Self Development Idea (16): Individual Destiny Enrichment (IDE) Program

Few weeks ago, I had a Chinese New Year gathering session with some old colleagues and friends, and we were talking about the GOOD OLD TIME... of Motorola.

There were many programs and cultures that were great, and I particularly like the Individual Dignity Entitlement (IDE) Program. 

The frist time I saw the six questions (as shown in the following picture) on a notice board while I was a young engineer travelled to Boynton Beach Factory in Florida about 20 years ago.  I got a strange feeling after reading through these questione carefully.  I didn't know if the feeling was FEAR or EXCITEMENT for the heart beat raised while thinking about the answers! 

For the fear part, I thought: What if I were to answer "NO" to some of these questions, then why AM I here with the company?  Would I get fire for that?  And, If I were to answer "Yes" to all the questions, I must be fooling myself or not thinking hard enough.

For the excitement part, I felt that there must be something I can learn and benefit from it as these questions ask something that I'd never seriously thought about.

Yes!  Under the Ex-CEO, Chris Galvin, the IDE program was launched world-wide, including new factories in China down to the operator level.

Of course, this program did not exist in the company for long time already, but the profound impact to many individual still exsit.

Be still, and think.
Why would we need to have an immediate boss to has a dialogue with us every three months in order to discover our very own problems and opportunities for improvement?

Why Not change only a few word*, as shown in the below diagram, and make it a very personal IDE (Individual Destiny Enrichment) Program and do personal review?

The good culture should continue to stay with the individual regardless the company continue to exist or not.

 

"If you don't put in effort to control your own destiny,

someone else will most willingly do it for you."

- unknown

By the way...
I read about some articles long time ago, mainly from WSJ, commented Chris Galvin was not living in a realistic world and took this program as an example.
And, I don't think so.  It must had taken extremely great courage for him to launch and roll out this program world-wide.  For many companies which only main goal is profits, the management would be ashamed to read through the original questions.

And, only until the people are tired of all those scandals, from big financial scandals to the milk powder scandals, and recent horse meat scandals...world-wide, people will eventually realize the vision of such profound program.





-----------------------------------------  Added on 28 Feb 2013  --------------------------------------------

[From the Harvard's Famous Success Principle]
The difference between the success and failure of a person is based on how he uses his after working hours. And his destiny is decided by how he use the time between 8.00pm to 10.00pm.

Every night, take 2 hours to read, study, think or involve in meaningful discussion or debate. You will discover that your life starting to change. Continue to persist this for years..... And Success will wave it's hand to you.













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Self Development Idea (15): The Template for Your Journey

Recently, I have come across a very interesting book with profound insight – “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” – released in 1949, by Joseph Campbell.

Since then, it became the "Bible" of movie script writers.  And, the stages of the hero's journey outlined in the book had influenced a number flimmakers...  Such as George Lucas's Star Wars, Disney's The Lion King, etc...
 






The.
There are many articles on the internet wrote about the details on each step on the template, and I found an excellent short video clip in Youtube that illustrate the points clearly:
Here is the link if you cannot see it below: -> LINK

Now, I AM curious... 
Is there any metaphor that we can learn something from this?

Of course.  Since the Hollywood script writers can use it so successfully over and over, again and again to create movies that can resonate with the audience, meaning that there is something within the viewers even the viewers themselves may not consciously aware of it...

See, I believe that the Author, Joseph Campbell did not write this book to with the intention to inspire filmmakers or story writers.  He wrote this to inspire all his readers and gave them many examples of how Hero in the past had acheive their success and what stages (challenges) they had been through. 

There is a Chinese saying, "人生如戏 戏如人生"  - "A Life is just like a Movie, a Movie is just like a Life."   So true! 
Then, isn't it a good idea to use the template to recognize what stage are we in the journey of life right now, and then continue to write the scripts for our own magnificent journey?

 

 

Life is without meaning.  You bring the

meaning to it.  The meaning of life

is whatever you ascribe it to be. 

Being alive is the meaning.

- Joseph Campbell

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Self Development Idea (14) - There are Pattern of Cycles in Life

A week ago, I attended a Trading Seminar on CFD (a kind of leveraged derivative product).  And, I was surprised to notice something interesting, there is some kind of a pattern, that worth the while to write it down.

Just like the products in the market, everything that lives has a pattern of cycle in their life, and it goes through the phases of birth, growth, fruitage, and decline.

Isn't it true that when a baby is born, he will have to go through some patterns that designed for him.

Such as go through the kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, college and university, then start to work, .... , retire and then die.

So, back to the subject that I want to write about, and here is the "Pattern" that I noticed in the seminar:

It was held in a big lecture theatre.  There are three columns of seats and each column has about 30 rows of seats.  Though it was not full-house, I figured out that there was about 350 participants.  I paid attention on the age of the participants in the recess time.  I can divide them into three age group of participants.

1) The age group of 30-45 (25%) 

2) The age group of 45-55 (50%)

3) The age group of 55-60 (25%)

And, when the seminar start, the speaker asked: "How many of you are the first time to attend such seminar?"  I saw about 50% of the people in the room put up their hands.

Do you noticed that most of the people, at least in this place, wait until they are retired or about to retire, then they start to learn about the stock market.

It was quite a "happy" seminar, because the speaker flipped through a couple of historical charts and showed the audience that how money can be easily made with some very simple strategies.  Also, with the leverage, a few ten of thousands dollars is all you need to make more than the averaged pay worker in the country.  

A few rounds of applause had gone round the theatre when the speakers shown some strategies to handle the historical charts and emphasis that it can be easily done with very little training - where to buy and when to sell.

Since, the speaker had mentioned that no one can take any audio recording nor video, or he will sue the person...

Then... I saw many hard working participants taking tons of notes while the speaker delivering the presentation.

And, me too...  make my own note after the seminar.  Just a few words with a picture, and it is attached below.

Well, this is NOT to make joke of the beginner participants for believing that there is easy money out there for them to pick,  for I'd been there, done that ten over years ago...   RATHER, the intention is to alert all to take time to know about this stuffs... 

 

Personally, I view this as a failure of the public education system (worldwide) that there is no syllabus in educating students on the area of personal finance and stock market in their early stage of life.

 

 

See.  If we can know some kind of challenges (pattern of cycles) that we will have to face years down the road.  Wouldn't it be good to spend time in learning more about it and be prepared first before we need to handle it face-to-face?   As sooner or later, most likely one will come to a point where he need to handle his personal finance as saving in the banks is not getting any yield, and fund managers are not reliable nowadays.

 

"Most people tip-toe through life, hoping

they’ll make it safely to death."

– Bob Proctor

 

 

-----------------------Add on 13 Dec 12----------------------

 

This is a typical chart from advertisement. 

Unfortunately, they do not supply with a time machine to take full advantage of it.

 

 

 

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Self Development Idea (13) - Two Worlds of Reality, and the Magic Mirror

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Everyone of us is simultaneously living in two worlds of reality. One is the "Inside world", and the other is the "Outside world".

In the Inside world, it is yourself consist of "Philosophy, Thoughts, Feelings, Emotions, and Attitudes."

In the Outside world, it is your Environment of "People, Place, Things, Events and full of Public Opinions."

And, in between the two worlds, there is a Magic Mirror.
This mirror has the ability to reflect the reality from one side to the other side...


Note: A summary note taken from reading the book "Mind Power by John Kehoe"
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Take for example.

If the person has a stronger faith in his own Internal World, he is able to eventually project it into the Outside World through the help of his own subconscious mind.

On the other hand, the other case is true also, for a person who does not set any goal or does not has any belief of faith that he can make a difference... The Outside World would keep telling him that this is wrong and that is bad ... Eventually, this would reflect into the person Internal World. Which would create stress and harmful to the body.

So. It is a better deal to choose to be happy and have peace of mind, rather than let the Outside World to dictate what they want you to be.

Many may have read that popular phrase "Your are what you think you are...".  Well, that is over simplified and not accurate. A sage puts it, "We aren't what we think we are, but what WE THINK,  WE ARE!"

"All mankind's inner feelings eventually manifest

themselves as an outer reality."

— Stuart Wilde

Evolve and In Sync With Business Demand

《庄子·列御寇》："朱泙漫学屠龙于支离益，殚千金之家。三年技成，而无所用其巧。"

Zhuangzi once told a story:" A man, PengMan Zhu, wanted to learn the skill of killing dragon from a master, LiYi Zhi. He spent a great fortune for learning the skill. Three years later, he mastered the skill. But, he got no where to apply what he had learnt. (or in today's term, he cannot find a job.)"

The moral of the story is that one must lean a skill that can be applied in this reality world.

 

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Well, let's see how this story, when combine with the following story, may help one to look at thing in a different perspective in this modern society, which may help to rock one out of her comfort zone or develop a sense of urgency in change.

Looking back in our history, the main business of all the developed countries had gone through the phases of shifting from farming/fishing to industrialization(factories), then from industrialization to information age and eventually become financial centers.

The paces of the shift were happened at different rate in different countries/regions of the world. In general, it happened faster in the more developed countries...

Now...

Let's take a look at a real life example of such rapid change of my lovely country, Singapore, in the past 4 decades...

1.) Since the late 60's Merlion was the key symbol representing Singapore. Its name combines "mer" meaning sea and "lion". The fish body comes from Singapore's ancient name back when it was a fishing village.

Merlion

2.) Then in the 70's, Singapore attracted more and more foreign investors from the west to set up factories, and getting more and more industrialized. Changi Aiport Tower became another important symbol to represent that milestone.

Changi Airport Tower

3.) On the same time, Singapore had also developed many theme parks, such as the famous Singapore Zoo, Bird park, and the representative one is Sentosa, for tourism.

Sentosa

4.) Then Singapore evolved into a Financial Center with Shenton Way Buildings as a Logo.

Shenton Way

5.) Now, Singapore has its new logo -- Sands Singapore -- a world class glamorous Integrated Resort.

Sands Singapore

Anyway, this is just to show the change in trend.

Needless to say in detail, there is really nothing to be proud of to have Casinos in the country... Though this will bring in progress in GDP, it would also bring along decay in other intangible aspects!

See... I once read about an interview with a VP of a Casino in Las Vegas, he described that his job is very challenging ->"On one hand, it is our business to suck up maximum profit from our customers; on the other hand, it is our job to keep most of them happy."

6.) What's next in the next decade?!

7.)  In what Stage of the Industry Life-cycle for the job that you are holding onto now?
      It may be a tough question to answer...  And, if one does not feel that kind of excitement he used to have when he newly join the industry, the answer is clear and need to say no more.

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With the above example, it shows that most skills that one can learn from the University would likely to be obsolete and out-of-synch with the market demand in about 10 years time. While a typical person working life span is about 40 years nowadays (say, 25 to 65).

Take for example, when the manufacturing plants move out to other countries, an engineering manager may choose to move together with the plant for start up... However, if he did not manage to learn some new skill, while he is working full time on the current job, he would need to follow the plant whenever and wherever it goes... and provided the plant is still exist and need him...

For this reason, just an opinion, self-initiated continuous learning of new things is suggested. :-)

"Without continual growth and progress, such words

as improvement, achievement, and success

have no meaning."

- Benjamin Franklin

Relevant Articles:
Project Freedom

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The Pyramid of Harmonic Wealth

Click on the picture to zoom in...

Above is a template that can be use to plan for personal goals and success. I first found the similar template, a few years ago, from a book (Fulfill Your Dream With A Diary) "记事本圆梦计划" by a successful Japanese businessman/ entrepreneur/ author - 熊谷正寿. And, it been very helpful to organize personal plans in a balanced and harmonic way. Such as, it can help one to focus on the ultimate goals rather than distract by the day-to-day activities. That is to focus on business rather than busy-ness.

Recently, while sharing the template with a friend, Clara Szalai, she immediately pointed out that something is missing... and inspired me to put in a very Key and Important factor that most of us had been taken for granted while pursuing personal goals --> that is the Factor of Environmental. Very true, we must intentionally preserve the environment while in the process of building individual wealth, that's the way for long term sustainability. Thanks, Clara.


O.K.
Having acknowledged the sources, now let's discuss on the philosophy, in brief, of the template and how it may be useful for individual.




As shown in the diagram above, there are stages in building the Personal Pyramid of Harmonic Wealth.

The Fundamental Stage consist of the building block of "Intellectual","Physical", and "Spiritual".
The Real-life Stage consist of the building block of "Personal" and "Social".
The building block of Result Stage is "Financial".
Now, think about it, where should this Whole Pyramid got to build onto? On the solid foundation on of mother earth... and that's why the "Environmental" got to be added - which is usually too conveniently forgotten.

In order to build a solid and stable pyramid, one should start work from the lower level. That is the Fundamental Stage. This take personal time and effort, such as learning and research of specialized knowledge, exercise, meditation, etc...

Follow by creating a harmony personal life and using his knowledge to contribute to the society. Then the Financial Wealth would follow automatically when one can bring value to the market place.

Take for example, there are countless examples of how some individual suddenly gain huge amount of money, but just not able to keep it and get back into poverty within short time. This is mainly that they do not have a solid foundation to hold on to the temporary financial wealth.

As for the environment factor....
It deserves everyone to put more attention to it, especially nowadays. Mainly because people did not pay much attention to it while on the way to build their own wealth.
Simple act such as bring along a bottle of water along when getting out rather than buying bottled-water which creates one rubbish bottle, etc...


Come across an amusing news:
------------------------------------------------------8<----------------------------------------------------------
A recent survey posted by US Private Banks surveyed individuals with a net worth of US$38 million or more. Of those surveyed, 65% stated that they felt "financially insecure."

------------------------------------------------------8<----------------------------------------------------------

So, apparently financial security should not be measured purely by the number of dollar alone...

Most likely their foundation for they pyramid got some problems to sustain the dollars that they had accumulated...

And, may be this could fix:

-> Downloadable Template and Planner <-

So, the state of being Financially Secure is not how much money

one had already been accumulated in the past, rather it is the

confidence in her own ability to earn enough now/future,

and to grow whatever she has at a rate faster

than inflation in the future.

:-)

Bless You
KH Tang

Using "The Power of Consciousness" to Heal Gaia (Mother Earth)

The following blog entry shows a similar idea from two Great Men, Napoleon Hill and Bruce Lipton, in leading the way for building a better world using consciousness...

1. Napoleon Hill's Golden Rule

More than half a century ago, in his book Napoleon Hill’s Golden Rules, after learning from a scientist on how the human cells function in the body, he wrote about his imagination on how the entire human race is working interactively like the cells in a human body.

8<-------------------------------------------excerpt -----------------------------------------

I saw, in my imagination, the entire human race, every living human being on earth, all gathered in one spot and standing in such a position as to form the perfect outline of a human being. At a distance, this seething mass of humanity would resemble one enormous human being. I could see health and success and prosperity for the whole mass as long as there was no discord or misunderstanding between the individuals who constituted the whole. I could see some of the human beings plowing the ground while others were sowing seed and getting ready to produce food. I could see some of the individuals of that enormous gathering working on clothing. I would see still others entertaining the mass with music and causing each individual to be happy and contented.

Perfect harmony prevailed in this imaginary picture. Every individual had plenty to eat and plenty to wear. All were happy and contented. Sorrow and grief were not to be found.

Then, with sudden switch of the imagination, I saw the picture from another angle, an angle which is comparable to the story of the human cells of which the scientist had been telling me. Away down toward the bottom of this great mass of human beings, at a point which would correspond to one of the imaginary giant’s feet, I saw two tiny little human beings get into an argument. They came to blows. Other human beings began to rush up and join in the argument. Pretty soon, one of the entire feet of the imaginary giant had discontinued its regular business, and the ‘‘human cells’’ of which the foot was composed were fighting among themselves. They no longer cooperated. They no longer functioned normally. Pretty soon, the entire body began to feel the loss of one of its feet. It was crippled. It tried to walk but could not move. Other parts of the body commenced to suffer. The body, as a whole, commenced to suffer with hunger because the loss of its foot prevented it from producing food.

Slowly, that enormous body began to wither and go into decay. I could not help comparing it to the individual human body which withers, goes into decay, and finally into death when any group of cells ceases to carry on its normal work.

There is a remedy which is often applied with successful results when the individual cells of the human body begin to ‘‘lie down on the job,’’ and that remedy is to re-establish harmony and cooperation among the cells to the end that they will again function normally.

That same remedy is the one, and probably the only one, which will save the human race and bring it back to normal, healthy, constructive living once more. The same principle which causes the tiny human body cells to function and cooperate in peace and harmony while the individual enjoys a healthy, happy human body applies with equal precision to the entire human race.

8<-------------------------end of excerpt ------------------------------

2. Bruce Lipton's "Spontaneous Evolution"

Video Link to You Tube:<-


And now, Bruce Lipton, a modern internationally recognized leader in bridging science and spirit, has further illustrated the same idea with scientific data and examples in great extend!

In this 50 minutes video clip, it covers many topics which will propel individual onto the path of better consciousness, such as the difference between Subconscious Mind and Conscious Mind, the effect of circumstance on people, how this world became a dog-eat-dog world, and what's the solution to co-create a better world in the very very near future (as the current world system cannot sustain this rate of exponential decay.)

"天下事在局外呐喊议论，总是无益。

必须躬自入局， 挺膺负责 乃有成事之可翼。"

-曾国藩

"For whatever matter it may be, simply by complaining or shouting

outside the scene yet not participating in it will never help.

One must do his part in co-creating the event,

then it can be successful."

- GuoFan,Zeng (A Minister in Qing Dynasty)

Comments:<-

Self Development Idea (12) - Team and Grow Rich

-----8< ----- Article Cut & Paste from Scientific American MIND, Vol 17 No 3, June/July 2006 -----

Better Than Individuals

When three, four or five people gather to solve a problem, chances are they will succeed beyond the efforts of an equivalent number of individuals working separately, even if those soloists are the brightest available. So conclude researchers at the University of Illinois.

The investigators enrolled 760 of the school’s students to solve complex letter and word problems. Some toiled as individuals while others functioned in groups of two, three, four or fi ve. The groups of three, four and fi ve performed better than any set of individuals.

The dynamic is sensitive, however. Teams of two performed at the same level as two separate people, suggesting that this team size is too small to foster the dynamics that create optimal problem solving. Also interesting is that groups of three, four and five did equally well compared with one another; there was no advantage to adding people beyond a trio.

Study leader Patrick R. Laughlin says that in addition to tackling workplace challenges, problem-solving groups might enhance classroom learning. Further research is needed to determine whether student groups perform better than individuals do in academic settings and, if so, at what ages and tasks.

— Mark Fischetti

--------------------------------------------------------------8< ------------------------------------------------------

Although the result of the above research is nothing new for those who had studied the books by Napoleon Hill, I think it is an excellent articles to illustrate the important point of teamwork.

Napoleon Hill called it the "Master Mind Group"- the power beyond science. In short he described that "The Master Mind effort is to get those of like mind, form an alliance with about 5-6 people as optimum number, to work actively in a spirit of perfect harmony towards accomplishing of a definite purpose."

In my view, this concept is now more valuable than any of the historical time. This is because the knowledge that need to achieve success in the modern society has become so complex that not only the depth, but also the breath of subjects are increasing rapidly which fuel by modern technology.

For example, in the past, a farmer, scientist, doctor, teacher, engineer or any person who have a full time job can concentrate in their work and entrust their life-time saving to the fund managers and banks that would be needed for retirement. But, in this dog-eat-dog era, with too many "Bad Apples" in the market, people has to worry about the ethical issues of their brokers/fund managers, bankruptcy of banks... And even with the possibility of bankruptcy of certain states or the whole country... or yet another round of financial turbulence that might wipe out their saving or loose their job!!! Think about it, what a joke (though not funny but a sad one) for the thousand years of evolution of human history.

Working harder on the job would not solve such problems. Think of it this way:- one would need to fill up a bucket of water as accumulating enough personal retirement fund. But, one cannot fill up a bucket if there are a few leaking holes on it. The more water one fill into it, the more it would leak out.

Anyway, here is a little suggestion... Individual can form team to handle their financial matters, and make sure that at least one person in the term have a compass to navigate through the turbulence market in the future.

"A dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant

may see farther than a giant himself."

- Didacus Stella.

Here is a blog link for those who are not familiar with the term "Master Mind Group".

Self Development Idea (11) - Why do we need to read lots of good books?

continue from Reading Good Books

I have once read an article about a corporation-coach, but do not remember his name. He claimed that he can accurately predict a person incomes and asset net worth for person in five years down the road if one just agrees to take a simple survey.

So, what kind of survey?

It is very simple…

1) Just list down the 5 best friends that one always gets together for leisure or work.

2) List down their individual income and asset net-worth then divide by 5.

And, that would be income and asset net-worth the one person will have in 5 years down the road.

Think about it, it makes sense! See...

* "Bird of a feather flock together"

* "Wise men think alike, and fools seldom differ"

* " 物以类聚"

I have also come across a story told by Steve Chen (陈安之) that once Jack Canfield (author of Chicken soup series) was having a motivation speech in the same event with Anthony Robbins. At the back stage, Jack was asking Anthony: “Well, we are both giving motivational speech to our audience. But, I am wondering, after so many years of working… I am still just a millionaire and you are a billionaire. What do you think I can get improve on that?”

Anthony then asking back with a question: “Who are you best friends, and what’s their average net worth?”

Jack: “Well, my best friends are mostly pretty successful businessmen or professionals in certain fields. They are all millionaires.”

Anthony: “See..., that’s the point. My friends are mostly billionaires.”

So, one may think that what’s the use of knowing these stories as he don’t think that he have a chance to get to know millionaire personally…

Well, here is the Point: When people get together, they share information, ideas, inspiration, etc. AND, one can get similar information, ideas, inspiration, etc. from Good Books which were written by successful people.

Similarly, our thoughts (which will become our action and bring us the results) could affect by other “Information” that feed into our brain, consciously or subconsciously. One must not only just pay attention on the books that he read, but also the audio/video from the environment.

back to Reading Good Books with a short list of good books.

"You cannot change your destination overnight,

but you can change your direction overnight."

- Jim Rohn

Self Development Idea (10) - Reading Good Books

"It isn' what the book costs; it's what it will cost if you don't read it." - Jim Rohn

Jim Rohn been mentioned that most homes valued over USD500K in the US have a library. Does it tell us something? Do you think that these people read first and get the house later or the other way round?

"A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read." Mark Twain

Reading good books is just like finding giants who allow us to stand on their shoulders, to get more ideas, see further, think deeper and broader, etc... Which can eliminate lots of trail and error in life.

Take for example, in the book "Buffetology", it reveals that Warren Buffet had put education in priority and perosnally spent time to educate his grand-daugthers, at the age of 10, in investment. And that these children can select stocks that out-perform the wall street professionals.

Well, as most public are not so lucky to born into those billionaire home where they can have private education on certain subjects that lead them to easier success in certain aspect of life. Therefore, one good way to over come this challenge is to read lot of good books. As this is fully within his personal control.

For the question which book is good and which is not... One could easily tell, after he read a couple of them...

Here are some classic that are surely good one(on the aspect of Personal Development):-
* The Power of Subconscious Mind - Joseph Murphy
* Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
* Master Key System - Charles Haanel
* Psycho-Cybernetics - Maxwell Maltz
* Silva Method - José Silva
* You Were Born Rich - Bob Proctor
* The Magic of Believing - Claude M. Bristol
* The Magic of Thinking Big - David Schwartz
* As a Man Thinketh - James Allen (Attached Below)
* The Art of Exceptinal Living - Jim Rohn
* 7 Strategies for WEALTH & HAPPINESS - Jim Rohn
* Mentored by a Millionaire - Steven K. Scott
* The Power of Intention - Wayne W. Dyer
* Mind Power - John Kehoe
* The Genie within - Your Subconscious Mind - How it works and how to use it. - Harry Carpenter
* Beyond Positive Thinking - Dr. Robert Anthony
* The Secret - Rhonda Byrne
* The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey

Due to some issue in browsers compatibility, if you can not see the picture book below, click on the link:->
As a Man Thinketh (Picture Book) (PDF version)

Continue: Why do we need to read lots of good books?

"People often say that motivation doesn't last.

Well, neither does bathing— that's why

we recommend it daily."

— Zig Ziglar


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Added on 14 Apr 2013.  Picture found on facebook

Make sure to install good software. :-)

 

 

Self Development Idea (9) - Recognize that We Don't Know What We Don't Know

"Click to ENLARGE"

The diagram above is known as the “conscious competence learning matrix”, it shows that mastering a skill divides into four different stages.

In stage 1: Not only that the person does not know how to do certain thing, but also that he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. In this stage, the person is just like a new baby.

In stage 2: The person has exposed to some new skills that other people can perform well, while he doesn’t know how to do it. In this stage, the person is just like a curious kid.

In stage 3: The person has put in effort to learn the new skill that he is interested in. He can then perform the task with full concentration. In this stage, the person is just like an apprentice.

In stage 4: The person can perform the task with ease as he already mastered the skill. The skill becomes his habit of handling any situation or task. In this stage, the person is the Champion in that field.

Well, this is just a very brief summary on the topic, and there are many literatures can be found in the web on this topic if one is interested… (Just search for “consciousness competence”.

On the other hand, based on this concept of this learning model, I think that there is one very interested aspect that we can questions and find some insights out of it…

Let imagine that we can quantify the number of skills in each of the different stage. How big would it be for each of them at any time? The picture above is designed to illustrate the relative size of each stage.

For example, the stage 1, “We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know.”, is by far the biggest as compare to the other 3 stages that it can only show an extremely small portion of it in our computer screen.

For any adult the stage 4 would be the second largest, although it is extremely small compare to stage 1. This is because that for any skill that had been mastered, it becomes part of the person behavior as a habit. It is like everyone has a "Wisdom Pot" that can keep all the skills that we had mastered for a life time. J

The stage 3 is the smallest, as we can only focus in learning one skill at a time.

While stage 2 is larger than stage 3, but one has the choice to choose whether to learn or ignore it.

Now, imagine that we can plot a curve for a person’s stage 4 against the time (or age)… How would it look like? How would the curves be different for a mediocre, an above average, and a super-achiever in life? I am sure you get the idea... The chart above illustrates the difference.

The next question would be... Given that everybody has the same among of time a day (24 hrs), How Come that the Super-Achiever can learn so much more valuable skills that the others cannot?

Perhaps that a quote by Jim Rohn, on personal development, can fully answer this question:->

"Learn to Work Harder on Yourself than You Do on Your Job.

If you work hard on your job, you can make a living.

If you work hard on yourself, you can make a fortune."

Well, this is especially truth in today environment... As a survey made in 2008,

"Given that The median years a person stays in one job is 4.1 years (2008), an avg person will have to have 7-10 jobs."

Picture source from:-> Graduation Thesis

"We are all beginners, and indeed the hopefulness of life is in the realizing
that there are such vistas of unending possibilities before us, that
however far we may advance, we shall always be on the
threshold of something greater."
- Judge Thomas Troward

"One can not escape a prison if he do not know he is in one."

- unknown