Solve Your Problems Using Creativity

by Justin Mazza

Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems.

Creative problem solving involves using your imagination and intuition to come up with ways to solve problems using your natural creative thinking.

The creative process involves being able to view things from a different perspective and the ability to generate new possibilities or alternatives.

The Creative Personality

Characteristics Of A Creative Person according to Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Creative individuals have a great deal of energy, but they are also often quiet and at rest.
Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naive at the same time.
Creative individuals have a combination of playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility.
Creative individuals alternate between imagination and fantasy on one end, and rooted sense of reality at the other.
Creative people seem to harbor opposite tendencies on the continuum between extroversion and introversion.
Creative individuals are also remarkably humble and proud at the same time.
Creative individuals to a certain extent escape rigid gender role stereotyping and have a tendency toward androgyny.
Generally, creative people are thought to be rebellious and independent.
Most creative persons are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.
The openness and sensitivity of creative individuals often exposes them to suffering pain yet also a great deal of enjoyment.
As you can tell the creative person is a walking dichotomy. By being creative the individual is able to view circumstances through different lenses or points of view.

As a result creative people are excellent problem solvers and innovators in our society.

Creative people experience the world in their own original way and they generally have fresh perceptions, insightful judgments, and make important discoveries that only they know about.

Just think about Einstein, Newton, Picasso and Edison to name a few of the famous ones.

Why Do We Need To Be Creative

One of the most valuable uses for creativity is the ability to solve simple or complex problems.

Life is uncertain and the ability to problem solve quickly can not only save you time but will also increase your personal confidence.

When I bought my current home it was a fixer-upper to say the least. Every room had to be re-conditioned due to neglect by the previous owner.

My home improvement skills were limited and so was my finances. I had to use creativity in order to repair my home without spending a lot of money.

Every project that I did I had a pre-conceived idea about how much money it would cost me to repair it.

By using my own creativity I was able to do every project way under budget saving me money that I could use to do other projects.

One example would be that I decided to stucco my living room and dining room ceiling. Stucco ceilings look like stalactites hanging from the ceiling and it’s less work doing it this way than finishing and sanding repeatedly.

Well I needed a stucco brush which I didn’t have and I also did not want to drive all the way to Home Depot and spend the money buying one.

What I did next was use some problem solving skills using creativity. I opened up myself to a solution and sure enough one came to me.

I had an extra push broom in the garage that I wasn’t using so I decided to remove the brush part from the stick handle and cut it in half using my chop saw.

This became my stucco brush and it worked perfectly.

Universal Laws Of Creation.

There is also a Universal form of creation that you may or may not understand. These are known as the four laws of creation. These are Universal laws that apply Absolutely and can NOT be broken?

The Four Laws Of Creation according to Bashar:

1. You exist and in some form you always will (physical death is not the end)

2. The one is the all the all are the one (we appear to be separate individuals but we are all one)

3. What you put out is what you get back ( this is known as karma/cause and effect/boomerang theory)

4. Change is the only constant except for the first three laws ( impermanence)

Being creative is similar to being like God. We are all creators all of the time. The question is do we consciously create our life or do we unconsciously live it?

Find Your Passion By Following What Excites YOU

by Justin Mazza

What is my passion and how to find it is a question that I get from many of my readers.

When I was a child I wanted to be a teacher and a race car driver. I didn’t have any logical reason for either of these choices but it felt right to me at the time.

As a child I loved going to the go-cart track with my family, and even though I was only seven or eight years old, I would always come in first or occasionally second place. I liked going fast and it was pure excitement to have control over the little go-cart.

My older brother had a desk in his bedroom at our childhood home. When he wasn’t there I would go in his room and pretend that I was a teacher instructing a classroom. Even though I thoroughly despised school as I got older (being a student) I loved the teaching aspect.

What does this have to do with finding your passion? Well, even though I am no race car driver or professional teacher, the theme has remained. I prefer going fast when learning, taking it all in, immersing myself in knowledge and experience. I also love teaching and sharing what I had learned with others.

I have little patience for things that require a lot of steps and procedures. I just want to get from point A to point B as quick as humanly possible.

My Passion

Becoming a Blogger was really an outlet for me to teach the things that I believe are important. What I find important is subjective of course but I can tell that there are many others who are interested in what I have to teach.

While I am a lifelong student of life, I am equally committed to teaching what I had learned to anyone who is interested.

Finding Your Passion

It’s so easy to get caught up in life. We have our daily to do’s and not want to do’s that we rarely, if ever take a look at what excites us.

Finding your passion is not the same as finding your purpose even though they are similar. Passion would be more feeling oriented while a purpose would be something that is more static in nature like choosing a profession.

Passion is more flexible while purpose is more static. Passion is when you feel excited about doing something new like taking that trip to Europe or learning a new language. And yes passion could involve suffering if we choose to experience it that way. It’s entirely up to you (Think Exercising).

Exercising could be viewed as an uninspiring experience, but if we are doing something that we enjoy like playing a sport, than we can exercise our body while having fun at the same time. We’re too busy enjoying the moment to notice that we are actually exercising ourselves.

Follow Your Excitement

We all have options available to us of things that we can do at any given moment. We can take a walk, call someone that we love or drive our car. It’s the excitement in the little things that we do that will take us to the bigger things that excite us.

It’s the excitement that tells you what the next thing that you need to do is. Learn to follow your excitement because it will become the shortest, fastest path to where you need to be.

If you find that you are doing something that excites you and you cannot go any further than look for something else that excites you. What will happen is that you will get better at sensing what excites you.

Not only will you become more sensitized to what excites you, but you will be able to bypass the let me think about what I want to do with my life part.

You will basically be setting out little excitement intentions and all you have to do is go with the flow or follow your excitement.

Life will become a synchronistic and ecstatic experience as long as you trust it and live it. Don’t deny your excitement, but go with it by taking the first step. Believing is seeing and not the other way around.

The more you show to the Universe that you trust, that what you put out is what you get back, that the more you demonstrate in your behavior and actions by following your excitement, the more the Universe will reflect that back to you.

What Happens When I Don’t See The Change In My Reality

Many times you will see the reflection of your reality change but there are times when it seems that nothing has changed at all. Did you do something wrong? No, you didn’t. What you are being given is an opportunity to change your response to familiar situations.

How many of you have kids?

Were you a little tougher on the first one than you were on the rest. Why? Because you learned to respond to familiar situations by being different, by re-acting different, by responding differently than you did before. That is real change my friend.

It’s our responses to familiar circumstances that need to change to experience expansiveness in our being. That’s what let’s you know that your reality has changed because you acted differently to it than you did before.

State of being plays a big part in being able to act differently to familiar experiences though. If you continually run from a low consciousness level than I wouldn’t expect much to change for you.

Raising your vibrations on a daily basis through meditating, healthier food choices and exercising are critical for lasting change.

How to find passion in yourself is not as hard as you think. Passion is an emotion that is created by a mental state of being. When I think of a passionate person I think of Gordon Ramsay.

The man is so passionate about cooking and life in general. Remember that passion is a state of being. Just watch Gordon and see what a passionate person walks, talks and acts.

Recap
Follow your excitement.
Trust your excitement.
Respond differently to familiar circumstances.

Solve Your Problems Using Creativity

Perception Equals reality but not the Truth

Choose to feel good regardless of outside circumstances. The truth is that outside circumstances have nothing to do with the way you feel.

It is our perception of outside circumstances that cause us to feel a certain way. And more importantly it is our belief about what something means and our internal labeling of it as either good or bad.

When an event occurs in our lives we immediately place a label on it and file it under good for me, or not good for me. Let’s say that you are stuck in traffic on your way to work.

This causes you to be thirty minutes late. The whole way to work you begin complaining and worrying about being late and all that it entails.

You then arrive to work and see that your office building has caught fire. I bet that little traffic jam wouldn’t be placed in the bad for me file would it.

My point is that perception is reality, but it is not the greatest truth. Often times we judge people or scenarios too quickly. Give it a little space for events to play out before you come to a conclusion.

Some events may take longer to play out than others. Use this as an exercise tool to build some patience with yourself and others.

We tend to give away so much of our power to outside circumstances and events. This will literally siphon energy from your body leaving it vulnerable to disease or dis ease.

We must learn to focus our energy on what we can control. Controlling other people must be your number one item to remove from your list.

The next would be the weather, institutions, and so on. Yes, we can influence to a degree, but it is better to let some things play out on their own.

I often times hear people complaining about people, jobs, institutions, etc. They seldom ever have a game plan to enact change or control in themselves. Take a look around you and count how many people you know that have little want to change anyone or anything.

These people tend to be a little more grounded and centered in themselves. They realize things are exactly the way they are meant to be.

Here is a quick list of ten things that I can control.

What kinds of food and drink that I put into my body.

How I spend my money.

How clean I keep my house.

Things that come out of my mouth.

Who I spend my time with.

How I spend my free time.

What kind of clothes that I wear.

What groups or organizations that I belong to.

How fast I drive my vehicle.

How much money that I save.

Mental discipline would be a good place to start. For some, the word discipline has a negative connotation.

Discipline may mean to you losing some freedom to do whatever you want. Actually discipline can bring you even greater freedom. Keeping your house clean, paying your bills on time, and saving some money each month will definitely cause you freedom in the long run.

Initially it may feel the opposite because your perception is telling you that you are giving up something.

This is true to a point, but you will reap the rewards in the long-term with consistent focus and action. Lose the thought of instant gratification as much as you can. This has caused humanity to spiral downwards into much unneeded debt, stress, obesity, ill physical health and poor relationships.

　

　

Potential: What Is It?

by Sheri Mackey

From a very young age, we all want to be considered as having potential, however potential is often an overused and ambiguous word. Potential… for what? It doesn’t mean a lot by itself, so what do we mean by potential? What is it? What does it look like? How do we define it and make it more measurable and tangible? What is potential, really? Is it a possibility…a proposed capability for becoming something more? But what? How does a leader reach their potential if it cannot clearly be defined? Can we ever really grasp our potential? If we do and we reach it… what then?

In some ways potential is a limiting descriptor because there is really no way of knowing if we have reached our potential. Most of us know of The Peter Principle… does our potential equate only to rising to our own level of incompetence? Personally, I hope not!

Potential is a complex concept and there is little agreement about what it actually means, so we need to start by breaking it down into some key components that are generally expected of people considered to have potential:
Performance: the consistent capability to exceed expectations in regards to the accomplishment of specific tasks measured against preset standards of accuracy, completeness, cost, and speed.
Emotional Intelligence: the ability, capacity, or skill to identify, assess, and control the emotions of self, others, and groups.
Motivation/ Ambition: the inspiration or driving force to succeed.
Agility: the cognitive bandwidth to learn from past experiences, seeing things in a broader context and quickly applying observations to new situations – applying life experience, noticing patterns, and deriving general guidelines that can be applied to new situations.
While performance, emotional intelligence, and motivation are strong indicators of potential, research consistently identifies agility as a predominant gauge of potential – people with agility are the best performers because they can quickly apply what they previously learned into entirely new and different situations. Lominger has found four types of agility that are typically found in "high-potential" leaders:
Mental Agility: Most similar to IQ, it is the ability to embrace complex challenges – leaders with mental agility are generally curious and enjoy resolving multifaceted problems.
People Agility: The ability to relate well and understand others – to value people and their individual talents, consistently communicate vision and expectations, as well as accelerating at conflict management, issue resolution, negotiations, etc.
Change Agility: Embodied by those who consistently challenge the status quo and constantly seek to innovate. They embrace change, drive change… and lead change.
Results Agility: The ability to drive to results. It goes without saying that if a leader is high in the first three, they’d naturally have the capacity to deliver results.
The word potential by itself is vague, although it has strong connotations in most cultures. However, there is an opportunity to look underneath the covers and see that the impression of potential is predicated by performance, emotional intelligence, motivation, and agility. We can further explore potential at a more detailed level by breaking down a core component of potential – agility – in order to help us predetermine potential and leverage it by identifying known, tangible characteristics. If we are to truly identify and leverage potential in others (and ourselves) it is imperative that we understand the concept and know what we are looking for so as to maximize the desired outcomes – enabling us all to reach our potential – both in our work and in our lives.

As a leader, how do you perceive potential and how do you leverage it in yourself and others?

Potential: Leveraged Learning

In an ever-changing global marketplace, those who lead across boundaries and borders are increasingly required to become Extreme Team Captains – guiding the organization through unfamiliar and turbulent environments, while maximizing the functional, geographical, and cultural diversity of their teams. In today’s multicultural, dynamic world, ensuring the continuous learning and growth of global leaders is critical to achieving high performance and sustainable growth in every organization.

With markets, suppliers, competitors, technology, and customers around the world constantly changing the rules of the game, traditional leadership models no longer work. Companies need leaders of exceptionally high caliber and quality, as they are a key component of the only true source of competitive advantage – people. But how do we create this Extreme Global Leader<sup>TM? Is there the possibility of exceptional leadership that transcends accepted leadership characteristics to create a global leader that is emotionally, politically, and culturally intelligent? How do these high-potential leaders evolve and become extreme? What is the most effective method of creating a transformational leader?

Last week we pondered potential and its source. If we look at the critical components of what we perceive to be potential (performance, emotional intelligence, motivation, and agility), is it possible to leverage potential through traditional training and/or coaching? Both are valuable tools for learning, but have entirely different purposes and outcomes.

The purpose of training is to teach:
skills
methods
theories
tactics
strategies
It is the process of disseminating information from the trainer to the leader. Training provides a pre-set curriculum and the trainer imparts what is important for the student to know. Trainers have subject matter expertise and an understanding of teaching methods that work well with adult learners. Training offers economies of scale so, even when customized, it is often less expensive than coaching for a comparable number of students. Because training is typically a one-time event with little to no reinforcement, the benefits may have a very short shelf life.

Although training is the accepted norm for most organizations, in and of itself it is not necessarily an effective method to develop exceptional leaders. However, when combined with coaching there is a dramatic increase in retention. According to research, the average retention rate after training is approximately 20%. When followed by coaching, the retention increases dramatically to over 80%.

In contrast to the trainer, the coach is both an accountability partner and a strategic cohort. In these turbulent times, coaches help leaders:
Reassess assumptions
Develop leadership style
Navigate challenges
Develop strategies
Refine goals
Drive for results
Realize game-changing futures
The coach takes the position that the leader must assume responsibility for personal and organizational goal achievement. Leaders are encouraged to examine their core values and make the adjustments that will allow exceptional outcomes in both their business results and their personal lives. Coaching creates a learning experience that draws solutions out because it continually poses questions unique to the leaders core values and goals – creating alignment that drives results. Because leaders determine where they are going and how they will get there, and are held accountable through consistent, mindful discussions with their coach, results are visible and viable – but most importantly, sustained.

Coaching is an ongoing, interactive process that provides guidance and encourages global leaders to make productive decisions while taking personal ownership of those decisions. The coach needs to have both broad and deep knowledge of global business, but just as importantly needs to have the capability to guide the global leader in setting goals, developing action plans, and being accountable to the implementation and regular refinement of those goals.

Whether your organization leverages training or coaching – or a combination of the two – to realize potential that will take your global leadership team "from good to great" is a decision that should be based on your organizations budget, overall goals, availability of transformational coaches or expert trainers, and the needs of the global team. There is no one right answer that applies to every organization. It is important to understand the differences between training and coaching and to conduct specific analysis to determine the most effective route for your organization because, as stated above, training and coaching have entirely different purposes and outcomes.

What are you doing to ensure continuous learning and growth in your organization? How are you developing your own potential?</sup>

Potential: Leveraging Leaders

Exceptional leaders convey a vision and, through their example, expand others’ view of what is possible – rather than what is not. They know their business, set high expectations across boundaries and borders, create a strong sense of community, and through effective team-building and mentoring – they get results.

Leaders demonstrate "how" to achieve results both in what they do, as well as in who they show themselves to be. It is no longer enough to have superior "technical" skills – people are looking for inspiration and accountability in their leaders. In terms of responsibilities, strong leaders emphasize the importance and priority of enhancing the skills and knowledge of the people in the organization, creating a common culture of expectations around the use of skills and knowledge, facilitating the ability of the organization to align in a productive way, and holding individuals accountable for their contributions to the collective results.

In addition, when great leaders act, they do so not only because their role demands it, but also because their own purpose, values, beliefs, and assumptions require it. Who they are, what they do, and how they do it is powerfully congruent and is leveraged for the good of the organization and the people within it. As a result, they are highly authentic, credible, and inspirational – which, in turn, motivates others to act genuinely and powerfully, as well.

Some people are born with a burning desire to succeed, some develop the desire to achieve greatness through life circumstance, and some people are okay with the status quo – they wake up every day and just let the world happen to them. The reality is that we need all types of people to function successfully, however in most successful global organizations there are a handful of extraordinary leaders who make all the difference – but there are also hundreds of ordinary leaders who are more concerned with meeting this years’ numbers than anything else. But what would happen if we could double that handful of "Extreme LeadersTM" in organizations? Imagine the impact it would have on any business – not to mention partners and customers – if we could accurately identify those high potential leaders that are prepared to go above and beyond and develop them into Extreme LeadersTM that sustainably produce game-changing results.

Unfortunately, it is not as easy or idyllic as it sounds - something is missing in leadership development methodologies that prevents us from consistently developing leaders that achieve truly remarkable results. With so many pressing issues and challenges facing global business today, can we really afford to continue to neglect developing exceptional leaders? They are essential not only to meeting goals and ensuring organizational success, but to developing organizations that consistently and sustainably drive the global economy in a positive and productive direction.

The rationale for a focus on leadership is highlighted in multiple studies that consistently demonstrate a positive correlation between leadership and organizational achievement. On the other hand, studies also suggest that often executives do not successfully develop the skills necessary to provide effective leadership. Is this due to a lack of engagement or desire to excel beyond what is expected? Do most successful leaders only know how to succeed within their limited framework, but are unable to go beyond what is expected to achieve truly exceptional results? Either way, these factors indicate a growing challenge in finding leaders who have that burning desire to push far beyond average… and into legacy. How can we effectively develop exceptional leaders that not only identify and meet the challenges of today and tomorrow head on – but triumph over them? Is it unrealistic to think that with the right approach we could successfully forge a remarkable future for global business by developing Extreme LeadersTM and leveraging the advanced capabilities to create stronger leaders, better organizations, superior products and services – that will, ultimately, lead to a better world? Maybe… but how?

We have a unique opportunity to step back and observe business and leadership – examining exactly what we need to incorporate to create exceptional leaders that will have the capability to consistently leverage critical concepts that will be central to the evolution of leadership and the development of Extreme Global LeadersTM.

As a high potential leader, what would change if your organization was not only willing, but enthusiastic, about ensuring you reach your maximum potential?

Potential: Are You Reaching for it

This post is about you - as an organizational leader. Lifelong learning is a critical component of our personal and professional growth that we often seem to forget as we rise through the ranks. Unfortunately, as most of us become more senior within the organization, there is an undeniable challenge we face – facilitating our own ongoing growth and development. It becomes more and more difficult to identify growth opportunities, training, relevant readings, etc. and to deny the pull to remain stagnant – focusing on what we already know vs. the potential we have to know more. Perhaps most importantly, there is often a stealth sense of false complacency that emerges as a result of past success. However, the reality is that with the frequency and scale of change in global organizations, the leader that is not continually growing and changing with the environment may very well find that s/he has been left behind at the last jumping off point.

Ultimately, you are responsible for your own personal development…and reaching your potential. Many leaders let the business take priority over reaching their potential, or wait for the company to assume ownership of their development. Is this really what is most beneficial for you, and by default, the organizaion? As leaders, it is easy to forget that it is far more effective to stretch ourselves, and thereby our organizations, than it is to settle for the status quo. But how do you continually push yourself to think harder and go further? You can employ any number of self-help philosophies, but the reality is that you will probably not follow through – and if you do, they will typically not generate the results you hoped they would.

Finding and engaging a good mentor may be a critical success factor you are missing. Mentoring is a process about enabling and supporting your personal and professional growth. Organizational life can sometimes feel like climbing up the side of a mountain – as we struggle up the steep parts we are breathless, challenged, single-minded, and in need of support and sustenance. There may even be some moves we can not make without being tied to a partner. Mentoring can help with your changes in altitude, and enable you to get to higher ground – where you just may be able to see things from a different perspective. You will be able to see the mountains in the distance and new ways forward that were just not visible from your position below. Your mentor should facilitate a process that leads you to consider different perspectives, new ways of thinking, and deeper self-knowledge.

A good mentor is:
Someone who has experience in your field (they have been there before)
Someone whose integrity transcends the message, be it positive or negative
Someone who tells you things you may not want to hear, while letting you know you have been heard
Someone who makes you want to better and to take calculated risks
Someone who presents opportunities and highlights challenges you might not have seen on your own
A mentor may help you, as a senior leader, to discover or master:
How to continue to learn when most of the knowledge you need to acquire is intuitively based
How you can constructively challenge your peers and your employees
How to more effectively cope with the stress of your responsibilities
How to better develop other people, with limited time and resource
How to better leverage influence, rather than command
How/where to continue to grow toward mastery of your role or organization
How to manage your personal credibility across the organization
If your strategic thinking is broad enough to contribute effectively to creating and/or interpreting the organizations vision
If you have strong contextual understanding of disciplines you have little hands-on experience in, but are responsible for
While mentoring can be successful in helping you to address your specific needs, you are also contributing to a critical part of your organizations ability to:

Develop organizational intelligence: By finding and engaging a mentor you will more successfully bridge skill, leadership, and knowledge gaps while demonstrating a climate where collaboration leads to innovation for your organization.

Connect across people: Your mentor will enhance your network, providing an expanded opportunity to contribute your support, development, and expertise across various employee, partner, and/or client segments.

Create and sustain business impact: By engaging a mentor openly, you are demonstrating value in the process and creating an environment that supports collaboration and open information sharing across boundaries and borders. Ultimately, you can play an important role in making mentoring a critical part of your organizations culture – perhaps eventually providing the impetus to integrate mentoring within the overall strategic goals and objectives of your organization.

Jim Collins sums it up well when he said, "Good is the enemy of great… it is one of the main reasons we have so few that become great … most people never become great because they settle for being good…" You have the potential to be great – engage a good mentor and do the hard work to get there.

Potential – Are YOU reaching for it?

(An abstract)

48 Laws of Power

By Robert Greene

The Big Idea

A comprehensive, well-researched synthesis of timeless philosophies

– from Machiavelli to Suntzu,

as applied in real-life situations by powerful figures in history such as

Queen Elizabeth I and Henry Kissinger.

Absorbing and entertaining, this book (An abstract) lends business people a wealth of ideas on the subtle art of playing the power game, exercising clever cunning, and understanding human weaknesses.

Whether it is in the boardroom, at a power lunch, or a cocktail party– these laws will make you master of the game and give you the edge over your rivals.

1. NEVER OUTSHINE THE MASTER.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Present your ideas in such a manner that they may be ascribed to your master, or could be viewed as

an echo of your master’s thoughts.

• If you are more intelligent than your master, act as if you are not.

• Never take your position for granted.

• Never let favors you receive go to your head.

• Discreet flattery is much more powerful. Make it seem like you want to seek his expertise and advice.

2. NEVER PUT TOO MUCH TRUST IN FRIENDS, LEARN HOW TO USE ENEMIES.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Do not rely on friends. They will never be totally honest with you. They will not openly disagree

with you in order to avoid arguments.

• Enemies expect nothing so they will be surprised when you are generous.

• An enemy spared the guillotine will be more grateful to you than a friend.

• When you decide to hire a friend you will discover qualities she has kept hidden.

• Skill and competence are more important than friendly feelings.

• Hiring friends will limit your power.

• All working situations require a kind of distance between people.

• You destroy an enemy when you make a friend of him.

• An enemy at your heels keeps you sharp, alert, and focused.

3. CONCEAL YOUR INTENTIONS.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Use decoyed objects of desire and red herrings to throw people off scent.

• Use smoke screens (a poker face) to disguise your actions.

• False sincerity is one powerful tool that will send your rivals on a wild goose chase.

• Publicly declare your false intentions to give misleading signals.

• A noble gesture can be a smoke screen to hide your true intentions.

• Blend in and people will be less suspicious.

4. ALWAYS SAY LESS THAN NECESSARY.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Saying less will keep you from saying something foolish or even dangerous.

• Once the words are out you cannot take them back.

• Keeping silent makes people reveal more about themselves. This is information you may be able to

use against them later on.

5. SO MUCH DEPENDS ON REPUTATION – GUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Sow doubt and spread rumors about your rival. Even if they vehemently deny it, people will still be

wondering why they are so defensive.

• Use humor or gentle mockery at your rival’s expense.

• A solid reputation increases your presence and exaggerates your strengths without your having to

spend much energy.

• Never appear desperate in your self-defense against the slander of others.

• Be careful not to go too far in attacking another’s reputation, it draws more attention to your

vengefulness than to the person you are slandering. Use subtler tactics like satire and ridicule.

6. COURT ATTENTION AT ALL COST.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Surround your name with the sensational and the scandalous.

• Create an air of mystery.

• It is better to be attacked and slandered than ignored.

• Make yourself appear larger than life.

• Any sort of notoriety will bring you power.

7. GET OTHERS TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU, BUT ALWAYS TAKE THE CREDIT.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Save time and energy by hiring others to do the work.

• Your helpers will be forgotten and you will be remembered.

• Borrow from history. Use the past and profit by others’ experience.

• You can only exploit others’ talents if your position is unshakable.

8. MAKE OTHER PEOPLE COME TO YOU – USE BAIT IF NECESSARY.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• For negotiations and meetings, it is wise to lure others into your territory, or a territory of your choice.

• Once someone suspects you are manipulating him, it will be harder to control him. Making him

come to you gives the illusion he is in control.

• Most often the effective action is to stay back, keep calm, and let others be frustrated by the traps you

set for them.

9. WIN THROUGH YOUR ACTIONS, NEVER THROUGH ARGUMENT.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Demonstrate, do not explicate.

• Arguing will only offend your superior.

• Learn to demonstrate the correctness of your ideas indirectly.

• Choose your battles carefully.

• Don’t bother demonstrating if time and experience will eventually teach the other person what you

are trying to say. Save your energy and walk away.

• No one can argue with a demonstrated proof.

10. INFECTION: AVOID THE UNHAPPY AND THE UNLUCKY.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• In the game of power, the people you associate with are critical.

• An infector can be recognized by the misfortune they draw on themselves, their turbulent past, a

long line of broken relationships, unstable careers, the very intensity of their emotions, and the force

of their character.

• Gravitate towards prosperous, cheerful, and gregarious people.

• Never associate with those who share your defects.

11. LEARN TO KEEP PEOPLE DEPENDENT ON YOU.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Be the only one who can do what you do. Make the fate of those who hire you so entwined with

yours they cannot possibly get rid of you.

• If you are ambitious, it is wiser to seek out weak masters with whom you can create a relationship of

dependency.

• Possess a talent or creative skill that sets you apart from the crowd.

• By knowing other people’s secrets and holding information they wouldn’t want made public, you

seal your fate with theirs.

12. USE SELECTIVE HONESTY AND GENEROSITY TO DISARM YOUR VICTIM.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• The essence of deception is distraction. An act of kindness, generosity, or honesty will distract and

disarm people and turn them into gullible children.

• Give before you take.

• Nothing in the realm of power is set in stone. Overt deceptiveness may sometimes cover your tracks.

If you have a history of deceit behind you, then play the rogue, be consistent and this will be

interpreted as you simply being yourself. Your dishonesty becomes an act of honesty.

13. WHEN ASKING FOR HELP, APPEAL TO PEOPLE’S SELF-INTEREST, NEVER TO THEIR MERCY OR GRATITUDE.

Most people are very pragmatic, and when negotiating, do not bring up the need for gratitude for what you have done for others in the past. These appeals will be ignored. Pragmatic people look towards the future, so it is best to emphasize how they will benefit from an alliance with you.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Understand the other person’s motivation.

• See things their way and offer suggestions that will advance their cause.

• For others who want to feel superior and do not want to appear selfish, appeal to their need to

display their charity in the public eye.

14. POSE AS A FRIEND, WORK AS A SPY.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Gather information at social events when people’s guards are down.

• Use other people to give you the information you need.

• Mislead others by giving out false information. Watch them react and base your next action on what

you discover.

15. CRUSH YOUR ENEMY TOTALLY.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Show no mercy. Crush your rivals or else you will give them time to regroup and plot their revenge.

• Banish enemies or plot for the best time to render them harmless.

• Leave your enemies no options.

• Sometimes enemies will destroy themselves.

• Thoughts of reconciliation will open you up to attack.

16. USE ABSENCE TO INCREASE RESPECT AND HONOR.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Create value through scarcity. Make yourself less accessible; otherwise the aura you have created

around yourself will wear away.

17. KEEP OTHERS IN SUSPENDED TERROR: CULTIVATE AN AIR OF UNPREDICTABILITY.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• A person of power instills fear by deliberately unsettling those around him to keep the initiative on

his side.

• Only the terminally subordinate act in a predictable manner.

18. DO NOT BUILD FORTRESSES TO PROTECT YOURSELF – ISOLATION IS DANGEROUS.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• A fortress may be impregnable, but everyone knows you are there and it may easily turn into a prison.

• Power depends on social interaction and circulation.

• Isolation is deadly for the creative arts. Shakespeare was always producing plays for the masses.

He was in constant touch with reality and what people wanted.

• Mobility and social contact protects you from plotters.

19. KNOW WHO YOU’RE DEALING WITH – DO NOT OFFEND THE WRONG PERSON.

Learn to distinguish from opponent, sucker, and victim. The five difficult and sometimes dangerous marks are: the arrogant and proud, the hopelessly insecure, the suspicious, the serpent with a long memory, and the plain, unassuming, unintelligent man.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Measure up your opponent, but never rely on instinct. Do some research on concrete facts about that

person’s character and history.

• Never trust appearances.

20. DO NOT COMMIT TO ANYONE.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• By refusing to commit, but allowing yourself to be courted, you become powerful because you are

ungraspable.

• As your reputation for independence grows, more people will desire you and want to conquer you.

• Politely decline. You cannot allow yourself to feel obligated to anyone.

• Seek promises from both sides, so no matter what the outcome of an election or battle, your position

is secure.

• Observe quarreling parties and stay neutral but supportive to both sides. Gain power as a mediator.

• You may commit to one to prove you are capable of attachment, but be emotionally uninvolved.

Preserve the unspoken option of being able to leave anytime and reclaim your freedom. The friends

you made while being courted will help you jump ship.

21. PLAY A SUCKER TO CATCH A SUCKER – SEEM DUMBER THAN YOUR MARK.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Intelligence is an important part of people’s vanity. Subliminally reassure your opponent of his

superiority.

• Playing naïve lets you see opportunities to deceive others.

22. USE THE SURRENDER TACTIC: TRANSFORM WEAKNESS INTO POWER.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Do not fight aggression with aggression. Put your opponent off-guard by yielding, and in effect have

more control over the situation.

• Surrender is a way of mocking your enemies.

• Surrender disguises your real motives and allows time to plan your next move.

23. CONCENTRATE YOUR FORCES.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Single-mindedness of purpose and total concentration on one goal will overwhelm the enemy every

time.

• A single patron appreciates your loyalty and becomes dependent on your services.

• In the arts, being too single-minded can make you an intolerable bore.

24. PLAY THE PERFECT COURTIER.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Avoid ostentation. Talk less about yourself. Modesty is generally preferable.

• Practice nonchalance. All your hard work must come off as effortless.

• Be frugal with flattery.

• Arrange to be noticed.

• Alter your style and language according to the person you are dealing with.

• Never be the bearer of bad news.

• Never affect friendliness and intimacy with your master.

• Never criticize those above you directly.

• Be frugal in asking those above you for favors.

• Never joke about appearances or taste.

• Do not be the court cynic.

• Be self-observant.

• Master your emotions.

• Fit the spirit of the times.

• Be a source of pleasure.

25. RE-CREATE YOURSELF.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Control your appearances and emotions. Play sincere, but not necessarily be sincere.

• Create a memorable character. Do not limit yourself to the role society assigns to you.

26. KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.

Wisdom in a nutshell:



• Conceal your mistakes. Your good name and reputation depends more on what you conceal than on

what you reveal.

• Always have a convenient scapegoat.

• Never do the dirty work yourself.

27. PLAY ON PEOPLE’S NEED TO BELIEVE TO CREATE A CULT-LIKE FOLLOWING.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Keep it simple; keep it vague. Create new words for vague concepts.

• Emphasize the visual and sensual over the intellectual.

• Borrow the forms of organized religion to structure the group. Create rituals. Use names and ranks

and titles. Ask them to make sacrifices and give alms. Act like a guru or a prophet.

• Disguise your source of income.

• Set up an us-versus-them dynamic. Keep followers united by identifying outsiders as a devious enemy.

• The tendency to doubt and reason is broken down when we join a group.

28. ENTER ACTION WITH BOLDNESS.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• The bolder the lie, the better.

• Lions circle the hesitant prey.

• Boldness strikes fear; Fear creates authority.

• Going halfway digs the deeper grave. Do not negotiate if you opponent will more likely take the

opportunity to destroy you.

• Hesitation creates gaps. Boldness obliterates them. Move swiftly and surely.

• Audacity separates you from the herd.

29. PLAN ALL THE WAY TO THE END.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Take into account all possible obstacles and circumstances that may prevent you from achieving your

goal, and plan how you will overcome them.

• When you see several steps ahead, you will no longer need to improvise along the way, and risk

deviating from your plan.

• Prepare alternatives and be open to adapt new routes to your goal.

30. MAKE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS SEEM EFFORTLESS.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• What imitates nature by appearing effortless and natural approximates nature’s power.

• Never show your work until it is finished. When people see the effort and time it takes to make it,

and if they witness a work-in-progress, the magic of the finished piece is spoiled.

31. CONTROL THE OPTIONS: GET OTHERS TO PLAY WITH THE CARDS YOU DEAL.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Make people your puppets and give them options to let them feel they have control. Force them to

choose between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose.

• Present options but color the one you prefer as the best solution.

• Force the resister into "choosing" to do what you want by appearing to advocate the opposite.

• Alter the playing field so the only options available are the ones you offer.

• Shrinking options force people to buy in now or else the goods won’t be available tomorrow.

• The weak man must be propelled into action through fear and terror.

• Involving your victim in your scheme with the threat of their exposure later will keep them tied to

you. They cannot expose you because they will be found out as well.

• Use the horns of a dilemma: whichever way they choose, there is no escape.

32. PLAY TO PEOPLE’S FANTASIES.

Abraham Lincoln created an image of himself as the homespun country lawyer with a beard. He played to the fantasy of the common man’s president.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• People need a fantasy to escape from the humdrum of everyday life. The more vague and exotic, the

more captivating.

• Promise a pot of gold and instant gratification, rather than a gradual improvement through hard

work.

• Keep your distance so the fantasy remains intact.

33. DISCOVER EACH MAN’S THUMBSCREW.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Every person has a weakness or insecurity you can use to your advantage.

• Train yourself to probe for weaknesses in everyday conversation.

• Find the childhood need that went unfulfilled, supply it, and your victim will be unable to resist you.

• People’s weaknesses are the opposite of the qualities they reveal to you. The shy person is actually

dying for attention; a prude may be hiding a lascivious soul, etc.

• Find the weak link or the one person in a group who will bend under pressure.

• Feed on uncontrollable emotions or motive – paranoia, lust, greed, vanity, or hatred.

• When searching for suckers, always look for the unhappy, insecure and dissatisfied.

34. BE ROYAL IN YOUR OWN FASHION: ACT LIKE A KING TO BE TREATED LIKE ONE.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• How you carry yourself reflects what you think of yourself. Exude confidence and the feeling you were

destined for greatness.

• Do not confuse regal bearing with arrogance.

• Dignity is the mask you assume under difficult circumstances. Act like nothing can affect you and

you have all the time in the world to respond.

• Set your price high and do not waver.

• Deal with the highest person in the building.

• A gift is an equalizer. You do not beg but ask for help in a dignified way.

35. MASTER THE ART OF TIMING.

Time as a human-made concept and there are three kinds of time we deal with when building power: Long Time, Forced Time, End Time

The Long Time is the years-long period of waiting for the right opportunity while creating a strong foundation or base to work from.

Forced Time is upsetting the timing of others and setting their deadlines for them. The opponent will be more likely to make mistakes because of the need to hurry, or in the case of business, will be forced to buy whatever you offer because the time to make a decision is limited.

End Time is when we execute a plan with speed and absolutely no hesitation.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Never look as though you are in a hurry. It betrays a lack of control.

• Learn to stand back and be patient. Strike only when the time is right.

• Anticipate events and work with the spirit of the times.

• Recognizing the prevailing winds does not necessarily mean running with them.

36. DISDAIN THINGS YOU CANNOT HAVE: IGNORING THEM IS THE BEST REVENGE.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• The more attention you pay an enemy, the stronger you make him. The less interest you show, the

more superior you seem.

• Remember: You choose to let things bother you. You can just as easily choose to consider the matter

trivial and unworthy of your interest. That is the powerful move.

• If it is impossible to ignore, then secretly get rid of it. Sometimes threats just go away by themselves.

37. CREATE COMPELLING SPECTACLES.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Never neglect the way you arrange things visually.

• Associate yourself with colors, images and symbols that communicate strong messages.

• People are always impressed by the superficial appearance of things, the grand, and the spectacular,

what is larger than life.

38. THINK AS YOU LIKE BUT BEHAVE LIKE OTHERS.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Wise and clever people learn early on that they can display conventional behavior and mouth

conventional ideas without having to believe in them.

• Put on the mask appropriate to the group you are joining.

39. STIR UP WATERS TO CATCH FISH.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Anger and emotion are strategically unproductive. Make your enemies angry but stay calm yourself.

• Angry people usually end up looking ridiculous.

• Nothing in the game of power is personal.

• An occasional outburst may be powerful, but use anger too often and it loses its power.

40. DESPISE THE FREE LUNCH.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• By paying your own way you stay free of gratitude. What is offered for free normally has a hidden

obligation.

• Generosity is a sign of power. Most powerful people spend freely and are not misers.

• Use money as a way to give pleasure to others and win them over.

41. AVOID STEPPING INTO A GREAT MAN’S SHOES.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Choose a different path and personal style if you are the daughter or son of a great person.

You will forever be in your predecessor’s shadow unless you find a way to shine on your own.

• Only after the father figure has been done away with will there be space to establish a new order.

• Do not become complacent once you reach success and security. Prosperity makes us lazy.

Writers like Tennessee Williams and Fyodor Dostoyevsky preferred the struggle to security;

the way poverty or emotional difficulties pushed them to create good work.

42. STRIKE THE SHEPHERD AND THE SHEEP WILL SCATTER.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Within any group, trouble can be traced to a single source, the unhappy, chronically unsatisfied one

who stirs up dissension and infects the group. Recognize troublemakers by their complaining nature.

Separate him from the group.

• In every group power is concentrated in the hands of one or two people. Human nature shows people

will orbit around a single strong personality.

43. WORK ON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF OTHERS.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Aim at the primary emotions: love, hate, and jealousy. Be alert to people’s individual psychologies and

their basic emotional responses.

• Maintain a stable of writers, artists, or intellectuals who are very good at appealing to people’s hearts

and minds.

44. DISARM AND INFURIATE WITH THE MIRROR EFFECT.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• The neutralizing effect: Do what your enemies do, follow their actions and they will not see what

you are up to. When you mirror them, if mocks and humiliates them. Mimicry infuriates.

• The Shadow effect: Shadow your opponents’ every move, gather information, and gain insight to

their routines and habits without them seeing you.

• The Mirror effect: Show you understand by reflecting their innermost feelings.

• The Moral effect: Teach others a lesson by giving them a taste of their own medicine.

• The Hallucinatory effect: offer a perfect copy of an object, place or person and see how people take the

bait.

45. PREACH THE NEED FOR CHANGE, BUT NEVER REFORM TOO MUCH AT ONCE.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Make change and reform seem like a gentle improvement on the past. People are creatures of habit

and the sudden change will cause some to rebel.

• Disguise change by dressing it in tradition.

46. NEVER APPEAR TOO PERFECT.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• Never underestimate the power of envy. Occasionally reveal a weakness, defect, or anxiety, or find

new friends. It is the people in your own circle of peers who will be the first to envy your success.

• Envy is often a problem for people who have great natural talent. You may think you are charming

people with your natural talent when in fact they are coming to hate you for it.

• To deflect envy, employ a display of weakness, or a harmless vice.

• Envy is disguised sometimes as excessive praise, or slander and criticism. Win your revenge by

ignoring the envious.

• Reversal: Display the utmost disdain for those who envy you. Instead of hiding your perfection, make

it obvious. Make every triumph an opportunity to make the envious squirm.

47. DO NOT GO PAST THE MARK YOU AIMED FOR; IN VICTORY, LEARN WHEN TO STOP.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

• The powerful know that the essence of strategy is controlling what comes next.

• There is no better time to stop and walk away than after a victory.

48. ASSUME FORMLESSNESS.

Wisdom in a nutshell:

Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed. Be as fluid and formless as water, adapting and moving with change naturally. The powerful are creative in expressing something new. Play the chameleon but break your enemy from the inside. Morph and adapt but keep your long-term strategy in mind at all times.

Sam Walton's 10 Rules

Sam Walton's 10 Rules for Success

Not much need for an introduction, explanation or commentary. (ed.)

The basics ...

Rule #1
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anything else. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do the best you can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you - like a fever.

Rule #2
Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

Rule #3
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs.

Rule #4
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule #5
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.

Rule #6
Celebrate your success and find humour in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails put on a costume and sing a silly song.

Rule #7
Listen to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front line - the ones who actually talk to customers - are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know.

Rule #8
Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want - and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don't make excuses - apologize. Stand behind everything you do. ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ will make all the difference.

Rule #9
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.

Rule #10
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.

Sam Walton's 10 Rules For Success - from Sam Walton: Made in America, My Story, co-authored by J. Huey, Doubleday.

Japanese Case

A store manager was receiving fresh stock of luxury bath soaps from a manufacturer, and while it was been stacked on the shelf, one of the assistant's found one wrapper without a soap and brought it to the notice of the store manager, who promptly directed the complaint to the works manager of the soap manufacturer. Japanese are know to be very quality conscious, so the works manager apologized profusely, not only arranged for immediate replacement, but also took the empty wrapper back for conducting an inquiry as how this could have happened with all their rigorous processes.

As is customary in Japan, their management style involves everyone from the top to the bottom, so there was a meeting arranged which had people from the R&D, Plant Operations to the shop floor supervisors. The problem was stated and they were all asked to go to the depths of it to try and ensure a thing like this would never happen again. A deadline of a week was suggested for obtaining solutions, and so each of the departments involved went into action.

The day of the deadline arrived, and the presentations made.

The R&D worked closely with the Plant Operations to understand the entire process from raw material to finished product, and suggested that scanners, and x-ray machines be installed all along the production line so that they would get digitized reports and pictures, which would ensure there is zero slippage. It was a fabulous recommendation, but it would cost the company a great deal of money for installing technology for this.

Next was the presentation of the shop floor. They knew the entire process from raw material to finished product, and their recommendation was restricted to the last stage only. They said while the production is in process and the soap made gets wrapped, in the final stage when it is going to the packing section, they should have huge blower installed just near a conveyor belt which carries the finished product. If it contains the soap the blower will not be able to blow it away but if it was only a wrapper, it will get blown off.

The management after listening to both sides decided to use the recommendations of the shop floor as it was not as much expensive, easy to install and maintain, and apart from all that it was a fail proof method which involves the simplest technology and the human element.

The management acknowledged it was "SMART WORK."

Russian Story

It's about travelling in space beyond today's gel technology days, when only pens filled with ink was in vogue. The American astronauts after a trip into space came back to base and complained to the R&D @ NASA that they had trouble using a pen in space as the zero gravity up thee didn't allow ink to flow.

The researcher went down to work on the problem spent several hours on the subject and were spending several thousands of dollars on experiments but none of it was getting them close to solving the problem. Days had passed into months without any solution in sight. The American style of management is one which keeps things only at the top level, the y do not allow it to trickle down. Anyway now that they were not getting anywhere, the sent this down to the floor and everyone began to think of a solution, and one kid who was an intern doing space research came to know about this and said, "Oh is that the problem you all are discussing so massively. The solution is pretty simple, use a pencil." Every one was amazed at this suggestion which was 100% workable and so they asked the kid, "how did you strike such a brilliant idea."

The kid laughed and said, "it was pretty simple, I saw a documentary of the first man who went to space, Yuri Gagarin, and I saw distinctly his suing a pencil for scrathing his back as well as for taking notes."

So that's "SMARTNESS"

The 12 Characteristics of Successful People

By Jeffrey J. Mayer

I’ve spent many years studying successful people and today would like to share with you the skills, talents, and characteristics that enable them to succeed. As you look at and study these skills, talents and characteristics, you’ll realize that you possess many of them yourself.


Some of these skills and talents are more dominant than others and will play a greater part in your being, or becoming, a success in the business of life. These are the things you do well.

The things you do easily and effortlessly. These are your strengths.

When you find you need a skill or talent you don’t have, just go out and look for a person or group of people with the skills, talents, and training you need. Skills and talents that complement your own.


These people will become your teammates, colleagues, co-workers, professional advisors and friends. With these combined skills and talents organizations grow, prosper and become successful.

These are the five things you’ll find every successful person has in common:


1. They have a dream.
2. They have a plan.
3. They have specific knowledge or training.
4. They’re willing to work hard.
5. They don’t take no for an answer.

Remember : Success begins with a state of mind. You must believe you’ll be successful in order to become a success. The following is a list of the skills, talents, and characteristics you’ll find in successful people:

1. Successful People Have a Dream.
They have a well-defined purpose.

They have a definite goal.

They know what they want.

They aren’t easily influenced by the thoughts and opinions of others.

They have willpower.

They have ideas.

Their strong desire brings strong results.

They go out and do things that others say can’t be done.
Remember :

It only takes one sound idea to achieve success.

People who excel in life are those who produce results, not excuses.

Anybody can come up with excuses and explanations for why he hasn’t made it.

Those who want to succeed badly enough don’t make excuses.

2. Successful People Have Ambition.
They want to accomplish something.

They have enthusiasm, commitment, and pride.

They have self-discipline.

They’re willing to work hard and to go the extra mile.

They have a burning desire to succeed.

They’re willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
Remember :

With hard work come results.

The joy in life comes with working for and achieving something.

3. Successful People Are Strongly Motivated Toward Achievement.
They take great satisfaction in accomplishing a task.

4. Successful People Are Focused.
They concentrate on their main goals and objectives.

They don’t get sidetracked.

They don’t procrastinate.

They work on the projects that are important, and don’t allow those projects to sit until the last minute.

They’re productive, not just busy.

5. Successful People Learn How to Make Things Happen.
They use their skills, talents, energies, and knowledge to the fullest extent possible.

They do the things that need to be done, not just the things they like to do.

They are willing to work hard and to commit themselves to getting the job done.
Remember :

Happiness is found in doing and accomplishing, not in owning and possessing.

Many years ago I was asked: "Do you like pleasing habits or pleasing results?"

As I pondered that probing question, and squirmed in my chair like a worm at the end of a hook, I felt as if I had painted myself into a corner.

A few moments later I answered: "I like pleasing results."

From that moment on my life changed.

I began to do the things that were difficult, because they enabled me to achieve my goals.

6. Successful People Take Responsibility for Their Actions.
They don’t make excuses.

They don’t blame others.

They don’t whine and complain.

They realize that they are in the driving seat.

7. Successful People Focus on the Solutions not the Problems.
They’re opportunity minded.

They’re always trying to find the solution and when they see opportunities they take advantage of them.

8. Successful People Make Decisions.
They think about the issues and relevant facts, give them adequate deliberation and consideration, and make a decision. Decisions aren’t put off or delayed, they’re made now!
Success Tip :

Spend more time thinking and planning before you make your decision, and you’ll make better decisions.

When you don’t get the expected results from the decision you’ve made, change your course of action.

Decisions should never be carved in stone.

9. Successful People Have the Courage to Admit They’ve Made a Mistake.
When you make a mistake, admit it, fix it, and move on.

Don’t waste a lot of time, energy, money, and/or other resources trying to defend a mistake or a bad decision.

Remember :

When people are wrong, they may admit it to themselves.

If they are handled gently and tactfully, they may admit it to others and even take pride in their frankness and broad-mindedness.

But people become very defensive and angry when others try to cram their mistakes down their throats.

10. Successful People Are Self-Reliant.
They have the skills, talents, and training that are needed in order to be successful.

And when they need information, knowledge, or skills and talents that they don’t possess, they find someone who does possess them.

11. Successful People Work with and Cooperate with Other People.
They have positive, outgoing personalities.

They surround themselves with people who offer them help, support, and encouragement. They are leaders.

12. Successful People Are Enthusiastic.
They’re excited by what they’re doing, and that excitement is contagious.

They draw people to them because these people want to work with them, do business with them, and be with them.

I consider these 12 CHARACTERISTICS OF SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE to be true nuggets of
wisdom. Concise, easy to understand, they are really ‘on target’.

　

Tiny wisdom:

The Moment Is Worth Savouring

by Lori Deschene May 16, 2012 12:58 AM

"The journey is the reward." ~Chinese Proverb

So much of our language about the things we enjoy in life revolves around getting ahead.

We wonder where our relationships are going. We plan to move forward in our careers. We talk about maintaining momentum with new projects.

None of these things are necessarily bad. We naturally crave growth to feel a sense of purpose and progress.

But sometimes we put so much energy into pushing and striving that we miss out on the joy of being where we are.

When we visualize ourselves taking a pause to fully absorb and appreciate our surroundings, it’s often after we’ve arrived. It’s when we’ve climbed the mountain and can finally stand proudly on its peak. It’s when we’ve made the commitment, secured the deal, or finished working on something we love.

From a purely mathematic standpoint, it’s clear we will have far fewer opportunities to enjoy arriving than we will have to enjoy the journey.

The question then becomes: Are we willing to relish in the many uncertain moments when we’re not sure yet where our efforts are leading?

I suspect it boils down to belief and intention.

If we believe we need to create massive change in order to experience joy, we will inevitably feel a sense of restlessness. This moment will feel like something we need to endure to get ahead—something painfully inadequate compared to where we’d rather be.

If we believe that every part of the process can be beautiful and joyful, we will feel a sense of calmness and peace. This moment will feel like something we need to savor while it lasts—something unique and worth celebrating, regardless of where it takes us.

We’re always going to want to spread our wings and fly. We crave freedom, adventure, and possibility, and we don’t want to feel stuck, bored, or limited.

Perhaps happiness is recognizing that we are never stuck. Even if we don’t recognize it, we are always growing and evolving, and the world we know is always changing.

There will never be another opportunity to seize the possibilities of this moment. We can limit ourselves by failing to recognize this, and in doing so, let life pass us by. Or we can realize the greatest adventure is always the one we’re in right now.

Releasing Judgement and allowing others to have their Process

by Tiela Garnett May 16, 2012 12:58 am

"Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest." ~Sri Chinmoy

We live in a world of judgment. We qualify everything in varying degrees of right and wrong, good and bad, pretty and ugly.

We are taught from earliest childhood to judge everything and everyone. We label our days consistently, using adjectives like "beautiful" or "horrible." Even the weather is not immune!

The presence of judgment is pervasive in our lives, yet subtle enough in some cases to pass unnoticed.

I have worked for years at ridding my life of all judgment, but it’s far easier said than done! Just when I begin to think I’ve eradicated all traces of the poison, it pops up again, wearing a new disguise.

One of the most valuable lessons of my life was witnessing the presence of judgment when I least expected it…

Many of us on a so-called "spiritual path" find ourselves sorely challenged when we observe the suffering of those around us. This was especially true for me when my mother was dying.

In the last days of my mother’s life, she was in severe, physical pain. It’s hard for me to put into words the extent of my discomfort as I watched her, and the effect it had on my personal belief system.

For years, I had lived with the belief that "all is well," that regardless of any appearance of disharmony, there is a destiny, a plan, order in this great universe of ours. As my mother lay dying, I could not reconcile the image of her suffering with that belief system.

I found myself regressing to the questions I’d lived with throughout adolescence. Why is there suffering in the world? Why do bad things happen to good people? Why is my mother being punished this way? This isn’t fair!

For many years now, I’ve been blessed with the good fortune of having an individual in my life whom I can count on for perspectives of peace in moments when I’m floundering. I called him up as I was thrashing around in this confused mindset.

No sooner had I finished telling him how unjust it was that my mother was suffering in this way, than he knocked the wind out of me by saying, "Tiela, stop judging your mother’s process." The words floored me.

Judging? Was I really judging what my mother was going through? Yes!

Not only was I judging it, I was condemning it, and in some sense condemning her life—in fact, all of life along with it! I was not even respecting that there might be wisdom or a divine plan operating in my mother’s experience that I was unable to see.

I had decided that even though I wasn’t in my mother’s shoes, I knew better than she did, better than her higher self, better than the universe! I knew that what she was going through was "bad" and "wrong."

Furthermore, by deciding that my mother was experiencing something against her will, I was seeing her as a helpless victim instead of an evolving being on a path of consciousness. At the very least I was doing my mother a disservice. Potentially, I was even adding to her pain.

The minute I became aware of what I was doing, I was able to stop by realizing that my attitude was actually doing harm to this person that I loved.

It’s never pleasant to witness what we call "suffering." But it’s a form of arrogance to assume we really know what’s going on and whether or not it’s necessary for someone else’s life. Truthfully, it isn’t any of our business.

Our job is to walk our separate paths with presence and awareness, to be available for people when they ask for our assistance and, when they don’t, to allow them to have their process.

I am certainly not suggesting we live our lives without compassion, but there is a world of difference between compassion and pity. The former is an expression of love that emanates from respecting a person’s essence. The latter is a cloying, negative emotion, toxic in nature and void of all respect.

Pity is one of the many, clever disguises judgment wears. In fact, it is impossible to "pity" someone without seeing them in a position that is inferior to our own. Such an attitude is judgment, pure and simple.

The only way we can truly assist anyone in a challenging process is by releasing all judgment and seeing her or him for the empowered being that they truly are.

13 Life Lessons from Warren and Charlie: Reporting back from 2010 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder’s Meeting

- Scott Dinsmore

The topic of the day: Life Lessons.

To most people’s surprise, this is not simply another dry talk on investing and business. It’s far from it. The great majority of the meeting revolves around lessons in life, relationships, education and career decisions. These guys have experienced over 160 combined years of amazing life experiences and seen success (and even some failure) on numerous fronts. They are brilliant and happen to be two of the best teachers I have come across in all my reading and learning. And the price of admission…free! Ideally you should be a shareholder but there are plenty of other ways to get into the meeting if you’d like. I have to share some of the most recent pearls with you all. I’ll stick to broader life lessons, but feel free to send a note if you’d like more from the business and investing side.

13 Life Lessons from Warren and Charlie:

1. Lose money and I will forgive you, but lose even a shred of reputation and I will be ruthless [Warren]. This has been echoed across the business world for years and it applies to us all. Life is too short to cut corners to make an extra buck. Wealth can always be recreated but reputation takes a lifetime to build and often only a moment to destroy. As Warren says, "we will not trade reputation for money."

2. The best defense in a tough economy is to add the most you can to society. Your money can be inflated away but your knowledge and talent cannot [Warren]. No matter the external circumstances, you are always in control of your talent, learning and passion for life. "There will always be opportunities for talent" as Warren says.

3. We get worried when people start to agree with us [Warren]. The best fruit is found out on the limbs. The road less traveled makes all the difference. Make a rule to always stay on the side of the minority in your life’s path and you will likely be greatly rewarded and you’ll certainly experience a lot more excitement.

4. We celebrate wealth only when it’s been fairly won and wisely used [Charlie]. The goal is not to make money at all costs. It’s easy to forget that in a lot of industries and sub-cultures around the U.S. where everyone is in constant competition to keep up with the Joneses. Wealth is worthless if you’ve destroyed all your relationships to attain it. As Charlie says "take the high road. It’s far less crowded." Sad but often true. Makes it pretty easy to stand out.

5. When you are exceptional you jump off the page. There really isn’t that much competition there [Warren]. Be your own best competitive advantage. Then it doesn’t make a difference what others are doing. You are in control.

6. Do what you’re passionate about. If you do this, there will be few people competing or running faster than you [Warren]. The best way to be exceptional is with passion! As Tony Robbins says every day of his life, "Live with Passion!" And trust me, life is a lot more fun this way.

7. I think I developed courage when I learned I could deal with hardship. You need to get your feet wet and get some failure under your belt [Charlie]. Courage does not grow on its own. Just like a muscle, it must be constantly worked out and developed. Life begins outside your comfort zone and that is where your courage is developed. Most people don’t succeed because they’re afraid to fail. Failure isn’t that bad anyway. It will make you tougher and more likely to win the next time around. No one has succeeded without going through their own failures at some point. To try and fail is much better than to never try. Why not get started early and get some of them out of the way! What’s the worst that could happen anyway? As big wave surfer Laird Hamilton says "If you’re not falling then you’re not learning."

Charlie Learning

8. There’s no better way to be happier than getting your expectations down [Charlie]. Most unhappiness comes from misaligned and unrealistic expectations of life. Expect the world of yourself, but expect nothing of the world. Then you cannot help but live your life pleasantly surprised.

9. If I can be optimistic while I’m nearly dead, you can deal with a little inflation [Charlie]. This had the crowd laughing out loud. Life is what you make it. Don’t let things get you down. It could always be worse.

10. If the only reason you find for doing something is because others are doing it then that’s not good enough [Warren]. Enough said.

11. Bad behavior is contagious. That’s how human nature works [Warren]. Watch out for this. It can catch you off guard.

12. We’ve done a lot of stupid things but we’ve avoided a small subset of stupidity and that subset is important. It’s about avoiding the dumb things [Charlie]. They hammer this every year. Their success does not come from doing so many things right. It comes from avoiding the things that are terribly wrong. Some say this is two sides of the same coin. But it’s not. It requires a fundamental shift in psychology. The stories are endless of people who did a few things right and were massively successful, but then did something stupid that took them back to zero. Before Charlie and Warren do anything, they "invert, always invert" as Charlie says. They list every way imaginable in which they could fail at a particular task and then take massive effort to avoid those failures. Do that and the success will come automatically.

13. Go to bed a little wiser than when you woke up [Charlie]. This covers the whole meeting in a word. Life is about learning. If you are always learning you can never lose. Keep this as your only rule for the day and the world will be yours for the taking.

Go to bed a little wiser than when you woke up.

-Charlie Munger

The lessons from Warren and Charlie are endless. We can all stand to learn and be better people from what they are willing to share. They don’t charge any money or ask for anything in return. Except of course that we live a life with a burning desire to learn and do all we can to be valuable additions to society. Take these lessons to heart. There will likely not be another Warren and Charlie for a very long time. Take advantage of the education while you can. Do so and I have a feeling success and fulfillment will come naturally.

Thank you Warren and Charlie. We owe you a great deal.

25 Unmissable Lessons from My Weekend with Warren Buffett

By Scott Dinsmore May 3, 2011

"Conduct yourself in life so other people trust you. It helps even more if they’re right to trust you." ~Charlie Munger, 2011 Berkshire Meeting
Last Saturday I spent the day with Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger and Bill Gates (and a few other pretty successful guys).

I wish I could say it was just us but there were about 41,000 others in the same room. Attending the Berkshire Hathaway Annual meeting has become an annual tradition. This was my fifth consecutive. And you can be sure I’ll be attending as long as Warren is hosting.

Not only is it why I started my investment partnership a few years back, but it’s also one of the best venues I’ve found for surrounding myself with passionate people.

There’s a lot you can learn from spending 7 hrs in possibly the most powerful, smart and wealthy room in the world.

The best part is you’ll learn more about life than you will about investing.

I wish people realized this before they decided not to attend. Consider it a PhD-level education in life, career, relationships and passion, with some value investing sprinkled on top.

By the end of the meeting, I was left with 16 pages of notes. Some lessons new, some old. All gold.

I’ve whittled down the most widely applicable and intentionally left out those related to deep finance and investing – those are more appropriately saved for one of our fund’s quarterly letters (let me know if you’d like to be on the list). Plus I’m sure someone will do a better job with the technical stuff, not to mention the life philosophies are the real juice of these meetings as far as I’m concerned – the rest can be learned in a book or two.

Let’s hit it!

25 Unmissable Life Lessons from Warren and Charlie:

1. Lose money for the firm and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation and I will be ruthless. Money and things can always be replaced and recovered. Reputation cannot. There is no price worth trading down in what others think of you. This is reiterated every year. If ever in doubt, imagine whatever you do will be reported by an informed reporter the following day in your local newspaper for your family, children and closest friends to read. Should make actions a little more obvious.

2. Choose the best who will have you. In other words, marry up! But it doesn’t stop at finding a husband or wife. Take this approach with every one of your relationships-business partners, friends, employers, teachers. Time and relationships are precious. Aim high and don’t accept anyone who doesn’t make you better.

3. It’s a mistake to think rationality will always hold up, even in able people. David Sokol, one of Berkshire’s most highly touted former managers, reminded us all of this a few weeks back. Buffett and Munger handled what could have easily been a smear session, with class and grace. Don’t expect even the very best and most considerate of people to do right all the time. It’s not human. When it happens, deal with it as you would hope someone would deal with you when in the wrong.

When asked why they weren’t more ‘ruthless’ in their reaction to the situation, Charlie said "I don’t think it’s wrong to remember all he did right in addition to his errors." Buffett even told a little-known story about David years ago voluntarily offering $12m of his bonus to his colleague because David thought it most fair. Buffett had no obligation to bring this up, especially regarding someone who had just done him wrong. It takes a special man to see the full picture.

4. You can always tell a man to go to hell tomorrow if it turns out to be such a good idea. Why risk being distasteful today if you don’t have to? I bet there’s a better way to handle it. Do your best to avoid making decisions when angry.

5. Don’t worry about the fact that you’re going to fail. If you’re not failing here and there, you’re likely not giving the world all you have. It’s going to happen. Allow it to make you better.

6. You can be cheerful even if things are deteriorating. Sure there’s all kinds of things to worry about with the economy, environment and all else. It’s on you to find the things that inspire and motivate you. They’re out there regardless how dark it may look out your window.

Warren is about as rationally optimistic as they come. He recalls how he was born in the heart of the Great Depression. Most people, if given a choice, would have said ‘no way’ to wanting to be born when all those banks were failing, unemployment’s through roof and the markets through the floor. But all that’s really happened in the 80 years since then is the standard of living has improved. Yet a dollar in 1930 is worth $0.06 today. That’s six cents! And still look what happened. Keep your focus where it belongs. This generally means seeing the big long-term picture, not just what’s in front of your face. As in investing is in life.

7. Continuous learning is absolutely required to have any significant achievement in the world. After last week’s post, you know how I feel aboutinvesting in yourself. These guys are obsessed.

8. Own a business that requires very little capital to grow. Ok so I guess I found one investing-related lesson worthy of inclusion here, as it applies to all of us, especially entrepreneurs. A business that requires very little money to grow is better than one that requires a ton.

Simple enough right?

But very few companies end up qualifying.

It just so happens that a blog is a business that costs almost nothing to grow. If I had 20,000 new subscribers join tomorrow (spread the word!), my cost and time investment in the business wouldn’t change a bit (except for a few more comments to reply to). The same goes for all kinds of information product businesses, which I know a lot of you run or are considering running.

Imagine what would be involved in Walmart doubling their current store base from 9,000 to 18,000? It’s a fantastic business, but talk about a headache. It would cost a fortune. Stick with simple businesses that don’t cost much to run. You’ll have a lot more hair ten years from now.

9. Don’t be in a hurry. Whether you’re starting a business or learning a new skill, you never want to be in too big of a rush. You may miss something important and you’ll surely miss some of the fun. Entrepreneurs are notorious for this (I know I am). Always wanting to get to the next spot. Goals and milestones are great but they are not meant to wish away today. Remember to down.

10. Conduct yourself in life so other people trust you. It helps even more if they’re right to trust you. It’s a simple process. Do one then the other. No other asset is more powerful than others having unconditional trust in you. Takes a lifetime to build and an instant to erase.

11. Think about how you want to be remembered. Act accordingly. For Charlie it’s "A fortune fairly won and wisely used." For Warren it’s "A teacher". Possibly the understatement of the year.

12. Reduced expectations is the best defense an investor has. This goes for anything in life. Most anger, disappointment and frustration comes from poorly managed expectations. Charlie jokingly said "I’m big on lowering expectations – that’s how I got married, my wife lowered hers." Expect everything of yourself and nothing of the world and you will always be pleasantly surprised.

13. The problem with rules is people break them. The spirit of rules extends beyond them. They are not meant to be danced around. You know when you’re doing something you shouldn’t. You have to self regulate. If in doubt, refer to #1 above.

14. There are no grey areas when it comes to integrity. No explanation needed.

15. It’s so much fun when you’re trusted and worthy of trust. Earn it and keep it.

16. We’re here to go to bed a little wiser than when we woke up. Warren reminded us how he spent 4 or 5 years of his life in the Omaha Public Library until he was about 10. Hearing things like this make it a little more obvious why he’s where he is. If you enjoy learning it, regard it as important and soak in all you can.

17. I think generally speaking, serving on a lot of different boards is for the birds. Charlie was referring to company boards but the rule holds up in any space. There are serious diminishing returns as you start to get involved in too many projects. Your mind can only focus and be useful with so many things. For me it’s 2-3 max. I don’t care if you can fit them into your schedule. Your mind can’t handle it. Do all you can to keepinsane focus.

18. It’s more fun to create partnerships with people to do meaningful things than try to outsmart other people out of money. With most things we work on, there’s room for others. Create a community around the success you intend on producing. Share it with others. They’ll share back.

19. The secret to success in a field is learning all you can about it. Noticing a trend here?

20. Don’t give your kids the idea they’re special just because their parents are rich or powerful. Don’t encourage them to outdo their parents in a field their parents are best at. If your child feels entitled to something, you’re probably the one at fault, not them. Kids who are very interested in learning will continue working regardless of how rich or privileged they are.

21. Someone has to be the exemplar of not grabbing all that he can. Warren’s salary is still $100k. Many bankers out of college get paid more. He’s also pledged his $40+ billion net worth to charity. He could do anything he wants with his wealth. Anything. He’s decided to share it. Don’t be greedy just because you can. Don’t give back just because it looks good. Do it because it matters. It’s all of our job to set an example.

22. Reading fast is a huge advantage. Do all you can to enhance this skill. Warren didn’t know much about speed reading programs but he suggested finding the most effective one out there and taking it. Learn the best techniques young. Tony Robbins did the same thing. Then he read over 700 books on psychology and became the leader in a field he never officially went to school f. I looked into every speed reading program I could find a few years back. The best one I came across was Iris Reading. I now teach some of the classes.

23. Learn to communicate. Warren said the best diploma he has is from a Dale Carnegie public speaking couse he took in 1951 for $100. The return he’s gotten on it is incalculable. How can you not take a course like this with an endorsement like that? The world revolves around personal connection. That starts with communication. Toastmasters is also worth a look.

24. Send letters to people you respect. A new investment manager, Todd Combs, was recently hired for Berkshire to help take over when Warren and Charlie are gone. You can only imagine the competition for this role. When asked how they found him, Charlie said Todd simply wrote him a letter.

Few people step out and try to contact people they admire. So many of us assume everyone else is doing it that in reality few people are. It makes the competition for the really wild and crazy goals not quite so intense. I wrote a letter to Warren two years ago and he sent me one back the very next day. Start writing letters and create world-class connections.

25. Never trade something you have and need for something you don’t have and don’t need, even if you really want it. People make the wrong decision on this everyday. We get tempted to buy all kinds of crap hundreds of time a day. As a result much of the western world has ended up in debt and a lot of trouble all for an extra room or two in their house, a few more horsepower in their car or a certain label on their jeans. Most things you think you ‘need’ are actually wants in disguise. Know the difference and don’t overextend. This goes as much for debt as it does for relationships and all else. Greed is dangerous.

Allow Yourself to be Taught

This weekend and the people that have become a part of my life as a result deserve huge credit for how I approach life and the investment fund I’ve found that my partner and I love running. That’s priceless, yet the cost of attending this 7-hour no-holds-barred Q&A session is free.

I now go out to Omaha each year and see 50-100 rock star people I know. Friends who get to connect once a year and make each other better.

Events like this are everywhere. Don’t underestimate the ripple effect a casual weekend can have. Most the time the only thing that keeps you from experiencing them is having the interest in the first place.

If anyone would like to join me next year, leave a comment below and I’ll see to it that you get the same warm welcome I did.

Start Learning Early

Warren and Charlie are some of the best teachers the world has seen. Few people are more open and generous with their life philosophies, successes and failures. They do it all for free. All you have to do is want to listen.

On Sunday afternoon, before heading to the airport, I ran into a father and his two kids. John, the father, and I got to talking about what we’d learned in the past few days, how I ran my business and the enjoyment of being around people like all of us.

He then introduced me to his son and daughter. They peppered me with questions that people twice my age often don’t think to ask (I knew about half the answers…). They couldn’t have been older than 14. I started coming when I was 24. I couldn’t help but wonder how things would be different if I started 10 years prior…

It’s never too early and it’s never too late. All that matters is you start.

Warren and Charlie, thank you both for the ongoing education of a lifetime. I’ll do my best to pay it forward.

What are the most educational events you attend each year? What’s the biggest lesson your mentor has taught you? Share in the comments and make us all better.

Who else would enjoy this?