Start Next Now

How to Get the Life You've Always Wanted

Bob Pritchett

• Publisher: Kirkdale Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781577996460
• Topic: Développement personnel
• Subtopic: Réussite personnelle

You have permission to do something incredible. Whether you'd like to start a different career, earn greater income, or perhaps accomplish something unrelated to your job, you can do it! And now is the time to start.
In Start Next Now, successful entrepreneur Bob Pritchett shares his guiding principles, which have grown his company to over 440 employees today. You won't find mere inspirational puffery here. This fast-paced book provides you with an actual plan to start achieving your goal before you even finish reading.So what are you waiting for? It's time to start next now.

STEP 1

IDENTIFY YOUR NEXT

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Before you can achieve the life you want, you need to figure out what that is.

Your goal may be about doing something. You may want to write a book, record an album, create a product, or launch a company.

Your goal may be about getting a position: You may want to be able to protect others, to teach, or to motivate.

Your next can reflect your desires or even your personality. You may find online tests for skills, attitudes, and personality to be useful in helping identify strengths you can build on or weaknesses you should watch out for.

Is there something that comes easily to you that others find difficult? Work with your strengths. It is easiest to distinguish yourself in the areas where you have unique experience or skills. Take a personal inventory of your strengths; what’s the most unusual among them? What would happen if you invested more in developing and even showcasing this strength?

What things make you feel energized? What do you find yourself thinking about in your free time? Examine these and determine what exactly it is that you want to do to have the life you’ve always wanted. Envision what that will look like.

Maybe you don’t have a goal and don’t even feel a need for one. You can still move ahead by identifying a passion and choosing to pursue it at the next level: Record an album of your music, publish your writing, enter your photography in a contest, or get paid to do your hobby.

Figuring out what you want can actually be the most difficult part of getting ahead. Don’t worry—there isn’t a perfect answer, and you can always change your answer. If you can’t identify the big goal down the road, at least identify the next thing you want to try.

MONEY DOESN’T BUY HAPPINESS

When people think about “getting ahead,” they often assume it means “making more money.”

More money seems like success, and fame and power are classic side dishes. Of course we all want happiness—that’s a given. It sounds better too: It’s easy to say we want “happiness” and know that it implies money too. Right?

I will tell you that studies have shown that money does buy happiness—up to around $75,000 per year. That’s enough money to avoid many of the discomforts and inconveniences that come from not enough funds. But after that middle-class level, more money doesn’t equate to more happiness.

I’ve made more money, and I have had the opportunity to spend time around people who have made a lot more money. While having money has its fun moments, I’ve come to believe that the Bible offers the best observation about money:

“When prosperity increases, those who consume it increase. So its owner gains nothing, except to see his wealth before it is spent.”—Ecclesiastes 5:11 LEB

In other words, you can only eat so much steak and lobster. The rich may order a higher-grade steak, but they start picking up the check for an ever-growing table. (An entourage may be a sign that you’re important, but it’s also a lot more mouths to feed.) If you get a chance to bring in more than a middle-class income, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you’re buying steak and lobster for other people. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you want to hold on to happiness, you’ll need to make sure it’s generosity, not greed, that characterizes your feelings about money.

When most people think of wisdom on money, they misquote the Bible and say, “Money is the root of all evil.” The Bible actually says, “The love of money is a root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10 LEB, emphasis mine). (The Bible also says a lot more on the subject; it’s worth checking out.)

My success in business has given me a taste of money, fame, and power, and I know them to be strong temptations. But I’ve also found them to be hollow pleasures compared to doing something I believe is important alongside incredible people I love.

I hope you are pursuing something that will let you jump from bed each morning excited to start your day and then collapse into bed each night knowing you did something with purpose.

“Success is getting what you want.

Happiness is wanting what you get.”

—Dale Carnegie

LIFE AS AN IMPOSTER

“I don’t belong here,” a rising star in my company confided to me.

“I come from a blue-collar family, and I was going to work in the family restaurant. I’m not really qualified to be managing anybody.”

So I felt like an idiot. I recognized this guy’s talent, willingness to work hard, and ability to take advice and learn new things. I promoted him into leadership. And now he was telling me I picked the wrong guy.

Maybe I made this mistake because I don’t really know what I’m doing in business. I didn’t finish high school, dropped out of college, and had less than two years of experience in the workforce before starting this company, which has swung from huge success to near failure to stable business over the years.

A professional manager wouldn’t have made this mistake, I chided myself. Maybe I should have stayed in college and then gotten an MBA. Then I would know what I’m doing messing around with people’s lives and careers.

HOGWASH.

My employee was suffering an episode of Imposter Syndrome, and he was drawing me into it as well. You’ve probably experienced it too: the feeling that you are in over your head, that you don’t know what you’re doing, and that any moment your boss / teacher / peer will call you out on your incompetence and send you scurrying off the stage in shame.

It’s true: You are in over your head. There are deserving people who would be better at your job. Whatever you want to do next, it won’t be as good as you’d like, and someone may even point that out. You could be exposed.

The good news, though, is that you aren’t alone. Almost everyone suffers episodes of Imposter Syndrome, and in the same way they are all imposters. The number one draft pick, America’s top CEO, and the celebrity role model of the year all know there’s a more deserving honoree, and your favorite band and novelist are right this moment wracked with fear that the next album or book will reveal they are out of ideas and their recent success was just a fluke.

The only people who never suffer Imposter Syndrome are sociopaths and narcissists, and they certainly haven’t kept reading this far. They don’t need anybody’s permission.

So if you’re feeling like a fraud, or like someone who might not be able to do it, don’t worry: You’re in good—and plentiful—company.

So let’s just accept that you and I are both undeserving of our current blessings and unqualified for greater success. That’s all true. Now let’s move on to achieving your next undeserved success with gratitude and humility.

STEP 2

START DOING THE NEXT THING NOW

ALWAYS TURN TO GOAL

Now that you know what you want, start moving in that direction.

It may not be possible to move directly to your goal, but you can make sure that every turn you make is in the direction of your goal. Imagine yourself moving down a sports field with the ball; there may be a defender on the straight line between you and the goal, and you may have to zig left or zag right. What you don’t want to do is run in the opposite direction or give up territory. Keep moving, and keep turning toward the goal.

When people interview with me, I ask, “What do you want to be doing five years from now?” All too often I hear that their career ambition is something completely different than what they are interviewing for. Taking the job with my company doesn’t move them toward their goal. It’s a detour.

You may not be able to jump right into your dream job. If so, look for a job in the same industry, or where you’ll develop skills that will help you in your dream job. There is so much to learn in every field that you shouldn’t be wasting time acquiring completely irrelevant skills. Use your time intentionally. You may need to take an entry-level job to pay the bills, and that’s okay. But take an entry-level job that represents a turn toward your goal.

You can apply this logic to all the ways you use your time: Choose classes that will teach you things you need to know to achieve your goal. Volunteer where you will develop skills you’ll need in the future.

Always turning toward your goal not only keeps your goal in mind, but it also helps you acquire the knowledge, the connections, and even the vocabulary that will help you achieve your goal.

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