I have been reading various books dealing with business and issues related to finding work. Along the way a couple years ago, I picked up a little book by Frank Bettger called “How I Raised Myself from a Failure to a Success in Selling” at a local thrift store. I finally read it this past week. And the best part was his last chapter. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s 13 virtues Frank Bettger made his own list of 13 key skills for selling. Like Benjamin Franklin, he then advises the reader to make his own list, and then spend a week emphasizing each virtue/skill. At the end of the year, that would mean that you’ll have gone through the list 4 times and he swears that it is a great way to grow and get better at selling/etc.
The super powerful idea behind Frank Bettger’s chapter is that he takes history and makes it useful for his own purposes. I think there is a tendency to say “if a great guy did it, then that’s how it should be done.” However, I think that often leads to inaction since the great person was doing something in the context of their life. Instead one ought to take the example of history and make the most of it in the context of our own lives.
And in that spirit I decided that it couldn’t hurt to try something similar, though I am kind of switching it a little to include fields of study to emphasize in my spare time. We’ll see where it goes, I’ll start it up in a couple weeks which will time me perfectly at the halfway mark of this year.
- Introspection
- Enthusiasm
- Architecture (conventional details and construction)
- Sketching
- Reading People
- Business
- Assertiveness
- Thankfullness
- Networking
- Silence
- Sustainability (details and construction)
- Contemporary art/design/architecture
- Brain rewiring (catch up on old hobbies, ie banjo, novels, photography)