9 Top Lessons From the Book “Invaluable”

Book Review

1. Develop An Owner’s Mindset

Do you try until you fail or do you refuse to accept that failure is not an option?

Actionable steps to help you develop an owner’s mindset:

- Know the business
- Do more with less
- Go beyond your job description

2. Build a Habit of Learning

Develop a personal growth machine, using the 5 Circles Methodology:
Capture news and real-time updates
Curate, prioritize, and automate the flow of information
Create and commit to a reading list
Join a community
Follow and engage with influencers

3. Make An Impact

To make an impact:

- Make sure you are long-term greedy and consider the big picture in every decision
- Use first-principle thinking to ask the right questions
- Avoid sunk cost bias
- Focus on the work that matters, using a prioritization matrix

4. Jump On Opportunities

How to be an opportunity-digger and create opportunities at work:

Volunteer internally
Initiate a project
Offer to take the load off of your manager
Seek mentorship
Help others

5. Learn Problem-Solving

How to identify problems:
1. Find pains
2. Find ways to increase efficiency
3. Do proactive opportunity-digging

How to solve problems:
1. View problems as opportunities
2. Figure it out
3. Collaborate
Use lateral thinking to find a creative solution

6. Make An Influence

The influence formula:

Define the purpose of your narrative.
Identify the challenge or barrier you’ll need to overcome.
Identify the benefit or motivation for your counterpart.
Support your story by gathering data.
Call for action.

7. Learn To Manage Up, Self and Across

Managing up:

Get to know your manager
Understand their goals
Learn to anticipate their needs

Managing across:

Gain credibility
Find some common ground
Craft a compelling story with a positive outcome for them
Align expectations

8. Take Accountability

How to develop accountability:

Learn to be unsatisfied with the status quo
Leave your ego at the door

How to handle extreme accountability:

Go through the process of introspection
Come up with solutions or ways to improve

9. Review Your Progress

Build a document to track your achievements:
1: Your list of responsibilities
2: Goals and KPIs for each responsibility area
3: Achievements (tracking)
4: References
Put a reminder on your calendar to update your tracking document every other week.