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We should all set goals. Lyndon Johnson is an excellent example of success at goal setting. The text for this video is mostly posted below and it is on my blog at . This video is part of this playlist: Goal Setting with President Lyndon Johnson by Brian Ruhe I want to talk about goal setting with the most inspiring example of the 20th century- President Lyndon Johnson. The three principles of goal setting we’ll contemplate upon in this video are: 1) Have a burning desire 2) Take advantage of opportunities when they arise 3) Be a team player by helping other people achieve their goals Lyndon Johnson grew up in Texas but his family didn’t have millions of dollars like John F. Kennedy’s family did. Johnson’s father went bankrupt and his family barely got by with help from their relatives. One thing LBJ learned as a young man was that the people with the money call the shots. He wanted to be the one who called the shots so he learned to set goals. He had to work hard like everybody else. He knew what it meant to do honest work for every penny that he earned. But he also mastered the art of goal setting which took him from nowhere to being President of the United States. So, the first principle is to have a burning desire to achieve your goal. People close to Vice-President Lyndon Johnson said he had a maniacal desire to be President. It’s easier to work on a big goal than a little goal. As Vice-president, Lyndon didn’t much like the job and he didn’t take well to other cultures when President Kennedy would send him around the world to strange countries to represent America in situations that didn’t matter to Lyndon. The second principle is to take advantage of opportunities when they arise. President Kennedy had many enemies in the CIA, the Military Industrial Complex, the Federal Reserve, Majestic 12 who needed to maintain UFO secrecy and Israel who wanted the atomic bomb. They needed to count on Lyndon Johnson to completely turn against Kennedy’s policies or it wouldn’t be worth the risk to assassinate the President. So, LBJ didn’t hesitate to agree to whatever terms they wanted and it was that lack of hesitation, to take quick advantage of an opportunity that gave confidence to those around Lyndon that he was a decent man who would always honour his word. That leads to the third principle, which is, be a team player by helping other people achieve their goals. J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI was good friends with Lyndon for 15 years but he was facing forced retirement at age 70 in 1965, under President Kennedy. Lyndon promised J. Edgar Hoover that if he helped him cover up the murder, then Johnson would make Hoover FBI director for life. They were both team players and they worked with several others in and outside of the United States to assassinate President Kennedy so that Johnson became President. People say that this remains the most disturbing thing in the American psyche and it’s significant in world history as well, but it was a just passing event and everybody’s got to die sometime. Lyndon achieved his goal, “with a little help from his friends” as the Beatles sang and he followed through by helping others achieve their goals. He granted Hoover the FBI for life, he helped the Federal Reserve by canceling Kennedy’s green back dollars printed by the US Treasury, he gave Israel the atomic bomb and he overturned President Kennedy’s plan to get out of Vietnam. Not only did he help those who helped him, but he had a deep love for Israel since he was actually Jewish and he had great compassion for his allies, such as South Vietnam. Against Kennedy’s wishes he fought for freedom and democracy in Vietnam against the invading communists and he succeeded in keeping South Vietnam a free democracy until the end of his presidency in 1969. So, look at the benefits of goal setting as demonstrated by President Lyndon Johnson and contemplate upon the blessings that he brought to America and to the world. He passed the Civil Rights bill in 1964. President Kennedy was opposed to the integration blacks into white schools but Johnson went so much further to help the black population and just look at the results with black Americans today. They have more freedom and equality than ever before, thanks mostly to President Johnson. So, in closing, I encourage you to set your own goals and write them down. The 3% of people with written goals and plans, achieve more than the 97% of the population combined, who have no goals or goals that are not written down. And choose goals that you have a burning desire for. Take advantage of whatever opportunities arise or make them arise, as Lyndon did, and be a team player by helping other people achieve their goals.
