Peter Drucker wrote some years ago that the definition of an executive is someone who is expected to get results. You are an executive to the degree to which results are expected of you. You don’t have to have a staff or an office to be an executive. All you have to do is be a person in charge of getting the job done in a timely and measurable fashion.
As an executive, your key ability is solving problems and making decisions. In fact, from the time you get up in the morning until the time you go to bed at night, you are continually taking in information, analyzing the information, solving problems based on that information, and making decisions that lead to action from yourself and others. It’s safe to say that the quality of your decision making and problem solving determines the quality of your life. If you want your future to be better than your present, you must simply improve your quality of thinking and make better choices. You must become a creative problem-solver.
Building creative brain power is a lot like building muscle power in that the more strain you place on your brain, the stronger it becomes. And you can pump “mental iron” by using two powerful methods for increasing your creative problem solving ability.
The first method is called “mindstorming.” To engage in mindstorming, also called “The 20-Idea Method,” all you need is a pen and a piece of paper. Begin by writing a particular goal or problem at the top of the page.
For example, if you want to increase your income by 50 percent over the next year, you would write something like, “What can I do to increase my income by 50 percent over the next 12 months?”
Or, you can be even more specific by writing the exact amount. If you are earning $50,000 a year today, you would write: “What can I do to increase my income by $25,000 over the next 12 months?”
The more specific the question is, the better the quality of answers will be. So don’t write, “What can I do to be happier over the next 12 months?” That kind of question is too fuzzy for your mind. Be specific, detailed, and focused in your questions and you will find practical, effective answers.
Once you have written the question, jot down twenty answers. Let your mind flow freely. Write down every answer that comes to you. Don’t worry about whether it is right or wrong, intelligent or foolish, possible or impossible. Just come up with at least 20 answers.
For example, you could start with answers such as, “work harder,” or “work longer,” or “work faster.” Eventually you might work up to more in-depth answers such as, “change jobs,” or “introduce new products or services,” or “start my own business.”
Whatever you write, keep writing until you have at least 20 answers. If you get stuck after writing the obvious answers, write about the opposite solutions. Don’t be afraid to be ridiculous. Very often, a ridiculous answer triggers a breakthrough thought that might save you years of hard work.
Next, go back over the answers and select the one that seems to be the most appropriate for you at this moment. You will often have an instinct or feeling about a particular answer. It appeals to you for some reason. This is an unconscious suggestion that you are on the right track.
Once you’ve selected the best option, here’s a way to double the creative impact of this exercise: Transfer the answer to the top of a new page and then write 20 ideas for implementing it in your life. You will be astonished at the outpouring of creative ideas that flow from your mind through your hand and onto the paper.
The second method of creative problem solving is called brainstorming. This is a form of mindstorming done with a group. In brainstorming you again start off with one problem or question, but this time, you have a variety of individuals contributing to the solution.
The keys to brainstorming are simple. First, the problem or question should be stated clearly and simply so that it is understood by each participant. Take a little time to discuss the problem questions, and then write it on a flip chart. This will dramatically increase the quality of answers generated.
The aim of the brainstorming session should be to generate the most ideas possible within a specific period of time. An effective session will last anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, and 30 minutes is usually ideal.
The best number of participants for a brainstorming session is between four to seven people. Any less than four, and you run the risk of not having enough stimulation. Any more than seven, and you may find that there is insufficient opportunity for everyone to contribute.
Each brainstorming session requires a group leader. The role of the leader is to keep the ideas as free-flowing as possible. The group leader is a stimulator of ideas, encouraging each person to speak up with anything he or she has to contribute.
The most important rule of brainstorming is to avoid evaluating the ideas during the process. The focus is on quantity, not quality. Evaluation and discussion of the ideas will take place at a separate session, away from the original brainstorming.
There should also be a recorder at each session. This person will write down every idea as it is generated so that the list can be typed up and circulated at a later time.
The final keys to successful brainstorming are positive emotions, laughter, ridiculous ideas, and absolutely no criticism of any kind. The group leader needs to ensure that no one says anything that throws water on the ideas of anyone else.
When I conduct brainstorming sessions, I find that the best way to get going is to first agree on the question or problem, and second, to go around the table one by one. Pretty soon, everyone will start to contribute and the session is off and running.
When it comes to evaluating the ideas in a later session, it can be helpful to bring together an entirely different group of people. This group will consider the ideas without the ego involvement and emotional attachment of the original group. As a result, they will be able to assess the ideas far more objectively.
The amazing thing about mindstorming and brainstorming is that virtually anyone can come up with an incredible number of ideas when stimulated by one or both of these methods. And you can never tell which ideas are going to provide the breakthrough solution that you need. So go for quantity, because the more ideas you generate, the greater the likelihood that you will have exactly the idea that you need at exactly the right time.
By practicing mindstorming and brainstorming on a regular basis, you can unleash a torrent of ideas that will enable you to accomplish your goals faster than you ever believed possible. Today, in the information age, ideas are the most valuable tools of production. And since your ability to generate innovative, effective, usable ideas is virtually unlimited, your future is unlimited as well.
By: Brian Tracy
Monday, January 25, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Creating Your Own Security. By: Brian Tracy
Throughout most of human history, we have been accustomed to evolution, or the gradual changing and progressing of events in a straight line. Sometimes the process of change was faster and sometimes it was slower, but it almost always seemed to be progressive, from one step to the other, allowing you some opportunities for planning, predicting and changing.
Today, however, the rate of change is not only faster than ever before, but it is discontinuous. It is taking place in a variety of unconnected areas and affecting each of us in a variety of unexpected ways. Changes in information processing technologies are happening separately from changes in medicine, changes in transportation, changes in education, changes in politics and changes in global competition. Changes in family formation and relationships are happening separately from the rise and fall of new businesses and industries in different parts of the country. And if anything, this rate of accelerated, discontinuous change is increasing. As a result, most of us are already suffering from what Alvin Toffler once called, “future shock.”
You can’t do very much about the enormity of these changes, but the one thing that you can do is to think seriously about yourself and your basic need for security and stability. In no area is this more important than in the areas of job security and financial security. You must give special attention to your ability to make a good living and provide for yourself in the months and years ahead.
Above all, to position yourself for tomorrow, you must think continuously and seriously about your work today, your earning ability , and the work that you will be doing one, three, and five years from today. You must plan to achieve your own financial security, no matter what happens.
Charles Kettering said that you should give a lot of thought to the future because that is where you are going to spend the rest of your life. One of the greatest mistakes that people can make, and the one with the worst long-term consequences, is to think only about the present and give very little thought to what might happen in the months and years ahead.
When our grandfathers started work, it was quite common for them to get a basic education and then go to work for a company and stay with that same company for the rest of their working lives. When our parents went to work, it was more common for them to change jobs three or four times during their lifetime, although it was difficult and disruptive.
Today, with increased turbulence and change in the national and global economy, a person starting work can expect to have five full-time careers between the ages of 21 and 65, and 14 full-time jobs lasting two years or more. According to Fortune Magazine, fully 40 percent of American employees in the 21st Century will be “contingency” workers. This means that they will never work permanently for another company. They will continue to move as needed, from company to company, from job to job, earning less money than full-time employees and accruing very few, if any, benefits in terms of health care and pension plans.
Imagine what your job will look like five years from today. Since knowledge in your field is probably doubling every five years, this means that fully twenty percent of your knowledge and your ability in your field is becoming obsolete each year. In five years, you will be doing a brand new job with brand new skills and abilities. Ask yourself, “What parts of my knowledge, skills and work are becoming obsolete? What am I doing today that is different than what I was doing one year ago and two years ago?” What are you likely to be doing one year, two years, three years, four years and five years from today? What knowledge and skills will you need and how will you acquire them? What is your plan for your economic and financial future?
We are now in the knowledge age. Today, the chief factors of production are knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge to achieving results for other people. Your earning ability today is largely dependent upon your knowledge, skill and your ability to combine that knowledge and skill in such a way that you contribute value for which customers are going to pay.
The Law of Three says that you must contribute three dollars of profit for every dollar that you wish to earn in salary. It costs a company approximately double your salary to employ you in terms of space, benefits, supervision, and investment in furniture, fixtures, and other resources. For a company to hire you, they have to make a profit on what they pay you. Therefore, you must contribute value greatly in excess of the amount you earn in order to stay employed. To put it another way, your earning ability must be considerably greater than the amount you are receiving, or you will find yourself looking for another job.
To position yourself for tomorrow, here is one of the most important rules you will ever learn: “The future belongs to the competent.” The future belongs to those men and women who are very good at what they do. Pat Riley, in his book The Winner Within, wrote that, “If you are not committed to getting better at what you are doing, you are bound to get worse.” To phrase it another way, anything less than a commitment to excellent performance on your part is an unconscious acceptance of mediocrity. It used to be that you needed to be excellent to rise above the competition in your industry. Today, you must be excellent even to keep your job in your industry.
The marketplace is a stern task master. Today, excellence, quality, and value are absolutely essential elements of any product or service, and of the work of any person. Your earning ability is largely determined by the perception of excellence, quality, and value that others have of you and what you do. The market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance. It pays average rewards for average performance, and it pays below average rewards or unemployment for below average performance. Customers today want the very most and the very best for the very least amount of money, and on the best terms. Only the individuals and companies that provide absolutely excellent products and services at absolutely excellent prices will survive. It’s not personal. It’s just the way our economy works.
To earn more, you must learn more. You are maxed out today at your current level of knowledge and skill. However much you are earning at this moment is the maximum you can earn without learning and practicing something new and different.
And here’s the rub. Your accumulated knowledge and experience is becoming obsolete bit by bit, day by day. The knowledge in your field is doubling every three to five years. That means that your knowledge must double every three to five years just for you to stay even.
The solution to the dilemma of unavoidable change and restructuring is continuous self-development. Your personal knowledge and your ability to apply that knowledge are your most valuable assets. To stay on top of your world, you must continually add to your knowledge and your ability. You must continually build up your mental assets if you want to enjoy a continuous return on your investment. And only by building on your current assets do you stop them from deteriorating.
By engaging in continuous self-improvement, you can put yourself behind the wheel of your own life. By dedicating yourself to enhancing your earning ability, you will automatically be engaging in the continuous process of personal development. By learning more, you prepare yourself to earn more. You position yourself for tomorrow by developing the knowledge and skills that you need to be a valuable and productive part of our economy, no matter which direction it goes.
Today, however, the rate of change is not only faster than ever before, but it is discontinuous. It is taking place in a variety of unconnected areas and affecting each of us in a variety of unexpected ways. Changes in information processing technologies are happening separately from changes in medicine, changes in transportation, changes in education, changes in politics and changes in global competition. Changes in family formation and relationships are happening separately from the rise and fall of new businesses and industries in different parts of the country. And if anything, this rate of accelerated, discontinuous change is increasing. As a result, most of us are already suffering from what Alvin Toffler once called, “future shock.”
You can’t do very much about the enormity of these changes, but the one thing that you can do is to think seriously about yourself and your basic need for security and stability. In no area is this more important than in the areas of job security and financial security. You must give special attention to your ability to make a good living and provide for yourself in the months and years ahead.
Above all, to position yourself for tomorrow, you must think continuously and seriously about your work today, your earning ability , and the work that you will be doing one, three, and five years from today. You must plan to achieve your own financial security, no matter what happens.
Charles Kettering said that you should give a lot of thought to the future because that is where you are going to spend the rest of your life. One of the greatest mistakes that people can make, and the one with the worst long-term consequences, is to think only about the present and give very little thought to what might happen in the months and years ahead.
When our grandfathers started work, it was quite common for them to get a basic education and then go to work for a company and stay with that same company for the rest of their working lives. When our parents went to work, it was more common for them to change jobs three or four times during their lifetime, although it was difficult and disruptive.
Today, with increased turbulence and change in the national and global economy, a person starting work can expect to have five full-time careers between the ages of 21 and 65, and 14 full-time jobs lasting two years or more. According to Fortune Magazine, fully 40 percent of American employees in the 21st Century will be “contingency” workers. This means that they will never work permanently for another company. They will continue to move as needed, from company to company, from job to job, earning less money than full-time employees and accruing very few, if any, benefits in terms of health care and pension plans.
Imagine what your job will look like five years from today. Since knowledge in your field is probably doubling every five years, this means that fully twenty percent of your knowledge and your ability in your field is becoming obsolete each year. In five years, you will be doing a brand new job with brand new skills and abilities. Ask yourself, “What parts of my knowledge, skills and work are becoming obsolete? What am I doing today that is different than what I was doing one year ago and two years ago?” What are you likely to be doing one year, two years, three years, four years and five years from today? What knowledge and skills will you need and how will you acquire them? What is your plan for your economic and financial future?
We are now in the knowledge age. Today, the chief factors of production are knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge to achieving results for other people. Your earning ability today is largely dependent upon your knowledge, skill and your ability to combine that knowledge and skill in such a way that you contribute value for which customers are going to pay.
The Law of Three says that you must contribute three dollars of profit for every dollar that you wish to earn in salary. It costs a company approximately double your salary to employ you in terms of space, benefits, supervision, and investment in furniture, fixtures, and other resources. For a company to hire you, they have to make a profit on what they pay you. Therefore, you must contribute value greatly in excess of the amount you earn in order to stay employed. To put it another way, your earning ability must be considerably greater than the amount you are receiving, or you will find yourself looking for another job.
To position yourself for tomorrow, here is one of the most important rules you will ever learn: “The future belongs to the competent.” The future belongs to those men and women who are very good at what they do. Pat Riley, in his book The Winner Within, wrote that, “If you are not committed to getting better at what you are doing, you are bound to get worse.” To phrase it another way, anything less than a commitment to excellent performance on your part is an unconscious acceptance of mediocrity. It used to be that you needed to be excellent to rise above the competition in your industry. Today, you must be excellent even to keep your job in your industry.
The marketplace is a stern task master. Today, excellence, quality, and value are absolutely essential elements of any product or service, and of the work of any person. Your earning ability is largely determined by the perception of excellence, quality, and value that others have of you and what you do. The market only pays excellent rewards for excellent performance. It pays average rewards for average performance, and it pays below average rewards or unemployment for below average performance. Customers today want the very most and the very best for the very least amount of money, and on the best terms. Only the individuals and companies that provide absolutely excellent products and services at absolutely excellent prices will survive. It’s not personal. It’s just the way our economy works.
To earn more, you must learn more. You are maxed out today at your current level of knowledge and skill. However much you are earning at this moment is the maximum you can earn without learning and practicing something new and different.
And here’s the rub. Your accumulated knowledge and experience is becoming obsolete bit by bit, day by day. The knowledge in your field is doubling every three to five years. That means that your knowledge must double every three to five years just for you to stay even.
The solution to the dilemma of unavoidable change and restructuring is continuous self-development. Your personal knowledge and your ability to apply that knowledge are your most valuable assets. To stay on top of your world, you must continually add to your knowledge and your ability. You must continually build up your mental assets if you want to enjoy a continuous return on your investment. And only by building on your current assets do you stop them from deteriorating.
By engaging in continuous self-improvement, you can put yourself behind the wheel of your own life. By dedicating yourself to enhancing your earning ability, you will automatically be engaging in the continuous process of personal development. By learning more, you prepare yourself to earn more. You position yourself for tomorrow by developing the knowledge and skills that you need to be a valuable and productive part of our economy, no matter which direction it goes.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Continuous Learning. By: Brian Tracy
Throughout the developed world, we have moved from an era of manpower to an era of mind power. We have moved from the use of physical muscles to the use of mental muscles. Today the chief sources of value in our society are knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in a timely fashion. In the information age, knowledge is king, and those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.
When you learn and practice the techniques for rapid learning, when you join the learning revolution, you will learn how to unlock the incredible powers of your mind. You will learn how to become smarter⎯faster than ever before. You will learn how to become a master of your fate rather than a victim of circumstances. You will learn how to take complete control of your present and future destiny so that you can accomplish and achieve anything you want in life.
Knowledge is doubling every two to three years in almost every occupation and profession, including yours. This means that your knowledge must double every two to three years for you to just stay even. People who are not aggressively and continuously upgrading their knowledge and skills are not staying in the same place. They are falling behind. You see this demonstrated all over the place with massive lay-offs, declining wages, and growing insecurity in the workforce. You see it in the increasing bewilderment and despair on the part of people who are being displaced from low-skill jobs which have either moved overseas or disappeared altogether. We are in the midst of a societal revolution where unionized industrial workers are becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of our workforce each year.
As recently as the 50s and 60s it was common to believe that you finished your schooling, got a job with a large company and stayed with that company for the rest of your life. This was based on the old paradigm of learning. In this old paradigm, life was divided into three parts. First were your “learning” years, during which you got your education, however extensive or limited. Then came your “earning” years. This was the period of time during which you worked for a living. After that came your “yearning” years. This was the period of retirement which would be paid for by Social Security, savings, and pensions.
Today, with workforce requirements changing so rapidly, you must continually be asking yourself, “What is my next job going to be?” You must also be asking yourself, on a regular basis, “What is my next career going to be?”
Imagine for a moment that your entire company or industry vanished overnight and you had to start all over again in an entirely new business doing an entirely different job. What would it be? And don’t think this question is speculative or that it applies to someone else. It is a question that you will probably have to deal with, perhaps far sooner than you expect. In thinking about your new job and your new career, here is the most important question of all: “What do I have to be absolutely, positively excellent at doing, in order to earn an excellent living in my new job and my new career?”
The answer to almost every question and the solution to almost every problem in the world of work is to learn and practice something new and different. When you learn how to use the incredible power of your brain to absorb and apply new ideas and information, you will be able to lead the field and rise to the top of any profession or occupation.
Here’s another question for you: What is your most valuable asset? In terms of cash flow, what is the most valuable thing you have? Well, unless you are very rich, or have a family trust account, your most valuable asset is your “earning ability.” It is your ability to earn money. It is your ability to apply your knowledge and skill in a timely fashion to get results for which others will pay.
All your education, knowledge, experience, reading, training, and work has contributed toward building up your earning ability. According to the research, the so-called “rich” in America, and in other countries, are almost invariably people who started from common beginnings, often with great disadvantages, and then overcame those circumstances by investing an enormous amount of time and effort on developing their earning ability. And you can do the same thing, starting today, or at any time.
Management consultant Peter Drucker says that the truly educated person today is a person who has learned how to learn continuously throughout life. Tom Peters says that continuous learning may be the only real source of sustainable competitive advantage for individuals and corporations. And Peter Senge, who wrote The Fifth Dimension, says that only learning organizations, those organizations that are capable of taking in new information, adapting it, and using it faster than their competitors, will survive in the fast-changing, competitive world of tomorrow.
The more you know, the better you will be at solving problems and getting results for which people will pay you. The more you know, the more freedom and opportunity you have. And the more you learn and the faster you learn it, the more rapidly you move upward and onward in your career and in every other area of your life.
Between where you are and where you want to go, there is almost always a gap, and in almost every case you will find that you can bridge this gap with knowledge and skills. In order to get from where you are to your goals, you have to learn and practice something new and different. You have to learn new skills and abilities. You have to learn new attitudes and methods. You have to learn new techniques and practices. If you want to be a better parent, you must learn and practice better parenting skills. If you want to be a better spouse, you must study and practice relationship skills. If you want to earn more money, you have to determine what it is that people will pay more money for, and then get busy learning and practicing those behaviors.
Specific knowledge and specific skills will become obsolete with the passing of time, but learning how to learn is a permanent skill that you can use all the days of your life. The people who join the learning revolution, and who learn how to learn faster, like those people who first learned how to operate computers, or learned how to become excellent in their fields, will be able to earn more in one or two years of work than the average person earns in perhaps five or ten years.
By joining the learning revolution, you will enhance every area of your life. You will be able to help your spouse and your children unlock and realize more of their individual potentials. You will be a better friend in helping your friends use more of their abilities. And you will be a better manager, developing the skills that will enable you to get far more out of yourself and other people than ever before.
When you learn and practice the techniques for rapid learning, when you join the learning revolution, you will learn how to unlock the incredible powers of your mind. You will learn how to become smarter⎯faster than ever before. You will learn how to become a master of your fate rather than a victim of circumstances. You will learn how to take complete control of your present and future destiny so that you can accomplish and achieve anything you want in life.
Knowledge is doubling every two to three years in almost every occupation and profession, including yours. This means that your knowledge must double every two to three years for you to just stay even. People who are not aggressively and continuously upgrading their knowledge and skills are not staying in the same place. They are falling behind. You see this demonstrated all over the place with massive lay-offs, declining wages, and growing insecurity in the workforce. You see it in the increasing bewilderment and despair on the part of people who are being displaced from low-skill jobs which have either moved overseas or disappeared altogether. We are in the midst of a societal revolution where unionized industrial workers are becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of our workforce each year.
As recently as the 50s and 60s it was common to believe that you finished your schooling, got a job with a large company and stayed with that company for the rest of your life. This was based on the old paradigm of learning. In this old paradigm, life was divided into three parts. First were your “learning” years, during which you got your education, however extensive or limited. Then came your “earning” years. This was the period of time during which you worked for a living. After that came your “yearning” years. This was the period of retirement which would be paid for by Social Security, savings, and pensions.
Today, with workforce requirements changing so rapidly, you must continually be asking yourself, “What is my next job going to be?” You must also be asking yourself, on a regular basis, “What is my next career going to be?”
Imagine for a moment that your entire company or industry vanished overnight and you had to start all over again in an entirely new business doing an entirely different job. What would it be? And don’t think this question is speculative or that it applies to someone else. It is a question that you will probably have to deal with, perhaps far sooner than you expect. In thinking about your new job and your new career, here is the most important question of all: “What do I have to be absolutely, positively excellent at doing, in order to earn an excellent living in my new job and my new career?”
The answer to almost every question and the solution to almost every problem in the world of work is to learn and practice something new and different. When you learn how to use the incredible power of your brain to absorb and apply new ideas and information, you will be able to lead the field and rise to the top of any profession or occupation.
Here’s another question for you: What is your most valuable asset? In terms of cash flow, what is the most valuable thing you have? Well, unless you are very rich, or have a family trust account, your most valuable asset is your “earning ability.” It is your ability to earn money. It is your ability to apply your knowledge and skill in a timely fashion to get results for which others will pay.
All your education, knowledge, experience, reading, training, and work has contributed toward building up your earning ability. According to the research, the so-called “rich” in America, and in other countries, are almost invariably people who started from common beginnings, often with great disadvantages, and then overcame those circumstances by investing an enormous amount of time and effort on developing their earning ability. And you can do the same thing, starting today, or at any time.
Management consultant Peter Drucker says that the truly educated person today is a person who has learned how to learn continuously throughout life. Tom Peters says that continuous learning may be the only real source of sustainable competitive advantage for individuals and corporations. And Peter Senge, who wrote The Fifth Dimension, says that only learning organizations, those organizations that are capable of taking in new information, adapting it, and using it faster than their competitors, will survive in the fast-changing, competitive world of tomorrow.
The more you know, the better you will be at solving problems and getting results for which people will pay you. The more you know, the more freedom and opportunity you have. And the more you learn and the faster you learn it, the more rapidly you move upward and onward in your career and in every other area of your life.
Between where you are and where you want to go, there is almost always a gap, and in almost every case you will find that you can bridge this gap with knowledge and skills. In order to get from where you are to your goals, you have to learn and practice something new and different. You have to learn new skills and abilities. You have to learn new attitudes and methods. You have to learn new techniques and practices. If you want to be a better parent, you must learn and practice better parenting skills. If you want to be a better spouse, you must study and practice relationship skills. If you want to earn more money, you have to determine what it is that people will pay more money for, and then get busy learning and practicing those behaviors.
Specific knowledge and specific skills will become obsolete with the passing of time, but learning how to learn is a permanent skill that you can use all the days of your life. The people who join the learning revolution, and who learn how to learn faster, like those people who first learned how to operate computers, or learned how to become excellent in their fields, will be able to earn more in one or two years of work than the average person earns in perhaps five or ten years.
By joining the learning revolution, you will enhance every area of your life. You will be able to help your spouse and your children unlock and realize more of their individual potentials. You will be a better friend in helping your friends use more of their abilities. And you will be a better manager, developing the skills that will enable you to get far more out of yourself and other people than ever before.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Confident Decision Making
Just imagine that someone gave you a simple but powerful computer that had the capacity to answer any question or solve any problem you would ever face. All you would have to do is properly program the problem into the computer. Then, at exactly the right time, it would bring you exactly the answer that you need; the answer would always be perfectly correct for you.
The fact is that you already have such a computer, and it’s installed right between your ears. The only real difference between extremely effective men and women and men and women who are not happy with their results is the degree to which they use this amazing computer. The wonderful thing is that you can easily learn to use this computer, and when you do, you will immediately start to benefit by making better decisions and getting better results.
To begin, it’s important for you to understand that your brain is divided into two hemispheres, commonly called the right brain and the left brain. Extensive research suggests that each part of the brain is responsible for specific functions.
Your left brain tends to be responsible for linear, sequential, orderly and organized functions. It is practical, analytical and skeptical. It is the part of the brain that deals with categories and concrete things. Your left brain deals with the verbal, the mathematical and the scientific. It is the engineering half of the brain, and it is primarily focused on processing facts in a step-by-step fashion.
Your right brain, on the other hand, is very different. Your right brain is holistic and spontaneous. While your left brain deals with individual details, your right brain deals with complete pictures and fully integrated ideas and situations. Your right brain is also in charge of your creative, musical and artistic abilities. It is responsible for dance and singing and laughter. Your right brain is also responsible for the intuitive processes of thinking, feeling, problem solving and decision making.
When you learn to harmonize the operations of both of these brains so they work together in cooperation, you begin to perform at exceptional levels. In fact, men and women begin to become great when they begin to utilize the marvelous capacities of the right brain, especially for making important decisions.
An intuitive decision, one that comes to you from within, is always superior to anything else that you can arrive at by simply considering the facts and details. An intuitive decision integrates all of your knowledge about a subject simultaneously and gives you an answer that is a superior synthesis to anything that you could have worked out in a step-by-step fashion. This is why the men and women who are at the top of virtually all organizations tend to be extremely intuitive in the way they solve problems and make decisions for themselves and others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson called intuition the “still, small voice within.” This inner voice is like an unfailing guide or mechanism that always tells you the correct thing to do or say. The more you trust it and believe in it, the better and more accurately it works for you. And your ability to use your intuitive decision-making powers precedes and predicts your success and effectiveness in virtually everything you do.
To trigger your intuition and tap into higher levels of your mind on a regular basis, you need to have four mental qualities. The first, as I mentioned, is a complete trust and belief, almost a childlike faith, in your intuition, and the disposition to just “go with the flow” of your inner mind. Your intuition functions effortlessly and works best when you stop trying to make something happen and instead just “let go” and accept whatever solution comes to you.
The second mental quality that enables you to use your intuition more efficiently is a positive mental attitude. By this, I mean that you are simply calm, relaxed and cheerful about outcomes. A positive mental attitude has been described as a constructive response to stress and adversity. When you respond in a relaxed, easygoing way, you create the mental climate that enables your brain to function at its best, and this is what triggers your intuition.
The third mental quality for enhancing your intuition is an attitude of confident expectation. The more positive and more confident you are, the sharper and quicker your intuitions and solutions will be. So confidently expect things to go well for you. Look for the valuable lesson in every difficulty and adversity. Seek out the advantage or benefit in each setback or obstacle that you face. Your conscious decision to keep your mind focused on the good parts of your situation, coupled with your refusal to dwell on the negative parts, will give you a mind that functions at its best to help you achieve your goals.
The fourth mental quality for intuitive decision making is listening. Women tend to be better at listening to their intuition than men are. This is probably why women’s intuition is so much more respected than men’s intuition is. However, both men and women have the same intuitive abilities. All they have to do is listen to them on a regular basis. Most of our mistakes in life result from ignoring our intuition or refusing to listen to our intuition because we think that by doing so, we will be better off. It always turns out to be a mistake.
There are three areas where you can use your intuition continuously to enable you to make better decisions and avoid costly mistakes.
The first place where intuition plays a major role is in your personal relationships. Whether it is with your spouse or child or a friend, your intuition will always tell you the right thing to do or say. All you need to do, in any situation, is to quietly turn to your intuition and listen, and then say or do what seems to be the most proper and natural thing to do.
In my experience, one of the major reasons for problems in relationships is that one or both parties are ignoring their intuition and refusing to listen to it or act on it. People get into, or out of, relationships, or make decisions in their interactions with others, even when, deep inside, they know that they are doing the wrong thing. And if ever you do the wrong thing from the standpoint of your intuition, you always create a problem that is bigger and more difficult to deal with than if you had made the intuitive decision at the beginning. Many people actually make themselves physically ill by refusing to follow their intuition and do what they know is the right thing to do.
A second area where your intuitive decision-making capabilities can be extremely helpful is in business. If you listen quietly, you will always get a good feeling, or intuition, about the right thing to do, or not to do, in every business situation. If you are in sales, when you are with a prospect or a client, you can rely completely on your intuition to tell you what to do and what to say, and when you follow it, you will always find that it is the right thing. Many salespeople have told me of their having a sudden impulse to bring up a particular subject in a sales interview, and later finding that it was exactly the right thing to say at exactly the right time. In fact, all top salespeople tend to trust their intuition and listen to it continuously in their sales work.
The third, and perhaps the most obvious, area to use your intuitive abilities is in the area of making choices. Whether you are communicating or negotiating or buying or selling, or accepting or leaving a job, you are always making choices of one kind or another. Some of these choices are not important, but many of them have potentially serious long-term consequences.
Accepting a job, or a salary, or going to work for a particular company, at a particular time, can have a significant impact on the whole direction of your life. Investing or spending or borrowing money for any reason can have significant long-term consequences. Any decision that has results that last long after you have made the decision is the kind of decision to which you need to apply your amazing intuitive powers.
Fortunately, there are some specific steps that you can take to hone your intuitive mind. Select any area of your life, any problem or situation that you are dealing with at the current time, and begin to program it into your mental computer by taking the following steps.
First, define your problem or situation clearly, in writing if possible. Your mind cannot go to work to bring you the right answer if the question itself is jumbled up and unclear. Exactly what are you trying to achieve, avoid or preserve? Is it a single problem, or is it a cluster problem⎯a problem made up of several smaller problems? Whichever it is, take some time to think it out and describe it clearly on paper so that you know exactly what you are trying to do. This is the beginning of the intuitive process.
Once you have a clear idea of the problem, ask yourself, “What else is the problem?” Are you dealing with a real problem, or are you simply dealing with a symptom of a deeper problem? Many people try to solve a problem with their dissatisfaction at work or in a relationship, but often, the real problem is that they are in the wrong job or relationship altogether. There is an old saying, “There is a price that you can pay to be free of any problem, and you always know what it is.” This is just another way of saying that if you listen to your intuition, it will tell you the right thing to do, although the right thing may not be the easy or convenient thing. But you must keep your mind open, in any case.
Once you have defined your problem clearly, begin to research and read and gather information about the problem. Has anyone else had this problem before you? What did he do about it? Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes a little research will turn up exactly the answer you are seeking.
For several months, two scientists at the IBM research laboratories in Zurich, Switzerland, had been intensely working on the problems of superconductivity. They knew what they were looking for but were making no progress, so they decided to take a break and come back to the problem later. During the break, one of the scientists went down to the company library and began browsing through a French journal on ceramics. One of the articles told of a new ceramic application that had just been developed. It turned out to be exactly the key that the scientist had been looking for. He immediately took the article back to the laboratory, and by applying the principle, they discovered the secret of superconductivity. It was such an important scientific breakthrough that these two men were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics the following year.
Once you have defined your problem clearly and researched it as thoroughly as you can, speak to people who may have information that you can use. It’s amazing how much you can learn simply by asking questions of others who may have had similar experiences. If you ask enough people, you can often find yourself in the position of being better informed than any one of them could be, acting in isolation.
A friend of mine, who is a management consultant, was employed by a large company to investigate the feasibility of placing a large sum of money in a particular type of real-estate investment. Company executives asked him to evaluate the possibilities nationwide and give them some advice on which direction to go.
First of all, he went to the library and got copies of several articles that had been written in this field over the past few months. After reading the articles, he phoned some of the people and companies mentioned in the articles, and told them he was thinking of investing a large amount of money in this industry. He asked them for their insights and their ideas and what advice they would give.
Over the next few days, he spoke to about 30 people in different parts of the country, all of whom specialized in this particular industry. Most of them were quite open to giving him whatever information he required⎯sometimes sending it via Federal Express⎯because they looked upon him as a prospective investor.
By the time he was finished with his inquiries, he was one of the most well-informed people on this subject in the United States. He then summarized his findings and recommendations in a detailed report and submitted it to his client, along with a bill of $30,000 for consulting services. The client read the report and paid the bill willingly. And the consultant went on to his next assignment.
Your most valuable asset is your ability to think, and to apply your mind toward getting results. The more you utilize your mental capabilities, by doing the things that other successful people do with their minds, the more successful and prosperous you will be, and the faster it will happen for you.
Let’s say that you have now defined your problem clearly, read and researched thoroughly, asked others for their advice and input, and written down every single detail of the problem or situation.
The very act of writing out all the details often stimulates intuitive breakthroughs that lead to ideas and solutions that are superior to those that are currently being used. Once you have written out the details, go over them several times, and let your mind soak them up so that your right brain is properly fueled to synthesize and integrate all the facts and respond intuitively.
If you still have no solution, your next step is to force yourself⎯discipline yourself⎯to write out 20 ways in which you think the problem could be solved. Quickly write out 20 solutions, or 20 answers or 20 courses of action, that might be possible. Forcing yourself to think in this way will often trigger your intuition and bring you an answer that will solve the situation perfectly.
If you have followed the previous steps and you still have not come up with a solution that satisfies you, take the next step in intuitive decision making, which is called “rumination” or “cerebration.” These words refer to the process of dropping all the information into your subconscious mind and then just forgetting about it for a while. During this period, your mind goes to work unconsciously to solve the problem while you are busy doing something else.
When they reach a dead end in problem solving or decision making, many people find it helpful to turn the entire matter over to their subconscious mind and simply “ask” for an answer. A good time to do this is just before you go to sleep. Sometimes you will wake up in the morning with the answer springing “full blown” into your mind. In other cases, as long as you keep your mind on other subjects, at a certain point the answer will emerge in its entirety, and you will know exactly what to do.
How do you recognize an intuitive decision? How do you know that this is not simply a decision or a solution that will lead to greater problems in the future? Well, there are four indicators that accompany every intuition-based solution or decision.
First of all, if the answer is truly from your intuition, it will come in a flash and be complete in every detail, answering every aspect of the problem, from beginning to end. The solution will integrate all of the various details and answer all of the concerns.
Second, an intuitive solution seems so simple that you wonder why you had not thought of it before. It feels like a “blinding flash of the obvious.” You are amazed at how perfect it is, and you have the feeling that it was lying under your nose all the time.
The third indicator of an intuitive decision is that, whatever it is, the actions required are completely within your capabilities and your resources. The solution will be something that you can do right now, with what you have, right where you are. You can act on it immediately.
And the fourth indicator is that each intuitive flash or solution comes accompanied by a burst of joy and energy, a feeling of elation, that excites you and makes you happy and makes you feel eager to implement the solution. You will be excited, and you will feel terrific about yourself.
Intuitive problem solving and decision making is your key to the future. It is perhaps the most powerful faculty of your brain. And the regular use of your intuitive abilities will make them better and stronger and sharper, until you reach the point where you believe that there is really nothing that you cannot do if you put your mind to it. And you’re probably right.
By: Brian Tracy
The fact is that you already have such a computer, and it’s installed right between your ears. The only real difference between extremely effective men and women and men and women who are not happy with their results is the degree to which they use this amazing computer. The wonderful thing is that you can easily learn to use this computer, and when you do, you will immediately start to benefit by making better decisions and getting better results.
To begin, it’s important for you to understand that your brain is divided into two hemispheres, commonly called the right brain and the left brain. Extensive research suggests that each part of the brain is responsible for specific functions.
Your left brain tends to be responsible for linear, sequential, orderly and organized functions. It is practical, analytical and skeptical. It is the part of the brain that deals with categories and concrete things. Your left brain deals with the verbal, the mathematical and the scientific. It is the engineering half of the brain, and it is primarily focused on processing facts in a step-by-step fashion.
Your right brain, on the other hand, is very different. Your right brain is holistic and spontaneous. While your left brain deals with individual details, your right brain deals with complete pictures and fully integrated ideas and situations. Your right brain is also in charge of your creative, musical and artistic abilities. It is responsible for dance and singing and laughter. Your right brain is also responsible for the intuitive processes of thinking, feeling, problem solving and decision making.
When you learn to harmonize the operations of both of these brains so they work together in cooperation, you begin to perform at exceptional levels. In fact, men and women begin to become great when they begin to utilize the marvelous capacities of the right brain, especially for making important decisions.
An intuitive decision, one that comes to you from within, is always superior to anything else that you can arrive at by simply considering the facts and details. An intuitive decision integrates all of your knowledge about a subject simultaneously and gives you an answer that is a superior synthesis to anything that you could have worked out in a step-by-step fashion. This is why the men and women who are at the top of virtually all organizations tend to be extremely intuitive in the way they solve problems and make decisions for themselves and others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson called intuition the “still, small voice within.” This inner voice is like an unfailing guide or mechanism that always tells you the correct thing to do or say. The more you trust it and believe in it, the better and more accurately it works for you. And your ability to use your intuitive decision-making powers precedes and predicts your success and effectiveness in virtually everything you do.
To trigger your intuition and tap into higher levels of your mind on a regular basis, you need to have four mental qualities. The first, as I mentioned, is a complete trust and belief, almost a childlike faith, in your intuition, and the disposition to just “go with the flow” of your inner mind. Your intuition functions effortlessly and works best when you stop trying to make something happen and instead just “let go” and accept whatever solution comes to you.
The second mental quality that enables you to use your intuition more efficiently is a positive mental attitude. By this, I mean that you are simply calm, relaxed and cheerful about outcomes. A positive mental attitude has been described as a constructive response to stress and adversity. When you respond in a relaxed, easygoing way, you create the mental climate that enables your brain to function at its best, and this is what triggers your intuition.
The third mental quality for enhancing your intuition is an attitude of confident expectation. The more positive and more confident you are, the sharper and quicker your intuitions and solutions will be. So confidently expect things to go well for you. Look for the valuable lesson in every difficulty and adversity. Seek out the advantage or benefit in each setback or obstacle that you face. Your conscious decision to keep your mind focused on the good parts of your situation, coupled with your refusal to dwell on the negative parts, will give you a mind that functions at its best to help you achieve your goals.
The fourth mental quality for intuitive decision making is listening. Women tend to be better at listening to their intuition than men are. This is probably why women’s intuition is so much more respected than men’s intuition is. However, both men and women have the same intuitive abilities. All they have to do is listen to them on a regular basis. Most of our mistakes in life result from ignoring our intuition or refusing to listen to our intuition because we think that by doing so, we will be better off. It always turns out to be a mistake.
There are three areas where you can use your intuition continuously to enable you to make better decisions and avoid costly mistakes.
The first place where intuition plays a major role is in your personal relationships. Whether it is with your spouse or child or a friend, your intuition will always tell you the right thing to do or say. All you need to do, in any situation, is to quietly turn to your intuition and listen, and then say or do what seems to be the most proper and natural thing to do.
In my experience, one of the major reasons for problems in relationships is that one or both parties are ignoring their intuition and refusing to listen to it or act on it. People get into, or out of, relationships, or make decisions in their interactions with others, even when, deep inside, they know that they are doing the wrong thing. And if ever you do the wrong thing from the standpoint of your intuition, you always create a problem that is bigger and more difficult to deal with than if you had made the intuitive decision at the beginning. Many people actually make themselves physically ill by refusing to follow their intuition and do what they know is the right thing to do.
A second area where your intuitive decision-making capabilities can be extremely helpful is in business. If you listen quietly, you will always get a good feeling, or intuition, about the right thing to do, or not to do, in every business situation. If you are in sales, when you are with a prospect or a client, you can rely completely on your intuition to tell you what to do and what to say, and when you follow it, you will always find that it is the right thing. Many salespeople have told me of their having a sudden impulse to bring up a particular subject in a sales interview, and later finding that it was exactly the right thing to say at exactly the right time. In fact, all top salespeople tend to trust their intuition and listen to it continuously in their sales work.
The third, and perhaps the most obvious, area to use your intuitive abilities is in the area of making choices. Whether you are communicating or negotiating or buying or selling, or accepting or leaving a job, you are always making choices of one kind or another. Some of these choices are not important, but many of them have potentially serious long-term consequences.
Accepting a job, or a salary, or going to work for a particular company, at a particular time, can have a significant impact on the whole direction of your life. Investing or spending or borrowing money for any reason can have significant long-term consequences. Any decision that has results that last long after you have made the decision is the kind of decision to which you need to apply your amazing intuitive powers.
Fortunately, there are some specific steps that you can take to hone your intuitive mind. Select any area of your life, any problem or situation that you are dealing with at the current time, and begin to program it into your mental computer by taking the following steps.
First, define your problem or situation clearly, in writing if possible. Your mind cannot go to work to bring you the right answer if the question itself is jumbled up and unclear. Exactly what are you trying to achieve, avoid or preserve? Is it a single problem, or is it a cluster problem⎯a problem made up of several smaller problems? Whichever it is, take some time to think it out and describe it clearly on paper so that you know exactly what you are trying to do. This is the beginning of the intuitive process.
Once you have a clear idea of the problem, ask yourself, “What else is the problem?” Are you dealing with a real problem, or are you simply dealing with a symptom of a deeper problem? Many people try to solve a problem with their dissatisfaction at work or in a relationship, but often, the real problem is that they are in the wrong job or relationship altogether. There is an old saying, “There is a price that you can pay to be free of any problem, and you always know what it is.” This is just another way of saying that if you listen to your intuition, it will tell you the right thing to do, although the right thing may not be the easy or convenient thing. But you must keep your mind open, in any case.
Once you have defined your problem clearly, begin to research and read and gather information about the problem. Has anyone else had this problem before you? What did he do about it? Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes a little research will turn up exactly the answer you are seeking.
For several months, two scientists at the IBM research laboratories in Zurich, Switzerland, had been intensely working on the problems of superconductivity. They knew what they were looking for but were making no progress, so they decided to take a break and come back to the problem later. During the break, one of the scientists went down to the company library and began browsing through a French journal on ceramics. One of the articles told of a new ceramic application that had just been developed. It turned out to be exactly the key that the scientist had been looking for. He immediately took the article back to the laboratory, and by applying the principle, they discovered the secret of superconductivity. It was such an important scientific breakthrough that these two men were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics the following year.
Once you have defined your problem clearly and researched it as thoroughly as you can, speak to people who may have information that you can use. It’s amazing how much you can learn simply by asking questions of others who may have had similar experiences. If you ask enough people, you can often find yourself in the position of being better informed than any one of them could be, acting in isolation.
A friend of mine, who is a management consultant, was employed by a large company to investigate the feasibility of placing a large sum of money in a particular type of real-estate investment. Company executives asked him to evaluate the possibilities nationwide and give them some advice on which direction to go.
First of all, he went to the library and got copies of several articles that had been written in this field over the past few months. After reading the articles, he phoned some of the people and companies mentioned in the articles, and told them he was thinking of investing a large amount of money in this industry. He asked them for their insights and their ideas and what advice they would give.
Over the next few days, he spoke to about 30 people in different parts of the country, all of whom specialized in this particular industry. Most of them were quite open to giving him whatever information he required⎯sometimes sending it via Federal Express⎯because they looked upon him as a prospective investor.
By the time he was finished with his inquiries, he was one of the most well-informed people on this subject in the United States. He then summarized his findings and recommendations in a detailed report and submitted it to his client, along with a bill of $30,000 for consulting services. The client read the report and paid the bill willingly. And the consultant went on to his next assignment.
Your most valuable asset is your ability to think, and to apply your mind toward getting results. The more you utilize your mental capabilities, by doing the things that other successful people do with their minds, the more successful and prosperous you will be, and the faster it will happen for you.
Let’s say that you have now defined your problem clearly, read and researched thoroughly, asked others for their advice and input, and written down every single detail of the problem or situation.
The very act of writing out all the details often stimulates intuitive breakthroughs that lead to ideas and solutions that are superior to those that are currently being used. Once you have written out the details, go over them several times, and let your mind soak them up so that your right brain is properly fueled to synthesize and integrate all the facts and respond intuitively.
If you still have no solution, your next step is to force yourself⎯discipline yourself⎯to write out 20 ways in which you think the problem could be solved. Quickly write out 20 solutions, or 20 answers or 20 courses of action, that might be possible. Forcing yourself to think in this way will often trigger your intuition and bring you an answer that will solve the situation perfectly.
If you have followed the previous steps and you still have not come up with a solution that satisfies you, take the next step in intuitive decision making, which is called “rumination” or “cerebration.” These words refer to the process of dropping all the information into your subconscious mind and then just forgetting about it for a while. During this period, your mind goes to work unconsciously to solve the problem while you are busy doing something else.
When they reach a dead end in problem solving or decision making, many people find it helpful to turn the entire matter over to their subconscious mind and simply “ask” for an answer. A good time to do this is just before you go to sleep. Sometimes you will wake up in the morning with the answer springing “full blown” into your mind. In other cases, as long as you keep your mind on other subjects, at a certain point the answer will emerge in its entirety, and you will know exactly what to do.
How do you recognize an intuitive decision? How do you know that this is not simply a decision or a solution that will lead to greater problems in the future? Well, there are four indicators that accompany every intuition-based solution or decision.
First of all, if the answer is truly from your intuition, it will come in a flash and be complete in every detail, answering every aspect of the problem, from beginning to end. The solution will integrate all of the various details and answer all of the concerns.
Second, an intuitive solution seems so simple that you wonder why you had not thought of it before. It feels like a “blinding flash of the obvious.” You are amazed at how perfect it is, and you have the feeling that it was lying under your nose all the time.
The third indicator of an intuitive decision is that, whatever it is, the actions required are completely within your capabilities and your resources. The solution will be something that you can do right now, with what you have, right where you are. You can act on it immediately.
And the fourth indicator is that each intuitive flash or solution comes accompanied by a burst of joy and energy, a feeling of elation, that excites you and makes you happy and makes you feel eager to implement the solution. You will be excited, and you will feel terrific about yourself.
Intuitive problem solving and decision making is your key to the future. It is perhaps the most powerful faculty of your brain. And the regular use of your intuitive abilities will make them better and stronger and sharper, until you reach the point where you believe that there is really nothing that you cannot do if you put your mind to it. And you’re probably right.
By: Brian Tracy
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