SMART goals

The following comes from tthe following site: http://www.topachievement.com/smart.html


If a man knows not what harbor he seeks,
any wind is the right wind.
-Seneca




Creating S.M.A.R.T. Goals

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely





Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six "W" questions:
*Who: Who is involved?
*What: What do I want to accomplish?
*Where: Identify a location.
*When: Establish a time frame.
*Which: Identify requirements and constraints.
*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, "Get in shape." But a specific goal would say, "Join a health club and workout 3 days a week."




Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal.
To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as......How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?




Attainable - When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals.
You can attain almost any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.




Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.
Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.




Timely - A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there's no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? "Someday" won't work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, "by May 1st", then you've set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.
T can also stand for Tangible - A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing. When your goal is tangible you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.

They have gone live!

Check out the sales site of the learners of the Branson School of Enrepreneurship in Johannesburg - and buy!

Go to bransonschooljhb.blogspot.com

What is entrepreneurship?

I was going through my old notes and ran across the following definition of entrepreneurship that I wrote down. Before I toss it away the paper let us record it for posterity!:

"entrepreneurship is a way of thinking and acting that is oppotunity obsesses, holistic in approach and leadership balanced for the purpose of value creation and value capture"

Wow!

RB

Sir Richard Branson, 58, was reportedly delighted when his daughter, Holly, gave up her medical training and joined his Virgin empire this year.

Money from family and friends?

Talk to Virgin Money!

http://www.virginmoneyus.com/

Read the letter from RB:

http://www.virginmoneyus.com/ALetterFromRichardBranson/tabid/172/Default.aspx

Get yourself a credit card: https://www.virginmoneyonline.co.za/vmaf/creditCard.jsp

Estelle_vists the Branson School

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Estelle-In-South-Africa-Singer-Tells-Sky-News-Of-Her-Overwhelming-Hope-After-Visiting-Orphans/Article/200810115111167?lpos=Home_Second_World_News_Article_Teaser_Region_5&lid=ARTICLE_15111167_Estelle_In_South_Africa%3A_Singer_Tells_Sky_News_Of_Her_Overwhelming_Hope_After_Visiting_Orphans

R&B singer Estelle says she feels an "overwhelming feeling of hope"

I regard the learners at Branson "advantaged"!

Ethics, Values and the Family

A market economy in not, as many people think, a selfish society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. It is a society with moral values without which it cannot survive.

It stands on the foundation of individual property rights. And it relies to a large degree on people following moral rules, like honesty. Without honesty one simply cannot have fair trade.

In a market economy, the family also plays a very important role. It is the one place in society where sharing is still practiced on a regular and voluntary basis. in a way it is like the small hunting groups of thirty thousand years ago.

It is also the place where one gets the values which make a market economy possible: respect for property, honesty, responsibility, fairness, and compassion.

Adapted from "understading the Economy" by Marc Swanepoel

Learners often have a very scant idea of the principles on which economic systems rest and the so-called left has done a sterling job of making things appear opposite to what they are. For example socialism is seen as the route to go when one has compassion to the poor whilst capitalists are made oute to be greedy and selfish. This while everybody knows that in free market capitalist countries there is less poverty (and even the poor are relatively well off) and the wealthy tend to be very sensitive to the needs of the poor and are therefore philantropic and caring in their actions - the very human qualities that socialist policies tend to blunt (I am not going to care, the state should solve the problem with my taxes - which we know doesn't happen since th burcrats look after themselves and not the populace).

Then we have this whole moral issue of force - free market capitaism is based on voluntary exchange between adult individuals while socialism is dependent on force to expropriate the earnings from the productive groups within society.

The wealthy helping the poor.

The wealthy helping the poor.

I found this article somewhere – I do not know where (but the author's name does appear at the end). I am reproducing it here without explicit permission. It is mainly for the use of my learners at the Branson School for Entrepreneurship.

The wealthy have absolutely no obligation to "help" the poor, assuming that "help" in the context below means the handing over of part of their wealth to the poor without exchange of any comparable value from the poor to the wealthy i.e. economic exchange. The reason is that the wealthy are wealthy due to their past service to society - they have already given, and that is why they have received. Their wealth is the consequence of helping the poor... and middle-class and rich. They offered goods and services and received money in exchange. Voluntarily no less. Let me use an example:

I have a can of cola which I created by digging in the ground under my house for metals, growing sugar cane in my garden and collecting rain water that fell on my property. It cost me some effort and time, but did not take from anyone else to produce. You come along and offer me R5 for the can and I accept. This means that I value my can of cola at less than R5, because I would rather have the R5 than the cola. If I valued the can at more than R5, then I would rather keep the can. Let's say I value it at R4. You obviously value the can at more than R5, otherwise you would rather have kept your R5 - let's say you value it at R6.

Now, after our transaction, you have a can of cola which you value at R6 for which you paid R5 and I have R5 for which you paid for one cola valued at R4. So you and I are both better off than before. I have provided you with the ability to quench your thirst and in exchange you have given me potential to purchase something else to satisfy my needs. We have helped each other.

The problem comes the next day. You drank the drink, but I still have R5. Somehow, it is now assumed that I am rich and you are poor and therefore something is wrong. So would it make it right if I gave you R1 ? That would be the same as selling you the coke at R4 in the first place, in which case I would have gained nothing and you would have gained R2 during the exchange - hardly fair. Giving you more than R1 would make it entirely useless to produce and exchange and neither of us would have anything of value. Giving nothing is neither right nor wrong, since we both gave and received the previous day and are quits.

To summarise, let's invert the example. Let's say you did not drink the coke immediately, but kept it for a few days and I went out, spent my R5 on a loaf of bread and ate the whole thing. Now I have nothing and you have a coke. You are rich and I am poor. Do you have any obligation to share your coke with me ? I really can't see why. And if you did, would you expect me to make and sell you another can tomorrow or to come around asking for another sip ?

Stephen Van Jaarsveldt