I just heard Albert Mensah on Success University’s CD in the April 2008 Edition of Success Express. The topic he’s speaking on was ‘The Secrets to Effective Goal Setting’. It was a captivating as well as inspiring hour listening to him…

First a little background on Albert Mensah:

Albert Mensah was born and lived the first nineteen years of his life in Ghana (Africa). Born in a mud hut and living far from any urban center, Albert’s life was hard.

He was eight he saw his first movie - an American movie - and he saw lots of things for the first time, things that we all took for granted… people wearing shoes, tall buildings, etc.

That’s when Albert conceived the first dream of his life: Going to America to live! And held on to that dream for dear life as he spent the next eleven years putting himself in position to turn his dream into reality.

Albert’s advice is: Once you have a dream, you must create a series of goals with deadline to help you move forward in your journey. He recommends to put a deadline on even the smallest goals - something that will certainly be useful to myself.

He said that most people spend more time spending their 2-week vacation rather than on their own dreams.

And finally, I like his unique ALBERT Formula that make his dream come true:

A - Aim High: set a BIG goal. For example, when you are in high school, you tell yourself to get an ‘A’ not a ‘C’

L - Learn from others: there are many people who can help us. Start a journal and keep your activities and you can look back and see where you can improve

B - Be yourself. Accept who you are. Everyone has limitations. Do the best you can with what you have.

E - Expect to win: the key is preparation and setting realistic goals, time-based,

R - Risk it all: without risks, absolutely nothing will change in your life. For example, instead of watching TV for 4 hours, watch only 2 hours so that you can spend 2 hours in activities like reading books or doing homework. That’s taking risk… sacrificing

T - Trust yourself to make your dreams come true.

All people have dreams but most never take action to make their dreams come true. For more inspiring stories, be part of Success University.

I was reminded of Jim Collins’ Good To Great when I was in Orlando to attend an Internet Marketing recently in February 2008…

Mike Filsaime was speaking at his last appearance (for more details, visit www.RogerLoh.com)  and Mike’s 1st sentence when he was up on stage was:

“How many of you read GOOD TO GREAT?”

“And how many of you remember the 1st sentence in that book?”

And he said…

“GOOD is the ENEMY of the GREAT!”

I fully agreed with that…

And that reminds me of a similar quote from T. Harv Eker:

“If your goal is to be comfortable, chances are you’ll never get rich. But if your goal is to be rich, chances are you’ll end up mighty comfortable”

You see, how many of us become comfortable in life, especially after finishing school, polytechnic or university… and then found a good job that pays us well?

I was once a victim as I told my ex-colleagues that I’ll work till I retire. That well-paying job as an engineer was certainly GOOD - I could afford the creature comfort of life - nice apartment and condo, brand new cars, a holiday a year…

But it was certainly *NOT* GREAT. I lost my freedom. My life just consist of a boring 9 to 5 where I had to get up, get out whether I like it or not.

And now, life is so C-0-0-L for me - as I type this, I am lazing around at home during mid-morning, expressing myself here and moving from GOOD to GREAT!