Monthly Archive for August, 2009

Moving towards self-regulation

Published on 22 August, 2009 in Expert vs novice. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Experts develop their skills by a lot of practice. But to start with, we don’t know what we’re doing. In fact, when we start, we need external support from our parents, from our coaches, from anyone we can get it from!

But over time, we do need to find a way to go beyond them.

We cut away the scaffolding of environmental supports. We find apprenticeship arrangements – relationships offering guided practice and support self-regulation. Eventually, we can know the difference between what is good enough and what isn’t, so we can set our own standards.

Mastery comes when we can spend time creating our own learning environment and when we can get fast feedback and create challenges that suit our skills. And at this point, we access external supports very selectively – supports like competitors, performance conditions and even coaches.

Awaken Your Genius: Sunday 16 August

Published on 10 August, 2009 in event. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Daniel Smith presents Awaken Your Genius - What if you could enjoy being at your best more?

I’m fascinated by genius. These people who do things that are so amazing that they leave most of the rest of us asking, “How did they do that??”

If you had looked for an answer, you would know that genius takes effort. You need to focus on getting really good at what you’re doing. Hours of disciplined, focused, deliberate practice. In some ways, it’s easier if you are a child – you just get in the habit of practising before you’re old enough to bother to ask, “Why?”

But you’re not really a child, are you?

How much time do you focus on getting really good at what you’re doing? No just doing your job or playing your sport or being in your relationship, but deliberately working at getting even better… and you know by now that’s the only way.

After all, if a child can do it, surely you can too. For you to unlock and Awaken Your Genius, it would really help if you could feel like you are doing great – that state of mind when you are at your best.

We all enjoy times when we are doing well.

We also endure times when we’re not. Times when you are just not performing at the level that you know that you are capable of… when you can be thinking to yourself, “I’m better than this.”

And you can be.

This Sunday, I would like to invite you to join a small group as we explore how to let go of what has been holding you back, connect with what is most important to you, and create powerful triggers to help you be at your best when you need it most, so that you can walk away spending more time at your best, in “the zone”.

Continue reading ‘Awaken Your Genius: Sunday 16 August’

Alignment of Genius in Shanghai

Published on 3 August, 2009 in Personal Growth and event. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Genius demands alignment

Event: Saturday, 8 August, 2-5pm

As we explored last time, to really be great at anything takes a lot of deliberate practice. Not just playing around, but focusing on getting better – training yourself to perform at higher and higher standards.

But how can you do that if you’re trying to do everything at once?

This Saturday, we’re going to explore the Alignment of Genius. We will start with exploring why Alignment is so important, examine what sort of Alignment you’ll need to get what you’re after, and then figure out how you can better set yourself up to win.

Most of us really want to experience certain things. For you, it might be ‘happiness’ or ’success’ or ‘love’ or ‘achievement’ – or something totally different. Then, you’ll have certain ways to experience that ultimate outcome. Maybe you’ll use your career. Maybe your relationships. Maybe your hobbies. You would have developed those roles and picked up those “vehicles” over the years, based on your personal experiences and opportunities.

And you would have daily habits and routines too. Some of which would support you; others of which might be getting in your way.
So just imagine if you could get your habits, routines and daily behaviours supporting the most important roles in your life, so that you can actually get what you really want.
Instead of having these habits that take you nowhere and missing the things that you need to be doing every day to get to where you want to be?

We’ll explore this in much greater detail this Saturday afternoon.

Now, we have only 12 places available for this special session, at 200RMB each. When you register, I’ll let you know the venue details, but we’ll be in central Shanghai.

I really hope that you can join us.

Genius demands alignment

Published on 3 August, 2009 in Personal Growth. 0 Comments Tags: , .

When I was teaching karate, I would usually start with teaching people how to punch. There were some big guys who couldn’t punch. I mean these guys had huge arms – who could have lifted me up above their head – who just couldn’t get power into their punches.

Sometimes they missed the target. Sometimes they were trying too hard. But the usual problem was that they were too tense. And when you’re too tense, the harder you try, the slower (and worse!) everything works.

You probably know somebody who tries to do everything but not getting anywhere. They are doing this project and that project but end up just running into brick walls. Not always – sometimes they might have wins, but things just aren’t working together.

Like a restaurant that tries to be the cheapest and offer five-star service: It just doesn’t work. Either the service will suffer, or the food, or the environment – and often all three! You need to focus and you need to get everything aligned.

Genius demands alignment!