by Vic Johnson
(excerpted from the 2004 Jim Rohn Weekend Event)
One of my life’s most valuable possessions is my journal. Why? Because my journal contains my dreams! And my dreams are my future!
I learned this principle from a story about a 15-year-old boy by the name of John Goddard. John, one day, happened to hear his parents and another adult talking, and the other adult had been telling John’s parents about how miserable his life was and how much he had failed. He wished he was John’s age again and could live his life over and do some things differently.
Well, John heard the anguish in his voice, I suppose, and he made a vow that he was going to do something at 15 years old. So at 15 years old he took out a legal pad and began to write the things he wanted to do in his life, what he wanted to accomplish. Before he was finished he had 127 things on his list. He called it, “My Life List”.
Today, John is in his mid 70s. Of his original 127 goals, John over the last 55-60 years has accomplished 111 of them, plus 400 other ones that he set along the way. And just so you know these weren’t some small goals, here are some of the goals that John Goddard has accomplished that were on his list:
- He’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, he’s climbed Mount Ararat; in fact, he’s climbed every major peak in the world.
But that’s just one of 500+ for John Goddard.
- He took Marco Polo’s route through all of Asia and China.
- He ran a mile in five minutes, he broad-jumped 15 feet, high-jumped 5 feet, and so on...
- He was the first person to explore the entire 4,200-mile length of the Nile River (that was his number one goal!). When he was 15 years old, no person had ever done it, but that 15-year-old boy didn’t know that; it didn’t matter to him. He put it on his list, and when he did it, USA Today named him the modern-day Indiana Jones. He’s been down not just the Nile River. He’s been down the Amazon, down the Congo, etc.
- He’s been to 122 countries and lived with 260 different tribes.
- He’s explored the reefs of Florida, the Great Barrier Reefs and so on...
- He’s flown 40 different types of aircraft, and still holds civilian air-speed records. Just that alone would be a great life experience; that was just one of John Goddard’s goals.
- He’s read the Bible cover to cover.
- He’s taught himself French, Spanish and Arabic. (Who reading this could not learn a foreign language in the next couple of years?).
And that is just a portion of the more than 500 dreams that John Goddard has accomplished.
I hope we all learn from John Goddard! Here are two major points that were impressed upon me:
1) John Goddard’s goals (dreams) were written down. How many of you have heard that before, to write your goals and dreams down? Because for 20 years I heard it and I had never written mine down, until just three years ago. Brian Tracy says if you’ll write your goals down you have a 100-times greater chance of success. Now I look at that mathematically, and then by an inverse way, from an opposite way. What it says to me is that, if I don’t write my goals down, I only have a 1-in-100 chance of succeeding. Write your goals and dreams down.
2) His dreams were BIG! I’ve found that a small dream will not give you the bulletproofing you are going to need. A small dream won’t protect you when bad times come. A small dream does not have any power at all—it has to be BIG!
So get started today! Go get a journal (or wipe the dust off the one you have) and write down your BIG goals! And then get started on your life story!
—Vic Johnson
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