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Watch time: 1 min | Making an impact
I've recently hit my goal of 1 billion meals through my partnership with Feeding America. Two years ahead of schedule.
When I set that goal, I couldn't imagine how I was going to make it happen.
It started when I was 11 years old — a stranger showed up at our door on Thanksgiving with a basket of food, and I decided that if strangers cared enough to show up for others, I would too.
At 17, I made baskets of food for two families in my neighborhood. The next year it was four. Then ten. Then 4 million meals. Then 100 million. Then 1 billion. And now, the NEXT billion.
That is what my dear friend Peter Diamandis calls a moonshot goal. Something big. World-changing. A little bit crazy.
And this is what a moonshot goal looks like in practice. Not a plan you can see all the way to the end. A decision you make before the path appears.
Earlier this month I stood in a warehouse in Surrey, British Columbia, alongside 30,000 people and watched something extraordinary. 543,501 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables given away in 24 hours. A Guinness World Record broken.
It started in 2022 with one man inviting 12 neighbors to his farm. Four years later, 30,000 showed up.
That is the nature of a goal larger than yourself. It attracts. It grows. It pulls people in you never could have planned for.
After 66 years on this planet, here are the three keys I've found invaluable for making moonshot goals real.
1. Set a seemingly impossible goal.
Not a safe goal. Not one you know you can hit if you just work a little harder.
A goal that scares you. A goal that requires you to become someone you aren't yet. A goal so big it forces you to grow into it.
The 1 billion meals felt impossible when I set it. That's exactly why I set it.
2. Find compelling enough reasons so that achieving becomes a MUST, not a should.
A should you will do when life is easy. A must you will make happen no matter what.
The difference is reasons. Reasons come first. Answers come second. If you have a strong enough why, you can do anything.
My reason started at age 11 with a stranger at the door and has never left me. Find yours. Make it so real, so personal, so non-negotiable that nothing can talk you out of it.
3. Set a tight timeline that calls you to action now.
A goal without a deadline is just a dream.
The timeline creates urgency. It forces decisions. It tells your nervous system that this is real and the time is now—not someday, not when conditions are perfect, but now.
I set a goal to provide 1 billion meals. I'm hitting it two years ahead of schedule. The timeline didn't limit me. It called me forward.
September is Hunger Action Month. In America, 48 million people are food insecure. In Canada, 9.8 million. A quarter of them are children.
These problems can seem insurmountable. But when you have a goal you care deeply about—something outside yourself, something you will go to the ends of the earth for—that is a moonshot goal within reach.
What goal can you bring more certainty to?
Where can you start today?
Here's to making the impossible possible.
One more thing. This September only, every donation through the Next Billion Meals Challenge with Feeding America is being double-matched. Your contribution goes twice as far this month. Don't wait.
This September, take action. 👉 Join Tony's Next Billion Meals Challenge
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