Progress Test 14. Use of English B2

How do people learn leadership? For most, if s through …           [attempts, trial, efforts, tries] I and error. While some things come only through experience, I believe the framework for how leadership works can be learned by looking at the 5 Levels. So let's start with an overview and a few insights about the Levels and how they work. Then we can look at each level individually in the subsequent sections of this book. As you look at each level, you will learn the upside, downside, and best behaviors for that level. You will also become             [popular, acquainted, motivated, satisfied] with the beliefs that help a leader move up to the next level.

People follow you because they have to. Position is the lowest level of leadership —the entry level. The only influence a positional leader has            [had been, was, have been, is]that which comes with the job title. Positional leadership is based on the rights                 [granting, granted, having granted, are granted] by the position and title. Nothing is wrong with having a leadership position. Everything is wrong with using position to get people to follow you. Position is a poor substitute for influence.

Bucketing is an approach to financial planning that              [helped, helps, was helping, have helped]us think about our wealth in "buckets" to visualize our              [resigning, retirement, adolescence, divorce] and give us a story for why we have each asset. We generally fund three buckets: one for today, one for tomorrow, and one for the future.

Small things can become big things, which can move mountains. I love quotes, data, information-anything that             [showed, showing, shows, have shown] how small actions can create powerful change.

Be          [driving, driven] not by your importance but by the work that you're trying to do.

GIST

When I was young, I              [think, thinking, thought, had thought] that the hard stuff was finance, manufacturing, operations, and accounting. You had to go to school to learn these subjects. I thought the easy stuff was managing, motivating, and leading people.

You didn't have to study and learn these—they were easy and             [didn’t, would, use to, didn’t use] come naturally.

You know what I'm going to tell you next: I was 100 percent wrong. The easy stuff is finance, manufacturing, operations, and              [executing, accounting, monitoring, supervising]. They are important but learnable skills. If you can't learn them, you can hire someone who has. The hard stuff is managing, motivating, and leading people.

If you think that leadership is            [solving, deciding, knowing, realizing]what you want and telling people to do it, I feel sorry for you. Reality is going kick your ass so far that not even Google will find you. The goal of this chapter is to help you become such a great leader that you'll appear on the first page of a Google search for "leader."

Exude Optimism

Above all, leaders cannot have a bad day. No matter how scared and depressed you are, you cannot show fear, uncertainty, or doubt. You must          [exude, feel, possess, own]optimism every day.

JUST AS A mountain climber who has reached one peak must go down into the valley before climbing to another peak, your life and career will be a series of …           [forward, up, ups, forwards] and downs. As you've heard, "Life is a process of two steps forward and one step back.

All business life is               [made up of, include, consists of, includes]of cycles and trends. There are up cycles and down cycles. Often, trends in business can lead to a complete change in the industry. We see this today with the Internet and the expansion of technology in all directions, which are changing many of our fixed ideas and beliefs about the way business                 [have done, is doing, is done, was being done].

DOING WHAT YOU love to do is one of the great secrets of financial success. One of your primary responsibilities in life is to find out what you really enjoy        [doing, to do], what you have a natural talent      [in, for], and then to throw your whole heart into doing that particular work very, very well.

Self-made millionaires are those who have found a field where their natural strengths and abilities are exactly what               [was required, is required, requires, required] to do the job and achieve the results desired.

Goal             [dreaming, setting, exercising, finding] can be a powerful technique to engage action. Research from Dominican University, conducted by Dr Gail Matthews, found that people who wrote down their goals, put down written actions, and committed to progress reports were more likely to achieve their goals than those who did not write down their goals.'

The people who came before us have managed to speak up, stand up, and make a             [decision, choice, effort, difference]. While each journey is unique, each follows a pattern-and once you see it, it's yours. We simply need to find the courage to be more creative. The forces that are holding us back have long been unseen, but we can see and understand them and begin to do our work. The practice is there if we're               [reluctant, willing, disappointed, frustrated] to sign up for it. And the practice will open the door to the change you seek to make.

The Pattern and the Practice.

Our lives follow a pattern. For most of us, that pattern               [was set, has set, set, had been set] a long time ago.

If intrinsic drivers are about creating the psychological energy required to push us            [forward, backwards, upwards], goals tell us exactly where we want to go.

We started the process of identifying our goals when we created our massively transformative purpose, or what could be considered a mission statement for our lives. Here, we want to break that mission statement down into smaller        [series, chunks, pieces, rows], dividing up the impossible into a long series of difficult but doable goals that, if accomplished, render said impossible much more probable.

This is not a new idea. Over two thousand years ago, the philosopher Aristotle noticed that setting goals —that is, the establishment of a desired                [process, outcome, accomplishment, execution] or target-was one of the primary motivators of human behavior.' He called goals one of the four foundational "causes".

In essence, we start with the big dream, then we set goals, then we do the planning! Ultimately, the process of financial planning must include helping you            [accomplish, prioritize, execute, achieve] goals, set funding parameters, review cash flow and develop time horizons.

Thus, we've looked back at our past and reviewed our vision for the future. Now, let's look at how and why we should consider          [to set, setting] goals.

Goal setting can be a powerful technique to engage action. Research from Dominican University, conducted by Dr Gail Matthews, found that people who wrote down their goals, put down written actions, and            [subjected, committed] to progress reports were more likely to achieve their goals than those who did not write down their goals.'

Let's start by looking at two concepts that come from the well-researched field of positive             [numerology, psychology, sociology]:

• Well-being theory and the PERMA model          [outline, outlive, consist, make up] five key building blocks for flourishing from Dr Martin Seligman and colleagues at University of Pennsylvania). Those five key building blocks are: positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.? To increase our well-being, we must intentionally focus on how to bring more of each of the five elements of the PERMA model into our lives.

Prospective psychology theorizes that who we are today is not simply a result of our past experiences, but is more influenced by who we believe we will be in the future.' Creating a vibrant vision of what we want in the future                    [influences on, influences, influenced, have an influence] our lives today. What do you want your life to look like in the future? If you haven't given it much thought, you're missing out on an incredible opportunity to improve your life. Prospective psychology tells us we act                    [In favor of, in accordance with, thanks to, apart from] who we think we'll be in the future, not who we've been in the past.

The majority of arguments and misunderstandings happen because you and I are not          [clear, obvious, evident, likely] or honest about how we feel or what we want,          [neither, either] because we expect others to just know what we want or we're afraid to be open about how we feel.

The solution: practice           [is, was, has been, being]open, clear, and honest about your intentions while being gentle and kind. What are some of your intentions that you could communicate to those you love?