Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal development, career, or entrepreneurship book.

Knowing how to be a leader – and using that skill from time to time – opens doors for you no matter what you’re doing in life. It helps your career. It helps your social standing. It creates a positive reputation for you, one that often precedes you. It can even help your family life and personal friendships. In short, leadership can be truly rewarding.

The problem with leadership, though, is that the vast majority of people don’t know how to actually be a leader. For a small number of us, leadership comes easy – a natural extension of who we are. For the rest, though, it’s not obvious at all. We’re held back by our own seeming desire for simplicity (though, sometimes, it’s simpler to lead) and our own lack of self-confidence or sense that we’re not leaders at all.

A long time ago, I was forced into a leadership position on a project that I felt completely unprepared for. A very kind friend in a high place mailed me a copy of this book – Warren Bennis’s On Becoming a Leader – and encouraged me to give it a read. The ideas in this book helped me to step up and actually make the most of the situation as it was handed to me and, since then, I’ve recommended it to several others (as I did in a recent Reader Mailbag, actually).

What makes this book so compelling? Let’s dig in and take a look.

Mastering the Context
Every situation in which one is called to be a leader has some sort of context. The people involved are part of the context, as are the specifics of the situation. Quite often, leaders become too tied to the context of the situation and, as a result, come up with pretty poor leadership decisions. Bennis offers several good and bad examples of how leadership can be destroyed by context. For me, the most potent example was the presidency of George W. Bush – in the context of his political ideology and of the disaster of 9/11, he made choices that were perhaps not the best leadership choices for the United States (I don’t think anyone would argue, whether they be liberal or conservative, that mistakes were made during the Bush years). A positive example of stepping outside of context is Norman Lear – the creator of the seminal sitcom All in the Family. He took the context – sitcoms of the 1960s – and looked not at a situation full of rules, but instead a situation where many of the rules could be broken. That’s what a leader does – he finds ways to break away some of the context, opening up new areas for success. (Incidentally, I think this is why great leaders also have a big dash of creativity.)

Understanding the Basics
Here, Bennis identifies a pretty large handful of traits one will find in a leader: a guiding vision, passion, self-knowledge, candor, maturity, trust, curiosity, and daring. Bennis argues that most of these traits are not ones people are simply born with – they’re usually self-made by a person who pushes themselves and wants to excel at leading others. He goes on to distinguish that there’s a big difference between merely being a manager and being a leader – in fact, he argues that, quite often, an MBA makes a person a good manager but a pretty poor leader. A manager manages and maintains the status quo – a leader leads people somewhere great.

Knowing Yourself
In order to lead, you must know yourself intimately. You have to know what you’re truly capable of and what you must ask others to help you with. Without such intimate self-knowledge, you can never effectively lead because you’re incapable of understanding how to select people to fill the roles you most need filled. Bennis points towards four key lessons one must learn in terms of knowing oneself:

You are your own best teacher. Pay attention to the things that work for you and don’t work for you. Don’t listen to what everyone else says – try things for yourself and see if they fly.

Accept responsibility. Blame no one. If something goes wrong under your watch, it’s your fault, period. Don’t blame others for it – step up and take responsibility. Yes, you can make moves to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, but the failure is your responsibility if you’re the leader.

You can learn anything you want to learn. Knowledge can be acquired by anyone if they’re persistent. Don’t use ignorance as a crutch. Instead, accept that you are ignorant about some things and step up to educate yourself.

True understanding comes from reflecting on your experience. Look back at what you’ve accomplished and try to figure out how you accomplished it. Similarly, look back on your failures and determine what you did wrong to cause that bad result.

Knowing the World
Almost all of the worthwhile learning that people do comes outside the classroom. It comes from losing yourself in an experience, reading books because you want to read them, trying new things because you want to try them, and reflecting on all of this stuff, adding it to your tool belt. People who choose not to do this are actively choosing not to be leaders – they’re happy being managers.

Read a book. Travel. Meet new people. Build a friendship. Find a mentor. Mess something up. You learn from these things, not from rote memorization in a classroom.

Operating on Instinct
Every decision we make in life is based on incomplete information. At some point, we have to decide that it’s good enough and go ahead with whatever decision we have at hand. Our ability to still make good decisions even with incomplete information relies on instinct – a sense of what the right decision is that comes from inside. Often, that voice inside of us is built out of a lot of learning about the world, a lot of experience of both success and failure. Learning trains our instincts so that we can make better decisions with less information.

A leader, in the end, is a person others rely on to make the difficult decisions and set the direction for everyone. A well-honed instinct is key to being that kind of leader, and a good leader relies on and trusts that voice inside of himself.

Deploying Yourself: Strike Hard, Try Everything
Every single one of us fails in life. The difference between leaders and others is whether or not they pick themselves up and try again. Do you face your fears? Do you again try the things you failed at in the past, or do you avoid them like the plague? If you try something and it goes badly, do you avoid it in the future or do you relish the challenge of improving in that area?

To put it simply, a leader does not back down from a challenge. They don’t allow fear to control what they do. Instead, if something is scary or deeply challenging, it’s something they focus even harder on achieving.

One particular quote at the end of this chapter really struck me.

The means of expression are the steps to leadership:

1. Reflection leading to resolution.
2. Resolution leading to perspective.
3. Perspective leading to point of view.
4. Point of view leading to tests and measures.
5. Tests and measures leading to desire.
6. Desire leading to mastery.
7. Mastery leading to strategic thinking.
8. Strategic thinking leading to full self-expression.
9. The synthesis of full self-expression = leadership.

In other words, it all begins with reflecting on your successes and failures and building from there.

Moving Through Chaos
It’s often thought that leaders don’t have the same crises that we do. We think they don’t have to deal with office politics, layoffs, demotions, fighting for promotions, and so on. We think they view the world as a set of chess pieces to play with as they wish, that “strategic vision” means playing games with people.

In truth, most leaders had to overcome a great deal of career adversity to get where they’re at today. The only difference is that, at every opportunity, they took the opportunity to try to grow as a person and improve their instincts instead of complaining and commiserating about their hard luck. A trial by fire can either burn you or forge you – leaders are forged.

Getting People on Your Side
The key to getting people on your side is to be trustworthy and to constantly show that their trust is well-founded. Bennis identifies four key elements of such trust.

1. Constancy. You stay the course for the people that rely on you. When problems come, you handle them, but through it all, you maintain a steady direction and don’t descend into chaotic behavior.

2. Congruity. If you say something, you mean it, and it shows in your actions. If you expect something of your followers, you expect it of yourself first and you follow through with it.

3. Reliability. When it really counts, you’re there for the people who need you.

4. Integrity. When you make a promise or a commitment to someone else, you follow through with it.

Organization Can Help – or Hinder
There are times in which the group you’re intending to lead simply will not be led. If the people involved don’t care or they have a completely different direction in mind than the one you’re providing or the bureaucracy in the system is so intense that no amount of bushwhacking will clear it, no leadership can help the situation.

Instead, a leader should attempt to learn from this situation. What can be done to end the situation as painlessly as possible? What can be done to avoid such situations in the future? Every failure is a lesson.

Is On Becoming a Leader Worth Reading?
On Becoming a Leader pretty much delivers what the title promises. It’s the best discussion I’ve ever read on things a person can tangibly do to improve their leadership skills. If you’re interested in improving them, this one’s pretty much a must-read.

The question comes down to whether or not you personally find it valuable to work on your leadership skills. My perspective is that most lives have avenues that can be improved through leadership – it helps you build better relationships with others in the workplace, in the community, and in one’s family if they’re able to step up and be a leader when the situation calls for it.

The Simple Dollar has reviewed hundreds of personal finance, personal growth, and career books. Please check out the full list of Simple Dollar book reviews, alphabetized for your convenience.

“One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdowns is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.”
- Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell

When I worked at my previous job, I always felt like the things I was doing were vitally important to the success of the project. In one way, this was good – it kept me focused on making sure that things wouldn’t fail. Yet it created several additional problems.

For one, I was often really stressed out. I felt hugely responsible for everything that went on, even for things that I couldn’t actually control. Eventually, I became quite proficient at solving the technical crises that others were responsible for, often because they were completely oblivious to the disasters.

At the same time, I became afraid to push myself to try new things. Since I felt so strongly responsible for everything, I became deeply afraid of change. I already felt the stress of managing all of the things that were already in place – the idea of changing things or adding new things stressed me even more. As a result, I would often subtly resist such changes.

On top of that, the birth of my children caused my priorities to change, adding further stress. A big part of my job involved traveling to meetings and conferences and other such things. After my children were born, the travel responsibilities gradually went from an enjoyable part of the job to a burden. Instead of going out on the town with colleagues, I’d spend the evening calling home to see what my kids were up to and would often feel as though I was missing them grow up.

The real message underlining all of this? I was so caught up in how important my job was that it was stressing me out, affecting my personal life, and keeping me from innovating and taking chances at work. That’s a terrible mix for success.

Looking back, a much more appropriate perspective would have been to realize what my role was – to develop data interfaces – and do that to the best of my ability, ignoring the other things that were going on. If the database went down… well, I shouldn’t have seen it as my responsibility. Instead, my responsibility should have been to simply push the envelope and find new and clever ways to get people the data they needed. It wasn’t “important” work – it was creative work, work that should have been purely fun.

What did I learn from this experience? The moment you begin to think of your job as “important,” you become more stressed and less innovative in your career. Your health and energy fail you due to the stress. Your job becomes less enjoyable because you’re focused on maintaining the status quo instead of doing the best job you can. In the end, you simply become less vital than you were before you began to see your job – and yourself – as “important.”

This is an issue I see popping up even now with my writing career. When I begin to view what I do as “important,” I begin to be less effective. I write less interesting pieces that essentially just reiterate core points. It becomes dull – and I can feel that just as much as you, the reader, can.

Instead, I try to remind myself that what I do really isn’t all that important at all. When I feel that way, I tend to write more from the heart, no matter the consequences. I often get attacked when I do things this way because I’ll express things that are different than what’s “expected” of me, but it’s more enjoyable.

Here’s the truth: your job is likely nowhere near as important as you think it is. Sometimes, employers will try to convince you that you’re more important than you actually are because it’ll scare you into being a good worker – but it will, at the same time, prevent you from being a great one. In the end, most managers – who also think of themselves as more important than they actually are – prefer a workplace full of good workers who are afraid to step outside the box than an office full of a mix of great workers and bad ones who are constantly trying to innovate. After all, that same sense of inflated importance guides them, too.

Here are three things I often do to keep my sense of importance at appropriately low levels.

First, I imagine worst case scenarios in terms of the greater world. For me, that would probably be a lack of ability to continue updating The Simple Dollar. What would happen to the greater world? For the most part, very little. The Simple Dollar often adds a little “positive” to people’s lives on a regular basis, but if it went away, their lives would continue. They might find another web site that provides a similar boost – or they might not. Either way, it’s not a major crisis for the world if the worst case scenario happens.

Most jobs, if you peel them back to their true impact on the world, have very little real impact. Yes, there are a few captains of industry and top political leaders who really can affect a lot of lives. Outside of them, though, the worst case scenario of most jobs has little impact.

Second, I imagine the positive impact of just not worrying about it. That type of scenario frees me to try new things. If I realize that the worst case scenario really isn’t that bad, it becomes a lot easier to imagine best case scenarios for taking pretty significant risks. What if I write articles that are seriously outside the box on The Simple Dollar? I might chase away a reader or two, sure. But I also have the potential to grab the imagination and attention of a lot of people by doing that.

Again, the same holds true for most jobs. When you consider the absolute worst case result of a certain choice, then compare that to the potential positive results of making that same choice, you’ll often find you’re better off just letting go of the status quo and trying new things. Completely re-do your filing system. Do a presentation that completely bucks the rules of what typically goes on in your workplace. Write some interesting utility code that helps everyone by making some common tasks faster.

Finally, I try things that are way outside the norm. Sometimes I’ll end up using these things that I create. Other times I won’t. In either case, I usually find something worthwhile.

What really makes this stand out, though, is that it’s fun. Trying something completely new and different adds an element of fun to my work that simply isn’t there if I’m overly careful and just follow the status quo. That sense of fun keeps my work in the area of things in my life that make me happy instead of things in my life that drain me.

In the end, my advice is simple: let go of the sense of importance you have about your work. It’ll be the best career move you’ll ever make.

One final note: if you have your financial ducks in a row, it’s even easier. Paying off your debts helps your career because it reduces the importance of your job. Your need for a salary is much less if you have your ducks in a row, which in turn opens the door to greater success because you’re no longer tied to such a sense of importance.

Whenever I mention that I’m self-employed and work from home while my wife works outside of the home, I usually receive a question or two from readers who are thinking about a similar arrangement. They want to know about how we balance things. How do you balance household chores? How do you balance parenting chores? Does it change how you socialize?

Here are seven things we’ve found to be true about our marriage once one of us became self-employed.

“Keeping score” is dangerous. When one person shifts to a completely different lifestyle, the various dynamics of the marriage will shift. This is true of any major change – stay-at-home parenting, a major career shift, even a significant change in the hours worked.

Dynamics change (and I’m going to talk about some specifics below). Don’t “keep score” based on what the previously-established norms were. Instead, focus on figuring out the new norm and forget about the old ones, and talk about it carefully along the way.

The balance of household chores subtly shifts towards more chores for the self-employed spouse. Here’s an example from our own life. I’m about to start my day, so just before I begin, I’ll toss a load of laundry into the washing machine. Then, at lunchtime, I’ll go downstairs and toss the clothes in the dryer. During my afternoon break, I’ll fold those clothes and put them into the kids’ drawers. Still, after work is over, the remaining work is split 50-50.

It’s easy to say that such an arrangement is completely reasonable – after all, the self-employed partner has the time to do this, right? Well, on the other side of the coin, the partner working outside of the home is also taking breaks but not filling them with housework.

It’s unsurprising that, over a long period of time, the self-employed partner may feel some sense of … unbalance, while the partner working outside the home still feels the arrangement is 50-50. This can easily create hard feelings. The best way to handle it is to talk it out.

The social needs of both partners change. When both of us worked outside the home in fairly social environments, we had similar feelings about how much to socialize with others on evenings and weekends.

Then, when I began to work solo, my ideas in that area changed. During my work day, I interacted with others much less than I did before and thus, after work, my desire to socialize went up quite a lot. At the same time, Sarah’s desires remained unchanged.

Our solution has largely been that we invite people over a bit more often than we used to. On top of that, I’ve started to become more involved in community groups and organizations of all kinds, even taking on significant responsibility in one of them. This balance works out well for both of us.

When children are sick, the self-employed parent ends up being the nurturing one most of the time. As I write this, my son is currently watching a program on PBS (Caillou). He’s home sick for the day and I’m busy trying to get some work in.

While this means I’m rushed a little bit, I am the partner with the more flexible schedule, so when the children are sick, I’m almost always the one that steps in to take care of them. This, of course, means that my wife is less interrupted by such things at her work.

Again, this can sometimes feel unbalanced and, if left undiscussed, feel unfair. The instant one partner begins to feel things are out of balance, it should be discussed openly. Such things can easily fester.

The work of the self-employed partner can often bleed into time that used to be shared doing other things. Today, I’m spending much of my time with my son. I’ll make him snacks, make him lunch, put him down for a nap, and if he feels better this afternoon, I’ll play some games with him and work on writing the alphabet with him.

That means that, unexpectedly, I’ve lost most of a day’s worth of work at a time when I can’t really afford such leakage. So, this evening, I’ll need to make up for it. As a result, Sarah will find herself doing solo things. Thankfully, she doesn’t mind this – she’s an avid reader – but it does mean that we won’t be able to do something together, like play a board game.

It can become harder to discuss work. A few times a day, I’ll go do something completely unrelated to my work, simply because I need the mental break. I’ll read the rules for a board game. I’ll wash dishes. I’ll read a book for personal enjoyment. I’ll visit messageboards.

At first, when I told Sarah about this, she was fairly annoyed. “Why are you wasting time?” was her immediate response.

Here’s the thing, though. Most workplaces do offer breaks – and quite often, other break times are squeezed into work times. We gather around the water cooler and chat. We stop in another worker’s office or cubicle and see what’s going on. We go to meetings. In other words, most “real” workplaces have tons of time for mental breaks.

Since I’m self-employed, I don’t have nearly as many opportunities for those kinds of breaks, so I have to make my own. This usually involves things that would be seen as a time-waster in other environments. Again, this is something that’s worth discussing openly.

Here’s the most important thing to remember if you make this change. It offers a lot of benefits, but it changes countless dynamics within your relationship. The best way to deal with this is to talk about it. If one of you is bothered by how a dynamic is changing, say so. Don’t let it fester and grow and become something seriously problematic.

Good luck!

Three years ago, one of my mentors was debating internally about how to handle a personnel situation. There were enough funds to employ one person. The performance of one worker was better overall, but the other worker often showed flashes of brilliance and was trusted more by his coworker.

In the end, the decision was made to keep the one with flashes of brilliance. After all, in my mentor’s words, “followers are easily replaceable, leaders are not.”

Ever since that day, I’ve thought a lot about what makes a leader. The person with flashes of brilliance clearly wasn’t a leader in the traditional sense – he was at the bottom of the pecking order. Yet he clearly was a leader in the more important sense. Other people trusted him and often turned to him when they needed help. He also was able to step up his game when it was needed the most.

Thus, he became much more vital to the organization than the steady, quiet employee who kept to himself.

What does it mean to really be a leader? It doesn’t mean having a title – that’s often just the result of already being a leader. It means being the person people rely on in a tough situation. It means being the person that steps up when it’s needed. It means being the person that gets people going on the things they need to do. It means getting the things done that you need to get done as well.

A leader with strong skills to back it up is indispensable to any organization. Here are fifteen ways you can start to become a leader in your own organization and make yourself more valuable there – even if you’re a quiet person who’d prefer to just get his or her work done.

Speak up at meetings.
If you have a genuine concern or a good idea in a meeting, speak up and voice it. Why? Quite often, your very concern or idea is in the mind of a lot of others around the room, only they’re afraid to speak up. By speaking up, you’re essentially giving their thoughts a voice without that risk. You’re being a leader for that group of people with that idea.

I’ve found that time and time again, when I do this, people will come up to me afterwards and say, “Thanks for saying that!” Right there, our relationship is stronger and they now look to me a little more than they did before. In at least one case I can think of, it led to a surprisingly strong working relationship.

Cut out the negative talk.
Talking negatively about others behind their backs does very little to help you. You might get the quick rush of feeling good from the ability to make yourself feel superior to the other person, but over the long run, you’ll have a very negative reputation outside of your tightest associates. If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it – it will damage the amount that people trust you. Plus, do you think people are saying similar things about you behind your back? How do you think that affects your reputation? A good tactic is a simple one – don’t run away from negative talk and don’t repeat it at all, but don’t contribute to it. Just ignore it and see it for what it is – usually jealousy on some level.

Offer up some positive talk, instead.
My tactic is to usually be quiet when people are being disparaged, but speak up quite a bit when the conversation is more positive. Making positive statements about others (and doing it consistently) does nothing but improve your reputation. Keep it to the realistic things, though – don’t just blindly compliment people.

Volunteer for the tasks everyone’s afraid to volunteer for.
Whenever a major task comes up that bears some serious responsibility and others are afraid to step up, step up. As with speaking up, by doing so, you effectively become the leader of the people who are interested but are too timid to volunteer themselves. You can take these people and channel them into being a part of the project.

Look for people who are struggling – and ask them what’s wrong.
In a workplace where people meet regularly and collaborate on projects, it’s often quickly clear if certain people are struggling or having problems. Quite often, these people are left to flounder by others who are too “busy” to deal with it, but by spending some time to find out what the real problem is, you’re often throwing this person a life raft which, if they climb aboard, can make them eternally respectful and supportive of you. When people are in trouble, that’s the time to approach them, find out what’s wrong, and find out if you can help without greatly upsetting your own boat.

Directly compliment impressive work.
If someone does good work, tell them right to their face that it’s good work, preferably in front of others. Everyone loves recognition and compliments and usually retain positive feelings towards the people who give recognition and deserved compliments. That positive feeling can often be utilized later on when you’re in charge of a team they’re on.

Tell supervisors when their subordinates are doing well.
This is a more indirect – but often more effective – method of the idea above. If someone does outstanding work, contact their supervisor and tell them. Face to face is often good, but even an email works for this purpose. Tell their supervisor exactly what the person did to go above and beyond the usual standard. This often results in an improvement in the workplace status for that person and, quite often, they end up realizing who offered up such compliments and recommendations.

Be willing and enthusiastic about team-based work.
I used to be a workplace loner and avoid team-based work. Eventually, though, I learned that team-based work is the absolute best opportunity you ever have in the workplace to build strong relationships with the people around you. The more you participate in teams – and come through with your part of the puzzle while helping in little ways with the parts of others – the more others begin to see you as reliable and trustworthy.

When you’re part of a team, take charge of it – but don’t be dictatorial.
My approach is pretty simple. If I’m a part of a newly-formed team, I’ll step up immediately and brainstorm a plan, then send it to the others for consideration. Unless someone rips it to shreds, it usually more or less becomes the plan and I’m the de facto leader of the group. It’s for the same reason as above – you’re usually speaking for people who are too timid to speak up or offer a plan and they’re happy for you doing that if you’re not pushy about it. I would usually do something like send out a rough plan and say, “Here’s my idea for how we should tackle this. What do you all think?”

Make a point to remember – and celebrate – your coworker’s life milestones and accomplishments.
One person I used to work with had a calendar he kept with everyone’s birthday in it along with their favorite two items from the vending machine. On their birthday, he’d go up to the vending machine, pop in $2, get their favorite soda and favorite snack, affix a bow (that he’d brought along with him) to the can, then stop by their desk and put them there, saying “Happy birthday!” with a big grin. It was small, but it came across as incredibly thoughtful – unsurprisingly, he was very well liked within the group and was often listened to and respected whenever he had any ideas or plans to share. Also unsurprisingly, he’s doing very well in life now.

Take two minutes to recognize the milestones and highlights in other’s lives. Keep track of them if you can. Find little ways to make everyone smile. Do these things and you’ll always win.

If there’s a problem you can easily solve, solve it.
Don’t worry about the political connotations or anything like that. If someone comes to you with a problem that you can completely solve or help solve without too much effort, just solve it. The more problems you solve, the more people look to you as a problem solver and the more they listen to your advice and what you have to say.

Ask for help when you need it.
Sometimes, you’ll need help. Some people are afraid to show weakness and avoid asking for help unless it’s absolutely vital. That’s nonsensical and inefficient. If there are particular elements that others can do much easier than you can, ask them for help (unless, of course, it’s a lot of additional work for them). This is the flip side of the coin from helping others whenever you can – if you’ve consistently helped others, they’re likely to help you.

Suggest events that involve your coworkers.
Be the person that rounds up a group to eat lunch together. Be involved in the planning of office parties – and even be the ringleader. Plan parties for people who are leaving. That doesn’t mean you have to do all the footwork, but develop the plan yourself. People will see you as a person who takes charge – and such events are simple to pull together if you just take a few minutes to do it.

Offer useful, detailed feedback.
In a busy world, it’s easy to just go “Looks good!” when someone wants feedback on something. Instead, take ten minutes and try to come up with three things that could be improved with the document. Preface it with a compliment on how good the project already is, put the three suggestions down as clearly and positively as possible, and finish up by saying something along the lines of wanting to turn something very good into something truly great. If the feedback is really worthwhile, they’ll again see you as someone to turn to when the chips are down.

When asked for your opinion, be honest but don’t be cutting.
Your honest feedback is much more valuable than being positive – but even if things are bad, you don’t have to be hurtful. I usually make an effort to compliment where I can, but if there are serious problems with what I’ve seen, I say so. Not saying so hurts them (since they present a poor product) and then, by association, hurts you (since you told them this poor product was good when it wound up dumping egg on their face).

These small things, done every day, make you simultaneously indispensable in your workplace as well as a person people look to as a leader. Who do you think will have their name come up the next time promotions are discussed?

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal development, personal productivity, entrepreneurship, or career book.

For the first time ever, I’m reviewing a book as a result of an impassioned plea from one specific reader.

Susan, however, is one special reader. She started reading The Simple Dollar in early November 2006, right as the site launched. Since then, I’ve heard from her almost monthly and have used her story for inspiration for several posts over the years. She’s always been encouraging, has offered lots of suggestions, and been incredibly generous a few times (including giving me quite a few credits on PaperBackSwap when I first started).

When she first started writing, Susan was chasing her MBA. When she received her degree, she struggled for quite a while finding a job, then finally found a good place to call home – or at least to start out.

Recently, Susan wrote to me, glowing about how her career was going so far. In that email, she said that reading Basic Black was one of the best things she ever did. An older worker had loaned her the copy and encouraged her to read it and absorb it, so over one long weekend, that’s what Susan did.

She practically begged me to review this book, saying it had a huge impact on her life and her career starting out as a young woman in the business world, and after all the support Susan has given me over the years, I couldn’t help but give Basic Black a read.

Basic BlackCosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, and O. She was also involved in the incredibly successful launch of USA Today back in the 1980s. In short, she’s a great example of how a woman can succeed in business – and, at least in the case of Susan, Cathie’s a real role model and someone to look up to.

Does Basic Black offer any strong career advice or does it just faintly mimic other books already on the market? Let’s dig in.

Drive
If you want something, you have to be willing to go after it – or else someone else will pluck that ripe tomato right out of your hand.

Going after something is simple. It means taking care of every significant problem or conflict along the way. It means building lots of relationships with lots of people – get on the phone regularly! It means doing what it takes to come up with a tremendous end result for whatever projects are assigned to you.

It means being tireless and filling every moment you can with achieving your goal (without being unethical, of course). The best way to get ahead is to do the best you and build the most relationships for yourself, not by sabotaging or interfering with others (as that’s detrimental to the whole organization – and thus detrimental to you).

Risk
Many people are very risk-averse with their career. A small group of people are extremely risky with it, often taking enormous chances with themselves, their business, and their industry (hi, Lehman Brothers and Enron!).

The best solution is to be somewhere between the two. Be willing to take risks, but also spend some time carefully considering the downside to these risks. Don’t take risks that would severely damage the company unless you can control that outcome. Be willing to take risks that might set your career back a little, but not ones that can sink everything.

Calculated, moderate risk mixed with drive is a powerful medicine for career success.

People
The advice in this section neatly overlaps with the recent discussions on here about the book Never Eat Alone. To put it simply, you’re far better off giving what you know freely and accumulating connections that find you valuable than you are playing social games.

Instead, your goal should be to build valuable, long-standing relationships with people inside your organization as well as people outside your organization (both in the industry and in the community).

The more people you have a strong relationship with, the more strings you can pull when you actually need them to accomplish a project. You build those relationships by helping those people out when they need it – giving information, offering help, and so on.

Fear
Fear comes from intimidation – a person you don’t think you can handle or a situation you’re uncomfortable with. Quite often, the thing we fear just represents some other fear we have – our own mortality or our own failure.

In other words, most things in the outside world that we fear are instead just issues of self-confidence.

Whenever you’re put into a situation where you feel fear, think about what’s going on for a second. What are you really afraid of here? What’s the worst possible outcome? When you start thinking in those terms, fear begins to melt away. The worst thing that can happen is that the client walks out the door – and that’ll probably happen anyway – so why be afraid?

Power
Everyone has some degree of power just because of their presence. Others have earned more power over time because of their success or relationships.

However, one thing’s for certain: the more you use your power, the less powerful you are.

Power is not an infinite thing. Instead, it shouldn’t be used unless there’s a very good reason for it – and just getting your way is not a good reason. When you reserve your power for key moments, you become substantially more powerful. People pay attention and follow you because they know that you don’t exert your power unless it’s important.

Passion
Some people confuse passion and drive, but they’re different things. Drive makes sure you cover all your bases, while passion ensures that you enjoy the whole process.

Channeling your passions can be a real trick. It requires you to seek those things that you truly enjoy and find ways to channel that enjoyment into your work, creating things that no one else can create.

Drive fills your days. Passion fills your nights.

Attitude
Believing in a positive outcome of any situation is key to creating a positive outcome in any situation. If you go in the door under the belief that you’re going to fail, you probably are going to fail.

Make up your mind what result you want for the upcoming situation, then consider what you need to do to make that happen. Keep it front and center in your mind – the desired outcome of the event – and do everything you can to raise the overall tide of the room so that you can accomplish it.

After all, a rising tide lifts all boats, and if you bring a great positive perspective to a situation, it raises everyone’s boats.

Leadership
Leadership simply means being reliable. Whenever there’s a problem or a big decision, the leader is the person that everyone feels comfortable with making that decision or solving that problem. It’s not a title on a placard or anything else – it’s simply taking care of things.

Don’t worry about big long lists of traits that leaders provide. You make yourself a leader by solving problems and coming up with solutions to the big issues of the day. You are a leader when you help bring someone around and engage them in their work. You’re a leader when you volunteer for the tough tasks – and collect the input of others for that task.

You can be a leader every day, whether you have that title or not. The title will come if you’re a leader for long enough.

Is Basic Black Worth Reading?
For someone who is entering into a business career, particularly a young woman, Basic Black is loaded with strong advice and information, written from the perspective of someone who had to fight her way up to the top. In my writeup, I glossed over the specifics – over and over again throughout this book, Black does a great job of offering up very specific advice in the general areas covered, mixing anecdotes and straightforward suggestions in a very heady mix.

Unfortunately, the target audience for this book is pretty narrow. It really applies mostly to people starting out in the business world. Although many pieces of the advice apply elsewhere, readers outside of this situation are better served reading other books on personal growth and career development.

During my senior year of high school, after I had learned that I had received enough scholarships to attend a major university, I sat down and studied all of the majors that were available to me. Two of them really stood out, due to my personal interests: English and mathematics.

Unfortunately, as soon as I told anyone about my goals, they’d almost always tell me the same thing. “You’ll never get a good job with an English degree.” “A math degree? The only way you’ll get good work with that is with a Ph. D.”

And I believed them. Instead of paying attention to my natural interests, I started focusing instead on which majors offered high paying jobs and, from there, I picked a major in the hard sciences that seemed to interest me the most. It was a compromise.

Flash forward to thirteen years later and what do you have? I’m not using that degree in the hard sciences. Instead, I took a pay cut to become a writer – the job I wanted to have from the start.

Too many people focus on salary as the sole definition of a good job. I’ll be the last to argue that it’s not good to have a healthy income. A great income opens many doors if used properly – savings for the future, a higher standard of living, and so on.

But what good is that higher standard of living and savings for the future if you’re living a significant chunk of your adult life in a state of unhappiness.

A friend of mine – let’s call him Dale – had a factory job a few years ago. The job didn’t pay particularly well, but it was a solid hourly wage, somewhere in the $13 range. Dale didn’t love the work, but he enjoyed it. He was one of the most competent workers there and enjoyed a lot of cameraderie from the people he worked with and some respect from the foremen because he did his job well. He got his choice of shifts and overtime options because of his status there.

Then, suddenly, an opportunity of sorts opened up for Dale. He could take a $30,000 a year job with solid benefits – but he would be the low man on the totem pole there. Plus, the work was fairly dangerous and psychologically wearing.

Choosing between the two wasn’t an easy decision, but Dale chose the higher-paying but less-enjoyable job.

After about a year of it, it’s pretty obvious that even with the substantial increase in income, Dale is less happy. He now works a shift that keeps him from seeing his kids in the evening. He’s gained a bit of weight and seems to spend most of his spare time involved in escapist activities – for example, he’ll often spend hours upon hours just riding around on his motorcyle or his ATV. He sleeps quite a bit more, too. In conversation, he just simply doesn’t seem nearly as happy as he used to.

Yes, his salary went up substantially, but was it really worth it? I think few people would argue that it was.

Given my own experience – as well as Dale’s, and the many readers who have written to me along similar lines – I’d argue that salary is of only secondary importance when finding a “good” job for you. I’d argue the following factors are at least as important – if not more important.

The work itself If I’m going to spend eight hours (at least) per weekday engaged in an activity, one’s personal happiness is going to hinge significantly on how personally enjoyable the work is. Does the work fulfill you – or does it drain your soul? Do you end your work day (most of the time) happy and alert, or do you go home empty and exhausted? Do you find yourself happily thinking about your work on occasion during your free time – or does thinking about it make your stomach turn? One side of this coin connects to a happy life – the other connects to a much less happy one. How high of a price is stress worth?

Flexibility of time The more flexible the hours, the better. Are you worried about getting fired if you attend your daughter’s dance recital? Are you constantly yanked away from family events by your digital leash… excuse me, cell phone? Are you constantly missing quality time with the people you care about because of your work? That has a very real cost – and it’s a very steep one. Every time you miss something important with your family, it’s an opportunity that never comes back and it’s a trust that can never be recovered.

Peers Are you respected by your coworkers? Do you have a good relationship with them? Or is the workplace filled with constant mistrust, intrigue, and gamesmanship? Again, it’s all about the stress – what kind of price can you put on a stressful environment?

In the end, ask yourself this simple question: how much sustained misery is an extra dollar worth to you? For me, such misery isn’t worth it, particularly when you consider the multitude of methods a person can use to shave their spending without really altering their lifestyle.

I’d rather live frugal without a miserable job than have a few nicer things and spend all of my time loathing my work. Something tells me that when people step back and take a serious look at their lives, many people will feel the same way.

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal development, personal growth, or career book.

Over the past several months, I’ve reviewed a lot of books about entrepreneurship, building relationships with others, and climbing the career ladder. All of these techniques have one thing in common: they require you to stand up for yourself and be assertive. This is a point that often comes up in the comments for such book reviews and other articles about moving forward in your career or dealing with workplace problems. Either people aren’t assertive enough, they’re ridiculously over-aggressive (which creates conflict), or they switch between the two extremes (passive-aggressiveness).

All three of these elements usually result from a lack of a naturally-developed sense of appropriate assertiveness. Appropriate self-confidence, the ability to express your ideas, the ability to accept criticism without it destroying you personally, the ability to say “no” without guilt, and the ability to stand up for yourself all revolve around being appropriately assertive and, frankly, many people simply don’t have it.

For most of my life, I wasn’t assertive enough at work (I’m usually assertive enough in my personal life, but even there, I’m not always assertive enough). I was scared to death to speak in public. I’d often allow others to walk all over me, often ending in disastrous work situations. I was usually willing to state my ideas, but I would usually fold immediately in the face of criticism of those ideas.

The Assertiveness Workbook by Dr. Randy Paterson takes on the spectrum of assertiveness problems and strives to point people towards an appropriate, mentally healthy level of assertiveness in their lives. Having that appropriate level allows a person to easily stand up for themselves, their ideas, and their goals, enabling them to climb the career ladder and build what they want for themselves. Let’s dig in.

1. What Is Assertiveness?
Assertiveness is largely the realization that you are in control of what you will or will not do, but not in control of what others will or will not do. Passive people tend to not recognize the control of what they themselves do, while aggressive people tend to try to control what everyone does (and passive-aggressive folks alternate between the two in often-confusing ways). Assertiveness simply means sticking up for yourself – your time, your energy, your money, your work, and your ideas. Assertiveness strikes a happy balance between passiveness and aggressiveness, enabling you to control your own destiny without treading on others.

2. Overcoming the Stress Barrier
Stress often pushes us, revealing the nature we fall back on. Do we run away (the passive response)? Do we attack the source of the stress (the aggressive response)? Do we gossip and offer indirect attacks (the passive-aggressive response)? None of these are good solutions to stress. Instead, the best solution is to simply minimize the stress so that we don’t slip into our default biological “flight or fight” response – instead, we deal with it rationally, using a cool head, and often wind up choosing the best solution for the problem (usually, the assertive one). You can minimize your stress by eating well, getting adequate sleep, minimizing your caffeine intake, getting exercise, and trying to live a balanced life that mixes work, personal, and leisure time. You can also utilize quick stress responses that are outside the “fight or flight” dichotomy, like stopping and breathing deeply a few times.

3. Overcoming the Social Barrier
If you attempt to be assertive instead of your normal response to stress (whether it be passive, aggressive, or passive-aggressive), the people around you might not react positively – not because assertiveness is bad, but because they’ve come to expect that you’re passive or aggressive. They might be confused as to how you’re acting and it might make the relationship worse in the short term. In a nutshell, bear with it. Instead of caving and resorting back to your previous behaviors, keep acting assertive. Things may get worse before they get better, but they will get better – for you and for the people around you. Relationship strain is natural and should be expected, but in the end, assertiveness will make you more valuable, not less, and will build stronger relationships. Be patient.

4. Overcoming the Belief Barrier
Many people build up a set of beliefs that reinforce their natural responses. Naturally passive people, for example, believe that assertiveness is selfishness and passivity is the way to be loved and valued – neither of which is actually true. Similarly, naturally aggressive people believe that full honesty is always the best policy and that if they’re not aggressive nothing will happen – neither of which is actually true. Paterson works through a ton of such beliefs in this chapter, evaluating why they’re not generally true and offering techniques for eliminating them from your life.

5. Reality Check
You are in charge of your own behavior, others are in charge of their behavior. That’s really the key point of this entire book. You can’t really control the choices of others, but you can control your own choices. Sure, you can use aggression to strongly influence other’s choices, but there’s a huge cost there – resentment happens whether you see it or not. Similarly, if you’re passive and let others dictate your choices, you become their doormat.

6. On the Launchpad: Preparing for Change
Assertiveness is what you do, not who you are. You may naturally be a passive person, but you can choose to act in ways that are assertive. You may naturally be aggressive, but you can choose to scale back on the aggression towards others. Instead, focus on what you’re doing when you interact with others. Stand up for how you spend your time and energy – and let others make their own choices. You’re going to make some mistakes along the way – that’s fine, just keep trying to find that sweet spot of assertiveness. One great technique is to minimize your communications – focus on making your messages as slim as possible, only communicating the bare assertive essentials.

7. Becoming Visible: Nonverbal Behavior
This chapter comes straight out of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. It offers a very long checklist of nonverbal behaviors for you to work on to make your presence felt in a room without dominating others aggressively. Integrating these individual behaviors can be difficult, so Paterson encourages people to practice each behavior for a week, focusing intently on that behavior, until it starts to become at least a little natural. I find that, for me, it takes more than a week of such focus for it to become a natural behavior.

8. Being Present: Giving Your Opinion
Passive people tend to not give their opinion at all, while aggressive people tend to state their opinion in such a way to make it clear that other opinions are wrong – neither one is cool. Instead, focus on actively expressing your opinion, but frame it well. State it from your perspective: “My take is…” or “I enjoyed it…” Don’t criticize other’s views – it’s quite likely that other reasonable people will have their own take that differs from yours. This works in almost any conversation and, when prefaced that way, is almost always welcome. If anyone attacks you for stating what you think – if you make it clear that it’s just your take – they are the ones who will come off as aggressive and rude, not you.

9. Taking the Good: Receiving Positive Feedback
Many people find it hard to accept compliments. They view it as unbalancing the situation and either should be ignored, devalued, or met with a reciprocal compliment. If you feel this way, the best thing you can do is let it go. Accept a compliment with a polite “Thank you” and move on with life, accepting the complement as a positive. Of course, sometimes compliments are given with an ulterior motive, but you cannot honestly know what the motives of others are. Instead, respond positively to the comment in the now and allow other actions and statements to reveal the other person’s true character.

10. Giving Helpful Positive Feedback
The best way to give good positive feedback is to avoid all ulterior motives. Never give a false compliment, nor a backhanded one. You should also try to compliment things that have already happened, like complimenting someone on a lovely dinner after the dinner. Avoid compliments where you’re trying to use the compliment to get something, like complimenting someone on their car when you need it for a ride. The best positive feedback is honest positive feedback that only serves to tell someone else what they’re doing well from your perspective. Anything beyond that begins to spoil the soup.

11. Taking the Valuable: Receiving Negative Feedback
What about negative feedback? Again, if someone offers you negative feedback, your best bet is to always hold back. Accept what they’re saying. Your only response should be for clarification or to explain without offering excuses. Don’t try to change their mind or argue with them – it won’t work and creates more of a scene. Later, reflect on what they’ve said and draw your own conclusions. Quite often, particularly from people with aggression issues, the negative feedback has little to do with you but instead has to do with their own hangups. Careful reflection will reveal whether the feedback is something you need to work on or something to ignore.

12. Constructive, Not Critical: Giving Corrective Feedback
How do you give negative feedback? This is very hard for passive people to do, but there are a few principles that can make negative feedback really helpful. First of all, state what you observed so that they understand the specific element you’re coming from. “Joe, you walked in at 9:15 and the store opens at 9.” Then, make it clear what about that action or statement is problematic. “Being late means that there’s no one to man the register, so others have to take up your slack.” Follow that with a suggestion on how to correct it or move towards some sort of solution. “Let’s go have a talk about why you’re regularly late.” That framework will create corrective feedback that works instead of just tossing off negative feelings.

13. The Assertive “No”
If you cannot say no to someone or something, you’re not in charge of your life. Learning how to say no doesn’t mean you’ve decided to ignore the needs and wants everyone around you. Instead, it’s merely a realization that your needs come first in your life. There are several strategies for saying “no” that really work. First, decide what you’re going to say before you even speak – if you don’t know yet, then don’t answer. Second, if you’re going to say no, be strong about it. Don’t try to soften the “no” or else aggressive folks will see it as practically a “yes.” Don’t apologize and don’t make excuses for the “no” unless you’re actually changing your statement from an earlier promise. Also, many aggressive people will continually keep asking if they want something – if you’ve decided to say “no,” keep saying it and don’t reword it (which is a cue that you’re starting to waffle).

14. Making Requests Without Controlling Others
Another part of balancing assertiveness well without falling into passivity or aggressiveness is to make requests that are clear but aren’t controlling. Paterson breaks such requests into four parts: describe, express, specify, and outcome. Describe simply means to describe the situation as you perceive it to be right now. Express means explaining how you feel about this situation – stick with “I” statements. Specify means identifying clearly (but briefly) what you’d like the other person to do to change the situation. Outcome expresses the results you hope to see if they fulfill the request. Surprisingly, it’s quite easy to condense these four pieces down into a total of just a few sentences, but they’re all needed to make a clear and fair request of others.

15. Countdown to Confrontation
Sometimes, confrontations are unavoidable, particularly when someone is demanding more than is realistic or socially unacceptable. Confrontations are occasionally part of appropriate assertiveness, as long as you prepare for that confrontation in a rational fashion. First, state the issue to yourself and make sure you understand why this is an unresolved problem. Next, figure out the symbolic value – at the core, why is this a problem? Is it a realistic conclusion (”he makes sexist comments and demands ridiculous things of me, so the problem is that he’s sexist”) or unrealistic (”he leaves the toilet seat up so he doesn’t love me”)? Next, figure out what you want to come out of the confrontation – do you want a behavioral change or do you want a person to reflect and make a personal change within themselves? Ask yourself if it’s really you that needs to change, and make sure you’re picking a worthwhile battle here. Then, choose an appropriate place and time and make sure you’re safe during this confrontation (as some aggressive people tend to not react well in such situations).

16. Constructive Confrontation
The biggest key is to focus on relaxing during this. If things get intense, emotions tend to take over and no resolution to the problem can happen. Try to keep your voice even and don’t show off obvious signs of agitation – if you feel that way, take a time out. Focus on making it clear how the problem is negatively affecting you. Don’t focus on “winning” but on making your concerns heard. Don’t bring up old history, either – let sleeping dogs lie and focus on the issue at hand. Avoid absolute statements like “You always…” as they’re usually wrong and send the discussion down a bad path; instead, say that something happens “… more often than I’m comfortable with.” Try to find solutions that are based on common ground, recognizing that both sides have needs. Don’t get angry and if there are periods of silence, just wait them out. Doing these things will make confrontations much more palatable and likely to achieve a result you want and less likely to result in ongoing problems.

Is The Assertiveness Workbook Worth Reading?
To put it simply, if everyone in the workplace actually used the ideas in The Assertiveness Workbook, the workplace would be a wonderful place to be. You’d have a good idea where others stand and people wouldn’t commit to unrealistic things. Confrontations would be handled without disaster and people with good ideas would be unafraid to express them but wouldn’t use them as weapons, either.

Naturally, the first step you can always make in creating such a workplace is to do it yourself – be assertive, not aggressive or passive or (worst of all) passive-aggressive. If you find that you fall into one of the other areas, The Assertiveness Workbook can be really useful in helping you assert yourself without trampling all over others.

One final note: this is closer to a “book” than a typical “workbook.” Though there are a few blanks to fill in throughout the book, most of the suggested thought exercises are better done in another notebook, not in this workbook itself.

Financial success is something that’s built up slowly over time. It’s not something that happens in one giant rush (unless you’re very lucky) – instead, it’s the culmination of a lot of little choices made over many years.

Every day, we’re faced with lots of choices. Good choices lead us down that path towards financial success, safety, and happiness. On the other hand, poor choices lead us to financial instability, uncertainty, and fear.

Many lists like these show you actions you can take to move down the path to success. However, I’ve learned time and time again that life’s best lessons are taught by the things you do that lead to failure. And I’ve failed with my finances, many times. I’ve nearly gone bankrupt. I’ve switched not only jobs, but whole careers.

And I’ve learned that these eleven things are sure-fire ways to fail.

Mail It In
It’s so easy to simply take it easy. Instead of really pushing ourselves to do something tremendous at work or in life, we have a tendency to kick back, get the minimum done that we need to get done, and move on to the next thing.

Here’s the thing, though. The more often you just do the minimum and mail it in, the more others come to expect this of you. They’ll start choosing others for key tasks. They’ll start spending time with people who want to do a great job.

And soon you’ll find that the people who just do the minimum are the first ones cut loose when times are tough.

Every time you can step up and carry through a task – even a very simple one – to a high level of success, you take a step in the right direction. Do it regularly, and others begin to notice. Do it consistently and others begin to value you.

Avoid Thinking About Tomorrow’s Goals
You go to work. You come home. You take care of the stuff that needs to be done. And then you enjoy your free time.

It’s really easy to get into this routine – it’s convenient, it keeps your head above water, and it’s flexible.

But what it fails to do is help you build towards anything more in your life. Where do you want to be in five years? If you’re not bothering to think about it, you’re going to be in the same place you are right now in five years – or in a worse place.

Why? The people out there who are setting goals are the ones getting ahead of you. They’re planning for the future and taking actions every day to get there. If you’re not even thinking about the future – and what you want from it – those goal-setters are walking right by you.

Complain
Yes, life is hard. Everyone else has all the advantages. People play dirty and they take away the spoils that are rightfully yours.

Yet, every minute you spend complaining about it and stewing about it is another minute lost. Those lost minutes are being used by other people to get ahead.

While you complain, someone else is polishing up a presentation that will make them look great. While you complain, someone else is starting a side business. While you complain, someone else is getting their work done with just a bit more polish.

Yes, there’s a big role in life for constructive critique – it helps everyone. Complaining is not constructive critique. Constructive critique is done directly to someone else with the desired end goal of improving their work or their situation. Complaining has no goal other than allowing you to vent your negativity.

Even worse, the people who listen to your complaints get the impression that you’re a complainer – a person who doesn’t produce solutions, but instead complains about those who do. Over time, they’ll migrate away from you, from the negative to the positive.

Buy Unnecessary Stuff
It’s quite easy to decide that an individual unnecessary purchase is worthwhile – and even required. A $5 cup of coffee isn’t going to break you. A new DVD won’t, either, nor will a new paperback. So why not buy?

Each purchase you make, though, is like a drop in a bucket. One or two won’t make your struggle any more difficult, but over time, those drops start to add up. That bucket gets heavier. Before you know it, that bucket is holding you down – it’s so heavy that it’s no longer possible to make any sort of speedy forward progress.

But that doesn’t change the situation today, does it? By all means, buy something you don’t need. Put another drop in that bucket. You can carry it. For now.

Just remember, each time you make the choice not to add a drop to that bucket, you make your journey just a little bit easier. Make those choices again and again and again and you won’t be weighted down like everyone else. You’ll be free.

Spend Lots of Time Idling
When I’m done with my workday, the last thing I want to do is dig into another major project. I want to kick back and mentally relax. I want to zone out for a while and do something completely trivial. Sometimes, I find that I can burn the whole evening that way.

Every time I do that, though, I end up realizing in the long run that it’s a mistake. I look down at my flabby stomach and ask myself why I didn’t exercise more. Wait, it’s because I was idling. I look at a house-cleaning backlog and berate myself for not keeping up with it.

Every moment you spend idling is a moment where you’re letting some aspect of your life slip away.

That’s not to say idle time isn’t worthwhile – it is. We all need rest sometimes, mental and physical downtime. Where the problem comes in is when you’re resting physically when you have plenty of energy or you’re resting mentally when you’ve got plenty of concentration available to you.

What if you’re worn out mentally but not physically? Do a physical task that doesn’t require much thought, like cleaning or exercising. What if you’re worn out physically but not mentally? Do a sedentary task.

Save your leisure time for things you deeply personally enjoy. And when you’re both mentally and physically tired, take a nap.

Hire Someone Instead of Doing It Yourself
Mowing the yard is hard work – I’ll hire someone to do it. I’ll hire a housekeeper so I have more time. I don’t want to get my yard ready for the spring, so I’ll hire a lawn-care outfit. My toilet doesn’t work, so I’ll just call a plumber.

Such choices are often easily justified in that they save time or that they take care of a task you don’t know how to do. These arguments would be worthwhile if you actually utilized the time for something productive or you were incapable of learning.

First, the time factor. If you’re truly doing something more productive with your time while someone else is mowing the yard, that’s probably a worthwhile expense. But rarely is that the case. Quite often, it’s just a matter of shuffling time around and what you actually gain is more idle time. Why not get out there with a push mower, get some exercise, and get your yard mowed?

What about the knowledge factor? Usually, when you pay someone to do something you don’t know how to do, it’s really expensive and it doesn’t save you much time, either. So why not try to teach yourself how to do it? There are tons of resources online to help you with almost any household activity you might want to try – and most of them are quite a bit easier than you think.

Not only do you save money by doing it yourself, you usually learn something useful in the process. Perhaps later you’ll be able to share that skill with others, becoming a more useful friend.

On the other hand, why not just throw cash at the problem?

Shop Without a List or a Purpose
You’re on your way home from work and you remember you need milk, so you stop at the grocery store to pick it up. While you’re in there, you remember another thing or two you need, and before you know it, you’re wandering out with $50 worth of food.

Your friends want to go do something and you wind up at a store for entertainment’s sake. Before you know it, you’re back home with three or four bags with items in them. What happened?

Every time you enter a store without a list or a very specific purpose, you run the risk of being unduly influenced by marketing and peer pressure. You look around at the items on the shelves, often arranged to put attractive things right at your eye level. You wander without purpose, taking in that information. If you’re with friends, you’re often engaged in discussion about how it would be nice to have these items. Thus, unsurprisingly, you often walk out with stuff you really didn’t need.

A much better plan is to never enter a store without a very specific plan. Know exactly what you’re going to buy before you go in the door. At the grocery store, that probably means preparing a list in advance. In other situations, that means willpower – deciding before you ever go in that you’re not going to buy anything at all, no matter what.

Use the Plastic
Hand in hand with shopping without a purpose is the temptation of using credit or debit cards to aid and abet poorly-considered purchases.

For most people, plastic means you don’t have to have the cash to buy the item. They don’t even have to think about whether they have the cash to buy the item. They can just swipe and walk out with the item.

This is the big reason why it makes sense to go cash-only, at least until you have the willpower to not use the plastic for any unnecessary purchases. Without that strong willpower, it’s so incredibly easy to just swipe the plastic that it’s no wonder people get in deep financial trouble.

As with many other things on this list, it’s a “drop in the bucket” factor. Doing it once isn’t a big deal – nor is doing it twice. But with each little decision, you fill up that bucket more and more, and carrying that bucket becomes harder and harder.

So, each time you make a strong choice here, you keep that bucket lighter. You make it easier to make progress. And you get to your destination quicker.

Put Off Important Tasks
I really need to get signed up for that 401(k) plan. I should get an automatic savings plan in place. You know, I really ought to get an emergency fund set up.

All of these tasks fall into the category of being “important but not urgent.” That means they’re things that should be done, but since they don’t have to be done immediately, they’re easy to put off.

And so many of us do. We put off these important things that need to be done. Often, we replace them with idleness or with tasks that are urgent but not important (like answering telemarketing phone calls).

The only problem is that the more we do this replacement, the further we fall behind. We miss out on building up our emergency fund and our retirement because we kept putting it off. We miss out on some stock market growth. We actually have an emergency, but don’t have enough money to simply take care of it.

Every day we choose to delay those “important but not urgent” tasks – exercise, financial tasks, and so on – the further we slip behind. Every day we choose to take ahold of at least one of these tasks, the further ahead we get. We make that choice every single day.

Give In to Habits and Addictions
Caffeine. Cigarettes. Alcohol. Drugs. Shopping. Television. World of Warcraft. All of these things can easily be addictions in people’s lives. They consume their time. They consume their money. They consume their motivation.

In the end, they become shackles, holding us back from progress.

The more addictions you can break free from, the more time you have and the more money you have. Getting through the transition to an addiction-free life can be really difficult, but as long as you’re held back by an addiction, you have a constant money and time leak in your life. The need to fix coffee every morning. The need to buy cigarettes all the time. The need to re-stock the liquor cabinet. The need to meet up with your guild every night. Time is money, and addiction eats them both.

Every day, you have a choice to make a change and walk away. Do you continue the habit – or do you make a change?

Surround Yourself with Unhelpful People
In the end, we’re often a reflection of the people around us. It’s been shown time and time again that our salary is often equal to the average salary of our five closest friends. Why? If we surround ourselves with people with negative behavior, our own behaviors become negative. If we surround ourselves with people with positive behavior, our own behaviors become positive.

What are the people around you like? Are they striving to get themselves in a good financial state? Are they helpful and supportive to you? Are they positive about the world around them? Do they listen to you? Do they encourage you to think of the world in a different way?

Or perhaps they just always talk about the same old stuff. Do they complain a lot? Do they spend most of their time in escapist behavior? Do you feel like you can’t ask them for real help? Do they just reinforce what you already think?

Take a strong look at the people around you – the ones you spend your time with – and ask yourself if they’re helping you to grow as a person – or if they’re holding you in place.