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Guarantees in life include opportunities, challenges, and choices. Each new day is a new trek with new opportunities, challenges, and choices. New knowledge can help you manage opportunities and challenges and make better choices. You might even agree there are shortcuts in life, considering knowledge from other people who have done what you want to do. Learning an easier or quicker way to do something can save years of personal experience. But there is no shortcut for doing the work.
Almost anything you want to do or overcome, someone has written a book about it. The book, Limitless, has a good method for reading faster, and a method for remembering more of what you read. Don’t like to read? Many of the best books have online videos where the author shares the highlights. Here is a shortcut for reading… find a popular book title you are interested in, then go to YouTube and search for it. You might find a video of the highlights of the book.
No matter what you want to do, a good place to start is with MOD Goals. Properly set goals help us to increase a sense of meaning, focus, and productivity. Also consider a morning routine that gets you energized and starts each day well. Your morning routine depends on getting a good night's rest, which depends on how we wind down each day. the book, The Miracle Morning, is a good read on this topic.
Compound interest doesn’t just apply to money, it also applies to our knowledge, health, and relationships. I encourage you to schedule time every day to exercise, and every week to gain knowledge on important topics to you in this season of your life. It’s always a good season to learn about your health, and relationships (especially Communication Skills). Some experts claim money is the main reason for arguments in intimate relationships. Regardless of the topic of disagreement, our communication habits and emotional fitness determine whether people disagree well or blow up. We are not our emotions or thoughts; we are what we do with them.
Consider doing a personality assessment and the Strengths Finder 2.0 assessment. The Bible has a simple, and seemingly self-evident verse on core personality traits… God gave you a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Tim 1:7). This reflects our inner worker/warrior, feeler, and thinker, but we all prioritize these traits. The more we understand how people prioritize these, the better we can communicate.
Shortcuts to Reading Books
If you find a popular book title you are interested in, search YouTube for the title and author. This might lead you to a video interview with the author, where they share highlights of the book. You can also search podcasts for interviews of the author and their book. If you want to check the popularity of a book consider checking the rating and number of reviews on Amazon.com or GoodReads.com.
Another good book is the Personal Planning Package, which has simple and effective two-page plan templates for annual MOD goals, personal growth, professional growth, and social media growth. It also includes insights into our Four Core Skills including an effective decision-making process and communication process. It also includes The Big List of Free Help, and the Helpful, Interesting, and Popular Lists.
(other than the Bible, or The Core Bible Verses)
Bonus… Finish (How to accomplish your goals)
Personal growth and professional growth can be a competitive advantage in any industry.
A professional is someone who takes responsibility for their growth, and works to improve their skills. You can become a certified professional by finishing an apprenticeship or completing tests of knowledge in specific areas.
If you are interested in an apprenticeship consider the Apprenticeship Finder at https://www.apprenticeship.gov.
It might help to find work that fits your specific personality or strengths early in your life. But, if you can’t, know that the more you do good work, improve your skills, and build “career capital,” the better you can position yourself to find future work that feels like a better fit for you. Young adults might not have job experience, but they have a fresh and unique view of the world with a specific personality and strengths, along with an energy most older adults don’t have. Plus, young adults have more time to grow their investments.
Getting a certification not only increases your advantage with proven skills, it shows you can be proactive. Some popular professional certifications that can apply to many different industries include CPR & First Aid, Six Sigma, Lean Six Sigma, Cyber Security (like the CompTIA Security +), Project Management Professional, Scrum, Safety Certifications, Forklift Driver, Certified Professional Sales Person, Customer Relationship Management Certification (like Hubspot, Salesforce, Monday, or Zoho), Digital Marketing Certification (like Search Engine Optimization, or Google Ads, or Facebook Ads).
Places for Free Professional Growth Courses
If you are interested in some free professional growth online courses consider
https://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses/full-catalogue
https://www.openculture.com/freeonlinecourses
https://online.stanford.edu/free-courses
https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog/free
Top 12 Professional Growth Books
Side Job Ideas
Many people are in positions where they could use a little extra money each week, or month. You never know, maybe a side job could become a full time job? Some side job ideas include handyman, executive assistant or secretary, lawncare, house cleaning, photography, used goods flipper (buy local on sale items, or garage sale items, and sell online), dog walking, ride share driver (Uber or Lyft), content creator or freelance researcher and writer, social media management, or create designs and sell at an online print on demand website like Printify.
There is an entire website devoted to side jobs and has a page devoted to Side Hustle Ideas… https://www.sidehustlenation.com/ideas/
If you have some skills that you feel comfortable helping people with, consider listing yourself on Freelancer, https://www.freelancer.com/, or Upwork, https://www.upwork.com/.
Growth Groups
Many people find it helpful to join, or start, a study group or mastermind group (think group). A study group meets to discuss different chapters of a book. You can have a different person be responsible for reading each chapter and preparing discussion points for each meeting. Or one person can be responsible for reading and preparing discussion points, and facilitate the discussion. This can be done for an hour weekly, two hours every other week, or two to three hours once a month.
A mastermind group is when people get together to brainstorm and help each other think of how to achieve their goals. This always includes some encouragement, and discussion about opportunities and challenges. This can be as simple as answering three questions… What are you currently working on? What do you want help with? What did you learn that others might find helpful, since our last meeting? Then people in the group take turns sharing and building on thoughts about their answers.
When people get together with a sincere purpose to help each other, their knowledge multiplies. This is a key message of the book, Think and Grow Rich, and the leadership book, Multipliers. Here are a couple articles on starting a Growth Group (often called Mastermind Group) by Upcoach, and Mighty Networks. Of course, they promote their platform to host groups.
Money management and investing are undervalued skills.. The book, The Psychology of Money, shares many timeless personal finance principles. If you don’t have a retirement fund, you can set up your own. A Roth Individual Retirement Account (IRA) is a popular option.You can also create your own stand alone “Cash” investment account, with a stock market investing company like Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab, Merrill Lynch, or E-Trade.
I wish I would have learned about money management and investing early in life. But, it could be argued that it is never too late, because smart investments usually grow. If you want to learn more about investing I have an entire page dedicated to investing.
Over 70 percent of the world’s population believes in one of the big four largest religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. This is considering Taoism and Confucianism as philosophies. While they have foundational differences, they share the belief that humans are naturally depraved, or sinful, and in need of salvation, enlightenment, and growth. They also share the values of truth, wisdom, humility, integrity, courage, love, forgiveness, and justice.
Religions are a collection of spiritual beliefs and traditions that help people to live better, receive salvation, or achieve enlightenment. The four largest religions each have their own sacred documents that contain the knowledge for their beliefs and traditions. They have been helping people over many centuries, and continue to this day. Of course, they are led by flawed humans who can misunderstand or misuse their knowledge. Science can also be misunderstood and misused, since it is also managed by humans. However, when science is done well it is basically revealing natural laws. More at the Spiritual Growth page.
If we can agree that a leader is responsible for people and results, then I offer the idea, there are four categories of leaders, formal, informal, parental, and self-leadership. Formal leaders are sought out and given authority over people, responsibility for results, and paid. Informal leaders are usually unpaid volunteers responsible for results. Parents are not usually considered leaders, but I would argue they are the most important leaders. Most people have a future self that they imagine is in a better better place/position. If so, that future self is depending on your present self to be responsible and make good decisions.
If you are a young adult reading this, you probably have more potential than you think you do. If you stay out of trouble, work well, and build good relationships, you will probably go farther in life than you think you can. Especially if you take time for self-education. Competition is just human nature, and exists between individuals, organizations, communities, and countries.
Top 12 Leadership Growth Books
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