Goals Gone Wild!: 101 Inspiring, Motivating, and Moderately Entertaining Stories of a Boy and His Goals

Contents

Preface

Introduction

chapter 01

chapter 02

chapter 03

chapter 04

chapter 05

chapter 06

chapter 07

chapter 08

chapter 09

chapter 10

About the Author

This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever gathered the necessary ingredients for successful living: a worthy goal, the courage to commit to achieving it, and enough good sense to ask for help along the way.

Preface

On the off chance you’d like to understand how this book came to be, it may help if I first explain how I came to be.

My early years were spent as a relatively normal kid growing up in Columbia, Missouri. If I had to choose a word to describe myself at the time, it would have to be average. On my baseball team, I was an average second baseman. In elementary school, my grades were average. In almost every case, my overall effort was average. This frustrated my parents, who would talk at length about my potential and what might be possible if I’d simply apply myself. No matter. Who had time for potential when MacGyver was about to start?

During my freshman year of high school, I decided to try a new sport. For some incomprehensible reason, wrestling is quite big in the Midwest. I went to the first practice, I signed the waiver, and I was issued a singlet and matching tights. Um. Okay.

Before the first match, the coach pulled me aside and said, You’re the littlest, Pep, so you’re up first. Let’s set the tone for the entire team’s season with a victory right here!

I walked to the center of the mat and nervously toed the line. In the nanosecond after the referee blew the whistle, my opponent grabbed my head and threw me into the stands. A few seconds later, it was over. So much for setting the tone. I went on to lose all my matches that year. Shortly after the season ended, I received a letter from the school informing me they would be adding some male cheerleaders to the squad next year and inquired whether I’d be interested in trying out. This was my first real brush with humiliation.

Two years later, on my sixteenth birthday, I was bursting with nervous energy. I was about to take my driver’s test. With my own license, I’d finally be free to hit the open road. I gripped the steering wheel tightly. A clipboard-wielding tester sat in the passenger’s seat barking out instructions and scribbling notes. As we pulled out of the parking lot, my heart was pounding through my chest. My driving reflected this, of course. I drove too fast and made too few checks of my side mirrors. I knew it was going badly. As I zipped around a corner, the tester yelled, Stop! I braked just short of a blind person and his guide dog. The puzzled pair stood frozen in the crosswalk. Instant fail. I’ll never forget the look on that dog’s face, and I’ll never forget how disappointed I was to have failed to achieve my goal.

After I graduated from high school, you may be surprised to learn that I did in fact go to college. Of course, when I say I went to college, I don’t mean that I actually went to class. In my second semester, I turned in a 0.7 Grade Point Average. In my defense, that’s actually closer to a D than an F. Needless to say, the esteemed officials at the University of Missouri asked me not to hurry back.

At this point, you’re undoubtedly wondering how such a sorry sack ever came to write a book on goal achievement and personal success. Hang in there. We’re about to get to the good part.

I was out of options. I looked back on my life, and I realized that the only thing I had ever known for certain was that I wanted to be a US Marine. I had always wanted to be a part of that elite and venerable brotherhood. I also realized that my parents had been right all along. I hadn’t lived up to my potential. I hadn’t put in the necessary work. I decided that it was time for me to do exactly that.

In December 1990 I reported to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, California, ready to earn the title. I was surprised to find that I actually enjoyed boot camp. It was challenging, but a challenge was exactly what I needed. My loving drill instructors were all too happy to tear me down and rebuild me from scratch. I was learning—and living—powerful lessons in motivation, leadership, discipline, and commitment. I stood tall and proud on graduation day. I was beginning to realize my potential.

The marines sent me to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, to learn Arabic. As you might expect, my class attendance and marks improved dramatically. I performed so well, in fact, that I won the Provost’s Award for academic excellence. For my fleet assignment, I was stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. When I arrived, I sought out the toughest assignment I could find. I joined the cryptographic equivalent of Special Forces, the Radio Reconnaissance Platoon. Over the next several months, I learned how to jump out of airplanes, survive behind enemy lines, intercept terrorist communications, and a dozen other adrenaline-soaked activities. Notably, I accomplished all this without having to wear tights.

Marines on the east coast are deployed on floats in the Mediterranean. I spent my first six-month deployment aboard the USS Inchon. One day I visited the ship’s library, where I found two books that changed my life. The first was a textbook in general psychology. I was fascinated by the brain and the mind (yes, they’re different) as well as how much scientists have discovered about human emotion and behavior. The second book was the business classic In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. In their seminal book, I learned how organizations far less heavily armed than the Marine Corps were able to adapt, improve, and thrive.

I immediately decided to recommit myself to formal education. While aboard the ship and later on land, I took correspondence courses and completed a series of standardized tests. At night, when my friends went out drinking, I stayed home and hit the books. In December 1996—the same month I separated from active military service—I completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Once again I felt as if I were finally living up to my potential.

But I was just getting started. I was accepted into Boston University’s Graduate School of Management. After six years in the Marine Corps, I found school exceptionally easy this time around. In May of 1999, I earned an MBA and a second master’s degree in management information systems, receiving high honors in both programs. I loved the time I had spent studying successful organizations, teams, and individuals, and I was ready to try my hand outside the classroom.

I joined Gomez Advisors, an Internet startup outside Boston. As a product manager, I stood at the crossroads of business and technology. In the software world, things were moving very fast. This was the time of the dotcom boom and subsequent dotcom bust. It was a wild ride, and I was a learning machine. As I commuted back and forth between the office and my home on Cape Cod, I listened to more than one hundred books on tape. I listened to a variety of business and self-help titles. I really appreciated the authors’ efforts and the investment they had unwittingly made in me. I knew that I wanted to some day similarly convey my own thoughts and observations as a successful author.

In 2005 I decided to prepare myself for an eventual career change. While I was enjoying my work at Gomez, the company’s products and services were fairly technical. I realized that my passion was more people-oriented and centered on how I might be able to help others succeed. I enrolled in Capella University’s PhD program in psychology. My nerd brain went into overdrive. I studied theories of motivation, goal setting, personality, well-being, and optimal human experience. I learned about an exciting and relatively new thread of positive psychology with its shift in focus from pathology (what’s broken) to potential (what’s possible). I learned about the field of coaching and how there are actually professionals whose sole mission is to help others find success in their personal and professional lives.

As invigorated as I was by everything I was learning about personal development, I was also disturbed by something I wasn’t seeing in the helping profession—an effective use of the Internet as a delivery mechanism for coaching. At my day job, I was constantly bombarded with the latest and greatest developments in web-based software and social media. In my evening studies, however, I was seeing things only as they had been done for decades. Coaches were connecting with their clients in 1-to-1 sessions either in person or by phone. My dissertation topic immediately became apparent. I would study the effectiveness of a group coaching program delivered exclusively online. The program was indeed effective. I completed my PhD in 2011, and my professional calling—harnessing the power of technology to support personal growth and development—became clear.

About the same time that I started my PhD program, I decided to casually try my hand as a budding self-help author. Thanks to technological advancements, this has never been easier. I created an e-newsletter and a blog. I wanted to choose a name that was upbeat and offbeat, just like me. I called it Goals Gone Wild.

On January 1, 2005, I sat in front of my laptop and wrote my first Goals Gone Wild post. Success! Or was it? In retrospect, that first post was terrible. It was boring. It was stilted. It was almost as if I was trying to be a legitimate writer. (Egad!) Fortunately, I received some great advice from marketing and content expert Michael Katz. Michael encouraged me to be myself and write about the things I like in the way I like to talk about them. So that’s what I did.

Over the past seven years, I’ve been on the lookout for life’s lessons in goal achievement and personal mastery. I love writing about my observations and sharing advice for my own benefit as much as for that of others. I share experiences from my real life not because I’m an egomaniac (that’s just a coincidence) but because these experiences are readily at my disposal. Judging from the tens of e-mails I’ve received over the years, my experiences and the lessons they hold seem to resonate with my readers as well.

This book contains 101 of my favorite stories, all in one convenient container. It took quite a bit of time for me to write and then compile them into this book. That’s precious time that I spent away from my loving family, so I’m forever indebted to my wife and our three children for lending me to this part of my life. I’d also like to thank my parents and my sister for their endless supply of support and curiosity. Thanks also to those formative souls from my later life including my drill instructors, professors, fellow students, friends, and coworkers.

I’d like to thank you too. Whether we’ve ever met, I’ve enjoyed thinking about the possibility of your being at your very best. It’s a powerful personal vision that drives me every day. What if everyone around us were at their best all the time? How different would the world be? We’d be quick to build each other up and slow to tear each other down. We have so much potential if we’d only we’d apply ourselves in this way. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

That’s why I’m here. That’s why I do what I do. I love to help people see what’s beautifully possible in their lives and encourage them to take small steps toward making that possibility a reality. As I’ve found in my own life, personal growth and achievement don’t happen by accident, don’t come with a how-to guide, and don’t come easily. I’ve written this book to offer a bit of enthusiasm and entertainment as you, the reader, strive to realize your own potential.

I hope you enjoy it, and best of luck in your own goal pursuits. Go wild!

—Cape Cod, Massachusetts

—January 29, 2012

Introduction

If you peruse the shelves of your local bookstore, you’ll likely have two burning questions:

• What’s Sue Grafton going to do after she finishes her upcoming murder mystery, Z is for Zamboni?

• Do we really need another self-help book?

Since Sue won’t return my phone calls, I’ll focus on the second question.

Over the past seven years, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with everyday folks regarding their relative happiness, their sense of personal success, and their ability to live in accordance with what they believe to be their full potential. By virtually every measure, it’s clear that many people are frustrated and lacking in one or more important area of their lives. Multitudes of psychological studies have found similar results, so it’s not as if all the people I know are losers. Just in case you were wondering.

At first this seemed odd to me. Life may not come with an owner’s manual or a map to help us find lasting success and happiness, but knowledgeable authors have written hundreds of great books on the subject of personal mastery. With all these great books available, how can so many of us remain separated from what’s fantastically possible in our lives?

I’ve come to discover that there are three basic challenges. First, most of you don’t read self-help books with any regularity or resolve. (This is partly because most self-help books are about as engaging as a turnip.) Second, even if you read a well-written book, the lessons it holds can be difficult to apply to your own life. Finally, even if you’re particularly moved by a book and you set out to apply its lessons, your ability to maintain a positive change in your mindset or behavior lasts roughly as long as the lifespan of a fruit fly. You know the drill: life happens, and the book ends up propping up a wobbly table or gathering dust on your shelf. In fact, I often call them shelf-help books because they’re much better at filling your shelves than helping you make lasting positive changes in your life.

In light of the underwhelmed feeling we’ve each personally experienced and the challenges we face when we set out to do something about it, I believe we do need another self-help book but one that’s different from those that have come before. When I set out to write this book, I resolved to combine two big ideas. I’m not a fan of hyperbole, so I’ll simply say that taken together, these two ideas have the ability to forever change our lives, our world, and the course of human development altogether. (This despite the fact that neither involve a Zamboni.)

Big Idea #1: Self-Help Doesn’t Have to Be Boring

If the thought of reading a classic text such as James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh or even a more modern gem such as Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Successful People makes you scan the room for something sharp, fear not.

I’ve enjoyed reading scores of self-help books, but I’ll readily admit that I’m the nerdy exception to the rule. There are countless people who find typical self-help books too dry, too stiff, too touchy-feely, or too dull to be useful. With all due respect to well-intentioned authors and pundits, I think it’s possible to combine powerful life lessons with popular culture references, a few feeble attempts at humor, a hint of irreverence, and a dash of a kick ass attitude. Granted, this informal approach isn’t for everyone, but I think it can be more palatable for casual readers who also happen to enjoy putting positive things into their brains.

In the pages that follow, I share some of my favorite stories from the past seven years. I’ve written on a variety of personal development topics from that time. I’m happy to share my life experiences and observations, all with an eye toward gleaning the positive tips and lessons they’ve provided. While many self-help authors prefer to portray a gold-plated façade, I’m quick to share my shortcomings and failures. I feel that we have much to learn from life’s setbacks, and if you can benefit from reading mine (rather than living through them), it’s well worth any embarrassment I may feel.

Big Idea #2: The Secret to Lasting Success Is No Secret

I believe that 99.9 percent of successful living comes down to basic human psychology—the way we think, feel, and act. Since the late-nineteenth century, social scientists have conducted thousands of studies in topics ranging from motivation to goal achievement to happiness and well beyond. Today, an entire arm of psychology—positive psychology—is dedicated to increasing our understanding of optimal human experience.

Social scientists who spend their Saturday nights in the lab aren’t the only beneficiaries of this research. Many of their findings have been developed with an eye toward putting them into practice so that we can get some of the yummy goodness for ourselves. Shawn Achor, Barbara Fredrickson, Tony Grant, and many other great psychology researchers-turned-author have developed thought-provoking exercises based on their experiences and discoveries. At the same time, I’m pleased to report the field of coaching has emerged. Today, professional coaches provide expert services to individuals that help them clarify intrinsic values, develop goal attainment strategies, build energy and momentum, power through inevitable obstacles and setbacks, and make positive and sustainable life changes. (That’s so much cooler than it sounds.)

In many of the stories in this book, I present some of my favorite coaching-style tools and exercises. They can really work for you if you’re really willing to do the work. I’ve kept the number of exercises in this book to a manageable number for two reasons. First, many books are so jam-packed with exercises that it can be difficult to commit to doing all of them. Second, I really, really, really want you to do them! Too many readers of traditional self-help books go through the motions and either skim over the exercises quickly or otherwise half-ass them. I’m imploring you, please, use your whole ass! There are only a few exercises, so promise me that you’ll put pen to paper and make the investment of personal reflection that these simple exercises require. (You and your ass can thank me later.)

How to Use This Book

As you might imagine, there’s no single best way to use this book. If you have one of those nifty systematic minds, you’re welcome to read the stories in order from cover to cover. Likewise, you creative types can bounce around randomly, never knowing what you might find next. Suit yourself. Whichever you choose, you won’t hurt my feelings one bit.

The only advice I can give you is to simply use this book in the way that works best for you. I only ask that you don’t let this become yet another shelf-help book. Read it, reflect on it, live it, and share it with those you think might benefit from it.

Lasting success in life can be yours, but only if you commit to making it a reality. Best of luck in your journey, and thanks for bringing me along!

chapter 01

On Vision and Purpose

Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement.

—W. Clement Stone

Call Me, Ishmael

In days gone by, I was a salty sea dog. During my Marine Corps service, I spent some fifteen-plus months at sea. That faithful taxi service known as the US Navy carted me throughout the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the Red Sea. That was a long time ago, however. My last fourteen years have been spent almost exclusively as a landlubber.

This week I found myself prowling the high seas once again. Our point of launch was Fairhaven, Massachusetts, and we were on a quest for sailfish, swordfish, and great whites. Okay, that’s not entirely true. It was more like bluefish. Or really pretty much any fish. The important things were that we were on a boat and we had snacks.

As we made our way out of the bay, I soaked up the scene. On the starboard side, I saw a brightly colored buoy. On the port side, I saw a modest lighthouse. Dead ahead I saw our intrepid captain piloting the seaworthy vessel. It was good to be back on the open water.

Perhaps it was the gentle rolling of the waves or maybe it was the salty air, but whatever the reason I began to think about how those nautical things around me relate to our pursuit of success and happiness in our lives.

• The buoy. A buoy floats in place, tossed about by the whims of the tides and the waves. It doesn’t sink, but it doesn’t really go anywhere either. Its focus seems to be survival in the moment and a pursuit of equilibrium.

• The lighthouse. Like the buoy, the lighthouse isn’t headed anywhere fast. On the other hand, the lighthouse has found firm ground. It stands resolute, having made peace with its present station and purpose.

• The captain. The captain has someplace to be. The captain has a destination—a goal—in mind, a plan to get there, and a power source (fuel, wind, etc.) to ensure steady progress. The captain may choose to change course along the way, but at any given time the captain always has a bias for action.

While all three are subject to the same elements—the same winds, rains, sun, poop-laden seagulls—each manages the present reality in a very different way.

In my experience, too many people are like buoys. They lack direction and the determination to get somewhere. They have no solid footing, so they’re tossed about by the circumstances of their lives. Unfortunately, this may last for years at a time, and they often find themselves frustrated by what they