On February 2, 1993 Phil Connors (Bill Murray) lived a humdrum existence on Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. The next morning Phil Connors awoke to the SAME DAY… still February 2nd. This happened over and over again, changing Phil into a man of extraordinary skill and compassion. Some calculate (the movie doesn’t say) that Phil Connors endured 12,403 Groundhog Days or 33 years and 358 days. It took that long for Phil to change before he experienced February 3rd!
On February 2, 2016, Ken Carfagno and Vincent Pugliese awoke with their Freedom Journals for Day One of the Groundhog Day + 100. Each man had a HUGE dream to NOT live like Phil Connors, rather to ACHIEVE greatness by design through SMART goals.
I can tell you that I was not a lazy man or a procrastinator. I am a former engineer and very organized and detailed. But with thirty things on my plate, I DID NOT have specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound or SMART goals. How could that be? Was I, in a way, acting like Phil Connors?
I set out to change that. I grabbed my favorite pen and scribbled my first 3 SMART goals into John Lee Dumas’s Freedom Journal. It was freeing and something changed in me immediately when ink touched paper. It was magic. I awoke from February 2nd, Groundhog Day, with a new purpose. There was not only a February 3rd, but 99 more fantastic days of achievement. I carried the 100 days to 200 and eventually submitted my story to John Lee Dumas and his Entrepreneur on Fire Podcast.
I was astonished when I was emailed back and invited onto the podcast on December 19th! What an honor to share my Freedom Journal and Groundhog Day + 100 Journey with JLD’s audience of over a million listeners per month. Just say that out loud. Wow! I just wanted to escape Punxsutawney and Groundhog Day.
Two takeaway actions…
- The show airs on January 27th, 2017. This is just 6 days away from Groundhog Day! Who will join me in another 100 day journey through SMART goal-setting???
- My kids were watching me set and achieve goals in 2016. I have said in a previous post that our kids copy all of what we do wrong and only half of what we do right.
Dads, your kids are watching you too.
