As I mentioned, one of my goals this year is to listen to a lot of the Philosopher’s Notes by Brian Johnson.
Basically, his deal is he goes through 100 of the BEST personal growth books and gives you the “Big Ideas” from each of them.
It’s super-awesome because he has .pdf formats AND audios, so you can look at both to really integrate them (or just one, depending on your time).
I’ve been listening to the audios as I’ve been cellercising in the mornings.
Anyway, one of the books I just listened to was “Authentic Happiness” by Martin Seligman. It’s a book by a dude who has been working to make the state of happiness a SCIENCE… and he’s come really, really far.
You can use his information in either your personal life or in your business.
Seligman talks about how there are certain virtues or characteristics that exist to make people happy. There are 12 in total I think, and they range from things like curiousity, love, justice, wisdom, etc. His premise is we ALL have a core set of 5 strengths, and the more we use them, the happier we will be.
He also believes we should spend time working on what we’re strong at, not trying to fix what we’re weak at. A LOT of top thought leaders subscribe to that thought and I totally agree. Unless a weakness is really hurting your quality of life, why not just outsource it to someone else?
Anyway… the book mentions a FREE test you can look at to find out what YOUR 5 core strengths are. From there, you can use them to mold your life, business plan, whatever.
Click Me For The FREE Test! (No upsells or anything. 
)
Here’s What To Do With Them:
In the Philosopher’s Notes, Brian went through his top 5 (well, he had 6) and explained how he was using each one in his business. You can do the same thing for YOURS (and also in your life).
I’ll give you an example with mine. Here they are:
- Forgiveness & Mercy
- Fairness, Equity, And Justice
- Gratitude
- Love Of Learning
- Capacity To Love And Be Loved
So to take those with my business plan, I guess I could do something like:
I use forgiveness and mercy in my business as I understand that not everyone is going to “get it” right away. I will treat them with love and work patiently as they come to results of their own.
I believe in fairness, equity, and justice… so I am moral and ethical with my pricing of things, will only put out quality products, and will treat everyone I work with with respect. I listen to other people’s ideas and try to make everyone feel as if they’re my equal (because we ALL have stuff to teach each other).
I am a totally grateful person. I remember to count my blessings every day. I have an amazing fiance, business partner, best friends, client base… an amazing life, really… and the more I remember to count my blessings, the more of them will come into my life. I make it a point to thank customers by offering excellent values and really doing what I can to make sure that they get benefit from my products.
To support my love of learning. I will continue dabbling in lots of different business models, as well as take myself offline a bit. This is integral to me and I know I’m so much more productive and better at what I do when I get to go learn new things.
As far as my capacity to love and be loved, I will continue to love people I work with, even when it’s not the easiest. I will understand that people are normally cranky because there’s an underlying issue, and I will look at everyone as innocent children doing the best they can with the resources they have.
Well… that’s my first shot, at least. I’ll continue to improve upon it.
I’d Love To Know What YOURS Are!
If you don’t want to do the full exercise (though it does make you think!), just shoot down your 5.
This is so super-fascinating to me, so please leave a comment and let me know!
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