many of us know what we want to do short-term, but where does it all lead? Few of us have the big picture vision that we hold in our mind to inspire us in our day-to-day situations.
How can we go forward to define our long-term goals?
1. Many set their goals by finding a great person who inspires them and patterning their life after this person. As individuals who are striving for success, we should all take the time to know who the great leaders are in our fields, we should read their books, understand their philosophies, know how they have risen to their level of success. By noting their path to success, we can strive to emulate them. (And even improve upon their methods) Many go so far as to have a picture of that person on their desk or wall and when faced with a perplexing problem, they often ask, “what would Abraham Lincoln do if he were faced with this situation?”
2. Another way you might refine your goals is to apply a strategy from a book entitled Goals-Based Selling. A standard in the financial planning industry, Goal-based selling is a process by which your advisor would ask, George, what’s important about money to you? George responds, with money, I can buy the things that I want. George, what is important about buying the things that you want? George then responds. The process continues until perhaps the seventh level when the planner identifies the true spiritual purpose of George’s life. It is generally something profound as having respect of the community. We too can apply this same process to ourselves to identify what is truly important to us. In the end, it is rarely about money. Money is just a means to get us there, but not the only means.
3. A third way to identify our goals is to have the end in mind. And when I say have the end in mind, I mean the real end. This strategy is also known as “Writing Your Obituary”. When we are taking our last breath, seldom do we think about our life in terms of wealth or fame. Of course there is always an exception. Jack Welsh, the former chairman of GE, recently had a near death experience. When asked what his thoughts were as he was in his near death condition, he replied, ‘If I live through this, I’ll never again buy another bottle of wine that costs less than $100.’ When I think of my obituary, it’s something like; hundreds of thousands lined the streets of New York City to pay their last respects to Gary Lewis, a man through whose vision and foresight enabled millions to escape hunger and poverty.
But in truth, I would die with a smile on my face just knowing that I have done my best in life . . .
Once we have identified our long-term goals, develop a series of short-term goals along with target dates. Choose short-term goals that play a specific role in your overall development.
