30 day challenge #5: Reading a self-help book in 1 hour.
Out of the physical books I had in this genre, I chose this one.
Overall, it had a lot of fluff. But there were a few things that were beneficial:
Master Mind group
A group of people that you choose, with whom you meet regularly and discuss about your goals and seek help.
Edwin Barnes’ absolute desire to work with Edison
He just takes a train, goes to Edison and declares that he will work with him. This might sounds crazy and over the top, but the determination is worth noting. When we approach potential employers, friends or partners, we are unsure of ourselves. This lack of confidence shows. Also, when we try to convince our parents of our career choice.
Marconi’s friends think he is crazy
They had taken him to a psychiatric hospital when he claimed that we can communicate over a long distance, without using wires.
Writing down our goals
The power of deciding exactly what we want, by when and what we are ready to do for achieving it. In the context of money, “I will earn this much amount of money by this date and offer this service in return.”
Auto-suggestions / Affirmations
We need to repeat to ourselves our desired qualities, our goals and our commitments regularly. This will make these thoughts go into the deeper part of our minds.
Giving up 3 feet away from gold
Hard-hitting story of a person who tries mining for gold, gets a little bit and doesn’t find more gold. But when he sells his equipment to another lay person, he consults an expert who guides him about the fault line just 3 feet away from where the previous person stopped digging. This new person earns a million or so dollars.
People buy titles of a book, not content
Just by changing the title of a book which was not selling many copies, the book was made a bestseller. This teaches us about the impact of how we present ourselves.
Generalised and specific knowledge
Ford, even though he was not formally educated much, he knew not to waste his time in general knowledge like how many soldiers were sent in a specific war, as reporters kept asking him irritating questions. He replies that at the touch of a button, he can physically call upon people who can answer such questions. In our time, it is internet and AI tools.
Crazy way to apply for jobs
The story of a lady who wants to help out is graduate child who was unable to find a job. She makes him write a detailed booklet or something about himself, his educations, skills, etc. She makes it binded and creatively written by artistic people and sends this to potential employers. The son gets a got easily, at the salary he demanded. Even though this approach might be stupid for today’s time, but it could be done in a different way: an awesome website (like this, haha!), an eye-catching YouTube video, or a portfolio, to ‘sell yourself’ to potential employers.
The 6 basic fears
Poverty, criticism, ill health, loss of love, old age and death. In the spirit of this 30 day challenge, tasks like ‘sleep like a dog’ can help us minimise our fear of the loss of our comfort zone. If you give up your comforts, home, money, belongings, etc just for a short time and go somewhere, your fear might reduce.
What I do is, I deliberately do some weird things, to inoculate myself against criticism. So, when the time comes to do something which is very great, I could do it little bit easily.
