Young and Invested

Personally, I have never been a huge fan of “be your best” books because they are often so indirect and general that the advice in them can be picked up from strangers on the street. However, I do usually keep and open mind and realize that we can always learn from those who have already experienced what we have. For those of you who have heard of Robin Sharma, you will know that he is the author of many spiritual books such as “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari” and “Who Will Cry When You Die?”. I have recently finished reading his latest book called “The Greatness Guide”, and I must tell you, it is anything but fluffy and general. In fact, I found so many points useful that I had to start writing them down, and I thought that I would share them with you.

1. Every day is important for the bigger ideas in your life, and conscious endeavor to strive for what you want daily sets you in the right mind-frame for the long run. It is so easy to get lost in our everyday that we sometimes don’t realize that long-term goals still have to be accomplished through many days of short-term thinking.

Action plan suggestion: create a list of your long-term goals and have it in front of you at your workspace.

2. Reference points are paradigms of comparison for your valued traits: so, changing your reference point about qualities you appreciate and desire can change your entire outlook on life. What Sharma means by this is let us say you really appreciate “passion”. As a reference point for passion, you can either use somebody you know that goes to work just to make money and not really enjoy their life, or someone you know (or even don’t know) who has displays such passion for what they believe in, whether it be nature, animals or gardening, and use THEM as your reference point for passion. Trust me, your goals will be set much higher with new reference points.

Action plan suggestion: write down all qualities that are important to your development and think of one or several powerful reference points that display them.

3. Challenge serves beautifully to introduce you to your best and most brilliant self. So, burn your boat; that way, when you come to a challenge your will never turn back and go to your return boat, but will be forced to face your challenge and improve. As one of my school friends always used to say, without struggle, there is no progress, and sometimes, you have to force yourself to struggle. Don’t worry, it will be more than worth it looking back.

4. Lastly, I would just like to leave you with Sharma’s top 10 simple ideas for superb relationships. If you’re a major networker and are always on the go, like me, you may find these ideas really strong to play around with, even if you just pick one a day:

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