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Download life plan powerpoint and begin adding objectives for the year, click here to download.

If you are unable to use powerpoint, please document your objectives in the context of the following categories (you must supply answers for all categories):

  • Money
  • Community
  • Love
  • Fun
  • Career
  • Health
  • Hobbies
  • Mind

Simply add your notes to the above power point presentation, this is the first artifact you will take responsibility for. Its a strategic plan you will create by yourself. Think of this as the basis of personal OKRs, click here to learn what they are.

While you are adding the content for the life plan, please familiarize yourself with the topics of persuasion, first principles, mindfulness and personal development. These concepts are all contributing factors to the success of your self development journey.

Once you are complete with the life plan, feel free to reach out to me directly and we will schedule a review session. Please forward the life plan and your contact information to fszale@gmail.com.

First principles reasoning

First-principles reasoning is an approach to break down a complex problem to the most simple elements to gain base line understanding of what components are involved.

Once this is done, the base components can be modified and reassembled from ground up in order to reconstruct the understanding.

This process proves to be successful in unlocking creative potential and solving complex problems, often referenced by such public figures as Elon Musk and Charlie Munger.

For an excellent write up on this topic please click here.

I encourage you to poke around the https://fs.blog blog as it contains multitude of interesting content. Its key objective is stated to be and I quote, "Our goal is to help you master the best of what other people have already figured out." Their Sunday email based newsletter is packed with intelligent content and is worth your precious time.

Persuasion

This skill is fundamental and must be employed at every opportunity. Practicing persuasion will help you develop lasting influence and also teach you how to recognize how corporations, government and people actively persuade you.

One of the better books on this subject is "Influence" by Robert Cialdini, you can find this book on Amazon here.

This book will help you to learn the six universal principles of influence and how to use them to become a skilled persuader—and, just as importantly, how to defend yourself against dishonest influence attempts:

  • Reciprocation: The internal pull to repay what another person has provided us.
  • Commitment and Consistency: Once we make a choice or take a stand, we work to behave consistently with that commitment in order to justify our decisions.
  • Social Proof: When we are unsure, we look to similar others to provide us with the correct actions to take. And the more, people undertaking that action, the more we consider that action correct.
  • Liking: The propensity to agree with people we like and, just as important, the propensity for others to agree with us, if we like them.
  • Authority: We are more likely to say “yes” to others who are authorities, who carry greater knowledge, experience or expertise.
  • Scarcity: We want more of what is less available or dwindling in availability.

Another classic is "How to Win Friends & Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. This book serves rock-solid, time-tested advice has carried countless people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives. One of the most groundbreaking and timeless bestsellers of all time.

My personal favorite public persona focused on the subject of persuasion is Scott Adams (The "Dilbert" cartoon creator) who has a unique perspective on how to interpret the surrounding world. He has developed a persuasion filter that has proven to be a validator of his unusually accurate predictions. You can find a great reading list focused on the subject of persuasion on his blog here.

I would also recommend that you acquire some of his other books listed below:

These books are all full of useful content that helps you interpret your surroundings, people, influence and other forces at play working hard to shape your reality.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a type of meditation where you have to intentionally focus on whatever is happening without injecting your bias to interpret and/or pass judgement.

I find this skill to be an enabler for developing unbiased mindset necessary to develop ability to lead with empathy.

This is a complex area of study and I encourage you to search for your own research materials. One the few books I could "connect with" is "Practicing Mindfulness: An Introduction to Meditation", although it was impossible for me to maintain focus while reading it. I opted for the audio version instead and spent many hours walking the dog while absorbing and practicing the content as advised.

I continue to find reading about this subject overwhelming and often impossible to verify. You need to find your own way to absorb and practice this skill. I have been practicing for years and can confirm that mindful meditation has allowed my brain to develop new neural pathways that have materially altered my perspective on our reality. In my personal experience, the benefits of this practice resulted in heighten sense of self awareness, unbiased judgment, profound increase of empathy and compassion, emotional stability, accurate perception of other people emotional state and mental calmness under all circumstances.

Personal development

I have compiled a list of key personal development recommendations loosely based on stories from the "Tools of Titans" book by Tim Ferris and also added a few of my own, you can see the list here.

"Tools of Titans" book contains multitude of lessons learned from public figures that most of us would label as successful.

You can find this book on Amazon here, Tim Ferriss is an interesting individual worth following for the content he produces, you can see him in action on YouTube, click here.