What Is A BHAG?
BHAG is an acronym for Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Who would have guessed? These words strung together make me laugh every time as I get funny images flowing through my brain. It was first coined by American college professors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in 1992 and written about in their book Built to Last. My friend, TV host Philippe Matthews sent me a video of an interview he conducted with international bestselling author, Mark Victor Hansen. Whenever I hear something new I always do a Google search on it to find out more and so I found out about BHAGs…the big hairy ones.
The Power of Words from Great Mentors
In my last post I spoke about the power of words and focused on taking responsibility for what you speak and how you use your voice. Words have the power to speak life as well as the power to kill. In Philippe Matthews’ story, he was lucky enough to have found a mentor who spoke words of life to him and over him. He was also lucky enough to have heard them and to action them into his life. Mark Victor Hansen was that mentor and I am thrilled to share with you a glimpse of Philippe Matthew’s BHAG.
Who Is Philippe Matthews?
Philippe Matthews is an American who came from what one would call a tough childhood. You can read more by Googling “About Philippe Matthews”. From a very young age he and his sister had to fend for themselves which for many would have left them stuck in a place of victim-hood and desperation for the rest of their lives. But for some stroke of luck growing up, Philippe came across teachings from leaders such as Zig Ziglar, Les Brown, Brian Tracy, Dr.Denis Waitley. They saved his life. Phillipe says that listening to the tape “See You at The Top” changed him. See You at the Top.
Mark Victor Hansen Shares His BHAGs with Philippe Matthews
Philippe recorded this video at the Chicago book fair when he found Mark Victor Hansen going through the steps to accomplish his BHAG of selling one BILLION books by the year 2020. This is where I first heard the term Big Hairy Audacious Goal. Hansen’s goal for the Chicken Soup Books certainly fits the description. Already in 2004 they had sold 100 Million.
Mark Victor Hansen has many of these BHAGs. He says that they are important to have a BHAG as it forces you to grow and others to play. If you listen to the men who coined the term they say that a BHAG has to have 3 ingredients.
- Great passion including your values
- What you can be best at in the world
- What best drives your economic engine
1. To illustrate this for the case of the Chicken Soup books the great passion can be found in the vision that Mark Victor Hansen states in the video which is “to change the whole world one story at a time”
2. What they are best at would be compiling people’s anecdotal stories
3. What drives the economic engine is the single focused story within different sub niches.
BHAGs Get You Thinking
I personally think it is phenomenal to watch and to listen to some of what this man’s visions are and how he has helped so many people. One big key I noticed when watching this video is at the very beginning when Hansen gives accolades to Philippe for taking action on the words given by him 2 years prior. What I hear, is under the bravo is also pride in knowing that his words had impact. Mark Victor Hansen puts these messages out to many through books, seminars, videos and face to face coaching but I am sure that the ratio is small for those who take such earnest action as did Philippe. Mark Victor Hansen hailed him as the Oprah of Internet. Those are big words and that is on Big Hairy Audacious Goal to meet but without it, I would not have met Philippe this year and he would not be bringing the great nuggets of gold from some of the world’s greatest change agents such as Mark victor Hansen to us through his TV, radio and blog media today.
So tell me. Did this get you thinking? What is your BHAG? Dare you share it with us in the comments below or is it still gestating? Thanks for dropping by.
Rebecca Happy~The Connector Gal
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