Win The Richest Man In Town
July 15, 2009 by Phil Gerbyshak
Filed under Business
This week’s book giveaway is The Richest Man in Town: The Twelve Commandments of Wealth by W. Randall Jones, founder of Worth Magazine. The twelve lessons in this book are powerful lessons for those looking to become rich:
- Don’t Seek Money for Money’s Sake and Ye Shall Not Find
- Find Your Perfect Pitch
- BYOB: Be Your Own Boss
- Get Addicted to Ambition
- Wake Up Early – Be Early
- Don’t Set Goals
- Fail to Succeed
- Location doesn’t matter
- Moor Yourself to Morals
- Say Yes to Sales
- Borrow from the best and the worst
- Never retire
One of the topics in the book that I thought I would completely disagree with is Don’t Set Goals.
I love to set goals, and I encourage my team to set goals. It’s been ingrained in me since I was a youngster that achievement is where it’s at. Once I hit this goal, I need to set a new one and reach higher, and higher, and higher.
But W. Randall Jones shares another great way: Instead of goals, seek incremental improvement every day. Instead of success being a series of goals, instead it’s a lifetime of improvement.
I get it now…and I think this is key for managers. Once your folks achieve a level of competency where they can do their job in their sleep, instead of setting goals that may be unrelated to their job, or aiming at something new, instead focus on doing a little better each day.
Combine this with some more great advice in the back of this chapter (Goals are great, but execution is essential) and you have a powerful lesson for managers…and for those seeking great wealth.
And there are 11 other chapters in the book worth exploring too!
The publicist for this book was nice enough to share an extra copy with you dear readers, so here’s how you can win your copy:
How do you make sure you get done what needs to be done?
Tell me your favorite execution tip and win a copy of The Richest Man in Town.
My wife is a list freak! I fail to understand how she keeps trak of all the different lists. But I do have to say that she keeps ME on track with her lists!
But this is what I do to keep myself on track (besides asking my wife). If there is a schedule or deadline I marking in a file or calandar. But instead of completing the task on the set deadline my goal is to push myself to BEAT the deadline! I plot my way through to figure out how to gain the edge and have control over the deadline. It becomes a competition with myself.
The problem I have, and it is a personality thing, is that if I have to depend on anyone else on a project and they lag behind – just making the deadline – drives me crazy!
A book I would recommend is “Time Mastery” by John K. Clemens & Scott Dalrymple. It is ‘different’ way of looking at time and time management.
If I really need to do something, I do it in the moment or that day.
For work items, I rely on the Outlook Tasks tool heavily. I’m a big list maker & get satisfaction checking of accomplishments. For personal goals it’s more of a challenge. I find that I accomplish more when I’m accountable to someone else. So “paint the chairs” becomes “call ABC Wednesday & let them know the chairs have been painted”.