Goal Achievement According to Matthew

Some Background

I'm a big reader of motivational books. I've both succeeded and failed at numerous aspects of being a son, a brother, a husband, a father, an insurance agent, a salesperson and a business owner. I have a Connecticut health insurance website and a national site that offers Homeowners Insurance Quotes. I'm enjoying some success now but had several hurdles to overcome with each venture. Sometimes it seems that nothing comes easy in this life. Fortunately various success-oriented and self-help books have helped me through many rough times.

2000 Year Old Advice Can Still be Relevant

One day it dawned on me that much of what I've read in today's self-help books can be found in a much older and more popular self-help book. Matthew chapter 7, verse 7 (KJV) reads: “Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you”. Asking is about goal setting. Seeking is about looking for opportunities to help you achieve your stated goal. Knocking is about taking action. Only when you have done all three can you get what you want.

Ask and it shall be given you

In order to ask, you have to know what you want. You have to define your goal. This, of course, is the starting point. How can you possibly achieve a goal that you haven't set or cannot state? Be specific. A desire to be rich is fine, but that desire does not translate easily into an action plan. “I want to be rich by being the best insurance agent I can be” is a better goal. “I want to be rich by selling health insurance to self-employed people in Connecticut” is even better. Write down your goal or goals. Putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard is better than just thinking or talking about your goals. After you've defined your goal with specificity ask again through prayer.

Seek, and ye shall find

When you know what your goal is you can look for opportunities to help you achieve that goal. Seek out opportunities that will help you achieve your goal.

Knock and it shall be opened unto you

Once you've found an opportunity that will move you closer to your goal, you must take action. When you've asked, or defined your goal, sought, or found an opportunity that meets your criteria, nothing happens until you take advantage of the opportunity. It is like tracking down a long lost friend and sitting in his driveway refusing to knock on his door; unless luck intervenes, you've wasted your time asking and seeking.

In Summary

Asking, seeking and knocking are not interchangeable or synonymous terms in my opinion. In order to achieve your significant goals you must take several steps. The first is to ask or state your goal. The second is to seek out the best opportunities to move you towards that goal. The third is to move away from the intellectual exercises of asking and seeking and start doing something concrete and tangible; knock on the door.

© 2007 Alston J. Balkcom

This article can be copied and reprinted but only in its entirety. If published on the Internet in any form, the links must remain intact an active. The article was originally published on https://BadSalesLeads.com/articles/Goal-Achievement-According-to-Matthew.htm The article starts with the heading “Goal Achievement According to Matthew” and ends with this sentence.

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On or about June 1st 2007, we will be offering leads to agents who are looking to increase their production.

In the meantime we invite you to buy insurance leads from our friends at HomeTownQuotes.com and make more sales.

Bookmark us and check back with, we will be offering another source of high quality leads in June.

By the way, I'm working on a project that will allow agents with websites to trade leads with us. If you sell auto insurance in Texas, but one of your website visitors wants life insurance in Wyoming, you can send that lead to us. You will get a free lead for every two you send us. I'm working on the programming now and expect to roll the program out on June 1st.

The leads we will offer will be generated by the same websites using the same system that we use for our Connecticut health insurance Brokerage. Our websites have grown more popular and now generate leads we can't use. We sell almost exclusively to Connecticut residents and we prefer to sell only health insurance. Therefore a California health insurance lead or a Connecticut auto insurance lead is a "bad" leads to us, but perhaps a great lead for you.