Category — Career

This post is part of the New Year’s Resolutions series running for the first week of January

Before you start reading this, I’m going to make an assumption. I’m guessing that you’re not rich, that your parents didn’t hand you a bunch of money as an inheritance, and that you have to work to make a living. Does that describe you? Yes? Okay, then read on.

Eventually we would all love to be free from money, that point where we make enough money from our savings and investment that we don’t have to work anymore. But if you didn’t fall into the rich category above you are going to have to work for your money like the rest of us. It’s also very likely that your career is the biggest source of your income whether you work for someone else or you are self employed.

Even if you make your money from investments in the stock market or in real estate that you actively take care of, there is always something you could learn to make your income generation more effective. Building your career knowledge is all about income generation. If you can go to work and earn $30 an hour, or you can go to work and make minimum wage, which would you rather do? With a little bit of effort in your spare time you can make every hour at work that much more productive.

The key to a successful and growing career is learning. The best never stop learning. Warren Buffet is always completing analysis on new companies, Steve Jobs continuously comes up with new ideas for Apple. The top athletes all work to hone their skills and are always learning new ways to push themselves to a higher level.

So what’s the key to gaining more knowledge that you can put to work?

Read more

Picking up a book to read is probably the easiest and cheapest way to get started on improving your career, or getting you started in a new career. Think about this: if you read a book and get one good idea that translates to making more money from your career or from an investment, was it worth reading? If you picked up that book for free from the library, you have just made an infinite return on your investment.

There are many sources you can use to find a good book to read, but here are a few of my favorites.   

Amazon

First is Amazon.com. Once you’ve found a book that you’ve found useful, Amazon can help you find other books to read a few different ways. Suppose you really enjoyed a book that I reviewed, like The Richest Man in Babylon, and you wanted to find books that are similar. Once you are at the Amazon product page, scroll down to the bottom to look for the listmania and So You’d Like to guides. These are lists of similar books that others have put together which can get you going in different directions, depending on the writer’s goals. Another way to find another book you might enjoy is to look for the “What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?” section on the page. This will give you some ideas on what other books people are looking at, and will probably give you a close match.

One thing about Amazon reviews, I try to look for books with at least 4 star reviews or higher. The larger the number of reviews, the more accurate the review should be (thanks to the law of large numbers). I have found the star rating system to be fairly accurate, so be careful between spending time and money on something below 4 stars.

Personal MBA

A site that I found that has a great list of business books is the Personal MBA website. Reading the books on that list could easily keep you busy for the next year or longer, and after completing any section of the reading list you will be much more knowledgeable in that area. There is also a healthy community revolving around the personal MBA at LinkedIn, so that could be an additional way to make contacts and increase your learning.

MIT Open Course Ware

One other good source for learning material is the MIT Open Course Ware site. MIT is considered one of the best learning institutions in the world, and now you can get access to the class materials and reading lists used by the best.

The cool thing about this site is that in addition to reading lists you can also download lecture notes, assignments, and other useful tools for learning the material.

So there are three great ways to find a good book to read. I highly recommend using the library to get your books. It’s free, and if you decide you really like the book you can purchase it later. So what have you got to lose? Start reading today!

A few days ago a wrote about 120 minutes to success, and I have been thinking more about it the past week. I really started thinking about all of the things I would like to accomplish and I thought about how huge those goals are.

When you’re in your 20’s it’s really hard to think about how you’re going to save a few million dollars to retire on. It feels ridiculous to even write that I want to have a few million dollars one day. It’s hard to imagine that one day I could be my boss’s boss, or what it would take to even get there.

This originally came about as I was planning a “no-spending month” for November so that I could save money for Christmas presents as well as save money for new work clothes if I need them. That got me thinking about step four of the success plan, and I figured if I was going to do one step I might as well try doing them all. I started thinking more about what I could accomplish if I were to put in a steady effort over a period of time.

Here’s the original “bootstrapper’s/marketer’s/entrepreneur’s/fast-rising executive’s effort diet” from Seth Godin’s original article:

1. Delete 120 minutes a day of ’spare time’ from your life. This can include TV, reading the newspaper, commuting, wasting time in social networks and meetings. Up to you.

2. Spend the 120 minutes doing this instead:

* Exercise for thirty minutes.

* Read relevant non-fiction (trade magazines, journals, business books, blogs, etc.)

* Send three thank you notes.

* Learn new digital techniques (spreadsheet macros, Firefox shortcuts, productivity tools, graphic design, html coding)

* Volunteer.

* Blog for five minutes about something you learned.

* Give a speech once a month about something you don’t currently know a lot about.

3. Spend at least one weekend day doing absolutely nothing but being with people you love.

4. Only spend money, for one year, on things you absolutely need to get by. Save the rest, relentlessly.

The recommended time period is six months, except for the limited spending which he recommends doing for one year. That’s a pretty long time and to be honest I am not sure I can keep up the effort for that long. So I am going to give it a shot, but only for one month initially.

That’s one month of spending on only essential items, one month of exercising every day, and one month of reading, learning, and blogging. This month should be interesting, and of course I will let you know how it goes.

Last week I started a new job in San Francisco. The new position came with a small increase in salary, but I thought this would be a good time to talk about real hourly wage.

I first read about the real hourly wage in Your Money Or Your Life. Most people think of their wage as simply the amount of money they make divided by the number of hours they work. But what many don’t factor in are the small things that are affected by your job everyday. Commuting time should be factored into the number of hours worked, and the cost of commuting should be subtracted from your wage. If you wear jeans and t-shirts to work that’s awesome, but most of us are required to buy some sort of uniform, whether it is a typical uniform or a business suit. This should also be factored into cost.

Even intangibles, like money spent on alcohol or cigarettes to relax after a long day at work should be figured into how much you actually make. So your real hourly wage is the amount of money you make at your job, minus the costs required for you to work, divided by the total number of hours you spend doing work related tasks, including commuting or going to business dinners. It’s very likely you make a lot less than you thought you did when you look at work this way.

So now back to why I started this post.

Before working in the city I commuted to work by car, about 20 miles each way. Not a short commute, but not terrible either. Now I ride BART everyday, which is actually pretty expensive for public transportation, about $10.50 a day. So while I am spending less on gas, I am spending a bit more on BART fare. On top of that I still need to drive to and from the BART station which requires gas. And thanks to the many traffic lights between me and the station I feel like I’m not saving that much on gas.

In addition to the added cost of BART, I am required to dress a little nicer in my new office. So I will need to go out and by some nicer clothes than what I have, and I will probably be spending more on dry cleaning bills.

On top of the increased costs of working in San Francisco, I am now spending more time at work AND spending more time commuting. So it looks like my real wage took a pretty big hit. I was well aware of that when I took the job, but the new job presents a lot of opportunity for me. So for the time being I will have to suck up the small hit until my pay increases, which hopefully doesn’t take too long.

I encourage everyone to think about how much your job costs you. Does working more really get you more when you factor in all of the little things? If your work requires you to spend money is it worth it? If it’s not, what are you doing to make sure that one day you don’t have to work for money anymore?

Book author and speaker Seth Godin has a great article up on his blog asking if Effort is a myth. So many of us look at people who are successful and think they got there through luck or by having special talent. It is rare that we think about the effort that many people put in to get to the top. We are a society of the quick fix. We would rather believe that we can throw money at a problem to fix it instead of putting in the time and effort that is needed to solve the problem.

Think about it. Instead of taking time every day to get out an exercise we spend money on weight loss gimmicks and diets that don’t work. Instead of spending less than we earn and saving money for the future we hope that someone will come along and help us like the lottery or the government. And on a grand scale many believe that the solution for energy independence is spending money to drill in Alaska, rather than taking a few minutes a month to stop by a gas station to put air in our tires.

Seth Godin sums it up in a simple statement:

While luck may be more appealing than effort, you don’t get to choose luck. Effort, on the other hand, is totally available, all the time.

To help make your own success he recommends the following:

1. Delete 120 minutes a day of ’spare time’ from your life. This can include TV, reading the newspaper, commuting, wasting time in social networks and meetings. Up to you.

2. Spend the 120 minutes doing this instead:
-Exercise for thirty minutes.
-Read relevant non-fiction (trade magazines, journals, business books, blogs, etc.)
-Send three thank you notes.
-Learn new digital techniques (spreadsheet macros, Firefox shortcuts, productivity tools, graphic design, html coding)
-Volunteer.
-Blog for five minutes about something you learned.
-Give a speech once a month about something you don’t currently know a lot about.

3. Spend at least one weekend day doing absolutely nothing but being with people you love.

4. Only spend money, for one year, on things you absolutely need to get by. Save the rest, relentlessly.

Imagine if you started following these steps regularly.

First, where could you get 120 minutes from? For most folks giving up television is the obvious choice, and an easy way to get some time back in your day. Some people take public transportation and either sleep on the train or space out and do nothing. Why not bring a work related book or paper along and do some reading on the way? I plan on doing this when I start riding BART, which should get me 30-40 minutes of reading time.

Now what could you do with that extra time each day?

First, taking some time to exercise is a great idea. Studies have shown that regular exercise improves brain functioning as well as improving health and appearance. So get out there!

I also like the idea of reading books, magazines, and blogs that are relevant to what you do, or are relevant to what you would like to do. At my last performance review my boss praised me for having strong industry knowledge versus my peers, as well as being an outside of the box thinker. I think my knowledge comes from the time I take to read and learn new things on a regular basis.

I really do think this comes down to how much you enjoy your job and your industry. If you enjoy computers and work in IT, keeping up with the latest technology will be fun to you and is something that will just happen. If you can’t stand your job it’s likely you won’t want to think about it after you leave. If this is the case I highly recommend you reconsider your career, and spend your time preparing for a new career.

Speaking of preparing for a new career, learning techniques such as MS Excel macros (or advanced Excel in general), keyboard shortcuts, or any other productivity shortcuts can benefit you no matter what job you take (assuming you’re on office worker I guess). And if you hate your career why not start reading up on something that does interest you, and figure out how you can transition into another career?

The last two steps seem like they are a little different in direction at first glance, but they are absolutely essential for success.

If you’re in debt it’s tough to concentrate on work and being productive if you’re worried about how you’re going to pay your bills. Second, if you’re saving everything for a year, you will have a great base to start compounding on for the rest of your life.

Last, it’s always important to spend time with your friends and family. Think of all the movies you’ve seen that had an overworked executive who didn’t spend enough time with his or her kids. You don’t want to be that person do you?

For everyone reading this, I challenge you to look at your time and take advantage of it. For most people, myself included, our careers are our number one asset. It makes sense to work towards a higher salary. Follow these for a year, and see if you don’t end up somewhere better.

Like I said, I think this is a great article, and well worth the read. A big thank you to The Simple Dollar for pointing me to this great article.