7 Checklist Items for Success

A Guide to a Richer and More Successful Life

Jean Mathurin

• Publisher: 7 Checklist Items LLC
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781732288409
• eBook ISBN: 9781732288416
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Biographies
• Index: Business

KIRKUS REVIEW

A U.S. Navy physician shares his secrets for a more successful life in this self-help work.

Mathurin conceived of his debut book when he realized how critical checklists are in the worlds of naval aviation and medicine. Itemized lists, he says, help avoid flight mishaps and operating room errors, so he wondered, "Why not apply this same concept to people's lives to help them achieve their highest potential?" That epiphany resulted in this book—a kind of instruction manual for living that breaks achievement into seven "checklist items": "Goals," "Take Action," "Courage to Consistently Commit," "Value Resources," "Investing in Yourself and Others," "Giving Back," and "Create a Legacy of Service to Others." An introductory section helpfully explains each of the core concepts, in brief, and these same blocks of text are repeated at the beginning of each of seven chapters. The items themselves are unlikely to be new to most readers, as many of the ideas are common in self-help literature (such as "Have the courage to go the extra mile with everything that you do, each and every time"). But the presentation of the material feels more novel, as the overarching checklist concept isn't taken literally; the book's merit derives from the idea that one can systematically address several broad areas in the quest for a fuller life. At the very least, this notion gives the book a highly focused structure that makes it easy for readers to navigate.

Unsurprisingly, given the author's military and medical background, there's a sense of logic and precision to this book. Each chapter's content is uniformly positive and always emphasizes proactivity, but it's also clear that the book isn't intended to highlight step-by-step procedure. Instead, it offers a wide-ranging, general discussion of each list item, using examples and personal anecdotes to illustrate specific points. To that end, Mathurin writes from a very personal perspective—sharing, for example, how he grew up in poverty in Haiti—and he explains with some eloquence how he used the principles that he lays out in his book to "transform [his] life from famine to abundance." He writes with a great deal of insight, as well, offering not only accounts of his own experiences, but also the wisdom of others, such as investor Warren Buffett and the late self-help authors Zig Ziglar and Napoleon Hill. Mathurin's style often takes an inspirational tone, as he exudes a sense of confidence in his approach to life: "Success," writes Mathurin, "is only ten percent intention and ninety percent action." About leading others, he writes, "always strive to be the leader you would want to follow; strive to be the calm voice in the midst of the chaos, and—while you are at it—strive to be the change that you want to see." Finally, Mathurin stresses that you can "lay the path to your legacy by focusing on giving back the acts of kindness you have received along the way."

A book of noble, sincere, and expressive advice for living.

CHAPTER 1

GOALS

Have goals for your life, short-term (daily to yearly goals) and long-term goals (1-10 year goals). Most importantly, have daily goals. Always remember that even the most skilled pilot flying the most sophisticated aircraft in the world will not be able to fly to his or her final destination without a flight plan and a clear destination. Even the best shot in the world cannot hit a target without aiming. Yet many of us conduct the most expensive vessel ever created—our life—without any goals. To call this insanity may be an understatement.

STARTING IS HARD, BUT ESSENTIAL

You deserve to be congratulated for starting this book. At this point, you may not know what your goals are; you may not even be sure of how to develop your goals for a more successful life. This is completely okay. The important thing is that you have started, and you are reading this chapter.

I first started keeping specific goals for my life when I was 15. At that age, it was not easy for me to set long-term goals, so I defaulted to setting short-term goals that I could achieve within one year. Later, as I gained confidence in my ability to realize my goals, I started to set more long-term goals, which I planned to achieve within one to ten years.

When I was younger, my family and I lived in Haiti, where my options were limited. Some of the most intelligent upper classmen I knew were not able to afford to go to college, so setting goals to study in the United States at that time would have seems impossible; instead, I set up goals to excel in each one of my classes. I was the seventh of eight children who had not finished high school. So, my goal became to finish high school. When I was in high school, I had no money to afford college, and I felt that I was on a dead-end road. But by that time I was more confident in my ability to realize my goals, and even though it seemed impossible at that time, I set goals to go to college.

Your long-term goal may seem unrealistic based on your current situation, and that is okay because you want your goals to stretch you. What is not okay is to let yourself be discouraged by the naysayers or the people who don’t even know you.

My neighborhood friends and my classmates considered me lucky because my dad lived in the U.S. They believed that all my needs were met and, unlike them, I never went to bed hungry at night. This was only partly true. Although my mother tried the best she could to give my siblings and I at least one meal per day, the truth was that it was never enough to feed eight hungry mouths.

Even worse, I truly had an insatiable appetite, more so than any of my other siblings. I used to say I needed more food because I burned more energy walking forty-five minutes to school. This justification was immediately refuted by my siblings, because they also had to walk the same distance. Later, I came up with a better excuse: I explained that my brain needed more energy to learn than did theirs. They could not argue with that because I had better grades than them—though the real reason they kept quiet was that they were sick and tired of listening to me whine and cry for food.

Sadly, not having enough to eat was a common theme among my neighborhood friends and classmates. Even today, I still have to face the fact that while I am successful, many people that I grew up with still live in poverty.

My dad, Jean Lenord Mathurin, was a forty-five-year-old illiterate Haitian farmer who, after selling almost everything he had to pay for his wife’s medical bills, decided to sell everything else he owned to pay for a one-way boat to the U.S. in 1984. Of course, my dad did not know anyone in the U.S., and there was no way for him to guarantee that life would be any better there. I asked him, before he passed away in 2011, why he made such a desperate choice to move to the United States. My father told me how much he loved his children and wife and how devastated he was looking at us going hungry in front of him.

He told me that after my mother’s hospitalization, the remaining farmlands he had could not produce enough food (usually plantain and yam) even to provide for his family. Moreover, some of what he grew had to be sold so my mother could buy salt to boil them and occasionally buy smoked herring for gravy.

I remember my father sharing his portion of food with my siblings. He stated the first time he saw me licking my plate to get every scrap of food, he knew he had to do something more. He had a goal to be able to feed his family comfortably and give us a better life. The only feasible choice he had was to risk his life to come to the U.S., where he found work as a farmhand and later in a packing house. Most of the time he started at five in the morning and worked until eleven at the night to pay for his living expenses in the U.S. and to feed us in Haiti.

To say setting and maintaining goals was hard while living in those conditions is an understatement. Yet my dad’s struggle gave me the impetus to write my goals; focusing on them gave me a way to escape my daily difficulties.

Looking back, I think having goals was even therapeutic for me because they were my window to a future different from what I experienced for the first 20 years of my life—a life lacking in resources. I encourage you to do the same, no matter what your situation is, and take a moment to write down your goals. This may not make a lot of sense right now, and you may not even have the courage or the energy to do so. That is why at this point in the story I am going to ask you to stop and write 25 goals you feel must be accomplished during your lifetime. Stop where you are, and begin writing them now.

PRIORITIZE YOUR GOALS

My humble beginnings made the completion of my long-term goals even sweeter, but the greatest challenge was having the discipline to take those first small steps and begin the work. This is not comfortable, and it won’t get better as time goes by, but it is essential. Your goals should be your priority every morning. Setting and working toward small, consistent, daily goals will keep you on a steady track toward fulfilling long-term goals.

The smaller, daily goals are just as significant as your long-term goals. You should think of your daily goals as bridges connecting you to your long-term goals. Every step forward you take on that bridge by completing a daily task is a step closer towards achieving your dreams. To put it another way, setting and completing your daily goals is necessary to realizing your long-term goals.

When making your long-term goals, you should take the advice that billionaire Warren Buffet gave to his pilot, Mike Flint, about setting long-term goals.1 Buffett asked Flint to write his top 25 career goals, then circle the top five. Buffett explained that the key to success is to focus all your energy and efforts on the top five goals and disregard the other twenty.

Remember those goals I asked you to write down? Go ahead and circle the 5 most important. Depending on what you do in life, this technique should also be used in setting your daily goals. Establishing priorities, especially when it comes to your daily goals, is the key to propelling you toward a more successful life because it helps you stay focused on what is important. Prioritizing your goals also helps you identify trivial activities that do not contribute any value to your life and should be avoided at all cost.

THE 5 SECOND RULE

When it comes to taking action to accomplish your long-term and short-term goals, I often refer to the 5 Second Rule, created by Mel Robbins.2 She explains that each time you have a new idea, or anytime you are thinking of doing something important, you should count down from 5 (5-4-3-2-1) and take action, just like a rocket launch countdown from NASA. While this idea sounds almost too simplistic, it can be beneficial in combatting procrastination because it forces you to take action even when you don’t feel like it… like when you’re getting up in the morning.

Another concept from the 5 Second Rule is that your brain is at its peak learning capacity during the first two hours after waking up in the morning. You may have heard that successful people are often early risers who wake up hours before dawn every morning and go to bed early. The feeling of working on your most important life goal and preparing for your day before six in the morning will energize you for the rest of your day.

Example goals checklist items, as explained by the 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins (more on that later):

0400 Wake up time. Just count “5-4-3-2-1, and stand up.”

0400-0500 Work on your life’s highest goal.

0500-0515 Plan your day and prioritize the five things you need to accomplish for that day.

0515-0600 Professional reading: reading about whatever that you do that provides you the money to put food on your table.

0600-0630 Exercise. Exercise will provide you the energy needed to help decrease stress in your life.

Every evening: write about five things you were grateful for during your day.

GOALS BEFORE GOLD

While it might be possible that you do not accomplish some of your goals on a particular day or even within a particular year, you should never be discouraged in their pursuit. Putting in everything you have and giving it your very best will bring you that much closer to realizing your goals. If you fail, you can take comfort in knowing you have given it everything you have. Then, you will have a clear picture of what does not work and what to avoid in the future.

It is unlikely that you will succeed if you are too afraid to do what is necessary to transform your desires into reality. Without trying your best to realize your goals, you will not be any different than those who spend their life playing the lottery waiting and wishing to get lucky. You are not such a person, and you can create your luck, carve out your destiny, and shape your future. I will further say you must create your destiny. You were created for a purpose. Your desires will give you a glimpse or show a flicker of what that purpose is. You must transform that flicker of light into a raging fire that you can feel, breathe, and see in your mind. That fire will shine in your life, and you will serve as an inspiration to others who are starting off from the same place as you.

It is important to remember that, even in the rare instance that you do not reach your goals despite your greatest desires and arduous work, you would have never known that it was impossible until you tried. Also remember, “you will always miss 100% of the shots you don’t take,” so keep shooting at the dartboard of opportunity until you hit the center. You have probably heard, “Anything the human mind can conceive and ...

Table of contents

• Front Matter
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Goals
• Chapter 2: Take Action
• Chapter 3: Courage to Consistently Commit
• Chapter 4: Value Resources
• Chapter 5: Investing in Yourself and Others
• Chapter 6: Giving Back
• Chapter 7: Legacy: Create a Legacy of Service to Others
• Pay it Forward
• Summary
• Conclusion
• A Psalm of Life