16: How to Spend $700 on Your Professional Development

Frances, one of our listeners, contacted me this week to say that she has $700 in a “use it or lose it” budget within the next week and wanted some advice on what to do. Since many of these resources would be helpful to all of us, it’s the topic for this week’s show.

Two overarching rules to keep in mind before you do anything:

1. Talk to people who are doing the stuff you want to do
2. Have your own professional development plan (I use Michael Hyatt’s life plan that I’ve discussed on prior shows)

Books

• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
• The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner
• How to Win Friends and Influence People (and the new version for the digital age) both by Dale Carnegie
• The 100 Best Business Books of All Time (link for the printed version)
• Amazon Prime – $79 a year (2 day shipping, streaming of movies, borrow one book a month for free)

Publications

• The Wall Street Journal ($103 a year for the digital version)
• Chronicle of Higher Education ($72.50 a year for the digital version)
• Harvard Business Review ($79 a year)

Professional Associations

• What you get? Local chapter and networking and social learning
• These are great for resources too – workshops, classes, book lists, seminars
• Many are $100-$200 annually

Professional Journals

• Leader to Leader Journal ($200/year)

Extended Education programs at local universities

• UCI Education is great for people in Southern California – find a great program near you!

Software education

• Lynda.com ($25 a month or $250 annually)
• Here’s a link for a free 7-day trial on Lynda.com

Massive Open Online Courses

• Academic Earth is a great clearinghouse for these courses

The Great Courses is great for lectures and classes from top professors as well, as long as you’re OK getting lots of catalogs from them

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