How to Sell

I was recently interviewed for SellingCrossing about my thoughts on selling.

You can read the interview by clicking here.

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This Column Will Change Your Life

Well, at least that is the claim of journalist Oliver Burkeman.  And maybe he is right.  In today’s Guardian (a British newspaper), he wrote:

“One of the most stress-inducing books I’ve ever read is called GOALS!, by the management expert Brian Tracy. It’s not about football. It’s about achieving your GOALS! in life – and those capital letters, along with the exclamation mark, may convey some sense of this book’s strange capacity for tying my stomach into a knot, then tightening it.”

Later in the article, he says this book “reduces you – all right, me – to a gibbering, indecisive wreck, unable to define my GOALS! in the first place, and sulking resentfully about the shouty man who keeps telling me I’ve got to pursue them relentlessly or else resign myself to becoming a person of no merit whatsoever.”

What interested me most (ok, I’m slightly biased) was his final paragraph:

“Life, Brian Tracy is fond of saying, is like a buffet, not a table-service restaurant: you have to buckle down and work hard now, so that you can enjoy the fruits of your labour in the future. But this is surely exactly wrong – a recipe for storing up all your happiness for a brief few minutes on your deathbed, when you can look back smugly at your achievements. Contrast that with the insight of Stephen Shapiro, whose book Goal-Free Living makes the case that you can have some kind of direction to your life without obsessing about the specific destination. ‘Opportunity knocks often, but sometimes softly,’ he says. ‘While blindly pursuing our goals, we often miss unexpected and wonderful possibilities.’ That sounds a lot more smart to me.”

To read the entire article, click here.

If you liked the article, be sure to write him and let him know.  I did.

P.S. GOALS! is probably one of the best selling goal-setting books in history.

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Feature in Newsweek

I was recently featured in Newsweek as part of an innovation roundtable. The online article can be read by clicking here.

Another roundtable member, Susan Baird from Quill Corporation, is a client of mine.

And be sure to click on “Creating Innovation Through Technology” in the related articles section. I am quoted there too.

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Good Article in WSJ

There was an interesting article in last week’s Wall Street Journal. It discusses the concept of a mulligan — or “do-over” — in your career. Starting over fresh with something new. It addresses one of the big challenges: trusting that things will work out…however they work out.

Remember, Goal-Free Living is not about doing what you love. That’s a small part of it. You could easily pursue your dreams and turn those into goals, hence destroying the journey, stifling your creativity, and preventing true success.

Click here to read the article.

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Let Go of ‘Tunnel’ Focus

In Tuesday’s (April 11) Investor’s Business Daily, there is a great article on Goal-Free Living. Due to copyright restrictions, I can’t include the whole article. Here is the intro…

While goals are undoubtedly some of the most effective means of triggering action, it’s important not to get too single-minded and limit your opportunities.

So says Stephen Shapiro, a self-described “goalaholic” and founder of The 24/7 Innovation Group. He spent the summer of ’03 traveling and interviewing executives, students, athletes and “ordinary people with extraordinary lives” to learn their secrets to achieving big dreams.

Over and over, he found, “It isn’t about goals or about ambition. Instead, the secret is to treat your life like an unplanned and unpredictable trip down a scenic, winding country road.”

It’s a gutsy claim, but surveys conducted by Shapiro’s company — with the assistance of the Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, N.J. — reveal that goals alone just might not be enough.

Forty-one percent of 1,310 polled said achieving their goals hasn’t made them happier. One in five admitted to ruining a friendship, marriage or relationship because of a goal, and one in three lost sleep.

To read the rest, you need to be an Investors.com subscriber.

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