Are you Smart, Really?

Are you Smart, Really?

Are you a leader? If so, pay attention to your intellectual horsepower—the ability to think, understand, learn and decide well. Importantly, this horsepower is not just native smartness or Intelligence Quotient. Regardless of what the objective tests show, your past degree, title or rank cannot keep pace with today’s explosive rate of information growth.

In the Industrial Age, intelligence was measured by the quantity of information you had learned and how well you could process it. In today’s Information Age, it is measured by how quickly you can access information and assimilate it. This is the great leveler that often gives the high school graduate advantage over the PhD graduate. Do not be seduced into feeling important about what you remember from yesterday’s facts or the yellowing diplomas on your wall. Learn the big secret of being smart today.

The secret: Today, intellectual horsepower correlates directly with two skills: 1) Your adeptness at learning to use technology, and 2) Your skill at asking questions—the right questions, abundant questions. Finding answers is relatively easy, but the right question is far more powerful than the answers. Three of the most powerful questions are: Why? Why not? What if? Ask!

QUESTIONS:

What will happen to PhDs, Masters and Bachelors graduates who take pleasure in their previous learning? Do you have the intellectual horsepower to flex, open up and transform? If not, God rest your soul.

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Did it Dumb you Down?

Did it Dumb you Down?

Did education dumb you down? A child starts out with boundless creativity and imagination, then it steadily decreases as education increases. I base this assertion on over 30 years of observing business leaders and regular folk across the globe.

It is all well and good that humans grow up and cut back their wild childhood fantasies—that they no longer shade human drawings purple or green—after all, we all know that people come in black and white, with a few having a brownish or reddish tint, due to an unclean paintbrush. However, along with the decline in childhood fantasies, comes a reduction of innovation and problem solving—critical skills for success in the adult world.

This is a travesty of formal education, misunderstood and misapplied. It started with our ABCs that went in only one particular order. Then in algebra, we learned only one right answer to every question and all others were wrong—and by the way, the latter can be proven scientifically to be incorrect.

With rapid changes in science, technology and human thinking, the value of education is not its content or knowledge, but rather, the side benefit of learning how to learn—and we should never stop learning until the world stops changing.

QUESTIONS:

When last did you deliberately learn something new—not just new facts, but a new way of thinking? Without it, you could stagnate and shrink mentally; you could be the first to get laid off at work; you could resent society for not working as it should. Action: Read self-help books. Study a little philosophy for free online. Get smarter friends! smile

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Sell Wants not Needs

Sell Wants not Needs

Pepsi does not advertise dark, sweet, carbonated water. No, their ads clearly show that if you drink Pepsi, you too can be sexy or virile, free, successful and on the go. Nike does not sell foot-containers made of rubber and canvas. No, they make you fashionable, athletic and cool. What can we learn from the highly successful, multi-billion dollar marketers?

There is a reason that they are so successful. You too can experience dramatic growth, whether you sell ideas or widgets, if you are willing to redefine what you sell in the ways suggested. The thing you offer to the marketplace is not, inherently and intrinsically, what the customer desires. Instead, it is a mere conduit through which to deliver a desirable emotional experience to the customer. Widgets are commodities, interchangeable and cheap. An emotional experience is unique, inherently desirable and makes customers want to come back and buy again.

Examples:

  • Home Buyers: They may need a house, but they want/desire home, safety, security, comfort and curb appeal.
  • Bank Customers: They may need a loan but they desire convenience, freedom, flexibility and access.

QUESTIONS:

What do you sell? Redefine it into the emotional, experiential benefits it delivers to customers. Ask, “How can I deliver it with the best experience the person/customer could have?”

(Source: Book, Persuasion Power—Alvin Day)

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The Light!

The Light!

Augustine: “When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow colder. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself, but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.”

Despite your busy-ness and frenzied pace, if deep inside, you feel cold, dark, or empty and purposeless, it is a likely signal of the need to draw closer to God.

Only the most hardened of atheists would not agree that mankind has a hunger for the being called God. Churches, mosques and temples abound in the world. Even the atheist must watch out, as the more atheistic one becomes, the more of a religion atheism becomes.

MY OPINION: You were designed to seek after God; so, growing distant from Him produces negative effects–mental, spiritual and ultimately physical–counter to your design. One cannot pursue a higher purpose than moving closer to Christ, The Light of the World.

QUESTIONS:

Examine your life—are you moving toward or away from The Light of the World?
Or, are you convinced that The Light does not exist—if so, how will you ever escape the dark?

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Push Ahead? Why Not?

Push Ahead? Why Not?

It’s funny how executive leadership coaching works. Senior managers tell me of their troubles and challenges. Yet, often, they already know the answers and solutions. Sometimes they just want to tell someone with a listening ear, sometimes to double-check their thinking, and sometimes, to have someone hold them accountable.

On this day, with deep emotion, she expressed her challenges at work. Then she gave me the answer. It impacted me personally, so I wrote it down to share with you:

“Sometimes God calms the storm; At other times, God lets the storm rage And calms His child”

We have a notion of God and Faith saying YES to our prayers. If we just believe enough and trust in God, He will make our problems go away. Be  prepared for the times when He leaves the problems intact and works on you!

QUESTIONS:

  • Does the principle above apply only to religious persons?
  • In a world where success is defined to include crafting a clear vision of the future and pushing ahead with persistence, how do you determine when to stop pushing and work on you?
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The Three Questions

The Three Questions

A monster machine sits in my driveway at home, quietly, patiently and undemanding. Through heat, dust, breeze or storm, it simply awaits my command. Whenever I please, day or night, I simply press a button and the monster purrs like a cat; it is ready to fulfill its purpose—take me safely to any destination I choose.
As the driver, my only responsibility is to provide the basics: keep this fine automobile in tune and operational, and put gas in the tank. I keep it because it relentlessly delivers value to me.

Consider yourself as a human contributor whom God, training and experience have endowed with certain talents, and the ability to deliver value to others. You have been provided with the basics—food, shelter and clothing, plus an unrestricted supply of oxygen for your tank. Which of these two scenarios applies to you more than the other?

  • You are a monster machine that delivers excellence, and life wants to keep you for the value you deliver; or,
  • You are a broken-down jalopy that is undependable and low-value, and life wants to replace, eject or fire you.

Whether you are the first or second depends on your answers to these questions:

QUESTIONS:

  • Do you know your purpose in life—the thing(s) you were born to do or be, with passion and talent?
  • Are you demanding, complaining or insistent on your rights?
  • In whatever field you operate, do you pursue excellence relentlessly, with patience and the will to serve?
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