BOOK SUMMARY 165
Living In Your Top 1%
·
Summary written by: Andy Budgell
“After a while, it’s natural to think that in
order to be the best you have to be better than others. Many people define
success by being in the top 1%, when in reality it’s about living in your top
1%.”
Living In Your Top 1%, page
7-8
Therein
lies the overarching theme of Alissa Finerman’s inspiring first book, Living
In Your Top 1%. There is so much emphasis today on competition with
others, but Finerman argues that competing with yourself should be your top
priority. Finerman, a former professional tennis player turned Wall Street professional
turned life coach/speaker, knows this all too well. She left cutthroat Wall
Street and moved to sunny Los Angeles to become an accredited coach,
transforming not only her own life, but the lives of countless others. It was
there that she finally began living a more authentic life, and making more of
her dreams a reality. “What is it that makes some people reach high than others
who are equipped with the same resources?” she asks at the beginning of the
book. “The idea of living in your top 1% evolved from this question” .
One of the ingredients is goal setting, and this is the focus of our summary.
Golden Egg
Ditch the All or Nothing Mentality
“Choose your first step wisely because if
it’s not easily achievable, it could significantly derail your best efforts.
First steps should help you build confidence and make you feel like you are a
little closer to your goal.”
Living In Your Top 1%, page
97
If
you’re actually serious about your achieving your goals, ditch the all or
nothing mentality. Finerman points out that it’s been proven that when you take
on too much, you’re more inclined to give up.
Do you
ever notice that in the first week of January, the gym is always packed? But as
the month goes on, the line for the elliptical machine grows shorter, and those
new faces all but disappear until it’s just the regulars left. That’s because
those people with the New Year’s Resolutions bit off more than they could chew
rather than ease into a new routine. Instead of hitting the gym maybe twice a
week, they went full throttle, 5 days a week at 5.30 in the morning before a
long day at the office. Tired, cranky, and with sore muscles, they’re burnt out
as quickly as they began and quit.
This
is analogous to all goals, not just fitness related, and resonated with me
because it’s something that I’ve struggled with, whether it’s blogging or
trying a gluten free diet. Start with small, manageable steps. In fact, that’s
how Alissa Finerman wrote this book. “I started this book with the small step
of writing one hour each day”. Once you start seeing progress, you
will feel inspired to continue, bringing you that much closer to achieving the
end result.
The
following two GEMs will help you stay on track with your goals, and ensure that
they don’t end up like those resolutions you might have made at the beginning
of the year.
GEM # 1
Prioritize Your Goals
“Setting priorities will help you stay
accountable and reduce your stress levels. This will help you lay out the best
path to living in your top 1%.”
Living In Your Top 1%, page
89
We all
have goals in our life that we want to bring to fruition. Maybe it’s to buy a
home, switching to a gluten free diet, or take a long desired trip. We may jot
them down on paper, or keep them tucked away in the back of our mind. But while
buying a home and eliminating gluten from your diet could be more pressing
goals, that dream trip to Egypt to see the pyramids might be something to do
down the line.
It’s
all about prioritizing what is important to you in your life at this very
moment. And different people prioritize goals differently. For instance, buying
a house is more important for a growing family of three in the suburbs than it
is for a 20-something single career girl in the city. That’s why it’s crucial
to write down your goals and then organize them. Go through your list and rank
them by tiers. Tier one goals “are the goals that are the most
meaningful and have the greatest impact on [your life]. They are not
necessarily the goals that help you make the most money or bring a promotion
but rather the goals that either satisfy your basic survival needs or add a
greater sense of fulfillment” (page 89).
This
is a critical step and requires a great deal of thought. But when deciding
which goals are tier one, and which are tier two and so on, just keep in mind
that it’s what’s important to you right now. Understanding this
will help you realize the goals that are most imperative, with the rest falling
into place when the time is right.
GEM # 2
Harmonious Goals
“If you pursue too many goals at the same
time that are non-harmonious, you will get frustrated when you do not achieve
your desired results.”
Living In Your Top 1%, page
85
According
to Alissa Finerman, prioritizing goals that are harmonious with one another is essential
to making these goals a reality, as well as helping you to live in your 1%. For
instance, let’s say two of your tier one goals are devoting yourself to the
creation of a new business, perhaps one that includes a great deal of travel
each week, and the other is a desire to increase the amount of time that you
spend with your family. How will you be home to enjoy dinner with your family
when you’re on the road travelling? You can’t, and these two goals will be in
competition with one another, and one will have to take precedence over the
other. An inability to realize this will lead to frustration and disappointment
when you fall short of achieving the goal(s). As Finerman writes, “This does
not mean your goal is a bad goal, it just means that the timing may be off, or
that you did not take the time to carefully think about how to prioritize them” .
Finerman
says that “cross-checking” your goals will help ensure that they are harmonious
with one another, increasing the odds that you will be able to achieve them,
and will help you to stay realistic when prioritizing your goals.
As
Finerman points out to her reader, “Living in your top 1% is a continuous
journey rather than a race with a start and finish”. And prioritizing
your goals is only one component to living in your top 1%, just as goals are
only a small part of the book, which is broken down into three sections: Assess, Create and Implement,
which are broken down further into three rituals per section. What we’ve
covered here in this Actionable Summary is just the tip of the iceberg. Pick
up Living in Your Top 1% and discover what your top
1% looks like.
No comments:
Post a Comment