You have permission to do something incredible. Whether you'd like to start a different career, earn greater income, or perhaps accomplish something unrelated to your job, you can do it! And now is the time to start. In Start Next Now, successful entrepreneur Bob Pritchett shares his guiding principles, which have grown his company to over 440 employees today. You won't find mere inspirational puffery here. This fast-paced book provides you with an actual plan to start achieving your goal before you even finish reading. So what are you waiting for? It's time to start next now.

3. Money?
Fame?
Power?
Purpose?
Happiness?
It is easier to get ahead when you know what you want

5. Money can buy happiness, but only to $75,000 / year
Some more money helps with life’s problems
Lots more money creates new problems
“When prosperity increases, those who consume it increase.
So its owner gains nothing, except to see his wealth before it
is spent.” —Ecclesiates 5:11 (LEB)

6. Who you are and what you do aren’t the same thing
Your character matters more than your job function
Outward orientation beats inward orientation
Do for others, not yourself
Doing beats being
Write, don’t be a writer

7. Giving beats having
Aim to contribute, not accumulate
Money, fame, and power are corrupting goals
But they often accumulate as side-effects of better goals

8. Success is getting what you want.
Happiness is wanting what you get.
—Dale Carnegie (and many others)

10. It’s true: You are in over your head.
Good news: So is everyone else.
If you’re feeling like a fraud, don’t worry:
You’re in good – and plentiful – company.

12. Every move you make should be a turn towards
your goal
When possible, move directly
If you can’t move directly to your goal, take the move
closest to the goal

14. The space between here and your goal is not filled with time
People have gotten ahead faster than you
Very little happens on its own
The space between here and your goal is filled with changes
Between here and your goal things must change
Increase the rate of change to arrive at your goal sooner

16. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable
Ignorance and incompetence are descriptive terms for a
temporary state, not character failings
People who are learning and growing are by definition
ignorant and incompetent
When you acquire knowledge and competence, seek another
level of ignorance and incompetence
If you are comfortable now you aren’t moving ahead

18. Fear is the fence that bounds our success
You must decide if your fence is big enough
You can choose to expand your fence
Everyone is afraid
Fear causes us to consider risks
It is healthy to consider risks

19. Getting ahead involves risk and setbacks
Don’t risk what you can’t afford to lose
Do risk everything that isn’t part of your goal
Every decision is a risk
Inaction is a decision, and as risky as any action

21. Serving time and paying dues aren’t worth much
The value of a diploma is roughly equivalent to that of a
“limited warranty” on a refrigerator
20,000 high school valedictorians each year
323,000 living alumni of Harvard University
53% of all college graduates under/unemployed

22. Job titles are interesting in inverse proportion to the
number of holders
If you sit in a room full of people with the same job title,
you had might as well replace your name plate with a
bar code

23. Labels (diplomas, certifications, titles, etc.) are
commodities
It wouldn’t be a recognizable label if it weren’t common
Limited usefulness; a form of warranty for basic competence
or experience
Most are awarded for little more than attendance
Distinct and useful activity isn’t easily labeled
Do stuff that you couldn’t represent by checking a box on a form

24. You don’t have to do something different from everyone
in the world, just different from everyone
in your current position

26. Familiarity bias advances people
People prefer people they are familiar with
Even simple exposure increases familiarity
Say your name until people say it first
Doing things increases visibility
“The one who did that thing” is promoted before
“the one in the fourth cubicle from the back”

27. Asking questions increases visibility
People remember people they have a conversation with
People are flattered to be asked questions
People like people who flatter them
Simple availability increases opportunity
Dress up and show up

29. Rediscover your inner three-year-old
Ask anyone who can help you achieve your goal
Ask anyone who has already achieved your goal

30. Direct questions
What do I have to do to make more money?
What do I have to do to be promoted to this position?
Is there anything I am doing that is holding me back?

31. Rapport-building questions
How did you get to this position?
What do you like best about your job?
What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned
along the way?
What is the hardest thing about your job?

33. Only ride a bus that takes you closer to your goal
Join organizations with opportunities aligned with your goal
Get out of an organization where you don’t see the next step
forward

34. Ride safe buses
You should feel safe asking how to advance
You should feel safe asking for feedback
You should feel safe making a mistake
You should feel that your boss wants to see you succeed
If not, get off the bus—you are wasting time

36. You—not your mom, boss, professor, or the president
of the United States—are the only person involved in
determining how much money you make
In a market economy wages are set by supply and demand
You have monopoly control over the supply of your labor
Own the responsibility for your wages

37. What a job pays is information about the supply of
people who can do the job and the demand for the job
to be done

38. Air Traffic Controllers: $108,000 / year
Not everyone has the training, or can handle the complexity
The job is stressful and difficult
Hand Laborers and Material Movers: $22,000 / year
Almost anyone can do it, many people will
Hazardous Materials Removal: $37,000 / year
Almost anyone can do it, fewer people want to
Fine Art Landscape Painter: $0 / year
Requires training, unique skills, can be done by few people
Approximately zero positions need to be filled

39. Teacher: not-enough / year
Not a value judgment by society
A reflection of supply and demand

41. Compensation includes intangible benefits
Location Autonomy
Safety Purpose
Job security Community
Determine what you value and what it is worth
in money

42. The default annual raise for any position is zero
Your employer was willing to pay x to have this job done
Unless something changes in the overall market, there’s
no reason to expect the job will be worth more than x
next year
Employers want to make more money, too, and reducing,
not increasing, the cost of labor is one way to do that

43. Everyone is paid for the value they add
You are always in competition with everyone in the world
who can add the same value for the same, or less, cost
Time in a seat adds very little value to the performance of
most jobs

45. Learn the range of pay for the position you have
Would you be happy to make the top of this range?
If so, ask about what’s required to move to the top
If the answer is “only time”, change jobs
Otherwise, start doing what’s required to move up
If not, change jobs

46. Would you be happy to never make more than the top pay
available for the job you have now?
If so, congratulations! You have arrived
If not, identify the next job you want to pursue
Most likely involves knowledge or skills you do not yet have
Most likely involves doing something you don’t presently do
Jobs others don’t, won’t, or can’t do pay more
You are more likely to succeed if you enjoy it

48. Turn off your television
You can’t think when it is on
It fills the time you need to get ahead

50. Save something—anything—starting now
Savings give you time
Savings create opportunities
Savings prevent a job from holding you hostage

51. The sum of human knowledge is available to you
at no cost
For the first time ever in history
An unprecedented opportunity

52. Get online and research your next success
Use free online classes and training videos
Don’t just read blogs, email the bloggers
Every online writer wants to know someone read their stuff
Find a community of people doing what you want to do
The Internet is a library and a classroom
Eschew cat pictures

53. Don’t pay to learn what you can learn for free
Paying for more education is not the first step to a
better job
The cost (or debt) of education can even set you back

54. If a job requires a diploma or certification, seek that
after exhausting all the free education you can on the
subject
Your diploma will take less time, effort, inconvenience, and
likely less cost if you have studied ahead
You will get more from formal education if you have prepared
with informal education

56. You don’t need anyone’s permission
Do it as a volunteer
Do it for a blog
Do it to build a portfolio
Do it as practice
Do it for your resume

57. You are more likely to be hired to do something you
have already done than to do something you might be
able to do
Prove you have done the job to get the job

58. Take your boss’ job
A good boss will be happy for the help
Your boss can move up if their position will be filled
Take over a job step by step
Be specific; don’t make it the boss’ job to find your next
Don’t create work for your boss; do work for your boss
Use ‘a learning opportunity’ as the excuse

60. The employer’s point of view
We agreed that I’d pay you x if you did y
Not much has changed since yesterday
There may be small increases over time
Experience makes you incrementally more valuable
There are transaction costs in replacing you
Only a significant change in the market, or your contribution,
warrants a significant change in pay

61. The market point of view
If you aren’t doing something different than the people
around you, don’t expect to be paid differently

62. Ambition is a treadmill
There isn’t a right or wrong job or pay rate in and of itself
Own your responsibility for yourself
To make money
To provide for your family
To honor God in your work
To be happy

63. You can choose to make more money
You can choose to be content with the money
you make

64. We have more actual freedom and opportunity than any
generation in the history of the world
There is no excuse for feeling trapped by circumstances
Choose to live the freedom you are blessed to have

65. http://www.amazon.com/Start-Next-Now-
Always-Wanted/dp/1577996453