Kindness: If you are giving back you’ve already taken too much.
I’m looking at those billionaires who hoard wealth their
whole lives to ‘philanthropically’ give it away with their impending deaths.
Evolve and grow: Life’s about progress, we can either move forward
and relentlessly improve or be consumed and surpassed by the horde which stands
in wait behind us. Standing still is proportionate to regression.
Resources: Time is your most valuable resource; there are no
refunds or second chances for that which you waste. Retire from social
networking, break free from TV, and reduce the arbitrary drains on your time
each day.
Experiences: Spending the 6 months prior to your death completing
your bucket list is no way to live as everything you do will be done with a
tinge or sadness and regret. Live your life as if you are terminal, you are,
and do the things you want without a reason for doing so. Create memories and
experience living or your time will expire.
Spend time doing the things you love with the people you
care about most. You don’t get extra marks for putting up with people
you dislike
Ideas: Just because you think it is a good idea, doesn’t
mean it is a good idea…
Words: Think before you speak. Words have the power to
cause irreparable harm, always choose them carefully.
Actions: Think before you act. You can take a second to do
something you haven’t properly considered, that isn’t a true reflection of your
character, and it can undo a lifetime of kindness and generosity.
Alcohol: Alcohol impairs judgement and you don’t need it to have a
good time. If you do it’s time to question the choices you are making.
Parental Advice: Your parents were more right about the things they
said growing up than you will ever care to admit:
1. School really were the best days of your life.
2. If you worked hard at school you are reaping the
benefits now.
3. Choose your friends carefully, you are the average of
the 5 people you spend most time with.
4. Always give your best at everything you do, people are
always watching.
5. Always treat people the way you want to be treated and
you’ll receive respect from almost everyone you meet.
6. Everyone is simultaneously different and the same.
Regardless of someones race, culture, gender and sexual orientation everyone is
equal.
Hobbies: A hobby which you love, hopefully which keeps you
fit, is the best investment you can make in your own longevity and prosperity.
Saving: Save a little money every week/month. Nothing gives
you happiness like a financial buffer, believe it or not.
Never stop learning: Whether that is reading a book, listening to a pod
cast or completing a MOOC online. You need to take continue to take
responsibility for your own learning and actively pursue means to improve. Read
for 1 hour every single day. By reading one hour a day, regardless of your
perceived level of knowledge, you can become a world leading expert in any
subject in 7 years. If you begin now, you could become a world leading expert
in your chosen field in less than 10% of your lifetime. It obviously requires
commitment and consistency but its incredibly easy to sit and read if you are
literate.
42% of college graduates never read another book after
college so think how far ahead that could get you.
Do something different: If you zig when others zag you will avoid being in
the majority making it easier to rise to the top. Its far easiest to be great
in a smaller pool.
Unmercifully pursue your dreams: 10,000 of hours of dedication to something is what it
takes for someone to be the world-class at something. With that being true I
would advocate another route being inherently more useful as the world moves
towards a more diverse future. Spend 1,000 hours on 10 different subjects. You
won’t become the best in the world at any one thing but you will become a world
leading generalist which will ensure you can benefit from most of this new
exciting post-capitalist world. The benefits of being better at 10 things than
90% of the global population than better than 99% of the world population at
one are monumental. The crossover between your skills will lead to new
unimaginable opportunities.
Compete against people better than you. Go places where you know you will be at a
disadvantage. Competing against superior performers will expose you to
strategies which enable you to alter your own. You’ll learn tricks and spot
hints to improve your own performance you won’t learn in years of competing
against rookies.
Give yourself too little time: Purposefully give yourself less time than you know you
need to achieve something. You’ll surprise yourself or be forced to invent
creative ways to improve your efficiency. It might help you spot trends from
alternative industries/activities/sports you can utilise in a new way. In
business it is often better to repackage and existing average idea and improve
on it to achieve greatness.
Set goals: write them down. recording your goals will make you
100% more likely to achieve them. Write short, medium and long term goals and
actively track your progress against them. It will give you a sense of
achievement which will inspire you and spur you on.
Be more original: Following the status-quo may help you achieve short
term academic success, it might assist in enabling you to pass exams and get
into university, but ultimately it is going to detrimentally affect your
creativity. Take risks, spot chances and dove in. Share your ideas and get
feedback. Be brave.
Put yourself out there: Meet people, reach out and talk to people; never be
afraid to ask advice. I never let somebodies reputation scare me into
submission. I’m a vehement believer in the adage that if you never ask you’ll
never know and find this particularly true of those people who have ascended to
the highest heights. I’ve exchange correspondence with everyone from Arianna
Huffington, Bob Keiller, Gareth Williams, Adam Grant to name but a few. It’s
worth remembering even the most successful among us are people to.
Travel: Broaden your horizons, open your mind and deepen your
well of exposure. Understand the idiosyncrasies between cultures and experience
living. Go to the places on the periphery and understand the countries you
visit. A resort with a pool and a sandy beach could be anywhere. Go to places and
distil their true meaning and gain enlightenment. By understanding how
different cultures and communities operate our lives are enriched with
understanding, compassion and appreciation for people unlike ourselves.
Constantly evolve: Make at least one improvement that makes you better at
something every single day. It sounds daunting, but improvements don’t have to
be huge, they can be really small which incrementally leads to huge change.
Think improving just 1% each day and build upon that every single day. Doing so
has a dramatic effect and will make us 37x better, not 365% (3.65x) better at
the end of the year. Wake up every day and ask yourself what is the 1%
improvement I can change to make myself better personally and professionally.
Imagine yourself making 1% changes every
day that compounds and will make you 37x better by the end of the year. Imagine
if everybody was doing the same. Imagine how much better you and the world will
be next year.
Never wait for things. You need to fight to improve. Good
things come to those who go out and get them, nobody achieved greatness waiting
for it to find them.
Don’t trust the wrong people: Aligning yourself with the wrong groups can set
your career back years. Office politics are a thing and hitching your wagon to
the right people can help you ascend dizzy heights quickly but be careful of
the price you pay.
Find mentorship: Finding a relevant mentor who can advise you on the
things you should concentrate on, the things you should do and the experiences
you should seek.
Don’t prioritize salary over learning: the most important thing early in your career is
that you are in an environment which exposes you to and involves you in every
element of the business enabling your education to prosper. It is this you will
be compensated for later.
Don’t specialize too soon: Generalize and give yourself an opportunity to
serendipitously discover what you are best at.
Don’t expect opportunities to come to you: Instead of exploring the self-generation of
opportunity through building relationships or research I was happy to wait in
expectation that my knowledge and expertise would gravitate people towards me.
It didn’t.
Write sooner: Give yourself every opportunity to establish
yourself as a key person of influence in your industry. Write a little every
day. Write a lot once a week. Try to write a book.
Learn a language: Learn something useful. Speaking one language is
fine, particularly if it is English for obvious reasons. I’ve always found it a
bit ignorant. It enables you to communicate and connect with people far easier
and it has the added benefit of burning new cognitive pathways which make you
smarter.
Don’t think you need to work long hours to
impress people: Recognize the value
of your free time and defend it, nobody lay on their death bed wishing they had
worked more.
Trust Yourself: My Biggest regret is not trusting myself to build
something of value sooner. Everything around us was made and created by people
no smarter than we are. We can change and influence anything, we can build and
create our own things that other people use and consume.
Our influence is only constrained by our
lack of imagination. Dare to dream, create, lead and change our world.