Donald Deibler has made a simple but demanding commitment: no goal counts unless it is written down first. The Hegins, Pennsylvania, business owner sets yearly goals every January 1 and monthly goals at the beginning of each month, keeping both lists visible rather than buried in a notebook. "I like to set yearly goals every January 1st and monthly goals at the beginning of every month," Deibler said. "I keep these in the back of my mind daily." The announcement matters because it reveals the operating rhythm behind two food and beverage operations, and it offers a concrete example of how personal discipline can translate into business stability.
Deibler is the business manager of All Stars Ice Cream and Cafe Bakery, and he supports his wife's ownership of Dead Horse Beer and Burritos. Running a bakery and cafe alongside supporting a second food and beverage business means his days rarely look the same twice. A written goal becomes a fixed reference point when the schedule gets noisy. The structure is straightforward: a yearly target is written down in full, a smaller specific goal is added underneath it at the start of each month, and both stay visible enough to shape daily decisions.
The policy's implications extend beyond personal organization. In small food businesses, where margins are thin and owners often absorb multiple roles, the ability to break a large yearly target into monthly steps can prevent overwhelm. Deibler describes handling doubt "by taking everything one task at a time," and he measures success "by accomplishing your goals and exceeding past that." There is no external scorecard involved; he checks his own list against his own results. That self-reliance is central to why the policy works, and it also explains why it is not a marketing device but a working method.
The same standard applies across both operations. Two businesses mean two sets of goals running at once, sometimes overlapping, and the monthly goal is not a smaller copy of the yearly one but a specific step toward it. Deibler says continued growth comes "by setting new goals," so one goal closes and another opens. He credits his family, including his parents and siblings, as his biggest influence. Growing up with five siblings in Donaldson, Pennsylvania, taught him to divide attention across priorities without losing track of any of them.
Outside the businesses, the habit shows up in commitments to the community. Deibler has stayed involved with local youth sports donations and volunteer coaching, work that also runs on a calendar rather than good intentions alone. He is direct about what makes the policy work: "Hard work and a positive attitude," he said, are the qualities he considers most important. Neither appears on a to-do list, but both determine whether the list gets finished. He also gauges success "by my own standards," whether the goal is a monthly bakery target or a longer-term plan for the burrito business.
The written-goal habit is the same operating rhythm Deibler has used across both businesses for years, now made explicit for anyone who asks how he keeps two food and beverage operations moving in the same direction. Its importance lies in what it signals: structured planning, local ownership, and community involvement can reinforce one another, and a written goal is often the first step toward measurable results.
