Fix on Your Vision, Then Plot Your Course by Bob Proctor

One summer, I had a wedding to attend in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. I had a few days to spare, and my wife and I enjoy each other’s company, so I suggested to Linda that we drive instead of fly. She readily agreed and started collecting the maps we’d need for the trip. As we plotted the course, we would be driving from Toronto to Detroit, Detroit to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Lexington, Lexington to Louisville and then into Gatlinburg.

We were plotting the vision, you see, to get us from Point A to Point B.

When we got in the car to begin the trip, which city was I thinking of? Detroit. I had to get to Detroit first; if I missed Detroit, there’d be a good chance we wouldn’t find our way to the wedding at all.

Detroit was first on my list—that was my GOAL. After Detroit was accomplished, Cincinnati became my goal, and so on… all the way to my final destination—Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
I’ve had people come up and tell me that they’ve given up on their big dreams because they never seemed to get closer, no matter what they envisioned or tried. The error they’re making is that they’re looking for their Gatlinburg while they’re still sitting in the driveway in Toronto. In many instances, they’re writing their Gatlinburg goal on a Goal Card I’ve given them, or they’re writing it in a journal somewhere. This is all well and good, but if you’re not also plotting your course to get from where you are to where you want to be… if you’re not figuring out the first goal is Detroit, then following that plotline forward in progressive order, you’re going to end up in Montreal instead.

You’ve GOT to plot the course. Figure out what you need to do between here and there and make those your goals. Once you have the course plotted, though, there are three very distinct rules of thumb I want you to remember.

First, just because you’ve plotted the course doesn’t mean you can put your whole plan on autopilot. When pilots reach cruising altitude they’ll quite often put the plane on autopilot and let years of genius physics and calculus computations steer the plane toward its destination. But even with autopilot, you’ve got to manually get the plane in the air and manually land it. And even with autopilot, you’ve got to keep an eye on your instruments and pay attention to possible curveballs Mother Nature might toss your way.

You cannot rely on autopilot to get you where you want to go. You have to be personally involved and focused on the process.

Second, don’t get so carried away with the details of plotting the action steps within your vision that you don’t ever get out of your driveway. You know what I’m talking about—you see people around you do it all the time. They get so caught up in planning and charting and graphing their future that they never BEGIN it. This is fear in disguise—that’s all it is. Your plan doesn’t have to be perfect. Get the foundational elements in place and get moving.

Third, don’t be so intent on motoring to Detroit that you miss the scenery along the way. You’re on purpose… you’re on your way… enjoy the journey, for heaven’s sake. After all, that’s what you’re doing this for, isn’t it?

Five Rules for Entrepreneurship by Brian Tracy

Entrepreneurship is the art of finding profitable solutions to problems. Every successful entrepreneur or business person has been able to identify a problem and come up with a solution to it before someone else did. Here are the five rules for success.

1. Find a Need and Fill It

Human needs and wants are unlimited. Therefore, the opportunities for entrepreneurship and financial success are unlimited as well. The only constraint on the business opportunities available to you are the limits you place on your own imagination.

2. Find a Problem and Solve It

Wherever there is a widespread and unsolved customer problem, there is an opportunity for you to start and build a successful business. Once upon a time, before photocopies, the only way to type multiple copies of a letter was with carbon paper places between sheets of stationary. But a single mistake would require the typist to go through and erase the mistakes on every single copy. This was enormously clumsy and time consuming. Then a secretary working for small company in Minneapolis began mixing flour with nail varnish in order to white out the mistake she was making in her typing. Soon, people in other offices began asking for it. The demand became so great that she quit her job and began working full-time manufacturing what she called “Liquid Paper.” A few years later, the Gillette Corporation came along and bought her out for $47 million cash.

3. Unlimited Opportunities

There are problems everywhere. Your job is to find one of these problems and solve it better than it has been solved in the past. Find a problem that everyone has and see if you can't come up with a solution for it. Find a way to supply a product or service better, cheaper, faster, or easier. Use your imagination.

4. Focus on the Customer

The key to success in business is to focus on the customer. Become obsessed with your customer. Become fixated on your customer's wants, needs, and desires. Think of your customer all the time. Think of what your customer is willing to pay for. Think about your customer's problems. See yourself as if you were working for your customer.

5. Bootstrap Your Way to Success

Once you have come up with a problem or idea, resolve to invest your time, talent, and energy instead of your money to get started. Most great personal fortunes in the United States were started with an idea and with the sale of personal services. Most great fortunes were started by people with no money, resources, or backing. They were started by individuals who came up with an idea and who then put their whole heart into producing a product or service that someone else would buy.

Action Exercise

Look for business opportunities everywhere, develop, an entrepreneurial mind-set, and continually be open and curious about the needs not satisfied and problems not solved. One idea is all you need to make your first million.