GOALS by Brian Tracy: Brian Tracy is a legend in the personal development, business development and motivational speaking industries. He is also one of the last living GOATS in the field, still teaching at age 80. His name is often included in the same breath as greats such as Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, Wayne Dyer, Zig Ziglar, Les Brown, Jack Canfield, Louise Hay, and Tony Robbins. He is that caliber.
Brian has written at least 80 books and produced more than 300 audio and video programs. He is one of the most prolific people in the success and motivation industry of all time.
His book, GOALS, How To Get Everything You Want, Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible, is one of his best and most popular titles, with thousands of Amazon reviews (average 4.7 stars).
Out of all Brian’s books I could have chosen to review, I chose this one first, because I believe that something Brian said is true:
“Success is goals, and all else is commentary.”
He added:
“After giving countless talks on various themes, if I was given only five minutes to speak to you and I could convey only one thought that would help you to be more successful, I would tell you, ‘Write down your goals, make plans to achieve them, and work on your plans every single day.’”
Goals are that important. There is no achievement without goals.
Fortunately, goal setting is a learnable skill and Brian breaks it down into a series of simple steps that you can master by reading his book. The book is definitely slanted quite a bit toward financial, sales, and business success.
However, the goal setting skills you learn can be applied to every area of life including financial goals, entrepreneurial goals, career goals, education goals, relationship goals, family goals, sports goals, and of course, health and fitness goals. The principles are universal.
The book teaches 21 principles, with a chapter devoted to each one. They include topics such as values clarification, the importance of belief, the power of purpose, the magic of visualization, associating with the right people, strategic planning, taking action, being flexible, overcoming obstacles, tapping into your subconscious mind, persisting until you succeed, and much more.
Brian’s tone is conversational and easy to read. His writing is energizing and inspirational. While he occasional quotes studies, his book does not read anything like a PhD psychologist’s book. It is not academic or theoretical. It is motivational and practical.
The only thing that really matters, says Brian, is whether an idea or strategy works in the real world. Having shared his ideas with over 1000 corporations and millions of people over forty years, there is no doubt that the ideas he teaches work. They did for me.
I started following Brian in the early 1990s and his teachings have changed my personal and business life. When I started my first business, I learned how from Brian Tracy. When I got into sales (health club memberships), I learned how to do it from Brian Tracy. When I got into health club management, I learned how to do it from Brian Tracy. When I wanted to write my first book, I learned how to do it from Brian Tracy. When I wanted to become financially independent, I learned how to do it from Brian Tracy. When I wanted to learn the mental side of peak physical performance (bodybuilding and fitness), I learned a lot of it from Brian Tracy. When I wanted to achieve goals in every area of my life, I learned how to do it from Brian Tracy, along with a few of his contemporaries like Earl Nightingale and Jim Rohn especially.
I’ve read about two dozen of Brian’s books and I’m certain I’ve listened to over 1000 hours of his material. (I used to commute 30 min each way to work for years and listened to him on cassette tape and then later CDs in my car). I still listen to this day. It’s rarely music in my ears when I’m doing cardio or taking walks. It’s Brian, Jim, Earl and others like them, talking to me.
A good thing about Brian’s GOALS book is that it doesn’t go too broadly into all areas of personal development and life success. He covers general success principles and the fundamentals of how the mind works, but he stays mostly focused on goal setting and goal achieving. There are other good books and audio programs on goals, but this is one of the best. It’s also a good place to start with Brian Tracy if you’re just hearing about him now for the first time.
Maybe his only best seller that’s more popular is Eat That Frog, a short book about prioritization, productivity and time management. Time Power and Focal Point are also good reads on these topics. Maximum Achievement, one of his earliest books, is also a classic which became a best-selling audio program with Nightingale Conant. That one covers more broadly the psychology of achievement in every area of life, from financial success to parenting and personal relationships. I also recommend these titles and could suggest many others as well.
If there’s any downside to Brian Tracy’s material it’s that if you read one book, you’ll get hooked and want to read more, but you’ll discover that there’s a lot of overlapping material. I never minded because I know that repetition is how you learn. But fair warning, if you read a large number of his books, you will definitely see a lot of concepts repeated over and over again.
If you want to learn about goal setting and goal achieving specifically, you can’t go wrong starting with Brian Tracy’s GOALS book. I have the original 2003 hardcover. I don’t know how the 2010 second edition might be different – I may pick up the kindle for my next read so I can see.
The paperback is usually around $20 (the price fluctuates on Amazon): https://amzn.to/4fqA1g8. The kindle is usually around $10 at Amazon: https://amzn.to/3WjvR0V
For anyone thinking about grabbing the audiobook, be advised that the audible audiobook says “unabridged” but it is definitely abridged at only 3 hours and 20 minutes: https://amzn.to/3Yn7To4. (Tip: You can find it on You Tube for free, but not sure if it will stay there because it might be copyrighted and not authorized by Brian Tracy International).
The Nightingale Conant company put out a program called The Ultimate Goals Program, and that is actually the unabridged version of the GOALS book at 7 hours and 15 minutes. At the end, there’s a 30-minute bonus audio of a live presentation titled, “Success Is a Journey” which is one of my all-time favorites: https://amzn.to/3Yr1A2E. Brian reads his own audiobooks, and he is easy to listen to, but his live speeches are on another level.
Success in any area of life takes hard work and time. Brian says you won’t hear the word “easy” anywhere in his materials. However, he does teach you how to avoid common pitfalls and mistakes so you can achieve your goals in the shortest time possible. In that sense, reading Brian Tracy’s material is like taking a shortcut.
As he says in the opening pages of GOALS,:
“Your time and your life are precious. The biggest waste of time and life is for you to spend years accomplishing something that you could have achieved in only a few months.”
If you want to get on the fast track to achieving your goals, then I highly recommended you read this book, and then look into his other material.
You can Get This Book At Amazon: https://amzn.to/4bE90Uh/a
– Tom Venuto,
Author, Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle
Founder, Burn The Fat Inner Circle,
All-Natural, No-BS Body Transformation
About Tom Venuto
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilding and fat loss expert. He is also a recipe creator specializing in fat-burning, muscle-building cooking. Tom is a former competitive bodybuilder and today works as a full-time fitness coach, writer, blogger, and author. In his spare time, he is an avid outdoor enthusiast and backpacker. His book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle is an international bestseller, first as an ebook and now as a hardcover and audiobook. The Body Fat Solution, Tom’s book about emotional eating and long-term weight maintenance, was an Oprah Magazine and Men’s Fitness Magazine pick. Tom is also the founder of Burn The Fat Inner Circle – a fitness support community with over 52,000 members worldwide since 2006. Click here for membership details
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