Page 39 - Paulisms: Gold Nuggets for Small Business

Even today in semi-retirement, I still write down every day what I will achieve that day. Every day – even on weekends. It may be a walk, writing a chapter on this book or swallowing a toad (see Part 2: Chapter 4.3), but every day I am habitually working on my goals, even if they appear as diary notes. I also prioritise them. We are often setting goals without realising it, and our diaries are a good example of this (see Part 2: Chapter 4.1). Through my Entrepreneur Organisation business group, I now have a goal buddy. We meet for lunch every two weeks and thrash out our goals. We have strict confidentiality rules and it works really well.
By the way, the goals I set in December 1985, I blew out of the water, and the black belt... well, that was achieved two months after I turned 50 – eleven years after I first set the goal, started the plan and made the scary journey of walking up the stairs to a karate dojo!
Paulism: If you want to achieve, you must set goals. Write them down and turn those goals into every day smaller bites.
1.2 Make a plan to get to your destination quicker
Back in June 1986, my wife and I were coming back from England via Los Angeles. The previous year I had met M Venu Gopaul, an American who lived in Seattle, at the Wellington Chamber of Commerce. Venu had been on a trade mission to New Zealand. We had spoken about how we were interested in importing attic stairs into New Zealand. Now, this was back