In January 2018 I began working through a series of skill-building projects I designed to develop a diverse set of new skills. I decided to do this series of projects after reading Cal Newport's book So Good They Can't Ignore You, in which he argues that the key to having an impactful, meaningful career is to focus on developing rare and valuable skills, in contrast to more standard career advice such as 'follow your passion'. In the book, Cal says:
"The traits that make a great job great are rare and valuable, and therefore, if you want a great job, you need to build up rare and valuable skills"In a recent study by RBC called Humans Wanted it was found that our economy is shifting from a jobs economy to a skills economy, and the way for an individual to build a mobile, resilient career is to focus on skill development over knowledge acquisition.
As the author of five international bestselling books Robert Greene says:
"The future will belong to those who dedicate themselves to learning new skills"I am using this blog post to track my progress on developing new skills. I plan to update the post every month or so.
Skill Building Projects – January 2 to August 2 2018
From January 2 to August 2 2018 I've been working on projects to build skills in finance, communication, computer programming, creativity, business, networking, and writing. These skill-building projects are outlined below.
I'm also interviewing experts in various fields to identify rare and valuable skills to focus on for future projects.
The focus for August will be on completing a project to improve creative abilities.
At the bottom of this page I review ways the projects I've completed to date could have been improved. I also outline the challenges and limitations of these projects and how I'm attempting to address those challenges and limitations.
If you'd like to work on a project with me, or have feedback on how I could improve my approach moving forward, I'd love to hear from you at J.Fraser@mun.ca.
The focus for August will be on completing a project to improve creative abilities.
At the bottom of this page I review ways the projects I've completed to date could have been improved. I also outline the challenges and limitations of these projects and how I'm attempting to address those challenges and limitations.
If you'd like to work on a project with me, or have feedback on how I could improve my approach moving forward, I'd love to hear from you at J.Fraser@mun.ca.
PROJECT ONE: FINANCE
Actions Taken:
1) 70+ hours of research (books, online resources, podcasts,) on increasing income, cutting expenses, income tax, debt, savings accounts, and investing
2) Looked into various options for high interest savings accounts and moved my savings into an account that will earn me more interest
3) Took over control of my investments and now am controlling them independently
4) Opened up practice investing account with RBC and invested $3000 of fake money in the account
5) Made phone calls to my pension plan provider to learn more about the plan and begin to think about if I want to leave my money with them or control that money myself
6) Submitted termination form to my pension plan provider to get the process started of withdrawing my pension contributions and investing the money myself
7) Cut expenses by moving into a new apartment to reduce rent and transportation costs. Identified cheaper phone and internet options.
8) Defined my financial goals for 2018
Actions Taken:
1) 70+ hours of research (books, online resources, podcasts,) on increasing income, cutting expenses, income tax, debt, savings accounts, and investing
2) Looked into various options for high interest savings accounts and moved my savings into an account that will earn me more interest
3) Took over control of my investments and now am controlling them independently
4) Opened up practice investing account with RBC and invested $3000 of fake money in the account
5) Made phone calls to my pension plan provider to learn more about the plan and begin to think about if I want to leave my money with them or control that money myself
6) Submitted termination form to my pension plan provider to get the process started of withdrawing my pension contributions and investing the money myself
7) Cut expenses by moving into a new apartment to reduce rent and transportation costs. Identified cheaper phone and internet options.
8) Defined my financial goals for 2018
9) Put goals on my fridge
10) Set up Meeting with RBC to discuss mutual funds
11) Set up meeting at H & R Block to learn more about taxes
12) Set up meeting with TD bank to learn more about investing and open an RSP investing account
13) Called EQ bank to ask about their high interest savings accounts / registered for an account
14) Discussed finances with parents
15) Started using credit card instead of debit card for all purchases to get cash back and delay payments by 21 days to increase money I have sitting in my high interest savings accounts collecting interest.
16) Calculated my monthly costs and income
17) Completed 'Finance For Everyone: Debt' online course from McMaster University
18) Attended a Deloitte information session on careers in finance
19) Attended an introduction to blockchain event at Memorial University
20) Attended effective tax strategies event at library
21) Attended a session on money management at Memorial University
10) Set up Meeting with RBC to discuss mutual funds
11) Set up meeting at H & R Block to learn more about taxes
12) Set up meeting with TD bank to learn more about investing and open an RSP investing account
13) Called EQ bank to ask about their high interest savings accounts / registered for an account
14) Discussed finances with parents
15) Started using credit card instead of debit card for all purchases to get cash back and delay payments by 21 days to increase money I have sitting in my high interest savings accounts collecting interest.
16) Calculated my monthly costs and income
17) Completed 'Finance For Everyone: Debt' online course from McMaster University
18) Attended a Deloitte information session on careers in finance
19) Attended an introduction to blockchain event at Memorial University
20) Attended effective tax strategies event at library
21) Attended a session on money management at Memorial University
PROJECT TWO: COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Actions Taken:
1) Read books including First Impressions by Valerie White, The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane, The Social Skills Guidebook by Chris Macleod, and Win Bigly by Scott Adams
2) Listened to 10 Blinkist book summaries (15 min audio summaries of books) for books in the communication skills category
3) Set up a recorded mock job interview at the local career centre and reviewed the video recordings of the interview to find areas where I could improve my communication skills
4) Submitted applications for two volunteer positions that will give me opportunities to interact with more people on a daily basis
5) Attended more than 30 social events to connect with new people
6) Wrote a blog post titled Social Media for Social Connection: Attending 100 Facebook Events in Newfoundland
7) Attended toastmasters
8) Completed a series of comfort zone challenges to get more comfortable putting myself out there (e.g. starting up conversations with strangers at the mall; asking questions during the question periods of lectures)
9) Attended an interactive public speaking event at Memorial University
Actions Taken:
1) Read books including First Impressions by Valerie White, The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane, The Social Skills Guidebook by Chris Macleod, and Win Bigly by Scott Adams
2) Listened to 10 Blinkist book summaries (15 min audio summaries of books) for books in the communication skills category
3) Set up a recorded mock job interview at the local career centre and reviewed the video recordings of the interview to find areas where I could improve my communication skills
4) Submitted applications for two volunteer positions that will give me opportunities to interact with more people on a daily basis
5) Attended more than 30 social events to connect with new people
6) Wrote a blog post titled Social Media for Social Connection: Attending 100 Facebook Events in Newfoundland
7) Attended toastmasters
8) Completed a series of comfort zone challenges to get more comfortable putting myself out there (e.g. starting up conversations with strangers at the mall; asking questions during the question periods of lectures)
9) Attended an interactive public speaking event at Memorial University
PROJECT THREE: DATA SCIENCE
Actions Taken:
1) Attended a two day Software Carpentry workshop at Memorial University to learn about automating tasks with the Unix shell, version control with Git, and R for reproducible Scientific Analysis.
2) Completed DataCamp course "Introduction to R"
(I spent a significant portion of 2016 and 2017 focused on developing data science skills.
See my blog posts:
Life Expectancy Trends and Disparities: My First Data Science Project
Life Expectancy at Birth: Visuals for Exploratory Data Analysis)
Actions Taken:
1) Attended a two day Software Carpentry workshop at Memorial University to learn about automating tasks with the Unix shell, version control with Git, and R for reproducible Scientific Analysis.
2) Completed DataCamp course "Introduction to R"
(I spent a significant portion of 2016 and 2017 focused on developing data science skills.
See my blog posts:
Life Expectancy Trends and Disparities: My First Data Science Project
Life Expectancy at Birth: Visuals for Exploratory Data Analysis)
PROJECT FOUR: CREATIVITY; BIG PICTURE THINKING; IDEA SYNTHESIS
Actions Taken:
1) Read the sections on creativity in Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss
2) Spent a few minutes each day for three weeks reflecting on the question "what are the 10 most impactful, crazy things I could do this week?"
3) Read the book "A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future" by Daniel Pink, and completed the following exercises from the book:
a)Volunteered somewhere in my community that serves people whose experiences are far different from my own (End Homelessness St. John's)
b) Attended an online laughter yoga group
c)Visited a labyrinth and did a walking meditation
d)Took a Sabbath (set aside blocks of time when I gave myself permission to not feel like I needed to be busy)
e)Listened to symphonies (e.g. Beethoven's 9th symphony)
f)Hit a newsstand (spent 20 minutes browsing 10 publications I'd never buy and looked for connections to my own life)
g)Storytelling - did research on how to conduct interviews and made a list of people I want to interview relating to my career and personal life ; Listened to ~1hr of StoryCorps interviews
h)Empathy Challenges - took 3 quizzes (empathy quotient quiz; spot fake smile quiz; mind the eyes quiz); went to a busy public place and asked myself 'who are these people?' (made up stories about people in my proximity - Where are they going? What is their relationship to the people they are with?); eavesdropped on conversations in a coffee shop (imagined myself as one of them and asked what would I be thinking and feeling at the moment)
i)Compiled a list of important changes I'd like to make in my life and what is keeping me from realizing them
j)Brainstorming - reviewed halfbakery.com to get interesting ideas for new products, services, and businesses
4) Attended performance by Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra
PROJECT FIVE: BUSINESS
Actions Taken:
1) Attended a training event hosted by the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial University and Bloomberg New York on how to use Bloomberg terminals for financial projects
2) Read The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business, by Josh Kaufman
3) Identified my seven favorite concepts from the above book and tweeted out about each concept on Twitter. The concepts are:
a) Economically Valuable Skills (https://personalmba.com/economically-valuable-skills/)
b) The Experimental Mindset (https://personalmba.com/experimental-mindset/)
c) Personal Research and Development (https://personalmba.com/personal-research-and-development/)
d) Importance (https://personalmba.com/importance/)
e) Confirmation Bias (https://personalmba.com/confirmation-bias/)
f) Four Methods of Completion (https://personalmba.com/4-methods-of-completion/)
g) Reciprocation (https://personalmba.com/reciprocation/)
4) Implemented concepts from the above book in the real world:
a) Economic Values - For both of the major purchases I made this month, I reflected on each of the nine common economic values that people tend to consider when evaluating potential purchases (Economic Values: https://personalmba.com/economic-values/).
b) Hook - Created my own Hook to use for my social media accounts, with the aim of making a creative and attention grabbing Hook for my profiles (Hook: https://personalmba.com/hook/).
c) Convergence - Convergence is the tendency for people who spend time together to become more alike over time because a person will naturally start to adopt the behaviours and norms of the people they are spending time with. I began utilizing this tendency by making a list of people who I admire and want to be more like, and would therefore enjoy spending more time with. These were especially people with any of the following characteristics: the courage to start their own businesses; warm and confident socially; dedicated to physical fitness. (Convergence: https://personalmba.com/convergence-divergence/).
d) Resilience - Identified five things I can do to become more resilient in my life. These included becoming more resilient mentally by meditating daily and reading Stoic philosophy, becoming more resilient physically by making minor adjustments to my diet and workout routines, and becoming more resilient to events outside my control by preparing an emergency first aid kit. (Resilience: https://personalmba.com/resilience/).
e) Four Methods of Completion - Completing a task is not the only way to 'do' a task. We can also delete the task, delegate the task, or defer the task. I've added these additional three sections to my daily to-do list, and each morning I try to move everything but the absolute most important few tasks out of the 'complete' category and into one of the other three categories (Four Methods of Completion (https://personalmba.com/4-methods-of-completion/).
PROJECT SIX: NETWORKING
Actions Taken:
1) Read the book by J. Kelly Hoey called "Build Your Dream Network".
2) Read two blog articles titled "How to Network Without Losing Your Soul" and "Networking - The Best Investment of Your Life".
3) Listened to three podcast episodes: a) The Jordan Harbinger Show - Episode with David Brukus on How to Become a Networking Superconnector; b) Tim Ferriss Show - Episode on How to Build a World-Class Network in Record Time; c) Art of Charm - Episode with Ramit Sethi on Cold Truths about Success and Networking.
4) Defined my goal for networking as 'to identify new projects to work on in my life and career that are more challenging and impactful than my current projects'.
5) Approachability: I decided to start carrying one of my favorite books with me (4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss) wherever I went. I found this was a terrific way to get new people to start talking to me, especially the types of like-minded people I am looking to meet who are also into career/self development.
6) Set up an informational interview with someone who has a job that seems interesting to me.
7) Attended a workshop called 'Deliver' at my local college that outlined how to deliver our messages and pitches to other people more effectively.
8) Participated in a full day volunteer effort called Make Midterm Matter, with the goal of meeting at least five new people.
9) Reconnecting: I went on Messenger and sent brief messages to 5 'dormant ties', people who I had not talked to for at least a few months, to reconnect and see how things were going for them.
PROJECT SEVEN: WRITING
Actions Taken:
Wrote the following nine blog articles...
4 Impactful Pieces of Career Development Advice From the Office Hours Podcast
My Job Search Strategy: Doing Activities That Are Intrinsically Valuable
12 Reasons Why Twitter Is Awesome
A Saying To Live Your Life By
5 Positive Things I’ve Learned This Month About The Progress Of The World
Why My Most Valuable Semester At University Was Free
What I Did In 2019
10 Things That Have Improved My Life In 2018
Wisdom From The Stoics On How To Live A Good Life
1) Defining a clear measure of success for each project: The number one way these projects could be improved is by putting more effort into defining a clear measure of success for each project. Typically at the start of each project I have a very fuzzy project aim such as "I want to improve my communication skills" or "I want to become better at Data Science", but have a hard time defining a specific, measurable goal. As taught in the Top Performer course, at the beginning of each project I should ask myself "would it be possible for a friend to bet me $100 on if I'll fail or succeed at this project?". By setting a clear measure of success that I will either fail or succeed at, it will be possible to identify whether or not I'm actually making progress at the given skill. My above projects typically don't do a great job of passing this '$100 bet with a friend' test because I didn't have clearly defined goals but rather a vague aim to improve at the skill. Some examples of clear measures of success I could have used for past projects include "I will reduce my spending by $200 per month"; "I will increase my income by $200 per month"; "I will attend x networking events and talk to y people at each event"; "I will read book x and will take 5 real world action steps from the book"; "I will write 5 blog posts on topic x".
2) Reading this statement at the beginning of each project: "I claim that [the main activity required to succeed at this project] is one of the most effective and efficient ways to improve at [skill]". This is another idea I got from the Top Performer course. I love this idea because it is a great reminder to keep focused on high impact activities over low impact activities. For example, during my networking project, I think I may have focused too much on reading about networking, whereas if I had read the above statement I would have been reminded that a better approach may have been to put down the books and get out into more real world networking situations.
CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS
The two main challenges I've been encountering so far throughout this series of projects are:
1) Identifying which skills are rare and valuable
2) Designing projects that have some type of real-world component
2) Designing projects that have some type of real-world component
I've been attempting to address these challenges by conducting interviews with experts from various industries to identify skills that led to their success and figure out how they got so good at those skills. I've conducted five interviews as of July 2nd 2018. The interviews have resulted in some key insights, and I hope that as I continue to improve my interview skills my future interviews will go even better.
For the past three semesters I've been seeking out courses to take at my local university that prioritize skill development over knowledge acquisition. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find any courses that do so. It is my hope that at some point in the near future our educational institutions will begin providing assistance to our youth in developing the in-demand skills required for building fulfilling, meaningful, mobile, resilient careers.
If you're interested in working on a skill-building project with me, or have an idea for a skill-building project I could work on that could provide value to your organization in some way, please get in touch with me at J.Fraser@mun.ca.
