Start Late, Finish Rich by David Bach

Author:David Bach
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Business
ISBN: 9780767920308
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2005-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

WEEK TWO

ASK YOURSELF THE SEVEN MAGIC QUESTIONS

What exactly do you do at work that makes you so valuable that people are actually willing to pay you for your time and effort? I’ve talked about this for years with my clients. You can go to work and be busy all day long “doing things.” But are these “things” really connected to the kind of productive, result-oriented work that makes you money?

Too many people spend their lifetimes essentially pushing paper and forwarding e-mails. Either that or they devote themselves to what I call “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” Are you one of these people? Here’s what it comes down to: Are you productive or do you spend most of your time doing what basically amounts to busywork?

A good way to find out is to put yourself in your boss’s shoes (or, if you’re self-employed, one of your customers’ shoes) and try to imagine how he or she would answer what I call the Seven Magic Questions.

THE SEVEN MAGIC QUESTIONS

1. What is the most important thing I do for my boss?

2. What does my boss think I’m uniquely talented at?

3. What would my boss be afraid to tell me about my job or how I do it?

4. What would my boss say I could do to add more value to my job?

5. What could I do to be my boss’s “dream team” employee?

6. Knowing what he or she has learned about me in all the time I’ve worked here, would my boss hire me today?

7. What would my boss say it would take for me to get a raise in the next six months?

Why do I think it’s a better idea to try to imagine your boss’s answers than to ask him the questions directly? Because they are incredibly searching questions that could open a Pandora’s box. Look at question No. 6 again: Knowing what you know about me, would you hire me today? This question says it all. And the answer will be immediately obvious in your boss’s body language. If he or she squirms, can’t look you in the eye, doesn’t quickly and strongly answer “Yes”—you’ve got a problem.

Do you really want to find this out? Actually, you do. The alternative is to wait to be fired—or worse, continue to work at a job, maybe for years, with no real potential for growth. But it’s better to acquire this knowledge on your own—so you can do something about it BEFORE you bring it to your boss’s (or customer’s) attention.

THE BRUTAL TRUTH

If you are not prepared to be completely, painfully honest with yourself, you shouldn’t bother going through this exercise. Because chances are that if you did ask your boss these questions, a lot of his or her answers wouldn’t be entirely pleasant. In fact, some of them are likely to be downright awful. But don’t shy away from recognizing this. The sad, brutal truth is that we are all guilty of wasting valuable time putting energy into relationships and jobs that offer us no real potential for gain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.