Book Introduction
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Preface
Introduction
Book Conclusion
Conclusion
Appendix A: Some life assets
Appendix B: Sizing of benefits from selected opportunities to invest in your Life Capital
Notes
Index
Principle 1
Engaged strategic conversation
1.1 What is a conversation?
1.2 Opportunity loss from efficient but narrow or disengaged communication
1.3 Good timing maximises engagement and opportunity
1.4 Conversation has many rewards
1.5 Conversation is vital for you and those around you
Principle 2
The impediments and disincentives to strategic conversation
2.1 Choosing not to talk
2.2 The underdeveloped and underutilised skill of conversation
2.3 You need a compelling ‘Why?’ to really capitalise on your conversational skills
Principle 3
Seeing the size of the rewards
3.1 The compelling ‘Why?’, and lessons from the principles of wealth accumulation
3.2 Receiving constructive performance feedback
3.3 Virtuous and vicious circles
3.4 Giving feedback
3.5 Size matters
Principle 4
Stacking the odds of behavioural change
4.1 The odds seem stacked against behavioural change
4.2 Restacking the odds in your favour
4.3 Stopping to ask ‘What of it?’
Principle 5
Your life is your responsibility
5.1 It’s about you and your preferences so it’s your responsibility
5.2 Your personal mission, your rules, your values
5.3 Your framework of mental models for building your Life Capital
5.4 Your process
5.5 Your stories
5.6 Your labels and your language
5.7 Your commitment and persistence
5.8 Your learning strategy
5.9 ‘Life-enriching conversations’ as your catalyst
Principle 6
Understanding life assets and liabilities
6.1 Opportunities for and from self-discovery
6.2 Understanding career assets and liabilities enhances performance
6.3 A major life or career asset is the ability to make good decisions
6.4 The diminishing lives and real values of knowledge assets
6.5 Life assets need to be refreshed, updated and nourished
Principle 7
A more satisfying life
7.1 Buying a share in someone’s career income
7.2 If your career were a stock, what kind of stock would it be?
7.3 A world where annual income is the only measure
7.4 Climbing the ranks in a world of inequality of income
7.5 A far more satisfying world — where you choose your unit of measure and you’re building those units
Principle 8
Morphing assets and liabilities
8.1 Asset or liability?
8.2 Your greatest weakness may be the foundation of your career
8.3 Your employer — career asset or liability?
8.4 Born into a successful family business — asset or liability?
8.5 The people you surround yourself with — assets or liabilities?
8.6 Your generosity with your time, energy and attention — asset or liability?
Principle 9
Opportunity losses and blind spots
9.1 Opportunity loss is often much greater than actual loss
9.2 Comfort zones and some bad habits cause recurring opportunity loss
9.3 Blind spots
9.4 Minimising opportunity loss
Principle 10
Elementary maths but big opportunities
10.1 Use of your time
10.2 Managing your energy and your attention to the moment
10.3 The 80/20 rule
10.4 Multiplicity
10.5 Rates of change — differentials
10.6 Growth curves
Principle 11
Manage your assets and your liabilities
11.1 Seligman’s positive psychology
11.2 Your Life Capital is a big A = B – C opportunity
11.3 Turning your liabilities into assets or your problems into opportunities
11.4 Strengths and weaknesses demand different approaches
11.5 Rationing your energy
11.6 High-impact changes that also demand high energy
11.7 Reinventing yourself
Principle 12
Conversations and opportunities
12.1 Leveraging conversations
12.2 Leveraged conversations and job search
12.3 Negotiating a new job in a new company
12.4 Return on your investment
Principle 13
Free options
13.1 Ideas options
13.2 People options
13.3 People options already on your team
13.4 Self-awareness options
13.5 Inspiration or motivation options
13.6 The value of options
13.7 The tradeability of options
Principle 14
Networks and networking
14.1 Family
14.2 Social networks
14.3 Business and professional networks
14.4 Online networks
14.5 Value of networks
14.6 Networking
Principle 15
Conversations and relationships
15.1 Knowing who and what you are
15.2 First impressions
15.3 Building and enhancing a relationship
15.4 Redefining relationships
15.5 Informed mutual champions
15.6 Lessons in relationship-building from customer or client service
15.7 Returns from investment in relationships
Principle 16
Learning methods and strategy
16.1 Learning journeys
16.2 The engagement gap
16.3 Personal mastery and accessing the subconscious
16.4 The 10-year rule and deliberate practice
16.5 Learning methods
16.6 Learning accelerators and inhibitors
16.7 Learning to manage your health
Principle 17
Learning from success and failure
17.1 An empowering perspective on success and failure
17.2 Long-term success and failure
17.3 Disciplines for learning from success and failure
Principle 18
Collaboration
18.1 The characteristics of great groups
18.2 Team learning — dialogue and discussion
18.3 Team learning — individual and organisational defensiveness
18.4 Team communication and learning
18.5 Collaboration and cross-fertilisation in research, innovation and problem solving
18.6 Building bridges between people
Principle 19
Big points
19.1 Identifying the big points in life
19.2 Decisions where all your eggs will be in one basket
Principle 20
Success maximisation
20.1 One life-enriching conversation per month
20.2 Maximising the big increments
20.3 Focus on your plans
Principle 21
Minimise the negative impact of your failures
21.1 Setting yourself up for good decisions
21.2 Keeping an eye out for an emerging failure
21.3 Minimising the downside of failure through resilience
21.4 Above all, don’t dig a deeper hole
Principle 22
Decisions where you have no idea of the probabilities of alternative outcomes
22.1 Decisions where you have no idea of the probabilities of alternative outcomes
22.2 Probability-based decision-making
22.3 Assessments of risk
22.4 Refinements in decision-making theory
22.5 Game theory
22.6 Returns for risk
22.7 Making serendipity work for you
22.8 The importance of ‘Yes’
Principle 23
Conversations, information and decision-making
23.1 The wisdom of crowds
23.2 Groupthink
23.3 Scuttlebutt and your big decisions
23.4 Accessing information and developing knowledge
23.5 Objectivity, scepticism and the assessment of information
23.6 The final test: tell the story and examine it through multiple lenses
