EXPOSED! – How a Switched ON Corporate Graduate Landed Herself Work in India AND Secured Tickets to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics…ALL in 60 Seconds!

This post is inspired by a switched on corporate graduate named Fiona Looker.  Before I tell you how Fiona is making her GOALS REAL, it’s important you read this short context.

Do you set real and meaningful goals for yourself?

As a professional speaker and executive coach I always get to ask people if they set goals, and if I had a dollar for every answer like this, “oh yeah, of course I do”, I’d have enough cash to start my own airline.  But here’s the thing, if I had a dollar for every person I know that actually followed through and took action, I wouldn’t have enough to catch a bus to the airport.

Now I know you’ve been to a seminar, read a motivational book, seen something on television (maybe a reality where people are losing weight or launching businesses) or met someone who has motivated you to set yourself a goal AND you tell yourself, “this time I’m serious!”.  But then life happens and you re-schedule and decide to re-launch your quest to achieve your goals …the most common one I hear is, “I’m going to start again on MONDAY” – which is code for, I’ll just cut myself some slack AGAIN.  So what stops YOU from following through?

In my seminars I reveal a 7 STEP fool proof system I developed for guaranteeing you take action and achieve ANY goal you set for yourself.  My favourite step in the 7 STEP system is STEP 4, which is, DECLARE – tell as many people as you can.  The reason I love this step is because it’s the easiest one and other people do the work for you.  Think about it, don’t you feel good when you help someone and don’t you also feel a sense of achievement knowing you had a hand in helping another person achieve their goals?  The answer is YES – we all like helping each other out, especially our friends.   The other reason I love STEP 4 is because it keeps you accountable to other people.

Below are some excerpts from an email I received from Fiona on 19th February 2009, and it’s an awesome example of how Fiona put STEP 4 into practice and is right now, at this minute in Bangalore, India.

Hi Dave,

The second one is far more exciting. I’m an Operations grad and with all the movement that’s going on between Australia and India, I figured “surely graduates in Operations would benefit from rotation in Bangalore.” So, it was with this proposition that I approached the head of the operations team, where I am doing my second rotation, and with whom I have regular catch ups. I was expecting him to remind me of the economic crisis, the credit crunch, and that he was impressed with my motivation and drive, but these things don’t happen just like that.

I know you’re probably busy with the new 2009 grads, and wowing their socks off as you did with us last year, but just wanted to shoot you a quick email to say thank you for helping me achieve two amazing things over the last 12 months – one personal, one work related.
At Go Week last year, you were talking about the importance of having goals, and telling as many people as possible, as they’d help you achieve them. I had two: to go to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and to go to Bangalore for one of my graduate rotations.

I love winter, and to ski, and have always wanted to go to Canada. Speaking to someone about it during one of those “get to know your neighbour and tell them your goals” 60sec chats we did during one of your sessions, a simple throw-away line of “oh that sounds awesome, you should have a look on line about tickets” got the wheels in motion. Two of my brothers and I put in for the ticket ballot late last year, and we found out a few weeks ago that we got most of those we requested, so we’re going in Feb next year. Definitely an adventure that wouldn’t be on the cards had you not reinforced that the more people we tell, the more accountable for our goals we become.

 To my surprise, that’s not quite how the conversation ran. He thought it was an excellent idea and potential opportunity, and I left the room with him saying “can’t promise anything, but I’m going to float the idea with a few people and see what they think.” One thing led to another, and my marvellous sponsor, along with other amazing key people across operations, have made it a reality.

 
I’ll be leaving in about a month, details still to be finalised, and I cannot wait! It’ll be tremendous, scary, eye-opening, developing, exciting….all rolled into one. So thank-you for planting the seeds, really feels like things are in full bloom at the moment!

ACTION STEP - write down ONE bold and meaningful PROFESSIONAL goal and ONE courageous and meaningful PERSONAL goal…RIGHT NOW. 

 For your PROFESSIONAL goal you may think about the next role you want, the next company you want to work for, the next country you want to work in, a career change, achieving a target that would blow your bosses mind or even taking someone under your wing to help them run up the ladder of success TWO rungs at a time. 

 For your PERSONAL GOAL you may think about totally transforming your body into a lean, mean fighting machine (12% body fat), going to a world class personal achievement seminar (like Tony Robbins’ Date with Destiny on the Gold Coast QLD in April 2009), going away to a country you have never visited before, gifting your parents a weekend away, taking someone you love to a romantic destination as a surprise or even just getting back into a hobby you enjoy.

So write down your PROFESSIONAL and PERSONAL goal and tell at least 5 people within the next 24 hours.  If you have the guts and really want make yourself accountable you can post it on your BLOG, Facebook profile or twitter account. 

DO it, DO IT now AND Rock on to RESULTS!

P.S. I know Fiona Looker personally and I can tell you she is an AWESOME example of balancing RESULTS with RELATIONSHIPS – what I mean by that is, she’s well on her way to the top but will not burn anyone to get there.

Explore posts in the same categories: Performance Mastery Principles™

Tags: 7 STEP, Bangalore, Dave Lourdes, Fiona Looker, GO Week, Goal Setting, Goals, Graduate, India

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