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Standard time-management advice urges that you first write your personal mission statement. But I believe there’s an valuable preceding step: getting clear on your guiding principles.
The following questions should help you identify yours. It may help if I provide a sample answer, including its rationale. I’ll use myself as the basis for the sample answer because I know myself better than I know anyone and I've thought a fair amount about my life's guiding principles.
Where should you most devote your time and money?
Sample answer: At the risk of turning-off most readers, I don't understand why family should trump all. After all, we’re thrust into our family of origin at random. And while we do choose our friends and romantic partners, if their needs or potential to profit from our efforts aren’t the greatest, shouldn’t we devote our efforts to people and causes with greater potential to profit?
Hence my guiding principle is to spend as much time as possible making the biggest difference. For example, this is the 1,301st article I’ve written for Psychology Today, which have had more than 7 million views. I’m very grateful for the latter because it greatly enhances my sense of worth. That leads to a corollary of my “make the biggest difference” guiding principle: My worth as a human being depends largely on how big a difference I’ve made. That view stands in contrast to the oft-made assertion that we are worthy mainly by being, not doing. I couldn’t disagree more.
What do you most believe in?
Sample answer: I imagine that most people would say "God" but I most believe in the power of the best-and-brightest (including kind) people. I spend as much time as possible with such people. For example, I invited seven such people to form a Board of Advisors. We meet on freeteleconferencecall.com monthly for one hour. The format is simple: I ask, “Who has a problem or idea they’d like to share on which they’d like the group’s reaction?” It’s four years later and the Board of Advisors is still going strong—It seems clear that we've all derived more benefit and thus can be more contributory than if the group consisted of a less select group.
Similarly, I invest in companies that attract the best and brightest and that I believe make the world, net, a much better place. Perhaps surprising, my largest investment is in Amazon. I am well aware that the media criticizes Amazon because it requires its employees to work hard, but I value hard work. More important, as a utilitarian, I consider the net impact of a company, a policy, whatever. And Amazon makes available to the world nearly every imaginable product, easily curatable, and deliverable to your door, at a low price. It also enables small sellers from Accra to Zululand to sell their products, from artwork to flower seeds to the 12 books I’ve written, to an enormous number of people.
How do you want to spend your time?
In light of my previous answer, it may surprise you that I care little about making money. I care more about spending as much time as possible using my best abilities to make the biggest difference possible, even if it pays poorly. Hence, for writing these articles, I get paid less per hour than I could have made flipping burgers. I don’t get paid at all for hosting my KALW (NPR-San Francisco) radio program, Work with Marty Nemko, even though I’m in my 30th year and am not shy about negotiating. Indeed, I’ve written a number of articles on that subject, for example, Compensation Negotiation for Employees.
What socio-political-economic system do you most believe in?
Society’s mind-molders—the schools, colleges, and media—have been largely appropriated by the Left. So, almost with one voice, those mind-molders push for additional redistribution from Society’s Haves to its Have-Nots with little regard to whether that’s wresting from the pool of people with greater potential to contribute to society.
I believe in offering a truly basic safety net for everyone. I define basic as what is provided for college students: dorm living and clinic-style health care provided mainly by physician assistants. Beyond that, I believe resources should be allocated to those with above-average potential to contribute to society, where possible, leaving that to the free market, which tends to do that with, as Adam Smith called it, “The Invisible Hand of the market:" people voting with their feet. I believe that government should be as small as possible because of its tendency to be inefficient, for example, the $2 million bathroom in a little-used park, when private contractors insisted they could have built it for $70,000. Multiply that by the trillions of dollars that the government spends of our money and it's mind-boggling how much it wastes.
The takeaway
As 2019 begins, it’s not a bad time to develop your foundational guiding principles. Perhaps this article will help you identify yours.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
