Author: knowledgenotes9

Time Management Essentials!

Time… We all have got 24 hours in a day. Some folks are way more productive than others and know how to make best use of time.

Amazing view on time by Arnold Benntt (Every line has a deep meaning) —
“Time is the inexplicable raw material of everything. With it, all is possible; without it, nothing. The supply of time is truly a daily miracle, an affair genuinely astonishing when one examines it.  You wake up in the morning, and your purse is magically filled with twenty-four hours of the unmanufactured tissue of the universe of your life!  It is yours.  It is the most precious of possessions.  A highly singular commodity, showered upon you in a manner as singular as the commodity itself! No one can take it from you. It is un-stealable.  And no one receives either more or less than you receive.” 

In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect. Genius is never rewarded by even an extra hour a day.  And there is no punishment. Waste your infinitely precious commodity as much as you will, and the supply will never be withheld from you. Moreover, you cannot draw on the future.  Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment.  You cannot waste tomorrow; it is kept for you.  You cannot waste the next hour; it is kept for you. I said the affair was a miracle.  Is it not? You have to live on this twenty-four hours of daily time. Out f it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. Its right use, its most effective use, is a matter of the highest urgency and of the most thrilling actuality. All depends on that. Your happiness–the elusive prize that you are all clutching for, my friends!– depends on that. But if one cannot arrange that an income of twenty-four hours a day shall exactly cover all proper items of expenditure, one does muddle one’s life definitely. We never shall have any more time. We have, and we have always had, all the time there is.”

Clearly time is essential. We can earn money but we cannot earn time. We better should know how to manage our time effectively. Following are some key time management essentials (by Jim Rohn).

  1. Do you run the day or it runs you?
  2. It is not that difficult to get something started, you run it for a while and after that it started running you
  3. The time you have already committed to labor is already enough time
    • if you are already working 8-10 hours that’s about it. You cannot really work much more than that in longer term. Burst at a time, we can work 12-14-16 hours but after some time you have to put your life is in balance or your health and heart is in jeopardy. Lots of things don’t stay in balance
    • You don’t have to put more hours but do better use of the hours.
    • It is not the hours you put in but what you put in the hours that counts.
  4. You should have written set of goals – and constant review of your goals. That’s how you determine how to use your time. Then need a plan to achieve the goals
  5. Learning to separate Major from Minors.
    • Making sure you don’t spend major time on minor things.
    • Don’t mistake movement for achievement
    • Easy to stay busy, key is on WHAT?
  6. Concentration – Zeroing in pre-occupation is fatal both on the freeway and business.
    • You have to keep your mind concentrated.
    • Don’t start business day till you get to office
    • Wherever you are be there. If you are at breakfast then be there; if you are having conversation then be there
  7. Learned to say NO.
    • Easy to overload your calendar.
    • Better to say no than to say yes and back out.
    • Rey Reynolds “Don’t let your mouth overload your back”
  8. When you work -work, when you play-play
  9. Analyze how you are and then either compensate for it or change
    • If you know you are not good at somethings or if you are not going to do it even if you promise it to yourself year after year then either fix it (change) OR make other arrangements to see it gets done
  10. Beware of the telephone – it is a useful tool but can also get you into trouble
    • Make an agenda before you do phone call or meeting
    • Phone can be incredibly disturbing influence on  social persona life so learn to regulate that.
  11. Have a certain time to solve problems
    • Most problems will be solved by self.
  12. Read all the time management books
    • The management of time (James T mccay)
    • Getting things done — ABC of time management (Edwin c bliss)
    • Doing it now — Edwin c bliss
  13. Be alert to looking at your present procedures
    • You might have some old outdated procedures — Stuff you are doing or 5 years and it is taking 10 hours instead of 1
    • Be more alert — see what is taking your time
  14. Ask Questions:
    • When you are getting ready to talk to someone ask questions. It might save you great deal of time.
    • Ask questions so you can get to the heart of the matter.
    • Once you ask questions, ask more questions (Most people at first don’t disclose the real problem)
  15. Game plans
    • Lay all the stuff out.
    • You got to learn things on paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You have to be Hungry!

Watched a live interview with legend Les brown — what a motivational personality he is. If I need to take only one key take away from the whole conversation then it would be  “You Have To Be Hungry”. You have to be hungry for what you do, or what you want to do!

Hunger releases god force on you. Hunger takes you to a place within yourself out of your comfort Zone. Hunger will inspire you to make your way out of no way. Even if your life gets down hunger will help you hit back. When dreams are big enough odds don’t matter since hunger will take care of odds. Hunger knows you will find your way to success. Hunger Reminds you always try to be on top of the crowd since it is the bottom that is overcrowded. Hunger gives you victory from the jaws of the defeat.

Something comes before Hunger — that is thinking. Leaders saturate their minds with motivational messages. They re-structure, they retrain their thinking because once you change a person’s mindset they change how they feel. And once you change how a person feels, that would inspire them to act differently.

Following are the other important takeaways from this interview. Turned out to be an hour worth spent!!

Les’s Fav Books

  • Secret of the ages – Robert Cardios
  • As a man thinking so he is — James
  • Spire (Eric)

Top Motivational Videos

  • Les brown speaking in the Georgia Dome
  • Getting unstuck by les brown
  • Its possible by Les brown
  • You deserve by Les brown
  • Dare to be great by Glenn turner

Les’s Motivational speakers

  • Bill Bailey
  • Jim Rohn (multi level marketing)
  • Glenn turner
  • Maya Angelou

Fav Quotes discussed in the interview

  • Your life is either a warning or an example (Jim)
  • You can tell the size of the man by the size of the problem to take him down (Jony daniel)
  • Adversity introduces a man to himself
  • In life, you will always be faced a series of opportunities brilliantly disguised as problem and challenges.
  • Size of the problem is the size of the paycheck
  • You don’t get in life what you want, you get in life what you are.
  • Life does not respond to need, life responds to deserve (Jim Rohn)
  • If you can determine what a man can think, you can never have to concern yourself about what he would do.  If you can make a make feel inferior, you never have to compel him to seek an inferior status, he will seek it himself. And If you can make a man feel justly and outcast you never have to order him to go to the back door, he will go without being told and if there is no door it’s very nature will demand(Dr. Cara G woodson)
  • GENSHAI – Never act in a way that makes other people feel small. Start with yourself.
  • There is something in each and every one of us that wait and listen to the voice of genuine in yourself, It will be perhaps the only guide you will ever hear or have. If you cannot hear it all of your life your days will be spent on the ends of strings that somebody else pauses (Dr. Howard Thurman – mentor of Martin Luther King Jr and Mahatma Gandhi)
  • We might be through our past but our past is not through with us.
  • The ideal situation for a man and women to die is that family members praying with him as they cross over but imagine if you are being on your deathbed and standing around your bed the ghosts of the dream, the ideas, the abilities, the gifts are given to you by life but you for whatever reason never pursued those dream, never use those gifts – they are standing around your bed looking at your with large angry eyes say “We came to you – only you could have given us life but NOW we have to die with you forever” (Dr. Harwick theorem)
  • If you die today what dreams what ideas what book what music will die to with you
  • Wealthiest place in the planet is not in the forest with its oil in the ground, it is not in South Africa where there is diamond mines, the wealthiest place in the planet is the CEMETERY.
  • Live each day as it were your last because one day it will be (Frank Sinatra and Gladys Sinatra)
  • Live like you are going to die because you are and we don’t know the day and the time and the hour. So we want to live full and die empty.
  • All you can do is all you can do. All you can do is enough but make sure you could do all you could do.
  • Invest in your communication skills since once you open your mouth you tell the world who you are (Mr Lewoy Washington)
  • You are not born to work for a living but to live your making and living your making will make your living.
  • This too shall pass. Do what you have to do now so you can do what you get to do later.
  • What people think of you is none of your spiritual business.
  • It is lonely at the top but you eat better.
  • Opinions are just like behinds everybody got work.

Eric Worre and Les Brown – 1 hour that will change your life 6-3-18

 

 

Use your mind, think and make good decisions!

I was listening to the legend Les Brown’s interview and he mentioned being a big fan of  Jon Rohn. This made me very curious about Jon Rohn! I jumped on the youtube and listened to his motivational speech around “use your mind, think and make good decisions!”. Shocked! The guy is a legend — very calm, but hitting the point. After this talk, I feel like I started thinking differently and expanding my mind!

In summary, Jon mentioned your action should be the result of your own thinking. Don’t just follow advice or orders. think through it, process it and then it makes sense to take action according to your own conclusion.

Another key thing Jon mentioned which is very fundamental is “Philosophy” – ability to think. Instead of complaining about anything or changing things around us, we should rather acknowledge what things are available to us and then how can we make the best use of them.

Think, process and make decision or choices every day that would change your future.  Few small errors repeated every day would lead to disaster in long run — you might not see it in day 1 so you need to be careful and wise in your choices. “A few simple disciplines practiced every day and you started a whole new successful life”

Here are the detailed notes I captured while listening

Make sure what you do is the product of your own conclusion.

  • Take Information but don’t let somebody order your life.
  • Not to do what someone else says.
  • Take what someone else says, process it, think about it, ponder it, if it makes you wonder, if it makes you think then it is valuable. Then you go and take action — make sure that the action is not somebody told you to do, the action is the product of your OWN CONCLUSION
  • If you follow these, your learning curve can go up quickly, swift, powerful and speedy. You can apply it to your business, your family, life, conversations, equities of all kind.

Philosophy

  • is the MAJOR determine factor in how your life works out. For Philosophy, you have to think, use your mind, you got to process ideas
  • This whole process over a lifetime (starting when we were children), schools, parents, our experiences, all that we process help to develop our Philosophy
  • Each person personal Philosophy is the major factor of how your life works out
  • It is called a set of the sail
  • Jon used to blame high tax (i.e. taxes moved from 91 to 33% but still people says it is too high), traffic, circumstances, too tall, too short, too old, raised in obscurity.
  • He used to think his future will tie to the economy, what everybody else was arranging, (used to say things cost too much) until his teacher taught that this is where the problem was
  • His Own Personal Philosophy.
  • Philosophy is what makes us different than dogs, cats, animals,
  • The ability to think, ability to use your mind, ability to process ideas, and not just operate by instinct.
  • We do come up with plans, better philosophy, future plans to achieve our goals – all these come from developing our Philosophy
  • You have got seed, soil, rain, sunlight, air, water, time, can you convert it into value, Dream, life, food? The answer is yes!
  • That is what is Philosophy – you cannot handle all this stuff unless you don’t use your mind, your Philosophy, come up with ideas, and strengthen your Philosophy.
  • How do you convert what you got as economy, schools, bank and convert it into equity and value  – that is the major challenge of life
  • You don’t need a better economy, better seed or soil, that’s all you got. If you blame this stuff then you are blaming all the stuff you got!!
  • If you blame school, economy, company, family, teacher – what else is there?? That’s all there is.
  • If you blame the only thing you got to work with – it is called MISTAKE colossal
  • You got to start with your Philosophy
  • Change your mind, change your thinking, change your Philosophy
  • We are messed up on what is causing our problems. Once we get that straighten out and stop blaming all the stuff we have and started going for where the real problem is (Philosophy) our life would explode into a change.
  • Little consideration of the refinement of your sail would refine your Philosophy  – your whole life can start to change from today on — you don’t have to wait till tomorrow.
  • Some people do so little thinking – they don’t have their sail up. Where they will land up by end of the month, year 😉

Definition of success and failure:

  • Failure: A few errors in judgment repeated every day for YEARS
  • An apple a day keeps the dr. away – what if that’s true??
  • If this is true then it is easy to do. OKAY, then what is the problem?
  • Problem is it is easy to not do it
  • It is easy not to adopt it as your own personal Philosophy
  • Or guy messed up and he should say “Hershey bar a day ….”
  • You got to be smarter in Philosophy
  • If you eat a bar instead of apple for 6 years and make this kind of judgment, it will accumulate into disaster – the 1st year you might say well I am still healthy – what difference it will make – you have to be smarter than that!!
  • Just because disaster does not follow on the day 1 does not mean disaster not coming.
  • You got to be so smart that you look down the road and say will the errors in my present judgment of Philosophy what is that going to cost me in 1 year Or 6 years.
  • Money cost, health cost, success cost is too gigantic if you look down the road and say are their errors in my current judgment like an apple vs the Hershey bar
  • We are criticizing the only thing we have to work with!!!
  • The formula for failure: Error in judgment being lacked about developing your own personal philosophy is called an accumulated disaster.
  • Does not matter if it is your health or bank account
  • Guys who have empty bank normally has high Cholesterol– he probably never paid attention to both
  • It does not matter whether it is a dollar or your money or it is your Cholesterol count all you got to do is commit the errors and just because disaster does not fall on the end of the first day that you don’t eat an apple you will say “why do I need an apple today and tonight I am not ill”
  • The formula for failure:
    • a few errors in judgment repeated every day for one month starts the weakness, start the disaster process – you can imagine what can happen in 6 years.
  • The formula for success:
    • a few simple disciplines practiced every day and you started a whole new life. If you decide to take apple today instead of the Hershey bar, you have begun the process of turning your life around.
    • If you keep up that process with not only your health habit but your money habit, communication habit, sales habit, management habit and every other habit that you have
    • If you start that process – eliminate the errors and replace it with disciplines practiced after today you don’t have to be same again!
    • Only by choice
    • If You don’t (careless) and you won’t (stubborn) make good choices you will have disasters.
    • Could -> should -> wont
    • Could -> should -> don’t is disaster
    • Jim Rohn made millions in 6 years. How
    • Started my philosophy,  amending my errors by doing some better thinking, changing my mind, coming up with ideas that I did not have before
    • Once that whole process started, I changed my whole life.
    • Start with the philosophy -> your philosophy will tell if you go for the disciplines or continue the errors that are called potential disasters.
    • Appreciate all of the stuff you got and not try to change that — with all of ups and downs  — with all of the mystery of why it works and sometimes it does not work  — don’t challenge this!! You don’t have to ask for another country, another city, another job, ask for another book, another idea,
    • Start with simple disciplines and then you can grow to complicated disciplines.

Reference: Jim Rohn – Best Motivational Speech. Use Your Own Mind, Think, & Make Good Decisions!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Improve Brain Power: Warm-up

Youtube accidentally showed me a video of Brain trainer Jim Kwik. I was very impressed with in a few mins from the video. I searched for the training session with Jim Kwik and watched the video Unleash Your Super Brain To Learn Faster And Work Smarter. As I watched it, took some rough notes for me to recall the key points later. Sharing them below. Will continue to learn more and publish some notes later in the week.

  • Art of learning is an art of attention
  • Children are the faster learners. They learn quickly since they have
    • FOCUS
    • CURIOUS
    • PLAY all the time — Playing more” creates
      • Neurogenesis – new brain cells
      • Neuroplasticity – More connectivity
      • Einstein did not have a bigger brain but more connected one
  • Information combined with emotion = Long-term memory
    • Trade your cleverness with bewilderment
    • We are not logical, we are bi-logical
    • All learning is state dependent — The emotional state that you feel anchor to the learning.
    • Shelf help not a self-help
    • Ability to learn quickly — it does not mean frantic speed
    • 7 habits of highly effective people – 7th habit – Sharpen the saw
    • Superpower does not make you superhero – you have to use it to do something good
  • Three Supervillains
    • Digital overload – Supervillains
      • Information fatigue syndrome
    • Digital Distraction – Mind is so distracted and you cannot focus on just one thing anymore.
      • Faster you learn faster you can improve Health, Relationship, Career
  • Play – Batman, Superman, Wonder women
  • Who is in charge of emotional state?
    • ME
  • Jim’s superhero’s – Richard Branson and Stan Lee (Co-creator of spiderman, x men, Avengers). Fav – iron man
  • With great power comes great responsibilities
  • Why would you delay things that are imp to you? Or that will help you to reach your goal?
    • State and strategy
    • Those people who procrastinate are in a state of procrastinating — poor strategy of getting things done
  • Best way to move your state is by moving your body — As your body moves, your brain groups.
  • Novelty (exercise) and nutrition make more brain connections
  • The highest level of state?
    • Peace, love, joy, passion
  • Common sense is not often common practice
  • How to spread joy? — Hugs, kiss, love
  • INFORMATION + EMOTION = LONG TERM MEMORY
  • Thermometer and Thermo-state
    • One reacts to the environment – we react to how people react to us.
    • Regulate the environment – set the vision and regulate the environment
    • Being responsible – how you feel and focus on this.
  • 6 keys to learning anything faster – BE FAST
  • BELIEVE – if you believe you can or you cannot, either way, you are right – henry ford
    • Excercise
    • Take your right hand up and move it on right
    • Try again after visualization and it moved way further.
    • Were you physically capable of it first time – Blocker was in my mind.
    • All behaviors are belief driven
      • Always believe you can
      • Creativity is not something you have, it is something you do
      • The focus is not something you have,  it is something you do
      • Energy is not something you have,  it is something you do
      • Memory is not something you have,  it is something you do
      • We have control over it – we can define strategy – it is a verb, not a noun.
      • There is a strategy to remember names. There is a strategy for reading faster or having focus
    • There is no good memory or a bad memory. There is train memory or untrained memory.
    • BELIEF has to change. The strategy you can learn.
    • Your brain is like a supercomputer, your self-talk a program it will run.
    • If you say you will not remember names, you will not remember the next person’s name
    • MONITOR your self-talk
    • If you fight for your limitations you have to keep them
    • AND self-guard to your mind because the mind is always eve dropping on your self-talk
    • Why you don’t remember Phone numbers
      • Challenge here is digital overload
    • Villon1- DIGITAL OVERLOAD
      • Digital information is increasing, things we try to remember is even less.
      • This gap is increasing and create stress that we feel on an ongoing basis
      • How do we get ahead
    • Villon2 – DIGITAL DISTRACTION
      • The first hour of the day NO touching your phone.
      • Brainwaves
        • Beta is when we are awake
        • Delta is when we sleep
        • Theta is right above delta – that is the state of creativity we talked about (when we are in the shower. So relaxed and very creative)
        • In between beta and theta (when we are most awake), there is a state called alpha – state you go in when you meditate or deep breathing or watch television.
        • Alpha state is when the conscious mind is set aside and we are not filtering.
        • Alpha state is a great state to learn facts or languages or information like presentations and scripts
    • Villion3 – DIGITAL DEMENTIA – We are outsourcing our brain to smart devices
      • We are so much dependent on our smartphones that our smartphones are making us stupid.
      • We are using phone for names, calculators
      • GPS for directions
      • Smart devices could be extremely convenient but they could be crippling also. So it could be a balance
      • Dr. Daniel  – change your brain and change your life
      • Self-awareness – an expert is not the person on stage but you
      • You can learn better by looking at you and see what works for you.
      • Visualize, belief and do it as a superhero
    • The same level of thinking that created the problem would not solve the problem – Albert Einstein
    • There is no learning without remembering – Socrates
  • BE FAST
    • BELIEF
    • EXCERCISE- super brain yoga – as your body moves, your brain grooves
    • FORGET – we don’t learn since we think we know this already. We don’t empty our cup. Need a beginner’s mind. Forget about anything else you are thinking except learning
    • ACTIVE – Learning is not a spectator sport. Learning is engagement – the human brain does not learn from consuming information. It learns by creating information.  Take notes, stay active
    • STATE – all learning is state dependent. Never learn in bore state. LEARNING + EMOTION = long-term memory.
      • Many people think reading is seductive
      • Reading is falling sleep or 0? Anything * 0 = 0
      • So control your state
    • TEACH – Learning with the intention that you are teaching someone else.
      • Ask better questions
      • Take better notes
  • Children are the faster learners.
    • We all have an inner child that is genius
  • Days of future past
    • If you could go back to the child inside you that younger self and right now tell them something they need to hear what would that be?
    • AND if you have to go to future (10 years ahead) -> what is your current self-need to hear from you for future.
  • Egg and stress
    • Your egg is like your life. If an egg is broken by an outside force life ends but if an egg is broken by inside force life beings – all great things begin on the inside

 

The Memory’s Bible

Great book by Gary Small.
Focused on how we can improve our memory.  Key notes from the book below. Worth reading!

Chapter 4: Minimize Stress

  • Technology was suppose to reduce stress but reality is different
  • High level of stress impact impact overall memory performance.
  • Cause of stress: Internal and external
  • Internal Stress
    • Most harmful type of stress comes from within ourselves. We can easily control this stress but need to change outlook.
    • Example where person is annoyed since power is off in his home (and area) – he could not use his Gym machines. This guy is annoyed and chasing electric company to fix the power where as he can easily go out for running if he want (change perspective)
    • We rely on external factors (our spouse or boss behaviors to change, stock market should go up, kids should do things differently). This is all self generated stress and we have ability to do something about it if we want
  • Stress has a shrinking effect on the hippocampus long term memory.
  • Stressing down strategies
    1. Set realistic expectations — you cannot become a guitarist and marathon overnight, it takes years of practice.  if you setup goal for running marathon in two weeks, we are setting up wrong expectations.
    2. Lets get physical — exercise or do yoga; both reduce stress
    3. Prepare ahead — if we are unprepared then unfamiliar situation can create  stress and anxiety. Effective approach to manage stress is to prepare in advance. Give “110%” so even if you loose 10% during actual performance you are okay.
    4. Recess is not just for kids – Take a break or timeouts. Take power naps, meditation, yoga naps.
    5. Relax, this won’t hurt – As our body learned automatic stress response, by practice we can move it to automation “relaxation response”
    6. Cut back on caffine
    7. Get Enough Sleep — Sleep atleast 7-8 hours everyday and follow same routing on weekends. As sleep pattern improve, so memory and mood. You are sleeping effectively if you start waking refreshed, notice more energy during the day, and find yourself waking naturally before alarm goes off.
    8. Balance work and leisure: Measure your work hours and if you are spending 60% waking time working – you need to fix it.
    9. Laugh your heads off
    10. Talk about Feelings