The New Survival Guide For Society

A-Unit

Master Don Juan
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If you work on your job, you'll make a living, if you work on yourself, you'll make a fortune. ~ Jim Rohn.


True words, too true. And this, my friends, is where school, colleges, and general public education misses the point. For those younger guys not sure what to do with life, in terms of "specific" interests, don't feel that there isn't a thing you can do about it until you get there. NO!


The difference between you and a guy doing the same job a few doors down is SKILLS. It's not experience. It's skills. Experience only acts to enslave you MORE to that specific job. Why?


Look at someone who has tremendous knowledge from over 20 years of admin work or accounting work, but NEVER worked to improve his skill set. How quickly could they shift to a new industry or career path? Could that get the same level of pay?


Many times unions are formed for protection, and generally that protection is afforded to them because the members become so entrenched that they can't possibly find a comparable job paying the same wage. Airline pilots, truck drivers, teachers, and some state employees (excluding politicians), all need protection, because after 20 years of work, if they haven't sought to improve their skill, they're pretty much stuck unless they're hyper-motivated.


Skills are those abilities that are CROSS-MARKETABLE, they have value in any position, and they're unique, because few people truly tap into their skillset.


Let's explore a few of the skills most people rarely pursue.


Number 1: Public Speaking

Being that we're here, approaching women day in day out, it goes w/out saying how well effective communication and confidence goes when speaking in front of people. People who present in front of people, by and large, make more than those that dont' within the same industry. Sure, an airline pilot makes more than a teacher, but who present in the airline industry, The CEO?

In business, a back office tech guy might make more than a plumber, but within the industry, the guy who presents HIS company to new CLIENTS, such as a plumbing company, makes more money.

More peopel SHY away from this than anything else. And that's sad. I mean, we live but a short existence, and SPEAKING in front of people is their number 1 fear? Come on. If you master that, talking to 1 will be a dream, and you will mezmorize people like no other.

There are many sources here, and I would suggest Toastmasters.com and classes in your local college, at least to get the experience of doing it. Also offer when the time comes up.

Number 2: Sales

Slightly different than public speaking. In sales, your job is to understand what the prospective buyer wants and see if you can provide it for him/her. The most gratifying and profitable sale is one that is made to a willing and excited buyer. Anything else is just cheap pitchmanship.

The sources for this are numerous. Books, audio cassettes, classes, training courses, the Sandler Sales Insitute, etc. Dabble in a few philosophies, because you'll quickly see that there's no one size fits all and different kinds work with different people and industries.

Number 3: Finance & Money

Wait here a second! You earn a dollar in our strong Economy, and DON'T know where it comes from, how mortgages work, or home-buying, or interest, or the basics of investing, banking, or credit? You don't check your credit? Are you KIDDING ME!?

Do you know many people get to 30 and don't know it, much less 50! That disgusts me, not totally on their part, but come on, Personal Responsibility! Just as your body won't change without effort, nor will your financial future. As unimportant as English is in HS and college, they make it a staple of the educational system. Not that it's unimportant, totally, but you need to LEARN to Write proper marketing, proper letters, proper resumes, you need to manage money, because MONEY is the means of TRADE, not degrees, not feelings, MONEY!

If you do nothing else when you're done this article, go buy a few different books right now. Or borrow them from the library. Personally, I keep them, as my personal library, to cross-reference, quote, analyze, and have someday for my family.

Number 4: Health

The only way to maximize your mind is through your body. You might have the best mind, but if you're hampered by a lack of energy, you'll get nowhere fast. Why? If you're overweight, you can't possibly wake up easy. Plus, large meals slow you down as it takes time to digest. You must, if nothing else, eat a rigid diet. Sure, you can fluff it for awhile, and maybe you fast genetics that suck it up faster than gasoline to a flame, but someday it will crash down, and the sum of your bad habits will catch up.

IMO, when I eat out, it's not the food I enjoy, it's the company, the atmosphere, and moreover, getting away knowing I ate ok and stuck to my plan. Not that it's 100%, but it's more than 80% of the time I'm good.

Number 5: Dating and Human Understanding

This falls again under personal responsibility. Nobody will do it for you, so you must know for your own sake. You must know STD'S exist and that every time you find a tight, wet hole, that you go in with the *proper gear*. You wouldn't go spelunking in a case you've never been in without a light and the proper equipment. Well, this *hole* is no different.

Understand fully that MOST women won't like you. Not for any reason you can imagine. None logical. And be OK with that. Because you're a MAN and a bigger person for accepting that, not fighting it. The ego fights it, because it wants EVERYBODY to love it. It doesn't. Not even in Hollywood is everybody loved, and they sell millions of albums and/or movies. When was the last time you sold 1,000,000 of anything and people STILL DIDN'T like you?

This is a topic you can NEVER stop learning. From sex, to romance, to dating, to hypnosis, to PE, to health, to seduction. Don't try to be a master today, just work each step. If you learned 3 words each day from a new language, you'd know 1000 words in a year, which would suffice enough to speak it. The same concept applies here. Gradual progress will be more effective than an oustanding leap. Yes, set big goals, but THEN break it down into bite sized pieces.

If you were going to create a 7 course meal, and never did it, you'd freak out. BUT, if you arrange each step METHODICALLY, pick out the parts you know, OUTSOURCE what you don't, and list the action plan, BAM, you're there.

Set a large goal, and break it apart to days, weeks, months, and so forth. You see the successes, but you don't see HOW they got there. Doing those small steps ALSO gives you CREDIBILITY and CONFIDENCE, 2 aspects that are UNPARALLELED in this WORLD. And 2 key points to sell yourself on.

"Been there done that" = belief

Confidence. Self Explanatory.

Number 6: Leadership & Management

Even if you don't command troops in battle, odds are good you'll have a household to command, or live with roomies in college, or have a live-in-GF, and it will require the skills of effective management and leadership to get the most from it.

If you seek to lead a company of any size, learning the thought patterns of great leaders is one effective way to do it. The other way being actively volunteering for projects that require your leadership and direction.

Experience will be your best teacher. Course correct along the way.

A great analogy from the tech world. Most times when a computer game is developed, developers make a beta version. From that, gamers are given the 'test' version to offer their insight on the game. They let the MARKET tell them what they want. The market isn't saying the game suks, they're just offering criticism as to what works and what doesn't.

See how well it works for Grand Theft Auto and Halo 1 and 2? Over $200,000,000 in sales, all from the small investment of feedback and course correction.

Were I to have children, or my cousin, or even for my brother, I would advocate the same action plan.

*Public Speaking
*Communication
*Sales
*Finance/Money
*Health/Dating
*Management & Leadership

Good luck guys.

Add areas or comments where I fell short of the mark.




A-Unit
 

A-Unit

Master Don Juan
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Re:

Good adages.

Philosophy is a must, that's an underpinning of who you are. It's an internal make-up mechanism. Your philosophy on life makes you or breaks you.

Is it necessary to study Philosophy from a Historical perspective? No. To better yourself, yes.

Don't confuse the memorization of facts with true knowledge and skills. Knowing science, such as the composition of water is well and good, but it's not imperative. Henry Ford rarely knew a thing, and I'd be willing to place any large bet on Trump not knowing a whole helluva alot about science/philosophy either. [One could only confirm this by asking or quizzing him].

Knowledge is only as powerful as your usage of it, and thus knowing mere facts, which will exist in any book is fantastic, but in what way does that benefit your survival or ensure your growth?

Facts came in Handy when Jenn was 'trumping' her competitor in the boardroom Sandy by blurting out that she knew how many people worked for Trump. Answer: 15,000. Yet, until that moment it was needless. What really helped Jenn was her:

*Organization
*Ability to speak, communicate, and make a concise point

You'd see from her off the cuff display that what she garnered from law School wasn't facts, but the talents and skills that gave her the win. Nothing she said in the board room or demonstrated was factual. Moreover, she didn't have a 'specific' business background, but she did get what made a business tick, so she won.

On the other hand, Sandy's skills were far weaker. The Apprentice is a good demonstration of skills versus factually based study.

Kelly won not by facts, nor did I ever hear one fact spouted, as every case he was given was not related to the previous, but because he had a diverse set of skills and talents gained from a long past of work experience.

*West Point Grad
*Took a tech company public

Those are 2 very major components of skill set. One teaches you to be cool under pressure (you hope), and the other teaches you how to handle yourself and the company. The difference between fact-based knowledge and skill-based knowledge is that facts only allow you to thrive in one area, skills diversify your talents, making you more valuable.

One must have good personal philosophies, and could even make a hobby of understanding philosophies, but a strong argument could be made for which philosophy? Someone might take Objectivism, another might go Quite Liberal toward Plato's Republic. Who's to say?

With Science, I couldn't even start to state where to begin. Physics? Chaos Theory? Chemistry? Biology? All well and good, but when you're studying one topic, you're detracting from another. I wouldn't study engineering unless it was a passion. But I would however, study the minds of the greatest of every one of the categories.




A-Unit
 
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