The foundation for tomorrow will be laid laid with a) how you handled yourself in the past and b)how you handle yourself today. Since you can’t do anything about what happened in the past, we can only think about what you can do today for a better tomorrow.

A foolproof [re] starter plan includes only two items:

1. Daily Delivery of Real Value Beyond What’s Required for Your Job
2. Daily Investment to Boost Your Future Capacity to Deliver Value at a Lower Cost

I am calling it the [Re] Starter Plan because you should have already been implementing this 2-part plan in your daily life.

Let’s look at both the items above in a bit more detail:

1. Daily Delivery of Real Value Beyond What’s Required for Your Job

If you do what is required for your job, you and I know that very soon you will be history. If you can make it a habit to add “real value” to someone in your network every single day, it will turn out to be golden. Irrespective of what you get back from walking that extra mile, the very act of engaging in the value creation process will put you on a fast track growth path

Creating real value requires you to move the needle in a meaningful fashion for one or more people. It has to be real meaning not something you perceive it as valuable but the recipient acknowledging it as such.

1. Daily Investment to Boost “Your Future Capacity to Deliver Value at a Lower Cost”

Since you and I can’t change the fact that we have only 24 hours to play with, the only variable we can work with is how much value we can pack in those 24 hours that are handed to us. The value that you can pack solely depends on your capacity, the leverage you have with your network and the motivation to actually do something meaningful with time.

Assuming you have the motivation part taken care of, the levers you can work on is your capacity and building the network to give you leverage in the future.

To grow yourself and your network meaningfully, you need a serious investment. Sadly, you can get away with actions of entertaining in the name of educating yourself for a long time. There is enough entertainment material out there that looks like educational material. The only way to measure your own progress is to ask yourself – “What does it take for me to create meaningful value in terms of time, energy and effort as compared to last week or last month?” If you are on the right path, your costs to deliver meaningful value should keep dropping on a continuous basis.

If we have to summarize the 2-part plan in simple terms, it boils to this.

Make a valuable contribution today while building your capacity to make an even more valuable contribution tomorrow.

All the best!