Successful Living

Successful Living

Boutros Chalouhy

Copyright 2018

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

PART 1 – Successfully Living with Yourself

Start at The End – Become Devoted to Results 6

Fail Fast, Fail Early.... 9

Make Every Mistake an Opportunity to Learn 11

Rules Were Made to Be Broken 14

1% Action Beats 99% Theory 17

The Basics of Goal-Setting 20

Putting Yourself on An Information Diet 22

PART 2 – Successfully Living with Others

Opportunity Knocks – The Value of New Connections 25

Keep Informed, Stay Connected 27

The Power of Saying ‘NO’ 30

The Art of Becoming an Effective Listener 32

How Understanding Are You? 35

Learn to Love the Ones You Hate 38

BONUS CHAPTER - Nobody Will Do It for You 40

BONUS CHAPTER - Life Leverage 41

Final Thoughts 43

Introduction

A couple of months ago, I decided to take an indeterminate break from my career in order to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, and to better assess who I had become up to that point.

It was a decision which was to have a truly profound experience on my life.

Reviewing my experiences in this manner was only comparable to a form of personal epiphany. I began to create ideas, strategies and techniques I could begin to use as part of my own personal development, and the primary aim of this book is to gift you these tools, in order that you too can have the ability to do the same.

This ‘life review’ has easily been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.

I have been able to become conscious and accepting of my mistakes and am now able to display gratitude and pride for my previous successes.

Most importantly, I am able to find peace with the person I previously was, as well as realizing for the first time that all positive change is in my power to accomplish.

I would not be writing this book if I did not believe it could offer you, the reader, a similar amount of the value I have already received into my own life as a result of the lessons I have detailed in this guide.

This is not an over-written book. It does not include page upon page of platitudes and non-essential information, and for these reasons, it is hoped that you find it a succinct, easy-to-read text, the lessons from which you can immediately begin to apply to your life.

In fact, it is my honest belief that the greatest and most value-adding personal development books follow from this desire for brevity – for offering the greatest amount of practical advice, in the least amount of words possible.

Longer books can often require continued study, and key points can often be lost amongst large reams of non-essential information.

So, in the most positive sense possible, I hope you find this book to be an easy read and there is no doubt at all in my mind that by being so, it will prove to be extremely beneficial, particularly if you then go ahead to implement the strategies and principles you will learn along the way.

This is a key point often overlooked in books of this nature.

One can be presented with the most life-changing information it is possible to consume, but if consistent and enthusiastic action fails to follow this presentation, this initial learning can devolve into a largely meaningless act.

Remember: Knowledge + Action = SUCCESS, and ‘done is always better than perfect’.

For more from this author and IT consultancy services, please visit https://boutroschalouhy.com

What will you learn?

For ease of access, the book has been separated into two distinctive, yet whole-forming parts.

Part one concentrates on several strategies you can use to live more successfully within yourself. For instance, in the first half of the book we will touch upon subjects as diverse as goal-setting, developing the ability to learn from mistakes, and how it can sometimes pay to break the rules, etc.

Part two takes a more societal view of your self-growth, introducing techniques designed to enhance and strengthen your relationships with those around you. Therefore, the second part of the book will explain concepts such as attentive listening, networking and forgiveness.

I would urge you to take what you learn from both parts of this book and apply from them whatever you believe will make a positive difference to your life. I am convinced that the words contained herein have the power to increase your personal success in every imaginable way.

It almost goes without saying that I would greatly appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have about this book upon completing it, and I will aim to incorporate all relevant feedback into future versions of the text.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at the following email address: [email protected].

PART 1- Successfully Living with Yourself

Start at The End – Become Devoted to Results

In our short lives, nothing matters more than the results we accomplish from every task or duty we perform. Time and effort are both sunken costs unless they work together towards successful results.

Some people don’t understand this. They think ‘Man, I tried so hard for this, I put in so much effort, my results should have been better’. Well, sorry folks, if you don’t have a desired result in mind, all that time and effort has been nothing less than a complete waste of time.

In fact, I’ve learned that the opposite is usually true – providing you achieve the result you want, the less time and effort you are able to commit to it, the better.

As a results-orientated person, you should always ask yourself what you aim to achieve before committing to any new goal or beginning any new task, going on to question how you can accomplish your result by expending the fewest number of resources possible.

Those who are not results-orientated gain a real sense of pride from the amount of work they put into something – they track all the time that goes into a project without realizing that time is their most valuable asset, as we highlighted a little earlier.

They do not realize that the only thing that matters is progress towards an ultimate result of goal. When you look back on your life, these are things you will remember – you won’t care about all the time and effort that went into your failures and these are not things you should take great pride in.

Don’t get me wrong – I am not espousing a poor work ethic here. To gain positive results, you will need a lot of time, effort and hard work. Nothing worth having comes easy.

It’s just vitally important that you work towards a desired ending – personal success is not derived from the time and effort themselves, this just leads to people judging each other by hours worked or sweat produced, as opposed to results garnered.

A successful person will regularly remind herself that the true objective is to achieve a goal or complete a task in the shortest time-frame possible, using the most efficient methods at their disposal.

How does that translate into practical advice?

Well, imagine you are about to start a new workout routine. How would a results-focused person approach this new practice to somebody more focused on the resources they need to expend to get there?

A resources person may commit to nothing more than working out three times per week and cutting out sugar from their diet, and nothing more. These are worthy intentions in themselves, but they do not state an objective. How would you know success when it comes along, if you haven’t clearly stated what it looks like to begin with?

Alternatively, a results-focused person is likely to state their outcome before deciding on their progress.

They may decide they want to add/lose 1kg of weight every month, or they may state a weight they wish to be at the end of six months or a year, etc., and then do whatever it takes to achieve this, ideally with the least exertion possible.

Which of these two approaches do you think is likely to be most successful? My money would be on the second person each and every time.

Switch your focus to results, and then sit back and watch your entire life change before your eyes.

Pivot or Persevere

A related idea to being results-orientated is knowing when to persevere and when to pivot.

Society at large teaches us that perseverance and determination are admirable qualities in the face of adversity.

While this can often be true, it is important that you recognize the difference between certain circumstances which can be overcome, such as start-up costs, etc., with those which are outside your circle of influence, and therefore beyond your control to manage.

The first scenario does require persistence and courage – for instance, get through the initial stages of a new workout program and you’re much more likely to commit to it for life.

The second scenario requires you to make a decision – persist or pivot? For instance, you fail to do your research and enter a saturated business market where there is no longer money to be made. How long do you persist in being penniless before deciding to make a change?

Results-focused people make this decision much quicker than ‘time-and-effort’ focused people, who unfortunately, may never make it at all – going on to bemoan circumstances and other people as the cause of their problems, as opposed to their own stubbornness to change direction when needed.

Don’t get me wrong, it is not always easy to identify when to pivot, and I have made this error in my life many times before successfully changing my mindset.

For example, I was once attempting to lose weight. After about two weeks, I noticed that my weight hadn’t gone down at all, but I kept on doing what I was doing, convinced that the results would come, if only I’d work a little harder - if only I’d spend a little more time at the gym.

Of course, this wasn’t the case, and waiting and waiting for weeks on end was most certainly not the answer. It was only after making considerable changes to my diet and workout plan that I was able to see demonstrable changes in my life.

You should always use your own judgment and try to be as honest with yourself as possible when deciding whether to pivot or not, but I assure you that if you are not seeing the changes you wish to see in your life, this decision should always be made sooner rather than later.

I am currently working on a one-month plan – if I attempt a new practice and don’t see the changes I want after four weeks, I alter my process and see if my results improve.

If after another month, results are still not where I want them to be, this may tell me that the practice is just not worth pursuing any further, and I may make the decision to pivot away from it.

Trust me, sticking to a non-deliverable strategy is rarely a good idea, as we will explore in more detail throughout the next chapter...

Fail Fast, Fail Early.....

The subject matter of this chapter is closely related to the previous one, hence its inclusion right here, while the original subject matter remains fresh in your mind.

What we are going to expound on here is the following statement – ‘Miracles may happen, but only a fool bets their house on them’. This may appear extremely simple advice, but some of the biggest mistakes of my life have been triggered by my failure to adhere to this wisdom.

Let’s say you have a financial plan to make $100,000 in the next twelve months – a worthy goal, and one which has been proven achievable time and time again by those with the willpower and aptitude to succeed.

Imagine that for the first two months of your year, you only earn $2000. You may attempt to justify this to yourself. You may say ‘Well, the beginning stages of any new venture or goal are difficult. I just need to keep working hard and the money will come in the future’. In other words, you’re expecting results, but have no guarantee of them.

By the fifth month of the year, you’ve made $10,000, instead of the $50,000 goal you thought you would have achieved by now.

However, you’re still not completely down-hearted, as there’s a small chance your income could still grow exponentially over the next six months or so – after all, you’ve put in all the groundwork, it’s just a matter of time before you reap the results, right?

Well, possibly, but you’re moving dangerously close to relying on a non-guaranteed, outlying performance to reach your goal. After all, every indication is that you are going to miss your $100,000 target, and the only thing you are doing about it at this point is sending out positive thoughts and hoping for a miracle!

The better approach would have been to plan the project more effectively to begin with, front-load the goal with greater effort and resources, and then pivoted on the project once it was obvious that your initial projections were false.

You could reasonably have changed the whole dynamic of your goal by failing fast and failing early, instead of continuing to chase what has now become a ‘pipe-dream’, only six months further down the line.

Always bear in mind that several possible solutions may need to be found to the same problem, before you discover one that is incredibly successful and can be moved forward with.

Therefore, when you identify that you have fallen behind schedule, fail fast and early – declare a state of emergency and either do the remedial work to get your project back on track, or abandon it and start something else. Don’t let pride get in the way of progress, as this is your life we are talking about here!

Always act while you still have leverage – while you still have a couple of cards left in your hand ready to play.

As human beings, we tend to stay optimistic (delusional?), even when all the evidence suggests we are wrong to do so. While this can often be a positive trait, it most normally leads to severe disappointment a little further down the line.

There is nothing wrong with identifying quickly that you have failed and changing tack before things become unmanageable. The earlier you take corrective actions, the better chance you have of overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges.

Don’t pray for miracles, and, whatever you do, most definitely do not bet your house on them coming to pass...

Closely linked to the concept of failing fast and early is the innate ability to learn from our mistakes on a more conscious level, in order to avoid repeating them in the future.

If you have never taken the time to study and investigate your mistakes to identify the key learnings from them, you’re in luck – the following chapter is about to show you how....

Make Every Mistake an Opportunity to Learn

When people hear the word ‘mistake’, their mind tends to remember the major events in their life – the interview for the job of their dreams that they flunked, the marriage they allowed to fall apart, or the argument they had with their sibling which resulted in them not talking for three years.

However, what if I told you that mistakes can be more insidious than this? That over time, these small, habitual mistakes can compound to produce equally disastrous results in your life?

Would you believe me?

Well, in my experience this is 100% true. You see, the majority of people live their lives on auto-pilot. They do not plan their routines or habits, forgetting that these simple things are what rule our conscious lives to a great extent.

So, if you have lazy habits, if you make the same small mistakes over and over again, what do you think the results of all this unconscious behavior are likely to be?

Are you going to be living the life you always wanted? It’s doubtful, but the good news is that it’s never too late to wake up, change your habits and stop making the same destructive mistakes time after time.

An example of small mistakes compounding over time

Let’s have a look at a handful of these small ‘mistakes’ or habits. On their own, they may not appear to be too substantial, but remember – the compound effect is always occurring behind the scenes:

You habitually arrive late to appointments, either personal or professional

You make a self-deprecatory comment every time somebody pays you a compliment

Every time you feel a little stressed, you treat yourself to a large glass of wine

You monopolize every conversation in the office

You spend two dollars per day on a blueberry muffin from which you no longer gain any satisfaction

These sound like minor mistakes, don’t they? Do we really need to learn from them? Are they really impacting our lives as negatively as I may be making out?

To answer that, let’s take a look at some of the consequences of the above mistakes, compounded over time:

Habitually arriving late to appointments – your manager or supervisor begins to lose faith in you, you are no longer invited to important meetings, your colleagues are continuously promoted ahead of you, etc.

Self-deprecatory comments – your thoughts and words create your life. Before you know it, your self-esteem decreases, you care less about your appearance, you neglect your health, your partner no longer finds you as attractive as they once did, you lack assertion, you fail to gain the success you are capable of, etc.

Reaching for alcohol during stressful times – trouble is, you find yourself feeling stressed three or four times per week, which means three or four large glasses of wine per week, which increases the risk of health issues, reduces your physical attractiveness, costs you money you cannot afford, etc.

Monopolizing conversations – people begin to talk to you less and less, you notice people actively avoiding you in the office, others talk about you negatively behind your back, you become less social, lonely, resentful, etc.

Spending two dollars per day on a muffin – your weight increases at the same time your bank account decreases, you don’t have the money to spend on things you actually enjoy, you have no savings set aside in an emergency fund, you’re perpetually one disaster away from broke, etc.

To repeat, the vast majority of people perform these habits unconsciously – they fail to realize their ability to analyze their mistakes for what they are and learn from them.

Turning negatives into positives

However, you have the potential to break free from your bad habits – you already have everything you need to study your mistakes and correct them. It doesn’t take money, it doesn’t take technology and you don’t need advanced education to begin improving your life immediately.

No, all you need is a little time for contemplation, a little self-honesty, a pen and paper, and the desire for change. Personally, I devote a little time every evening to review my day and ‘hand-pick’ the key learnings I can take from my daily interactions, actions, habits and important events.

For example, maybe you planned to watch one episode of your favorite show before spending a little time organizing your personal finances. However, you ended up watching three episodes of the show and lost every ounce of productive potential for your evening.

Reviewing this, you may look at how you can avoid this happening in the future. Could you set a timer to notify you when it’s time to turn off the TV and ‘get to work’? Could you better plan your evening so that you complete your ‘work’ first, and only then reward yourself with a little downtime in front of the TV?

In every negative situation, there are always key learnings you can use as ‘takeaways’ to improve in the future.

Remember, I am not expecting you to spend hours completing this review – it really can be completed within ten to fifteen minutes every day, but the insights it creates for you truly do have the potential to last a lifetime.

You can also do this exercise continuously throughout your day. Every time an experience leaves you feeling negative, as though you haven’t portrayed your ‘best self’, simply take a moment or two to analyze why and create an action to avoid repeat occurrences.

Lastly, concentrated visualization can be your friend when performing this analysis.

As well as constantly replaying mistakes over and over again in your mind, begin to substitute the negative experience with a more positive one – actively picture in your mind’s eye how the event will occur in the future and you dramatically increase the chances of it happening exactly as you picture it.

In the same way that we cannot be afraid to make mistakes (providing you take the advice from this chapter and assiduously learn from them!), we also cannot be afraid to take calculated risks whenever it is prudent or potentially beneficial for us to do so.

Sometimes, to get ahead in life, we need to challenge old conventions and break a few rules to get ahead. If you have never previously identified yourself as a rule-breaker, the next chapter might just change your mind...

Rules Were Made to Be Broken

In most modern societies, our children are taught the following, basic rules from an incredibly young age:

Don’t speak unless spoken to...

Don’t take risks...

Don’t ask questions, just do as you’re told...!

Don’t get me wrong, children require some rules and boundaries while young, simply in order to stay happy, healthy and safe. A limited number of rules with a practical purpose in mind can no doubt be useful at any age.

The trouble is that most rules, such as those above, are so vague and so limiting that they restrict any potential for creativity we may be inclined to explore as we get older.

If as a child, we are told not to take risks, is it really any wonder that so many people are happy to work in factories and offices rather than start their own businesses and travel the world whenever they feel inclined to do so?

Of course not, and this applies to any number of rules we have been taught to adhere to throughout our lives.

It is important for any free-thinking person to realize that many of life’s rules can be broken – in some cases, they actively should be broken! Make no mistake, I am not advocating breaking the law, or doing harm to others here.

Rather, I am suggesting that from an intellectual and creative point of view, it is freeing to question rules and to determine if there is a better way of achieving a more positive outcome and to check if they are relevant for the particular situation you find yourself in.

Rather than going through all the theory, let’s take a look at a handful of examples:

Example one – You see a job advert for the job of your dreams in your local paper. Problem is, you don’t have all the qualifications the company is asking for. However, you know for a fact that this is a role you can shine in.

People who adhere to the rules wouldn’t apply for this job. They’d respect the company’s wishes and refuse the job of their dreams simply because they lack a little ‘hustle’.

Would a rule-breaker think like this? No! A rule-breaker would decide there and then that the job was going to be theirs, regardless of their lack of qualifications. They would decide to impress the company with their enthusiasm, their passion, their commitment to the role. They would forget the rules and do everything in their power to land the job they have always wanted.

Example two – Queuing in line at the post-office or bank.

Rule adherents would just accept that others were there before them. They’d stand in the queue for hours at a time if necessary, without saying a word, without moving an inch.

They’re happy to trade two hours of their life for something they could just come back to a day later.

Rule-breakers wouldn’t do this.

They’d either leave and come back at a quieter time, or they would do something similar to what I witnessed the last time I was in the bank – a man marched straight to the back of the queue and offered a man stood near the front thirty dollars to trade places with him!

The man gladly accepted, and the rule-breaker was able to be in and out of the bank in less than ten minutes, as opposed to the better part of an hour.

This is a great example of somebody valuing their time above all other considerations!

Example three – Remember that ‘hustle’ I mentioned earlier....?

I was once at the British embassy applying for a Visa. Although the website had clearly stated that your first Visa cannot remain valid for longer than six months, I completed the application form and declared that I would like a validity of one year.

Of course, the clerk informed that this would not be possible and that I would need to re-apply at a later date.

Now, the rule adherer would simply accept this, apologize for the inconvenience, sheepishly travel home and complete another application form.

But, I respected my time more than that. Putting on my most charming, assertive voice,

I asked if it would be possible to reconsider my application on this sole occasion. The clerk smiled at me and retreated into the office to speak to his supervisor.

Of course, two minutes later he returned to notify me that my application had been successful, and that I had been granted the one-year duration!

Great news for me, and a lesson in there for you – always question the rules and make a habit of changing convention.

You will almost certainly find they are more flexible than you originally believed.

Breaking the rules can often be one of the most positive actions you can take to get ahead, and the concept of taking consistent, concerted and laser-focused action is what we will be discussing next...

1% Action Beats 99% Theory

A book such as this, outlining many key personal development strategies, can often be dipped in and out of as you attempt to internalize certain key strategies.

However, please do not skip by this chapter – it contains some of the most important information in the entire book, beginning with a short story:

Several years ago, I participated in a highly-recommended three-day training course on the art of selling and sales psychology. I found this to be a very value-adding course, with a talented instructor and practical information I believed I would be able to apply straight away.

That was until just over a week later, when I met a brand-new customer for the first time and realized I was unable to remember, let alone apply, any of the information I had learned only a few days previously.

It was only after discussing this issue with a friend a few days later, that I realized this is a very common problem - we read books and can’t remember key learnings from them, we watch films and yet can’t describe the plot a month later, etc., and I wanted to know why.

Don’t delay, implement...

The conclusion I reached is that although we spend lots of time and money on acquiring new skills, abilities, qualifications and certifications, many of us simply don’t put our new knowledge to use quickly enough for it to be embedded into our minds and behaviors, and we very quickly lose many of the benefits we could have endowed ourselves with had we acted quicker.

Put another way - what you don’t consistently do, you do not master. On the contrary, you tend to forget it frighteningly quickly.

In a way, my realization after meeting this customer has been extremely beneficial to me - I have learned to make a habit of acting quickly upon any new information I have learned, particularly that which I have spent significant amounts of time and money on acquiring.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at this with an example to close the chapter:

Taking a point from the previous chapter, let’s say you attended a seminar which gave you some helpful hints on approaching strangers and initiating conversations with them. Your first step would be to imagine how you can apply this information to your life over the next twenty-four hours.

For instance, you might imagine yourself queuing in line at the coffee shop the next morning and initiating a conversation with the person in front of you, using an ice-breaker and positive body language tips you learned from the seminar. You might then see the person reacting positively to your initiation and even inviting you to sit with them while you both enjoy your coffee.

It is probably most effective to imagine several different approaches and ice-breakers and assess their relative efficiencies and flaws.

Next, you need to put everything you have learned and visualized into practice, starting the following morning.

With all this information still parked at the front of your brain, you should have no problem at all in successfully initiating a conversation with any number of strangers - in fact, you will automatically feel more confident in doing so, as the sooner you put theory into practice, the more key points you are able to remember and put into action, increasing your chances of success.

Remember what we said at the start of the book about reviewing and learning from your mistakes?

Well, this is a great opportunity to get even more value from this exercise, as you can begin to see which parts of the information you learned worked successfully, which may require a little further practice, and which you can abolish from your future repertoire of skills - therefore, every time you take action is a glorious opportunity to further refine your abilities.

You need to ensure you practice these steps until they become habitual – many people may do them once or twice but give up before they become a real part of who they are – don’t be like this.

In summary:

Whenever you acquire new information, knowledge, skills or abilities, always try to put them into practice immediately to reinforce your learnings.

Practice them on a regular basis until they become habitual – success is built on positive habits, not one-off actions.

Don’t be overwhelmed by any initial difficulties you experience – the more you practice, the easier it will become!

It is important for you to realize that thinking on its own has its limits, and that over-thinking in particular can be a time-wasting event when not followed by a relevant action.

It is much more effective to do something before you are 100% ready and refine it over time, than it is to wait and wait to take your initial step.

There is always a temptation, particularly among those geared towards perfectionism, to spend too much time thinking, and not enough time acting on their impulses – this is often how big businesses lose market share to smaller, yet more agile, businesses, who eventually go on to overtake them.

The reality is that the timing for a new project will never fall into that idealistic Goldilocks territory of being ‘just right’. Sometimes, in the words of Facebook, you just have to ‘move fast and break things’ – ‘Analysis Paralysis’ has become common terminology for a reason – it’s what most of us do before making any form of decision.

Don’t be like that – get started, design or build a prototype of your idea and then take it from there. You can always refine, enhance and improve your initial offering over time.

Let’s look at an example:

You have an idea to open an international chain of high-quality coffee shops. However, in the excitement of searching for suitable locations in all of the major cities around the world, you fail to open up your first shop.

You tell yourself you’ll start work on your first store as soon as you know where all the other ones will be located, or when you’ve found a suitable supplier for every country you plan to launch into. You’re planning into the future (which is good!) but failing to take action on the here and now.

A better option would be to open your first shop, master the basics of the operation, and plan to scale up at the same time. You will find it much easier to scale up your operation once you have gained the experience of opening and maintaining one small shop.

If you take nothing else away from this book, except the inclination to take action on everything you learn, you will easily put yourself within the top 5% of people in society when it comes to achieving personal success.

Of course, taking action is one thing – but how do you know which are the ‘right’ actions, unless you have properly defined your goals to begin with.

Action is only successful when it forms part of a bigger plan – when we set goals and work towards them, our actions have a defined purpose and better help us to accomplish everything we set out to achieve.

In many ways, goals-setting is the solid foundation upon which most personal development plans are built – let’s investigate further over the page...

The Basics of Goal Setting

As I have just mentioned, setting worthy goals is a huge component of successful personal development, and it is therefore beyond the scope of this book to delve into the subject as I would like.

However, it would be remiss of me to neglect this important subject altogether, so with that in minds, let’s take a look at some of the fundamentals of this practice.

As an example of a basic goal, let’s say that you want to start implementing a morning routine, and you commit to waking up at 4am from the very next day. To do this, you have to give yourself every chance for your goal to succeed.

For instance, you wouldn’t just lie in bed and tell yourself ‘I’ll try to wake up at 4am tomorrow morning’, would you?

No, you’d do a number of things to ensure you actually wake up at 4am.

You’d probably set an alarm.

You might even set your central heating to come on thirty minutes before you wake up to ensure your house is warm when you get out of bed – what you are effectively doing is setting a goal, and then creating the sub-tasks necessary to achieving it – a fundamental step towards personal success.

Another thing to be aware of is that your goals won’t just happen without a little preparatory work – just knowing what you are trying to accomplish isn’t a tried and trusted plan for success.

Plan, record, review

Instead, you need to plan your goals, write them down and review them on a regular basis, using something similar to the following goal-setting plan:

As we’ve just said, put every one of your goals into writing – some people prefer to use a physical journal for this, others prefer a word document.

It doesn’t really matter where you write your goals, what’s important is that you just do it!

Every one of your goals should be as specific as possible, with a desired due date clearly written down next to each of them. You need a due date in order to spur your mind into creative action and to create a certain sense of urgency to better assure they are achieved.

As a best practice, divide your goals into manageable, achievable, short-term sub-tasks, setting a relevant due date for completion of each step.

Review your goals on a regular basis and monitor your progress, always bearing in mind the ‘persist or pivot’ model we discussed in the previous chapter.

Reviewing your goals keeps them at the forefront of your mind and keeps your subconscious working away on accomplishment of your goals throughout the day, better ensuring that they are successfully achieved.

Once you have planned your goals, you’re going to have two problems with how best to achieve them.

One is that you’ll be exposed to far too much information, and the second is that you’ll be exposed to the wrong quality of information.

Make no doubt about it, achieving our goals requires us to constantly develop new skills, abilities and habits – if you truly want to develop as a person, then constant learning is a key component of self-growth.

However, not all information is created equal, as we will discover....

Put Yourself on An Information Diet

We live in an era where information is extremely abundant. It is all around us, and there is very little we cannot learn at the click of a button.

Whether it’s the billions of web pages now available to us, the multitude of training videos available on YouTube, or paid training courses on sites such as Udemy, the knowledge to better our lives and learn new skills and abilities has never been easier to find and will only continue to grow in the future.

However, this sheer volume of information necessitates a quality variance which has the potential to derail you if you give it the opportunity to do so.

Therefore, it’s essential that you are selective with the volume and sources of the information you acquire and digest – the more efficient you become at this process, the sooner you can begin to identify better information and gain more comprehensive, effective knowledge.

But, even as we better identify sources of quality information, it is still important to recognize the sheer volume of good information at our disposal.

But, even we restrict ourselves to the best-rated information, we will still have a lot of relevant content. Besides, the information that is well-rated is not always of fantastic quality.

Quality over quantity

My recommendation is therefore to become an effective ‘skimmer’ of content, deciding quickly if it is worth your time to devote further time and study to it. Even a quick scroll through an online article will tell you if it’s written well and likely to provide value to you.

The same goes with a video on YouTube – you’ll normally be able to tell within the first thirty seconds or so whether or not you should commit yourself to further viewing.

Trust these feelings – if you’re not gaining value pretty quickly, stop and move on to something else.

I used to find this quite difficult, but it is amazing the amount of valuable information you will have the time to process when you consciously eliminate all the fluff from your study time.

If you’re reading a book and are unconvinced by it after about twenty to thirty pages, read on ahead a little and see if it’s worth your time to complete it. If it looks good a little further down the line, it’s probably worth your time to persist with it.

If not, put it down and pick up something more value-adding. I’ll say it again – time is a finite resource, and the most valuable asset we own. Do everything in your power to protect it wherever possible, including during your uptake of information.

A final tip would be to focus on practicality wherever you can. Much poor-quality information is dense in theory and provides little practical value to your life.

As you can see in this book, many chapters offer examples which you can digest and immediately apply to your life – look for other information which provides you with this same advantage.

While absorbing information, regularly stop yourself to ask exactly what it is you are learning and how you can find a practical use for it – if you cannot identify one, this may be an indication to stop and move on to the next knowledge source.

So, while I wouldn’t go so far as to say you should never judge a book by its cover, given the information at our disposal these days, it may well make more sense to judge it after a handful of pages or so!

PART 2 – Successfully Living with Others

Opportunity Knocks – The Value of New Connections

As children, we are most normally advised not to talk to strangers, and this is sensible advice when you are young and vulnerable – it keeps us safe when we are usually too young to know any better.

However, many of us seem to carry this habit into our adult lives, without realizing that these same risks that once kept us out of harm’s way are no longer relevant. Thus, we remain reticent to speak to new people, we hide in the corners of crowded rooms and we cower away from conversations with strangers unless absolutely necessary.

As I have reflected on this, the more I have realized just how destructive this habit can become to our development, primarily for the following two reasons:

By failing to talk to new people, we limit our ability to learn new skills and to receive opportunities.

Approaching new people is a vital skill in many different areas of our lives – business and dating, to name only two. The more we practice it, the better we get.

To prove these points, the following are just some of the things I have learned from conversations begun with people I had never met before:

That it is possible to get an E-VISA for India (I had always hesitated to visit India before, because I did not want to deal with the Visa formalities).

A number of methods to avoid scams/unethical practices when you are a newcomer to a major city.

A handful of exceptional investment opportunities

A local pharmacy which sells my favorite brand of cosmetics cheaper than anywhere else in town

Now, I agree that some of these learnings are more important than others, but the point is that all of them were free – they didn’t cost me more than the time it took to strike up a conversation with a stranger.

The truth is, this great fountain of knowledge is available to anyone, and the ability to approach and converse with anybody is one you should seek to add to your arsenal of personal development tools.

Try to take this opportunity wherever it presents itself and you’ll find that these opportunities are everywhere, such as while you’re queuing at the supermarket, taking the elevator, sitting on a train, waiting at the airport - these are perfect place to initiate conversations with strangers and you should grab them with both hands.

Mix it up

It’s also important to ensure that you converse with people of all ages and backgrounds.

While there is still value in speaking to people who are the same age/ethnic origin/sex, etc., you will find a whole new world of knowledge and experience opens itself to you when you begin a discussion with those who are different to you in almost every respect - I believe these truly can be life-changing interactions.

It almost goes without saying that you should never judge others on first impressions - if you’re a Republican and you identify the guy in front of you at the store as a Democrat, start a conversation anyway and put to one side any feelings of tribalism you may have with regards to political parties, favorite football teams, etc.

A couple more tips for starting the perfect conversation include:

Cultivate an open mindset and positive body language - it is beyond the scope of this book to detail a full repertoire of body language lessons, but always bear in mind that your body speaks volumes at all times. The more receptive you appear to be, the more success you will have in initiating value-adding discussions.

Create a list of ‘ice-breakers’ - having a few standard opening lines to put the other person at ease is a great way of ensuring two-way participation in any new interaction.

Allow the other person to talk as much as possible. This is necessary for two reasons - firstly, it’s just plain old good manners not to dominate every conversation you have. Remember, people like to talk about themselves, so give them the room to freely do so.

Secondly, part of the reason for starting conversations is to glean as much valuable information from the other person as possible. Therefore, the more you allow them to speak without interrupting, the more you’ll be able to extract from them.

Once you are able to successfully begin conversations with new people, it’s important that you have something of value to communicate – two of the best methods for accomplishing this are to keep informed of current events and learning new, key information from the people who inhabit your life...

Keep Informed, Stay Connected

There is no getting away from the fact that we are social animals. We were not designed to live in isolation, locked surreptitiously away from the company of others.

However, this is how many people choose to spend their lives. They become insular and focus only on what is in front of them, instead of the wider community and world at large.

If there is one thing that experience has taught me, it’s that you have to be aware of your surroundings, you have to keep yourself abreast of daily happenings in your industry, and you have to consider how world events have the potential to impact your life, and the lives of those you care for.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that of all the opportunities I have received in my life, none of them came from working diligently (and believe me, I work extremely hard), none of them came from the pages of a non-fiction book, and none of them came from playing around on Google or watching funny cat videos on YouTube.

No, every one of these opportunities found me because I took the time to network and connect with people outside of my circle of friends, family and work colleagues.

With that in mind, I suggest the following two practices to help you better identify your own opportunities:

1. Regularly seek to network with people outside of your team, organization, friends and family

Actively look to grow your sociability muscle and make the effort to meet new people. The more you spend time with people you already know, the less you will grow as a person and instead fall back on your ingrained habits and conventions.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you need to distance yourself from those you care about or see on a regular basis – in fact, you should probably spend more time with these people than anybody else!

However, you should also practice the inverse, and spend at least a little time each week getting to know strangers and networking at personal or professional events – I am sure that your friends and family will understand this when you explain why you are doing it.

Once you have made a new connection, the next step is to establish an ongoing relationship with them, particularly if they have the potential to add value to your life.

For example, if you are a marketer, and you meet a stranger with thirty years’ experience of marketing under his belt, chances are that you are not going to be able to extract all of his knowledge during a ten-minute meet-and-greet.

No, you will need to meet regularly and discuss your twin passion in further detail to really make the most of this new connection.

Similarly, always try to ensure that you can add value to your new friend in return, otherwise the relationship has the potential to feel forced, and it is a little selfish to expect value from a connection without adding any of your own.

On a weekly basis, ask yourself how many new connections and introductions you have made over the last week, along with any key learnings you have been able to extract from them – this one positive habit has the ability to improve area of your life.

2. Widen your horizons – keep at least one eye on the world

Look, this is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s imperative that you have at least half an idea about what is happening with the economy in your country, your local community, political happenings and world events that have the potential to impact your life.

Let’s put it this way – if you do not know about these things, how can you expect to react to them? And if you cannot react to them, you fall significantly behind those that do.

Therefore, watch more news programs, browse the web for useful and timely information, read trade magazines for the latest news from your industry – do anything it takes to remove the blinkers you have been living with and become much more aware of your surroundings.

Let’s finish this chapter with a couple of examples:

1. The stock market – knowing when to buy and when to sell can be the difference between making a million dollars and losing a million dollars. How will you know which action to take unless you’re aware of market fluctuations and trading conditions?

2. Industry Developments – your major competitor has just invested in new equipment which gives them a significant competitive advantage over your firm. How do you imagine you can react to this, unless you’re aware if it in the first place?

Take it from me, if you want to get ahead in life, stay connected and stay informed. Knowledge is power – you only need to keep your eyes and ears open long enough to find it.

We mentioned in part one that it is important to protect and value your time above all assets.

You may be thinking that this is all well ad good when our time falls under out ‘circle of influence’, but how do better manage those precious seconds and minutes when other people are the major drain on or resources?

Well, there is a very simple method for achieving this. It may feel a little uncomfortable, but it’s nothing compared to looking back at your life in thirty years’ time, wishing you’d spent you days more wisely.

It’s time to harness the power of saying ‘No’...

The Power of Saying ‘No’

Why do we find it so hard to refuse others’ requests of us? Well, on some evolutionary level, we fear that by refusing others, we will be shunned by our ‘tribe’, and left to fend for ourselves – as mankind is primarily a social animal, we make a habit of saying ‘yes’, even when it doesn’t really suit us.

The trouble is that we are no longer cavemen. We have businesses to run, family gatherings to attend, three meals per day to prepare, automobile services to book, etc.

You get the picture. Our lives are busier now than they have ever been. Our time is more precious than ever. The ability to say ‘no’, and prioritize other, more important things in our lives is therefore of the utmost importance.

Done correctly, this will not hurt or offend the other person. If it is a family member or close friend, they will probably respect your decision and are unlikely to be as negatively affected by your refusal as you may expect.

I hold the viewpoint that in any healthy relationship, people do whatever they can to help the other wherever possible, but neither person is obliged to sacrifice themselves for the other.

I believe it is vital that you set clear limits and boundaries with others when it comes to managing your time – it’s by far the most precious resource that we have and we have to protect it at all costs.

Ask any billionaire lying on their deathbed whether they would trade all of their wealth for another twenty years of life, and they will bite off your hand for any chance of a longer life - you will begin to realize just how important all these seemingly small seconds, minutes and hours actually are when stacked on top of each other, and fully appreciate the fact that you will never get them back.

You should never feel guilty about saying no when you are asked to do something that eats up time better spent doing something else, or when asked to do a task that is out of alignment with your values, goals and commitments.

This is not selfish – this is not putting yourself first to the detriment of others. There is a vast difference between refusing to save the life of a child because you are too busy, and between saying no to after-work drinks, because you’re committed to getting home and working on your own business.

The two are simply not comparable, and even though this may be an extreme example, it does help to highlight the difference between necessary distractions and those which can easily be refused without any trace of guilt being present.

Does saying no sometimes feel uncomfortable? Of course, but many personal development practices can feel this way initially.

Discomfort = Progress

A primary part of growing as a person involves discomfort with new experiences, habits and interactions – the fact that you feel this way is a sure-fire way of knowing that you are on the right path in life – a numbing feeling of comfort rarely leads to increased personal success.

Besides, any discomfort you feel by saying no to somebody else is nothing compared to the pain you are likely to endure in the future by committing to an activity that is determinedly out of alignment with your best interests.

Think through every request that is asked of you. Weigh up the pros and cons. Sounds good? Then do it and do it without question.

Doesn’t feel so good? Then learn to harness the art of refusal. Discover the true power of saying ‘no’.

Hopefully, you can see that it is of vital importance to protect your time. However, there are times when the chance to interact with our fellow man should be jumped at with both available hands.

When these situations come along, it’s important that we derive as much value from them as possible. We can only do that by paying full attention to the people in front of us.

We need to learn to do something which is an acquired skill in this day and age – we need to learn to listen...

The Art of Becoming an Effective Listener

Multi-tasking has become something which we all apparently aspire to in today’s attention-deprived society, and in some cases, this can be harmless enough, and even add to our own personal productivity.

For instance, there is nothing inherently negative about listening to an audiobook while you cook dinner. Or while you run on a treadmill and watch the TV simultaneously.

However, there is a vast difference between inanimate objects and people!

When it comes to interactions with the latter, you really would be better placed to devote your complete and utter attention on the person standing right in front of you, consciously blocking out all other distractions and considerations.

There is no better way of demonstrating this than to actively listen to people when they are speaking to you – it allows you to understand the message being conveyed more effectively, aids your memory of what is being said, and just shows good old-fashioned manners to the other person.

However, if you are like the vast majority of other people, you exhibit the smallest amount of energy and attention possible when listening to other people – you may get an understanding of the overall picture when doing this, but you won’t get the full story.

This might not be a big deal a lot of the time, but you don’t want to be doing it too often when your boss is explaining an important project to you, or your partner is explaining something vital to keeping your marriage alive.

So, why are the little details so valuable? Well, they allow you to determine the following:

How the speaker is feeling at the present time

The honesty levels of the speaker

Whether the speaker is trying to avoid certain facts or subjects

Why the speaker is so concerned about the matter

A peek into the thought processes of the speaker

And many more.....

It’s largely true that when we are speaking to somebody, our minds are elsewhere, and our attention is almost non-existent.

We use this time to think about what we’ll eat for dinner later tonight, or about the argument we had with our daughter before work, or about whether or not a Toyota is a more sensible, family-friendly option than a brand new Audi – in short, we allow our minds to a wander through a plethora of thoughts, all of them unrelated to the words emanating from the person in front of us.

Sometimes, we may even hijack the entire conversation or tell our own stories over the speaker. The truth is that, as a species, attentive listening is not one of our strong suits.

From my own understanding, and as I have touched on above, I know the depths that can be touched when you give another person your full and undivided attention.

You begin to notice the gaps between words and what they mean, you pick up on subtle changes in body language and physical characteristics – all of these things have the ability to tell you more about the person and your relationship to them than you may ever have guessed.

Consciously fight the ‘need’ to be distracted. Keep your phone in your pocket. Nod your head from time to time, and smile at relevant points in the conversation – show the person in front of you that you care about what they are telling you.

This is an enormously efficient way of starting and maintaining valuable connections, relationships and friendships.

To sum up some of the above information, as well as giving you more tips on how to become a better, more attentive and effective listener, please consider some of the suggestions below:

When you are in a conversation with somebody, never spend your time thinking about what you are going to say at any pause in the conversation – give your full attention to the speaker, lest you miss something important or value-adding.

Let the speaker talk as much as they are comfortable with. As we’ve just said, you learn so much more when you listen than when you speak.

If the speaker is providing valuable information, why would you want to interrupt them? Instead, absorb as much as possible and take mental notes – even take written notes of the conversation if it isn’t too inappropriate to do so!

Even when you think you have got the gist of what the speaker is trying to convey to you, do not interrupt them to let them know – it is better manners to allow them to complete their train of thought.

Similarly, whatever you do, do NOT hijack somebody else’s conversation. If somebody explains to you that they’ve been on holiday to Hawaii, don’t suddenly jump in and tell them about when you took your family there the previous year and regale them with a day-by-day account of what you did while there. Listen to the person first and you will then have an opportunity to tell your own story when they are finished.

Avoid jumping to conclusions too quickly. Assuming that you know the end of the story before it has been told is poor etiquette and will lead to people avoiding future conversations with you.

Listen carefully to the very end of the conversation – if you find your predictions for the story were correct, give yourself a virtual pat on the back, but do not assume to know the ending ahead of time.

Save your opinions if you feel they are unwarranted or unasked for. Most people are conditioned to give an opinion immediately after somebody else has given theirs, due to internal pride or the need to simply ‘be heard’. However, outside of a debate-style conversation, this is rarely applicable.

This has been a lengthy, yet vital chapter. Listening is such an important and vital skill in our daily lives, that it is fitting we have devoted a warranted amount of time to it.

In the next chapter, we will look at a related concept – the ability to look into somebody’s heart and soul, and to understand them on a deeper, more connected level.

Listening is an important first step to better understanding other people, but it’s not the only tool we have available to accomplish this...

How Understanding Are You?

I remember a few years ago when I was studying Newton dynamics and realized that science was able to predict the exact trajectory and speed of a human body in motion. Honestly, I just never thought it was possible to understand the human body that accurately until this time.

That’s because, as people, we never really take the time to understand the people we know and come into contact with well at all. We see them every day, but we rush through every moment, never deducing if we can determine the patterns of behavior typical of those around us.

However, if you do begin to pay attention to this level of detail, you will start to see that people are much more predictable in their behavior than you could ever imagine.

You’ll start to notice that you can predict their answers or reactions before they’ve even answered or reacted. You’ll begin to get an idea of their overall world-view and the principles they believe in – this can be valuable information when you are networking or prospecting a potential customer.

It’s a tactic that the most successful salespeople in the world use on a daily basis. Put simply, it’s a strategy well worth investing in if you really plan on getting ahead in the world.

Channeling your inner salesperson

So, how exactly can you manipulate this technique and get to know people almost as well as they know themselves?

As we mentioned in the last chapter, you can make a start by actually listening to what the other person is telling you and keep a tab on the different patterns of behavior that people exhibit.

For instance, you may notice that person A enjoys arguing with authority, that person B always attempts to compliment others whenever possible, or that person C is extremely insecure about their physical appearance – keeping a record of this enables you to more easily build rapport during your next interaction with them.

Observe people when they are not speaking to you – keep an eye on their body language, or the way they express themselves with their hands, etc.

In many ways, this tactic is more effective than speaking to the other person directly, as you don’t need to worry about maintaining a conversation or putting effort into showing you are listening to them properly. You can just relax and delve deeper into the physical and psychological clues they are displaying in every conversation.

Review every conversation or interaction you have had with another person when you are alone, or as part of your evening ‘wash-up’. Quite often, you will recall clues or behaviors which you may have not noticed at the time, but which may serve you well the next time you interact with the person in question.

This practice provides you with all the relevant context you need and will make future interactions all the more powerful.

Reflect on others’ behaviors and try to analyze why they exhibit such thought patterns, or physical tendencies. Imagine yourself as a practicing behavioral scientist and really delve into their psyche.

Try to understand motivations, values and key commitments. In other words, determine what is really important to a person and then build these elements into every conversation you have with them in future.

All of these practices may sound more manipulative than they actually are, but they’re really not.

The perception deception

This is how you build rapport, establish new, deep-seated connections and better maintain existing relationships. You also need to be very aware of the perception that you yourself give when you are interacting with others.

For instance, a couple of days ago, I saw a man talking to two women he had just met.

It was obvious to me that the two women were almost bored to tears with the man and that they were faking interest in the conversation, just counting down the seconds until it ended.

However, the man seemed oblivious to these obvious signals and just carried on talking and talking for several minutes, until they politely stopped him and walked away – no rapport, no potential for future conversations – nothing. It was a wasted interaction on both sides.

Scenarios such as these are extremely common, as we are just not very skilled at paying attention to our environment, and the words and body language perpetuated by those with whom we communicate.

An increased level of attention is all that is needed to better connect with people, understand them and determine their interest levels, motivations and intentions.

Therefore, almost as a rule I regularly check the body language of those around me. I consider this a most vital skill.

Back when we were cavemen, a guarded and watchful eye on our environment was a necessity to perpetuate the survival of our tribe, and in many ways, this skill is just as important to develop today.

If we fail to do so, we simply miss out on the plethora of potential opportunities which come our way.

Sometimes in life, you’ll do everything right – you’ll listen to people, you’ll try to understand what motivates them, what upsets them, what makes them laugh – you’ll try to identify what makes each of them unique.

However, sometimes this connection just isn’t possible. You WILL make enemies at some point. You will be angered by other people, and you will feel that elemental urge for retribution brewing inside of you, just waiting to explode.

The good news is that you don’t have to feel like this – there is a better way...

Learn to Love the Ones You Hate

A few nights ago, I found myself watching the TV series ‘Narcos’, which was inspired by the life of the infamous drug dealer Pablo Escobar. I was astonished at how often as a species we feel compelled to exact revenge on those we perceive to have slighted us or caused us harm and discomfort.

And I’m not just talking about people in positions of power – throughout the show, there were examples of poorer, weaker people exacting their revenge on others by supplying information to their enemies which would bring about their downfall.

If only this behavior was reserved for TV shows and works of fiction!

Alas, this is most assuredly not the case – treat somebody badly and it is likely they will take the first opportunity they can to ‘stick the knife in your back’ and make you pay for your action.

These people may remain friendly and self-effacing to you face, but rest assured that they will secretly be plotting against you at every opportunity.

With that in mind, it goes without saying that you should always treat people decently, and in a manner in which you would like to be treated in return. Do not resort to name-calling or ego-deflationary tactics – they WILL come back to haunt you.

Look, I know it feels good when you exact your revenge on somebody you feel deserves it – you get a surge of adrenaline and honestly feel as though you have corrected the balance of the universe in some way.

This is great, until the other person decides to do the same to you in return and you perpetuate a vicious cycle of nastiness with no positive end in sight.

Here are a few tips to better let you manage your urge for revenge:

Never say anything negative about other people, even when you are joking. Jokes have a tendency to be misinterpreted as our egos get involved and pull original statements out of all context – similarly, never criticize and never gossip.

Always try to be factual in your dealings with others. Wherever possible, explain the situation objectively and avoid accusatory comments or negatively-intentioned diatribes.

This is easier said than done, I know. If you know that somebody has been criticizing you at work for no reason, our first instinct is to hurt him in return. However, as opposed to exacting your revenge in public, I suggest a different line of action – one which ensures a more positive outcome for the both of you in the long-run:

Go and speak to the aggressor privately and confidentially.

Explain in detail all the actions and words he has displayed which have upset and angered you.

Ask him if there are any underlying reasons for his behavior. Have you done something to upset him previously that you are unaware of and can now attempt to remedy?

Create a plan of action allowing you both to move on from the situation.

This may sound a little ‘Pollyanna’, but I assure you it is a much preferable arrangement to the alternative.

Also, you should remain acutely aware of the insecurities of other people and their ‘trigger points’.

Do not attempt to offer advice on these areas, as they are likely to be too psychologically fixed to them and may misinterpret your positive intentions. Sometimes, it is just better to let ‘sleeping dogs lie’ than to attempt to wake them.

As an action to end this chapter:

Think of a past event when you may have mistreated, upset or angered another person – whether a partner, friend, family member or work colleague.

Imagine how you would handle this situation differently if you could go back in time and experience it again – apply these methods to future instances.

Similarly, think of a situation where you have been mistreated or angered by somebody else in return. How did you react at the time? How would you react now?

This information is gold and will allow you to develop fully into the person you know you know yourself truly to be.

Revenge is for suckers. Take the higher ground.

As a bonus chapter, I wanted to include a motivational message to help you understand that your successful personal development is down to one person, and one person alone – you.

It’s time to take control and stop relying on others to do the hard work for you...

Nobody Will Do It for You

Years ago, my running coach at the time confessed to me that even after running dozens of marathons, every time he goes out for his morning run, and within only a few minutes of planting his feet on the pavement, he would hear a little voice in the back of his head saying ‘you don’t need to do this today. Give yourself a break, go back to bed. Go for a run tomorrow instead...’

We all know that voice. We all have that voice.

It’s the voice that rears up each time we do something uncomfortable – each time we do something new, however good for us it may be.

The thing is, no matter how much you are able to develop into a more successful person, you’ll find that this voice does not go away – it never dies. You only become better equipped to deal with it. You develop the strength to ignore it and plot your own trajectory in life.

You need to be aware of the games that your mind will play with you during these moments – the lengths it will go to in order to get you to take the easy option, the comfortable option – the one that promises the least amount of physical or psychological exertion possible.

Your brain has a habit of working tirelessly against you, inventing excuses for failure that you need to put aside as you grow into the person you deserve to be.

Nobody will make these choices for you – in fact, most other people will take the side of your inner voice. Your friend will tell you to have that extra slice of cake while you are dining out, your partner will tell you to stay in bed instead of hitting the gym at 6am, your work colleagues will tell you not to take that project which keeps you at the office an extra hour per night.

The truth is, there is a reason that 99% of people are unsuccessful and discontented with their lives and this is it. You won’t be like that. You’ll set your own standards. Make your own decisions.

You’ll make the hard choices because you’re committed to growing and developing. Nobody said it was going to be easy, and trust me, it won’t be.

But it’s nothing you can’t handle. Let those other people be weak. Let them live their lives however they choose. But be different, ignore the voice in your head telling you to take it easy.

Success isn’t easy. Push yourself. Trust me, nobody is going to do it for you, although our last chapter will give you a whole host of tools to help make the process as comfortable as possible...

Life Leverage

We are almost at the end of our journey together, but before leaving you, I wanted to give you some value-adding tips in regard to better optimizing your day. I want you to understand the incredible power inherent in leveraging your life for all it’s worth.

We should always check to see if there are more efficient methods of completing our daily tasks, especially when the results of our exertions are misaligned with the resources we have put into them.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few effective methods of leveraging your new life:

Always check if there is a piece of software or an app that can take care of, or helpfully assist in, your task.

There is an app or software for almost anything these days, and it would be remiss of you not to take full advantage of these wherever it is prudent to do so.

Find a mentor who can assist you with any problem you may have. People will be more than willing to help you if you are honest enough to admit you need help.

Think about all the things you can offer them in return to better motivate them to help you. Never feel as though you need to struggle on your own, when there are people out there with a wealth of experience in any problem you are facing.

Outsource anything you are able. Sites such as upwork.com or guru.com are full to the brim with people with the necessary skills, abilities, qualifications and experience to assist with tasks you may not have the aptitude or time to complete on your own.

The opportunities on these sites are endless – you really can find somebody willing to complete any task you may have, and it can be as inexpensive as you choose it to be.

Use any training resource you are able to find to speed up completion of your project – these days, the resources for this are endless.

Whether its via books, podcasts, YouTube videos, online training courses (many of them are free on sites such as udemy.com) or blogs, the information is most definitely out there – utilize it effectively and then just sit back and watch your skills and personal productivity soar.

Brainstorm new ideas for productivity and optimization. These do not need to be difficult or hard to implement.

For example, two recent productivity habits I have implemented are to not touch my phone for the first hour in the morning, and to put my phone on charge at the other side of the room as soon as I go to bed at night.

Our smartphones have the ability to dictate our lives if we let them – these two simple practices have helped me to wrestle a little control back from them, ensuring I am more productive in the morning, and am able to sleep much more soundly at night!

Quick productivity wins such as these are available to us all if we only make the effort to go out and find themselves.

Don’t underestimate the knowledge, skills and motivation you can acquire from simply asking your friends, family or work colleagues for help, support or assistance.

Knowledge is all around us, and the truth is, the people you ask for help do not need to be experts in a subject matter to be of assistance to you – they just need to know a little more about a subject than you do.

Because these people already know you and care about you, they won’t think twice about helping you if it is at all possible – just ensure you are available to return the favor when it’s their turn to ask for support.

There you have it – seven little tips for life leverage and optimization. You don’t need to feel compelled to implement every one of the suggestions, but each of them has the potential to increase your personal success significantly if you take the time to apply them.

As with any book of this mold, don’t feel as though you need to apply every tip in order to see an improvement in your productivity and effectiveness – take the ones which make intuitive sense to you and apply them rigorously into everything you do and undertake.

The rewards will be obvious, and your results will be profound.

Final Thoughts

So, we have come to the end of our journey together and I’m sure you will agree, we’ve covered a lot of ground in this guide.

Don’t worry if you feel a little overwhelmed by the breadth of information covered in the previous pages, as many of these topics may be brand new to you or may be more familiar subjects explained in a way which allows you to finally ‘get it’.

Either way, I have no doubt that implementing everything you have learned along the way will have a significant positive effect on your life and the lives of those around you.

A large element of developing as a person is consciously accepting that there is a lot you still have to learn, and my genuine hope is that, at the very least, I have given you a lot to think about, as well as a multitude of practical tips you can begin to apply in your life the moment you close this book and return to normality.

I’ll be completely honest at this point – this book has been enormous fun to write and has helped to crystallize many of the concepts I have been considering for the last few months.

It has already added an incredible amount of value to my own life, and the greatest validation I could receive is in knowing it has had a similar effect on your own life.

Please do not feel as though you need to implement everything you have learned all at once – begin with the chapter that has spoken loudest to you, apply it fully to your life, and then move on to the next strategy.

Incremental progress is the most effective of all, and by getting just a little better every day, you will one day look back at where you are now and be amazed at the progress you have made.

To finish this book, I would like to close on an important phrase I used earlier on in the text:

Success isn’t easy. Push yourself. Trust me, nobody is going to do it for you....

These are words to live by.

Until next time.....