Growth Pop - Personal Development Community » Blogs http://www.growthpop.com GrowthPop is the community resource to learn and share about personal development media. Review, rate, and learn about books, movies, courses, workshops, games, and more, all related to personal developement and personal growth. Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:56:30 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5 en The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss http://www.growthpop.com/the-4-hour-workweek-by-timothy-ferriss http://www.growthpop.com/the-4-hour-workweek-by-timothy-ferriss#comments Sun, 16 Sep 2007 00:58:06 +0000 scott http://www.growthpop.com/the-4-hour-workweek-by-timothy-ferriss
What it is: The 4 Hour Workweek is a book about designing your lifestyle to inform your job as opposed to your job informing your lifestyle. It outlines strategies for delegating, streamling and outsourcing tasks (yes to India or China) to free up time and stress so that you can do the things you really want to do. Central to the premise of this book is that free time to do what you want (be it to start a nonprofit, or learn to dance the Tango) should be the goal, not accumulation of material wealth.

Growth Potential: Ferriss brings a great mix of his own ideology with specific, usable tips and resources. He makes a convincing argument for why you shouldn’t give the best years of your life working for someone else, on the arbitrary 40-60 hr/week schedule. He then delves into dozens of specific ‘how-to’s from pre-testing products and outsourcing their production, to managing interrupting people who want to ‘chat’ at work. My favorite exercise was called ‘dreamlining’ where you put your dreams into realizable financial goals.

Pop Potential: I think Tim has a better chance of hitting the pop mainstream than his book, although he did achieve bestseller status. He’s a charismatic & good lookin’ fella, and you can see from his blog that he spends a fair amount of his time being active and having fun. The YouTube videos on his site are certainly intriguing enough that one could see a 4hourworkweek TV show in the not-too-distant future. That is if it didn’t require putting more than 2 hours a week into it (he’s got other businesses to run after all).

“Get Real” Potential: Central to the book’s premise is that working in an office, on a 9-5 work schedule and having bosses and stuff is bad. Running around skydiving and traveling while your own business is on autopilot is good. I’d argue that that’s a little extreme as each has its merit. Also, I can’t help but get the feeling that a life with free time during the weekdays, and bopping from country-to-country lends itself to a degree of loneliness. If you don’t talk to your employees, customers and have virtual assistants emailing thank you notes to your friends and loved-ones…um, who are you interacting with?

What I Got out of it: Personal development books often get me real psyched up at first, and then I kind of forget about all that stuff I was going to do to transform my life a few days later. This is the first book that I can really say is a new bible. So much of what the author shared resonated with thoughts I’d had for years but felt ashamed to think. He not only helped me make sense of my intuition, he told me how to make it work. This book served as a catalyst for me to streamline and optimize my life and projects so that I can spend more time doing the things I’m really passionate about.

Learn more about The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy Ferriss

    ]]>     http://www.growthpop.com/the-4-hour-workweek-by-timothy-ferriss/feed     How to get from a 7 to a 10 http://www.growthpop.com/how-to-get-from-a-7-to-a-10 http://www.growthpop.com/how-to-get-from-a-7-to-a-10#comments Fri, 24 Aug 2007 23:35:04 +0000 marc http://www.growthpop.com/how-to-get-from-a-7-to-a-10 What it is: Another post from the personal development guru, Steve Pavlina. This article puts your “life rating” in context. Would you look at your life and rate it a 7? Well, Steve shows you that you’re not only a 3, but 10 is a myth. Being a 10 is all about movement on the path, not about a destination. If you’re a 7, and stay there, then you’re stuck like a 3. If you’re a 3, all you have to do is start moving. Direction is almost irrelevant, you’ll find it.
    Growth Potential: If you want a handy tip on how to keep feeling like a 10, read this.
    Pop Potential: Artists like Madonna know this to be true. She’s still around because she is constantly moving, reinventing, trying new things, succeeding, and failing. Look around. Who do you think is a 10? Have they been in the same place for the last few years, months, days? I suspect not.
    “Get Real” Potential: Frankly, it’s not that easy. Some people are stuck for reasons that aren’t just a matter of positive thinking. If you want some relevant advice, you should ask someone who knows you well enough to really dig into your specific needs.
    What I Got out of it: I’m looking at my life and seeing all kinds of opportunity to raise the bar, in fact, there is no bar! There’s no end-game, there’s just how hard you play right now.

    Learn more about How to get from a 7 to a 10

      ]]>       http://www.growthpop.com/how-to-get-from-a-7-to-a-10/feed       Tiny Gigantic http://www.growthpop.com/tiny-gigantic http://www.growthpop.com/tiny-gigantic#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:58:28 +0000 marc http://www.growthpop.com/tiny-gigantic What it is: Tiny Gigantic reviews various cultural phenomena, and generates their own memes, most notably Replate.org, and Written On The City.
      Growth Potential: Lifehacks with attitude. They’re idea men, and reading their site just might make you an independent thinker.
      Pop Potential: These guys are still small, so you’ll look smart when you can spout off a couple of cool ideas that nobody else is talking about… yet.
      “Get Real” Potential:Carving our some of BoingBoing’s pie seems to be the strategy here. But hey, we can’t exactly throw stones at a couple of guys spinning off a successful formula.

      What we got out of it: The guys at TinyG speak in a down-to-earth voice that’s easy to listen to and learn from. While they don’t use the latest tranformational “technology” speak, they have just as much to show you about accessing the inner you. Plus, it’s fun as hell to read and go, “Yeah, I could do that!”

      Link

        ]]>         http://www.growthpop.com/tiny-gigantic/feed         How to be an early riser (the secret of success) http://www.growthpop.com/how-to-be-an-early-riser-the-secret-of-success http://www.growthpop.com/how-to-be-an-early-riser-the-secret-of-success#comments Sun, 12 Aug 2007 02:30:22 +0000 marc http://www.growthpop.com/how-to-be-an-early-riser-the-secret-of-success sleepingSteve Pavlina, personal growth master and Guru of Good Intentions, shares the secret of being massively successful: get up early. And he’s right. Remember the last time you got up early? That was a pretty good day, right? So, just get up early and be successful.

        WRONG!

        Steve points out, with much sound and fury, that getting up early is not the way to get up early! No no no, that would be completely self-defeating and mundane, something hipsters and 80’s retro clubs would endorse. The trick is to go to bed when you’re tired… and THEN get up early. How could we have been so foolish?

        Link

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