Overcoming Obstacles To Personal Growth: Grasp The Positive Benefits Of Negative Experiences
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES TO PERSONAL GROWTH: GRASP THE POSITIVE BENEFITS OF NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES Working artists David Bayles and Ted Orland tell a story about an art teacher who did an experiment with his grading system for two groups of students. It is a parable on the benefits of failure. Here is what happened: The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in some scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty kilogrammes of pots rated an “A,” forty kilogrammes “B,” and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” however, needed to produce only one pot—albeit a perfect one—to get an “A.” Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay. It doesn’t matter whether your objectives are in the area of art, business, ministry, sports, or relationships. The only way you can get ahead is to fail early, fail often, and fail forward. TAKE THE JOURNEY Many people are taught on leadership at numerous conferences every year. And one of my deepest concerns is always that some people will go home from the event and nothing will change in their lives. They enjoy the “show” but fail to implement any of the ideas presented to them. I tell people continually: We overestimate the event and underestimate the process. Every fulfilled dream occurred because of dedication to a process. (That’s one of the reasons I write articles and post them on my blog—so that people can engage in the ongoing process of growth.) People naturally tend toward inertia. That’s why personal growth is such a struggle. But that’s also why adversity lies at the heart of every success. The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level. Most people will grudgingly concede that they must make it through some adversity in order to succeed. They’ll acknowledge that they have to experience the occasional setback to make progress. But I believe that success comes only if you take that thought one step farther. To achieve your dreams, you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you’re not failing, you’re probably not really moving forward. THE BENEFITS OF ADVERSITY Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers asserts, “The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.” Adversity and the failure that often results from it should be expected in the process of succeeding, and they should be viewed as absolutely critical parts of it. In fact, the benefits of adversity are many. Consider these reasons to embrace adversity and persevere through it: Adversity Creates Resilience Nothing in life breeds resilience like adversity and failure. A study in Time magazine in the mid-1980s described the incredible resilience of a group of people who had lost their jobs three times because of plant closings. Psychologists expected them to be discouraged, but they were surprisingly optimistic. Their adversity had actually created an advantage. Because they had already lost a job and found a new one at least twice, they were better able to handle adversity than people who had worked for only one company and found themselves unemployed. Adversity Develops Maturity Adversity can make you better if you don’t let it make you bitter. Why? Because it promotes wisdom and maturity. American playwright William Saroyan spoke to this issue: “Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.” As the world continues to change at a faster and faster rate, maturity with flexibility becomes increasingly important. These qualities come from weathering difficulties. Harvard business school professor John Kotter says, “I can imagine a group of executives 20 years ago discussing a candidate for a top job and saying, ‘This guy had a big failure when he was 32.’ Everyone else would say, ‘Yep, yep, that’s a bad sign.’ I can imagine that same group considering a candidate today and saying, ‘What worries me about this guy is that he’s never failed.” The problems we face and overcome prepare our hearts for future difficulties. Adversity Pushes The Envelope Of Accepted Performance Lloyd Ogilvie told of a friend who was a circus performer in his youth. The fellow described learning to work on the trapeze: Once you know that the net below will catch you, you stop worrying about falling. You actually learn to fall successfully! What that means is, you can concentrate on catching the trapeze swinging toward you, and not on falling, because repeated falls in the past have convinced you that the net is strong and reliable when you do fall . . . The result of falling and being caught by the net is a mysterious confidence and daring on the trapeze. You fall less. Each fall makes you able to risk more. Until a person learns from experience that he can live through adversity, he is reluctant to buck mindless tradition, push the envelope of organizational performance, or challenge himself to press his physical limits. Failure prompts a person to rethink the status quo. Adversity Provides Greater Opportunities I believe that eliminating problems limits our potential. Just about every successful entrepreneur I’ve met has numerous stories of adversity and setbacks that opened doors to greater opportunity. Adversity Prompts Innovation
Making Peace With The Past: How To Stop The Past From Holding You Back
Making Peace With The Past: How To Stop The Past From Holding You Back We do not heal the past by dwelling there; we heal the past by living fully in the present. — MARIANNE WILLIAMSON Stuck In History Sometimes people dwell on the things that happened years ago, while others tend to dwell on whatever happened last week. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? You wish you could press the rewind button so you could redo portions of your life. You struggle with major regrets about your past. You spend a lot of time wondering how life would have turned out if only you had chosen a slightly different path. You sometimes feel like the best days of your life are already behind you. You replay past memories in your mind like a scene from a movie over and over again. You sometimes imagine saying or doing something differently in past memories to try and create a different outcome. You punish yourself or convince yourself you don’t deserve to be happy. You feel ashamed of your past. When you make a mistake or experience an embarrassing episode, you keep repeatedly replaying the event in your mind. You invest a lot of time in thinking about all the things you “should have” or “could have” done differently. Although self-reflection is healthy, dwelling can be self-destructive, preventing you from enjoying the present and planning for the future. But you don’t have to stay stuck in the past. You can choose to start living in the moment. Why We Dwell On The Past Lingering guilt, shame, and anger are some of the feelings that can keep you stuck in the past. You might subconsciously think, If I stay miserable long enough, I’ll eventually be able to forgive myself. You may not even be aware that deep down, you don’t believe you deserve happiness. Dwelling On The Past Distracts You From The Present Sometimes we dwell on the past as a way to distract ourselves from the present. Often, we romanticize the past as a way to escape problems in the present. If, for example, you’re not happy in your current relationship, or if you’re not in a relationship at all, it may be tempting to spend a lot of time thinking about a past love. Perhaps you wish that your last relationship had worked out or you still think if you’d married your college sweetheart, you’d be better off. It can be tempting to fixate on how much easier or happier life was “back then.” You may even begin to regret some of the decisions you made that landed you where you are today and say things like “If only I’d married my old boyfriend, I’d still be happy”; “If I hadn’t dropped out of college, I’d have a job I love”; or “If I didn’t agree to move to a new town, I’d still have a good life.” The truth is, we don’t know what life would have had in store for us had we not made those choices. But it’s easy for us to imagine that life could be better if we could only change the past. The Problem With Dwelling On The Past Ruminating on the past won’t change it. Instead, wasting your time dwelling on what’s already happened will only lead to more problems in the future. Here are some of the ways that dwelling on the past can interfere with your ability to be your best self: 1. You miss out on the presentYou can’t enjoy the present if your mind is constantly stuck in the past. You’ll miss out on experiencing new opportunities and celebrating the joys of today if you’re distracted by things that have already occurred. 2. Dwelling on the past makes it impossible to adequately prepare for the futureYou won’t be able to clearly define your goals or stay motivated to create change when a big part of you remains stuck in the past. 3. Dwelling on the past interferes with your decision-making skillsWhen you have unresolved issues from the past, those conflicts will cloud your thinking. You won’t be able to adequately make healthy decisions about what’s best for you today when you can’t get over something that happened yesterday. 4. Dwelling on the past doesn’t solve anythingReplaying the same scripts in your head and focusing on things you no longer have control over won’t resolve anything. 5. Dwelling on the past can lead to depressionRuminating on negative events conjures up negative emotions. And when you feel sad, the more likely you are to conjure up even more sad memories. Dwelling on past times can be a vicious cycle that keeps you stuck in the same emotional state. 6. Romanticizing the past—the grass-is-greener philosophy—isn’t helpful It’s easy to convince yourself that you felt happier, more confident, and completely carefree back then. But there’s a good chance you’re exaggerating how great things used to be. It can also make you exaggerate how bad things are now. 7. Dwelling on the past is bad for your physical healthThinking constantly about negative events increases inflammation in your body, according to a 2013 study conducted by researchers at the University of Ohio. Dwelling on the past could put you at a greater risk for diseases associated with heart disease, cancer, and dementia. Shift Your Thinking Dwelling starts out as a cognitive process, but eventually it influences your emotions and behaviour. By shifting the way you think about the past, you can move forward. 1. Schedule time to think about a past eventSometimes our brains need a chance to sort things out and the more you tell yourself not to think about it, the more those memories can crop up throughout the day. Instead of battling to suppress the memories, remind yourself, I can think about that after dinner tonight. Then, after dinner, give yourself twenty minutes to think about it. When your time is up, move on to something else. 2. Give yourself something
The Power Of Informed Thinking: Enhancing Decision-Making In Business
The Power Of Informed Thinking: Enhancing Decision-Making In Business Beware of endeavouring to be a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed: these are fearful odds. —BENJAMIN DISRAELI The two most popular words among experienced businesspeople are “due diligence.” This requires taking the time, however long, to get the critical information you need to make the right decision. The biggest mistakes we make are those where we commit time, money, and resources without having done sufficient homework. The best decisions we make are almost invariably based on having acquired complete knowledge of the issue before we act. We “look before we leap.” Reasons For Business Success In business the number one reason for failure is that there is no demand for the product or service. Whatever it is, the customers don’t want it or don’t want it at the price that the company has to charge to stay in business. The major reason for business success is high sales. The major reason for business failure is low sales. All else is commentary. The primary reason for the poor decisions that lead to market failure is that the key people failed to ask the right questions or to get the necessary information before the product was produced and sold. Get the Facts The most important elements in business are facts. Get the real facts, not the obvious facts or assumed facts or hoped-for facts. Get the real facts. Facts don’t lie. One of the most important words in business today is “validation.” Never assume. When you get a good idea, immediately take action to validate it, to gather proof that it is really as good as you think it is. Think on paper. Make a list of all the information you have about the product or service and all the information you will need to make the right decision. Talk to other people. Seek advice and input from others who have been in the same situation. Hire an expert. One person who specializes in a particular area can save you a fortune in lost time and money. Do an online search. Put in the key words associated with your question, problem, or idea, and see what pops up. Very often, this ground has already been thoroughly plowed by someone else. Solicit opinions. Ask everyone in your business who might have some knowledge about this subject to share his or her candid opinions and ideas. One thought or observation can change your perspective completely. Use the Scientific Method Create a hypothesis—a yet-to-be-proven theory. Then seek ways to invalidate this hypothesis, to prove that your idea is wrong. This is what scientists do. This is exactly the opposite of what most people do. They come up with an idea, and then they seek corroboration and proof that their idea is a good one. They practice “confirmation bias.” They only look for confirmation of the validity of the idea, and they simultaneously reject all input or information that is inconsistent with what they have already decided to believe. Create a negative or reverse hypothesis. This is the opposite of your initial theory. For example, you are Isaac Newton, and the idea of gravity has just occurred to you. Your initial hypothesis would be that “things fall down.” You then attempt to prove the opposite—“things fall up.” If you cannot prove the reverse or negative hypothesis of your idea, you can then conclude that your hypothesis is correct. For example, you come up with an idea for a product or service. You then attempt to prove that there is no demand for this product or service at this particular price. You approach a prospective customer and describe the product or service and then say, “Of course, this is not something thatyou want, need, or are willing to pay for, is it?” If your customer agrees that he does not want what you are proposing, you have a valuable piece of information to guide your decision making. If, on the other hand, the customer counters your negative hypothesis by saying, “No, no, no. This is actually something that I would be very interested in buying and using if you were to bring it to market,” then you have validated yourinitial theory about the potential demand for this new product or service. Be Willing to Fail Be prepared to try and fail, to propose and be rejected, over and over. Failure, trial, and error are absolutely essential to your ultimate success. Be your own management consultant with any of your ideas and conclusions. Ask yourself the brutal questions that a consultant would ask you to help guide you in decision making. “Is there a market demand for this new product or service?” “How big is the demand, and at what price?” “What changes would you have to make in your initial idea to make this a product or service attractive enough that people would want to buy it in sufficient quantities?” “Is the demand for this new product idea large enough to justify developing this product rather than something else?” “Is the market for this product idea concentrated enough so that you can reach potential customers with current marketing and sales channels?” “Will customers pay enough for this product or service to enable you to earn a greater profit than you would with some other product or service?” Be tough on yourself in becoming informed. Don’t let yourself off the hook or ask yourself softball questions. As Zig Ziglar said, “If you are hard on yourself, life will be very easy on you. But if you insist on being easy on yourself, life will be very hard on you.” Better to Be Right As the psychologist Jerry Jampolsky once wrote, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” It is amazing how many people come up with a new product or service idea and then fall in love with the idea long before they validate
Entrepreneurial Thinking: Achieve High Levels Of Financial Success
Entrepreneurial Thinking: Achieve High Levels Of Financial Success Be true to the best you know. This is your high ideal. If you do your best, you cannot do more. — H. W. DRESSER All people want to achieve the highest possible level of financial success in the course of their careers. According to Thomas Stanley, author of The Millionaire Next Door, fully 80 percent of self-made millionaires are entrepreneurs. They earned their fortunes in one lifetime by starting andbuilding their own business, by producing and selling something to someone. They thought and acted like entrepreneurs most of the time. According to the April 2024 Forbes magazine, there are 2,781 billionaires in the world today, 70 percent of whom are self-made. They started as entrepreneurs with nothing and built their fortunes from the ground up by creating and selling products and services that people wanted and were willing to buy and pay for. Think About Customers Entrepreneurial thinking means focusing on the customers at all times, thinking about the customers continually. Tom Peters wrote in the book In Search of Excellence that the single most important quality of successful businesses was “an obsession with customer service.” Corporate Thinking Corporate thinking is different from entrepreneurial thinking. Company people, whether employees, managers, executives, or technicians, view customers either with disinterest or as problems who are always complaining or requesting something new or different. Customers areoften seen as flies that have to be swatted and brushed away. Corporate thinkers are preoccupied with doing their jobs, pleasing their superiors, following the rules, and doing the minimum necessary to avoid being fired or laid off. Employees who are corporate types use the pronouns “them, they, and their” to describe the company and the people in charge. They feel that whatever happens in the company has little to do with them personally. They say, “A job is a job.” As one corporate type told me some time ago, “When I go to work, I think about my job, but when I come home, I don’t think about my job or company at all.” Lack of Engagement Many researchers conclude that more than 60 percent of employees at large and small companies are “disengaged.” They feel no deep commitment or loyalty to the company. They are just going through the motions of work, thinking about doing something else. They check the jobs ads on a regular basis, post their résumés and qualifications on LinkedIn and other websites, and are continually looking for something else to do. Corporate types come to work at the last minute, take every minute of tea breaks and lunches, and spend as much as 50 percent of their time chitchatting with co-workers, checking social media on their smart phones and doing things of no or low value to their company. Commitment Is the Key Entrepreneurial thinkers are different. They are committed to the success of the company. They see themselves as self-employed and act as if they owned their companies personally. They use words like “we,” “mine,” and “our” when they refer to their company and to their products and services. Above all, they accept and take on high levels of responsibility for results. Entrepreneurial thinkers are always volunteering for more responsibility. They continually think about making a greater contribution. They are continually upgrading their skills, learning new things, and seeking ways to become more valuable to their companies. Above all, entrepreneurial thinkers search for ways to increase the sales and profitability of their companies. Entrepreneurial thinking is customer-centric, customer-focused thinking. Entrepreneurial thinkers think about customers all the time. Sales Are Central The number one reason for business success is high sales. The number one reason for business failure is low sales. All else is commentary. The key to business success is SMS, which stands for “Sell More Stuff.” This is what the entrepreneurial thinker focuses on most of the time. How can we sell more stuff? Successful business people have certain qualities, characteristics, and disciplines that enable them to achieve far more than the average person. There are several ways for you to develop the qualities of entrepreneurial thinking and to make a greater contribution to the sales and profitability of your organization. Remember the three keys: clarity, focus, and concentration. Ask the Basic Questions There are basic business questions that you need to ask and answer all the time, especially when you face rapid change in knowledge, technology, and competition. First, what business are you really in? Define your business in terms of how you serve your customers, the improvements or transformations your products bring about in their lives and work. Who is your ideal customer, the perfect person for what you sell? This is a description of the demographics and psychographics of the type of person who most appreciates and values the special features, benefits, and results of the product or service that you offer. What does your ideal customer consider valuable? What is so important to him or her that you can provide that makes your prices seem unimportant? The main reason that businesses fail is that there is little or no demand for their product. People don’t value it or want it and have no interest in buying it. Your Area of Excellence What is it that you do especially well? What is your area of excellence or superiority in comparison to your competitors relative to what your ideal customer wants, needs, and is willing to pay for? All companies, products, and services must have a competitive, comparative advantage over their competitors that makes them the best choice and ideally the “only” choice in their market. What is yours? What could it be? Jack Welch said, “If you don’t have competitive advantage, don’t compete.” He is famous for his rule that General Electric would be number one or number two in every market it was in, or it would abandon that market and concentrate its efforts somewhere else. For a company to be successful, it must dominate a
Smart Thinking: Long-Term Perspective
Smart Thinking: Long-Term Perspective Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound. The man who does not shrink from self-crucifixion can never fail to accomplish the object upon which his heart is set. This is as true of earthly as of heavenly things. Even the man whose sole object is to acquire wealth must be prepared to make great personalsacrifices before he can accomplish his object; and how much more so he who would realize a strong and well-poised life. —JAMES ALLEN The better you think, the better results you will get and the more successful you will be in every area. The most important measure, the only measure of the quality of your thinking, is the results you get, the consequences of what you decide to do as a result of the decisions you make. Milton Friedman, the economist, once wrote, “The best measure of quality thinking is your ability to accurately predict the consequences of your ideas and subsequent actions.” His point was that economic theory divorced from what actually happened when that theory was applied was clearly incorrect. Consequences are everything! The only question is, “Did your idea work or not?” Some people are confused about the importance of long-term consequences. They think that their intentions are most important, not the results. This is a major cause of confusion in our society today. They say, “If I intend for good things to happen as the result of my ideas, my decisions, and my actions and they don’t, you can’t blame me.” Your ability to accurately foresee and predict the consequences of your decisions and actions is the true measure of your intelligence. What Is Intelligence? Intelligence is not a matter of IQ, grades in school, or years of study. Intelligence is instead a “way of acting.” This means that if you act intelligently, you are smart. If you act stupidly, you are stupid, irrespective of grades or measures on IQ tests. What, then, by definition, is an intelligent act? The answer is simple. An intelligent act is something you do that moves you closer to something you really want. A stupid act is something you do that does not move you closer to something you want or, even worse, moves you away from it. You personally define a smart or stupid act when you decide what you want and what you don’t want. As Winston Churchill said, “I long ago stopped listening to what people said. Instead, I look at what they do. Behaviour is the only truth.” Action Is Everything How can you tell what a person really wants, thinks, feels, believes, and is committed to? Simple. You just look at his or her actions. It is not what people say, wish, hope, or intend that counts. It is only what they do, and especially what they do when faced with temptation or put under pressure. Someone says, “I want to be successful in my career and in life.” He actually believes it. But then you observe his behaviour. This person arrives at work at the last possible minute, leaves at the first possible minute, and hurries home so that he doesn’t miss the latest episode of his favourite television show. Clearly, based on his behaviour, his goal is not to be successful in his career but rather to watch television. How do you know? Because that is exactly what he is doing, every night after work. Did It Work? The only real measure of your decisions and action is “Did it work?” Did your action, based on your thinking, move you toward something that you wanted or something that is important to you? There are two laws that trip people up all the time, in personal life, in politics, and in international affairs. They are the Law of Unintended Consequences and the Law of Perverse Consequences. The economist Henry Hazlitt, in his classic Economics in One Lesson, wrote that human beings are self-seeking. Therefore, every action is an attempt to improve one’s conditions in some way. People always seek the fastest and easiest way to get the things they want as soon as possible, with little consideration of secondary consequences. Hazlitt said that the desired result of any action is always an improvement in conditions of some kind. The improvement is the primary consequence aimed at. It is always positive. All action is focused on improvement of some kind. Consider the Consequences But it is the secondary and tertiary consequences—what happens afterward and after that—that are most important. The Law of Unintended Consequences says that in many cases an act or a behaviour brings about immediate positive results, in the short term, but the long-term consequences can be quite negative. For example, a young man quits school to take a job to earn cash so that he can buy a car, socialize, go out with girls, and have an enjoyable life. These are all positive and immediate aims and goals that young people want to enjoy. However, the consequences of a lack of education are often a lifetime of depressed earnings, little upward mobility, and the strong likelihood of the individual’s never reaching his or her full potential. Creating Something Worse The Law of Perverse Consequences is what happens when the results of an apparently positive action turn out to create a situation that is far worse than if nothing had been done at all. For example, the immediate benefit of giving money to people who need it in our society is to help them and provide for them in the short term. The perverse consequences can be that the individual becomes addicted to “free money,” drops out of the workforce, becomes dependent on handouts, and loses his pride, self-esteem, and self-respect. The individual ends up much worse off than if nothing had been done at all. In society, the primary reason for social programs, giving money to the less fortunate, is always an attempt
Resilience: Bouncing Back From Adversity
Resilience: Bouncing Back From Adversity The miracle. Or the power, that elevates the few to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the promptings of a brave, determined spirit.—Mark Twain True success comes from positive knowing, rather than positive thinking. Your goal should be to achieve the kind of unshakable success and happiness that makes you an unstoppable force of nature. Your job is to take every step possible to make yourself so positive that you become irresistible and able to accomplish any goal that you set your mind to. One of the most importantthings you need is an absolute faith in your ability to overcome any adversity that the world can throw at you. Persistence Is Essential Napoleon Hill wrote that “Persistence is to the character of man, as carbon is to steel.” He also said that “Before success comes in any man’s life he is sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps, some failure. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and most logical thing to do is quit. That is exactly what the majority of men do.” In reality, your persistence is your measure of your belief in yourself and your ability to succeed. If you absolutely believe, without question, that if you persevere long enough and hard enough, you will ultimately win, then nothing will stop you. When you build within yourself this absolute assurance, then virtually anything becomes possible for you. Your success and happiness goesthrough the roof. The Reality Habit Robert Ringer, in his best-selling book, Million Dollar Habits (Fawcett, 1990), says that the most important of all the habits that lead to great achievement is what he calls the “reality habit.” It explains the attitudes of men and women who have achieved greatness in almost every field. Happy, successful people are intensely realistic. They do not allow themselves the luxury of self-delusion. They face the world as it is, rather than the way they wish it would be. They accept the unalterable facts of life as given, and they work and plan their activities around them. In learning how to triumph over adversity, the application of the reality principle is to simply accept that “problems are inevitable.” Problems, setbacks, and disappointments are an unavoidable reality of life. Your ability to deal with these difficulties has as much to do with your success asany other factor. The Test of Character It’s easy to feel good about yourself and to have high levels of happiness when everything is going well, but the true test of a man or woman is when you can keep your head and continue to function when things seem to be falling down around you, and everyone else is discouraged and often blaming it on you. These are the times when you really show the kind of stuff you are made of. The Stanford University Business School conducted extensive research into the qualities of a man or woman that mark him or her for advancement into the executive suite, and ultimately, to the position of president and chief executive officer. They used a variety of questionnaires, surveys, and tests, going back to when an individual first joined a large company, to find ways to predict which people would be most likely to rise to the top of a large organization. After examining dozens of qualities, they were finally able to isolate two qualities that were most predictive of executive success, in terms of assuring that the organization under their control would continue to survive and thrive in a dynamic and competitive world. Play Well on the Team The first quality they identified was the ability to perform well as a member of a team, and the ability to put together teams to accomplish common objectives. All the business and the interpersonal skills that make a person valuable to an organization seem to be demonstrated in a team setting. This quality was relative easy to observe and measure over the course of a person’s career. Crisis Management The second quality they identified was harder to measure, even though it was absolutely indispensable for long-term, high-level success. This quality was the ability to function well in a crisis.Napoleon called this “four o’clock in the morning courage,” the kind of courage that is instantly available to a person woken up at that time, who has no time to prepare mentally and emotionally for a crisis. He called this the rarest form of courage, and, in his conclusion, very few people hadit. In military terms, they call this being under fire. A question that all soldiers, sailors, and airmen wonder about is how they and others will perform under fire. They know that this is the ultimate test of the character and training of an individual. Organizations know that, often, their very survival will depend on how well an individual deals with the inevitable, unexpected reversal of fortune. The Stanford study concluded that, although this quality was hard to measure because a real crisis could not be anticipated or created for test purposes, it was still critical in predicting success in the higher levels of the business. Reversals of Fortune This is also true for you. Your happiness and success is closely tied to your deep inner feeling about your ability to be effective when faced with problems and difficulties that hit you like a punch in the solar plexus. It is your ability to pick yourself up from the mat and keep on swinging that is the real measure of what you are made of. One of my favourite poems is The Quitter by Robert W. Service. There is a verse in that poem that goes like this: You’re sick of the game, well that’s a shame, You’re young and you’re strong and you’re bright: You’ve had a raw deal! I know, but don’t squeal, Buck up, do your damnedest and fight. It’s the plugging away that will win you the day, So don’t be a piker, old pard;
Problem Solving Strategies
Problem Solving, Decision Making And Critical Thinking PROBLEM SOLVING STRATEGIES In our previous article we covered the different barriers that a person usually faces when trying to solve a problem. This article covers the different strategies that can be used to solve problems. However, it is not limited just to these. There are many other methods. These methods are a few of the most common strategies that have been used in the process. Problem solving strategies are those steps that are used to identify the problems that one faces while trying to achieve a goal. This is usually referred to as the ‘problem solving cycle’. The cycle usually begins with identifying the problem, followed by defining the problem – the goals; try toidentify a strategy that could be used to decide on the problem, separate the relevant and irrelevant information and land on an accurate solution. This is called a problem solving cycle since problems keep arising. The minute you finish solving one problem, you have the next problem right before you. This problem solving cycle will be explained in detail later. The techniques given below are the strategies that are most commonly used while solving problems. 1. Abstraction Abstraction is a technique where the actual problem is broken down into smaller problems. Each of these problems is first solved in order to find a solution to the bigger problem. These solutions are first tested on a system. If the solution works, it is applied to the real system. Another name for this technique is to divide and conquer. This technique was used by most armies while invading any country during the medieval period. For instance, consider a mathematics problem on differentiation. The problem here is to identify whether the function provided is a maximum or a minimum function. For this, we have to find the first and second derivatives. Once we find the first and second derivatives, we can deduce whether or not the function is maximum or minimum. Here you have used abstraction to solve the problem. You have identified your set goal and divided the problem into smaller problems and used the solution obtained in those problems to solve the bigger problem. 2. Hypothesis Testing Hypothesis testing is a common statistical method where assumptions are made to explain the problem at hand. The method works towards proving the assumptions that have been made. For example, we have to identify if there is a relation between smoking and lung cancer. The problem here is to identify the relationship. The assumption (hypothesis) made could be that there is no relationship between smoking and lung cancer. The alternative to this assumption (hypothesis) is that there is a relation. Since our main assumption is that there is no relation, wehave to find certain techniques to prove whether this hypothesis is true or not. That way we will be able to identify a solution to the problem.If there is no connection then we do not have to come up with further solutions. However, if the hypothesis is proved false, we have to identify certain solutions to reduce the effect of smoking on the lungs. 3. Lateral Thinking Lateral thinking is thinking out of the box. The major barrier to this strategy is the mindset. One cannot think out of the box since he is used to a certain method of solving problems. Lateral thinking often obtains solutions which make the problem seem very obvious. For example, the production of soap was supposed to be 2000 per hour. Over the last few days, the production dropped to 800 soaps an hour. Through the other strategies you try to identify ways to overcome this problem and increase the production rate. However, it is different in lateral thinking. The solution to the problem might state that there is no harm in a drop in production since this would mean that the quality of the soap has increased. This increase in quality would mean a greater number of sales implying a higher profit. This would in turn motivate the workers and the employees to do better! 4. Means End Analysis In means end analysis you create sub goals in order to reach the final goal. You try to bridge thegap between the initial state and the final goal state. There are many examples to this method ofproblem solving that are very popular. One of the best examples is the ‘Towers of Hanoi’. While using this strategy you have to identify the initial state and also your final goal. The initialstate to this problem is represented by the first three disks of the tower being stacked in the orderof the size of the disk on the first peg, also called the start peg. The goal is to represent these disksbeing stacked on the last peg, or the end peg, which is the third peg. This must be done in exactlythe same order! The rules to this problem are: -You can only do this by moving one disk at a time. -You can only move a disk that is on top of the stack -You cannot put a bigger disk on top of a smaller disk. Since we are using the technique of means end analysis, we will have to first create our sub goals.Below is one possible way of creating sub goals. -Move the disks that are on the largest peg onto the second peg -Move the biggest disk to the third peg -Move the other disks onto the third peg as well. This can be applied continuously in order to reduce the magnitude of the problem. You will finally come to a stage where you will only have to move one disk to reach your final goal. You can use this strategy to solve problems that you might face in your daily life as well – identify the correct train connection, correct road map to follow to go on a road trip. You will have to identify every aspect of your journey in order to
Problem Solving Decision Making And Critical Thinking
Problem Solving, Decision Making And Critical Thinking In this day and age of cut throat competition, everybody is either trying to out-think or out-do each other. Each and every aspect of life has now taken on a very different dynamic and everything ultimately leads to just being a “contest.” While running the race to win the coveted first prize, people try to apply as much of their brain force as possible, in order to arrive at conclusive and advantageous decisions. If you are one of those who is finding it tough to match the footsteps of such lateral and “out of the box” thinkers, then you have come to the right place. This theme will be dedicated to the cause of understanding the concept of critical thinking, analyzing its various aspects and looking at the different ways in which you can implement it to derive all its benefits. It will also provide you with detailed information on problem solving – the problems that we face and also the procedure to use. There are examples that have been stated across the theme that will help you understand the situations better. You will find that problem solving, critical thinking and decision making go hand in hand. It is only through critical thinking and decision making that we will be able to identify a solution to any problem. These problems could be small or very big. But the process of problem solving is fool proof and helps you identify solutions with ease. The theme cover the different strategies that you could use to solve a problem. There is also a detailed explanation on the problem solving cycle. This process is usually used while working towards overcoming a problem. Problem solving and critical thinking are usually directed towards managers and supervisors in an organisation. However this is not true! Every human being faces problems in life. This process can be used to deal with those problems as well. The theme will also look at your problem-solving skills and provide you with tips to increase your brain power and utilize common sense solutions to solving problems at an elevated rate. This theme will also help you improve your decision making capacity, and allow you to make full use of your potential, in understanding how the human brain works and how you can successfully improve your life by making the best use of your mind power. By the time we are finished discussing this theme, you will start to realize how much more potential you have and be able to start to lay the groundwork for implementing critical thinking in your life. I want to thank you for opening this blog page and hope it helps you improve your problem solving and critical thinking skills. Let us begin PROBLEM SOLVING Problem solving is a term that every human being might have come across on multiple occasions. Everybody states that a manager or a supervisor has to be a master at problem solving. But this is not true! Every human being faces multiple problems in life that he must try to solve. For instance a housewife has to plan the expenditure for her house carefully. If she finds that she is running short of finances, she must work backwards and see how she can overcome the problem while purchasing the same amount of products for her house. The process of problem solving is not relevant only to human beings. It could be related to most living beings. It was found that there are cats living in the arctic region. Its climate is terribly cold and there is barely any life in the region. There are cats in the region though! Surprising is it not? These cats are lean because their body burns the fat to keep it warm. It cannot last forever without food. There are rabbits in the arctic too. These rabbits are food for the cats. The cat cannot chase the rabbit all over the region. It cannot lose all of its energy in chasing a rabbit that it might not catch. The cat actually analyzes the situation and checks on whether or not it should chase the rabbit. It takes into consideration the distance between the rabbit and itself. If it feels that it can chase the rabbit and catch it, it goes on its hunt. This is a classic example of problem solving. The problem at hand here is whether or not the cat must hunt for the rabbit. The cat uses the basics of physics in order to obtain a solution. The answer is very simple – yes or no. It is the method through which the answer is obtained that is problem solving! This method generally consists of using ad hoc methods to identify solutions to problems of any magnitude. These methods though ad hoc are used in an orderly fashion in order to obtain next to perfect results. A lot of these techniques are used in computer science, engineering and mathematics. These techniques have been developed through the techniques studied and used in psychology. What is problem solving? Problem solving is that term that has found its place in most fields. However, each of these fields has a different perspective on what problem solving exactly is. For example, in psychology problem solving would be defined as finding a solution to any mental issues or processes whereas in statistics it would be defined as a method to obtaining a solution for a certain issue on how many fish are there in a lake. One must remember that the problems can also be categorized. These categories would be well defined problems and ill – defined problems. Ill – defined problems, as the name suggests are problems that do not have a clear cut goal. It makes it difficult to come up with solutions to suchproblems. You might not be able to identify an expected solution. Well defined problems on the other hand are those problems to which solutions can be found
Signs Of Short Term Thinking And Strategies To Overcome Them
Signs Of Short-Term Thinking And Strategies To Overcome Them Most of us imagine that we engage in some form of long-term thinking; after all, we have goals and plans. But really we are fooling ourselves. We can see this most clearly when we talk to other people about their plans and strategies for the near and more distant future: we are often struck bytheir vagueness and the lack of deep thinking people generally give to such plans. They are more like hopes and wishes, and in the rush of immediate events, feeling pressure and the need to respond, such weak goals and plans are easily overwhelmed. Most of the time we are improvising and reacting to events with insufficient information. Basically we are in denial about this because it is hard to have perspective about our own decision-making process. The best way to overcome this is to recognize the clear signs of short-sighted thin lives. Only by seeing these signs can we combat them. The following are the four most common manifestations of short-term thinking: 1. Unintended consequences History is littered with endless examples of this phenomenon. In ancient Rome, a group of men loyal to the Republic feared that Julius Caesar was going to make his dictatorship permanent and establish a monarchy. In 44 BC they decided to assassinate him, thereby restoring the Republic. In the ensuing chaos and power vacuum Caesar’s great-nephew Octavius quickly rose to the top, assumed power, and permanently ended the Republic by establishing a de facto monarchy. After Caesar’s death it came out that he had never intended to create a monarchical system. The conspirators brought about precisely what they had tried to stop. In nineteenth-century India, under British colonial rule, authorities decided there were too many venomous cobras in the streets of Delhi, making life uncomfortable for the British residents and their families. To solve this they offered a reward for every dead cobra residents would bring in. Soon enterprising locals began to breed cobras in order to make a living from the bounty. The government caught on to this and cancelled the program. The breeders, resentful of the rulers and angered by their actions, decided to release their cobras back on the streets, thereby tripling the population from before the government program. Other notorious examples would include the Eighteenth Amendment, establishing Prohibition in the United States in 1920, which was designed to stop the spread of alcoholism but only ended up increasing alcohol consumption by a substantial amount; and the surprise attack on Pearl Harbour by the Japanese in 1941, designed to decimate the U.S. naval force in one blow and bring America to its knees. Instead it shook the American public out of its deep isolationism, ensuring the total mobilization of the country’s superior manpower and resources to not only defeat the Japanese but also to obliterate its military for good. The very success of the attack guaranteed the opposite of the intended result. We can find less dramatic examples of this in our daily lives. We try to control a rebellious teenager by putting some restrictions on his behaviour, only to make him even more rebellious and uncontrollable. We try to cheer up a depressed person by making her realize that her life is not that bad and that the sun is shining, only to find out we have made her even more depressed. She nowfeels guilty about her feelings, worthless, and more alone in her unhappiness. A wife tries to get her partner to open up more to her. With the hope of establishing more intimacy, she asks him what he is thinking, what happened during the course of the day, and so on. He interprets this asintrusiveness and closes up further, which makes the wife more suspicious and more prying, which closes him up even further. The source of this age-old syndrome is relatively simple: alarmed by something in the present, we grab for a solution without thinking deeply about the context, the roots of the problem, the possible unintended consequences that might ensue. Because we mostly react instead of think, our actions are based on insufficient information—Caesar was not planning to start a monarchy; the poor people of Delhi despised their colonial rulers and would not take kindly to suddenly losing money; Americans would be willing to go to war if attacked. When we operate with such a skewed perspective, it results in all kinds of perverse effects. In all of these cases a simple move partwayup the mountain would have made clear the possible negative consequences so obvious to us in hindsight: for example, offering a reward for dead cobras would naturally cause impoverished residents to breed them. Invariably in these cases people’s thinking is remarkably simple and lazy: kill Caesar and the Republic returns, action A leads to result B. A variation on this, one that is quite common in the modern world, is to believe that if people have good intentions, good things should be the result. If a politician is honest and means well, he or she will bring about the desired results. In fact, good intentions often lead to what are known as cobra effects, because people with the noblest intentions are often blinded by feelings of self-righteousness and do not consider the complex and often malevolent motivations of others. Nonconsequential thinking is a veritable plague in the world today that is only growing worse with the speed and ease of access to information, which gives people the illusion that they are informed and have thought deeply about things. Look at self-destructive wars such as the 2011 Operation Linda Nchi, Kenya’s surprise invasion of Somalia, the attempts by the Kenyan government to borrow huge loans for short-term political gain, the increasing number of financial bubbles from the craze for quail and its eggs to real estate. Related to this is a gradual disconnect from history itself, as people tend to view present events as if they were isolated in time. Any
Big Picture Thinking
Big-Picture Thinking “Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking.”—DAVID SCHWARTZ Big-picture thinking brings wholeness and maturity to a person’s thinking. It brings perspective. It’s like making the frame of a picture bigger, in the process expanding not only what you can see, but what you are able to do. CULTIVATE BIG-PICTURE THINKING BY ELEVATING YOUR PERSPECTIVE It is in the animal part of you to be most impressed by what you can see and hear in the present—the latest news reports and trends, the opinions and actions of the people around you, whatever seems the most dramatic. This is what makes you fall for alluring schemes that promise quick results and easy money. This is also what makes you overreact to present circumstances—becoming overly exhilarated or panicky as events turn one direction -or the other. Learn to measure people by the narrowness or breadth of their vision; avoid entangling yourself with those who cannot see the consequences of their actions, who are in a continual reactive mode. They will infect you with this energy. Your eyes must be on the bigger picture, and trends that govern events, on that which is not immediately visible. Never lose sight of your long-term goals. With an elevated perspective, you will have the patience and clarity to reach almost any objective. We tend to live in the moment. We respond first and foremost to what we see and hear, to what is most dramatic in an event. But our reality as human beings encompasses the past—every event is connected to something that happened before in an endless chain of historical causation. Any present problem has deep roots in the past. It also encompasses the future. Whatever we do has consequences that stretch far into the years to come. When we limit our thinking to what our senses provide, to what is immediate, our reasoning powers are neutralized. We are no longer aware of why or how things come about. We imagine that some successful scheme that has lasted a few months can only get better. We no longer give thought to the possible consequences of anything we set in motion. We react to what is given in the moment, based on only a small piece of the puzzle. Naturally our actions then lead to unintended consequences, or even to disasters. To complicate matters, we are surrounded by others who are continually reacting, drawing us deeper into the present. Salesmen and demagogues play on this human weakness to con us with the prospect of easy gains and instant gratification. Our only antidote is to train ourselves to continually detach from the immediate rush of events and elevate our perspective. Instead of merely reacting, we step back and look at the wider context. We consider the various possible ramifications of any action we take. We keep in mind our long-term goals. Often, in raising our perspective, we will decide that it is better to do nothing, to not react, and to let time go by and seewhat it reveals. Such sanity and balance do not come naturally. They are powers we acquire through great effort. Almost all of us have experienced something similar to the following scenarios: Someone we need or depend on is not paying us proper attention, not returning our calls. Feeling frustrated, weexpress our feelings to him or double our efforts to get a response. Or we encounter a problem, a project that is not going well, and so we decide upon a strategy and take appropriate action. Or a new person appears in our life, and captivated by her fresh energy and charm, we become friends. Then weeks go by and we are forced to reassess what had happened and how we had reacted. New information comes to light. That person who was not responding to us was himself overwhelmed with work. If only we had just waited and not been so impatient, we could have avoided pushing away a valuable partner. That problem we tried to solve was not really so urgent, and we made it worse by rushing an outcome. We needed to know more before acting. And that new friend ends up not being so charming; in fact, time reveals her to be a destructive sociopath whose friendship takes us years to heal from. A little more distance could have let us see the red flags before it was too late. Looking back on our life, we see that we have a tendency to be impatient and to overreact; we notice patterns of behaviour over long periods of time that elude us in the moment but become clearer to us later on. Elevate Your Perspective for More Mental Clarity What this means is that in the present moment we lack perspective. With the passage of time, we gain more information and see more of the truth; what was invisible to us in the present now becomes visible in retrospect. Time is the greatest teacher of them all, the revealer of reality. We can compare this to the following visual phenomenon: At the base of a mountain, in a thick forest, we have no ability to get our bearings or to map out our surroundings. We see only what is before our eyes. If we begin to move up the side of the mountain, we can see more of our surroundings and how they relate to other parts of the landscape. The higher we go, the more we realize that what we thought further below was not quite accurate, was based on a slightly distorted perspective. At the top of the mountain we have a clear panoramic view of the scene and perfect clarity as to the lay of the land. For us, locked in the present moment, it as if we are living at thebase of the mountain. What is most apparent to our eyes—the other people around