Description

‘New-Age’ and ‘Old-Age’ life skills for the savvy young professional

This implementation guide (pdf + Etemplates) combines new-age thinking with tried-and-tested advice to help you move forward toward a more comfortable life. It started as a handbook for my daughters, as the sudden death of a friend who was younger and fitter than I reminded me that I might not be around to offer sound advice when needed.

Life will have thrown you many curved balls already. You have survived, but there is some long-term scarring. You may have invested in friendships that were a one-way street, failed to master the basics of time management, allowed envy and your emotional baggage to get in the way of a comfortable life, developed career-limiting work habits, and the list goes on. This implementation guide will help you avoid repeating these mistakes.

The best thing about being comfortable is that it’s attainable for anyone willing to take the right steps and avoid the many and varied pitfalls.

Your comfortable life could be supported by friends who have your back. It could be one where the past no longer haunts your future. It could be where your personal and work habits maximise your potential. And where the demons that hold you back are exorcised.

Throughout this implementation guide , I have designed helpful checklists and evaluation tools to aid readers. These E-templates come with the PDF of the book.

The varied and hopefully interesting topics include

Family and Friends

Family and friends are your greatest support network that can bring great joy.  Many approaches to living advocate the importance of spending quality time with family and friends.

To succeed in this area, you must invest time to strengthen this support network, whose support is fundamental in any crisis you may face.  ‘Family and friends’ covers the following sections:

• Maintaining family bonds
• The six types of friends – have you got it covered?
• Old lessons on friendship that might apply to you
• What you need to know before playing the rescuer
• Finding good flatmates
• Entertaining your friends is a priceless gift
• You can always find time to attend a funeral
• How to buy a good wine for your friends

Getting Organized

Getting organized is an essential step in one’s development and a crucial personal habit. I can assure you that being organized will help eliminate many of life’s frustrations and give you a clear mind with less brain fog.

‘Getting organized’ covers the following sections:

• Allocate time to your rocks
• Once a week, take a morning to shape your future
• Learning to say “No”
• The hidden gems of time management
• How to fix your addiction to lateness
• Why you should eat a frog every morning
• Finish what you start
  

  Working on yourself to be a better person

  I suspect no two authors’ list would be the same.  However, working on these facets of personal development will make a difference.

  ‘Other winning personal habits’ includes the following sections:

  • Minimise your emotional baggage
  • Work to improve your empathy as it will improve your life
  • Understanding the evolutionary mismatch of the six primary chemical drivers of behaviour or misbehaviour
  • Why anger lies in our thinking and not in the actions of others
  • Envy is the thief of joy – nine tips to curb it
  • How to face tough times
  • Never compromise on integrity
  • Go where angels fear to tread
  • Building your self-confidence is an inside job
  • Avoid pressing the self-destruct button
  • Vengeance is the thief of the future
  • Serving others to help ourselves
  • The power of humility
  • Controlling the demons in your smartphone
  • Blowing away the ‘Decision fog’
  • Tidy space, tidy mind

Winning Work Habits

This is an area where I have some authority.  I have written countless articles for numerous journals and a management book, “The Leading-edge Manager’s Guide to Success – Strategies and Better Practices.”

‘Winning work habits’ covers the following sections:

• Become a disciple of Peter Drucker
• Embracing abandonment – the most important life skill
• Controlling the wild beast — your email
• Is working in your home office getting you depressed?
• Make sure all your work goes through five quality assurance checks
• Estimate your deadlines better by using the rule of three
• Propel your career with “killer” presentations
• Avoid becoming an expert in Excel
• Have a cluster of mentors behind you
• Beware of becoming a workaholic
• Avoid becoming a self-taught millennial
• Use Kanban boards to manage and communicate progress
• Reduce waste by Post-it Note re-engineering
• Embrace a benchmarking project to enhance your career
• Interviewing techniques when doing research
• Embrace the SCRUM methodology on all projects
• Get into managing people ASAP – it is worth the pain

Health and Wellbeing

When I was in my late thirties, I was hospitalized with acute arthritis called Reiter’s Arthritis. It was a sobering time for someone who thought they were bulletproof. The illness was preventable and was triggered by my work habits, lowering my immune system.

I do not profess to know more than you in this area. In fact, I am sure you are better informed, so I have limited this section to five observations. Please read and do not ignore them.

• You and your mental health
• Controlling your anxiety
• Paying your insurance premiums to save your relationship
• Invest in your health
• Develop healthy regimes in your day that work to support you
• Drive to survive
• Travelling abroad – survival tips

• This implementation guide is a companion to ‘How to Become Comfortable- ‘Old Money’ Advice for the Savvy Young Professional’, which includes content on:

• Finding Wally – tips to help you find a life partner worth keeping
• Guidelines when weighing up ‘Should I stay or should I go’ from a relationship
• Importance of identifying your and your partner’s love languages
• How to separate without funding the legal profession
• The twenty tips when buying your first home
• Tips to secure your financial future
• How to avoid dumb investments
• How to avoid buying a ‘lemon’ of a car
• How to get your fines waived
• How to complete your life’s purpose (your Ikigai) and your Treasure Map so your life has a direction you have actively chosen
• How to ascertain your natural talents to ensure a better career fit
• Making sure your career is as secure as a hedgehog
• The importance of a second passion, a respite from stress
• How to use ‘Magnetic Marketing’ to find a better job
• Steps to help you find the right job and avoid being conned
• What to check when intending to make a major career change
• How to negotiate to a “Yes”
• Working more effectively with others
• How to make progress renovating your first home