Shoot for the Stars!
By Azim Jamal
www.azimjamal.com

If you think small, you remain small. Rumi says, “Look at your eyes, they are so small, yet they see enormous things.” You may be small physically but you have an enormous power inside of you. I know you have unlimited potential and the desire to shoot for the stars. Once you start believing in yourself, the whole world will believe in you.

The universe is abundant and so are we! There are trillions of stars in the sky. Our sun is smaller than many stars that are larger. The Milky Way Galaxy contains about 100 billion stars, and it is only one of about 100 billion galaxies in the universe.

Aiming big or setting Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAG) is the starting point. It is not a road map but a direction. When the BHAG of “a man to the moon and back before the end of the decade” was conceived, America had no clue how to actually accomplish it. Big goals set the wheels in motion, begetting energy and serendipity. Strategies or road maps will follow later.

I was coaching my son, Tawfiq, one day. One of the soccer drills included making him pass the ball to his teammate at head level so that it would go over the defenders. Each time I made him do this, he would hit the ball at the chest level. I tried to tell him to hit the ball higher, at head level, but he continued hitting it at the chest level. The more I tried to make him pass the ball at head level, the more he passed the ball at chest level. I eventually got tired.

The next day I saw their coach do the same drill, except that he was making them hit the ball on a fence twenty times higher than the head. Tawfiq hit the ball pretty close to the top of the fence three consecutive times. I was blown away! What happened? He seemed to be hitting the ball a bit short of where he was aiming at. When he was aiming at the head, he was hitting at chest level. When he aimed at the top of the fence, twenty times higher than the head, he was hitting the ball a little under that, yet twenty times higher than his previous aim! If you aim low, you reach low! If you aim high, you reach high!

Aiming big includes:
• Being resourceful
• Being extraordinary
• Being dominant

Being resourceful
Wal-Mart came into business about 45 years ago and became one of the biggest businesses in North America, not because they had a lot of resources, but rather because of their resourcefulness. Wal-Mart did not start with a lot of money compared to their competitors but despite this limitation they have grown far bigger. They managed to offer better service and better prices (through bulk buying for their different stores). They opened their stores at convenient locations and also were able to hire low skilled staff to keep their costs down. Today, they have 1.2 million employees and do sales of $1 billion a day. They donate about $100 million a year annually to charitable causes. They still need some work on the employee benefit and environmental fronts, but their resourcefulness has already made them a huge success.

Being extraordinary
The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the little extra you put in.
On November 30, 2006, we were driving to Dushanbe, Tajikistan, after I had completed two days of presentations and consultations in Khorog. En route, the Tajik driver stopped on the wayside where a seven-year-old girl was selling apples in a bucket. However, he decided to continue driving fifty yards further and stopped beside another person selling apples.

The little girl walked fifty yards further and stood beside the Tajik driver with an expression that said, “What is wrong with my apples?” The driver ignored the girl and completed his transaction with the other apple seller. However, the girl stood her ground with a smile on her face. Before we left that spot, the driver had bought the girl’s apples as well! Why? Perhaps it was because of the little extra the seven-year-old girl put in by walking an extra fifty yards and believing in the quality of her apples!

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the little extra you put in.

Being dominant
Smaller companies have an edge over their giant counterparts because of their resourcefulness as well as their focus. Google is miniscule compared to Microsoft, but it dominates search engines because of its focus and thus has an edge over Microsoft in that area. Whole Foods Market is valued at less than 10% of Kroger, but Whole Foods dominates the natural food market, not Kroger. Because of its focus on that segment of the market, Whole Foods Market is the world’s largest retailer of natural and organic foods with stores throughout North America and the United Kingdom.

Jet Blue Airways is tiny compared to United Airlines. United Airlines operates more than 3,600 flights a day to more than 210 U.S. and international destinations, whereas Jet Blue only flies to more than 50 destinations. Yet Jet Blue was soaring high without mega mergers by offering some unique features while United was struggling. Jet Blue was able to figure out what their customers needed and responded by providing these extra services.

“Travelers, there are no paths. Paths are made by walking.” - Antonio Machalo
If you think small, you remain small. What the mind conceives, the mind achieves. If you go to the ocean with one bucket, the ocean will only give you one bucket of water. If you go the ocean with a thousand buckets, the ocean will give you a thousand buckets of water.

Shooting for the stars requires us to display a form of chutzpah – a non-conforming courage to create something out of nothing despite all odds.

Azim Jamal is the author of several books, including co-author of Amazon # 1 best-selling book The Power of Giving. For a free monthly newsletter giving tips to live to potential and live a balanced life please register at www.azimjamal.com and www.thepowerofgiving.org