Archive for the 'Personal Growth' Category

Choose your friends very carefully

Published on 8 November, 2009 in Personal Growth. 5 Comments Tags: , , .

Our friends have a huge impact on our performance. Really huge.

Thank the next happy friend that you think of. Each happy friend increases our chances of being happy by 9%. An extra $5,000 in income only increases our chances by 2% so each happy friend we have is worth about $22,500 :)

And check your profile picture on Facebook. People who smile for their profile picture have 15% more close friends than the rest.

As my mother says, smile and the world smiles with you, frown and you’ll frown alone…

The research shows that the ‘degrees of separation’ effects weaken to nothing after three or four levels (so your friends, their friends and even the friends of your friend’s friend are likely to have an impact on you) – that’s a whole bunch of people you’ve never even met!

So: Who are your closest friends?

The Power of Ambiguity

Published on 18 October, 2009 in Personal Growth and Science and Technology. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

Have you ever looked at a traffic accident and asked yourself, “How did that happen?”

The other night, I was playing pool and sunk a ball that I didn’t expect to sink – in fact, it was so surprising that I asked myself, “How did I do that?!”

But it’s even more obvious when I look at a website that I like. Sometimes, I’ve been known to look at the source code to try to figure out how they did that.

And the cool thing is that when you ask that question, you get smarter.

Maybe you’ll actually figure out an answer, maybe not. I still have no idea how I sunk that ball in the corner pocket at the other end. But the experience of being exposed to uncertainty – The Power of Ambiguity – helps you get smarter.

A recent study published in Psychological Science had people look at the surreal work of author Kafka and film director David Lynch, and found that afterwards, people were better at seeing subtle patterns. Read more about this in Science Daily or the NYTimes.

This is another great reason to visit the art gallery. Another good reason to watch art house movies. And a great excuse for me to continue staring at the complex building sites around here.

Experience the surreal. Have a look around. And when you see something strange, or someone does something unexpected, be grateful – it’s an opportunity to make you smarter.

And thanks Kellie for tipping me off to this :)

To train your body or train your mind?

Published on 2 September, 2009 in Personal Growth. Closed Tags: , , , .

In the course of development, we tend to become more sedentary. Rather than working the fields or just walking to work, you find yourself indulging in armchair sports and letting your fingers do the walking. Then we get fat.

And that’s a bad thing.

Because being fat makes your brain shrink.

In a recent study, the brains of obese people looked 16 years older than their real age; the brains of overweight people looked “just” 8 years older. And that makes a big difference! Continue reading “To train your body or train your mind?” »

Alignment of Genius in Shanghai

Published on 3 August, 2009 in event and Personal Growth. Closed 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. Closed 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!

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