The Lifelong Learner :: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are -Roosevelt ::

There are many schools of thought on marriage. Some say that you should become half of yourself and take the other half from your spouse and blend into one. This might work for some but for others, and I think I’m in this camp, this will not. I discovered a different school of thought today.

Be YourselfYou should allow your spouse to be herself (and vice versa). You should be authentic. That’s the only way you’re going to be happy. I agree with this type of thinking. You want to be yourself because that’s what makes you happy.

Where did I learn about this? While listening to Shut Up, Stop Whining. It’s a “in your face” type of book, filled with many good suggestions and thoughts. I like it.

But how would that work? The way it’s going to work is that while still being yourself, you find some common set of things that you and your spouse love. You do those things together. You concentrate on them while you’re together and you build on top of them. What if you don’t have or cannot find anything in common? Then find somebody else! (He gives a lot of these types of advices in the book.)

ArguingAll couples argue. If you don’t, then you’re boring — at least that’s what the author says. I agree with him, though. The key is to argue well.

I’m sure you had a discussion with your spouse where you blame your spouse or you get blamed. It happens all the time. Those are called cheap shots. That’s exactly how you should not argue!

Concentrating on somebody or name calling is not the right way to resolve issues. The author of the book gives great advice: It’s good to argue but always concentrate on the thing not on the person. That’s great advice. Don’t use cheap shots, convince your spouse with solid arguments based on the facts that pertain to the thing you’re discussing. If you are tempted to say “because you are…,” stop, that’s a cheap shot, say “because this is….”

ReferenceShut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life by by Larry Winget

Good negotiating skills is a valuable tool to have. It comes to use whether you’re negotiating for a new car, a new job, pay raise, or anything else that you want to get a good price for. The bottom line, it will come of use sooner or later. What is the best technique? Walk away.

I agree. I bought a car for my wife using this technique. The salesperson did not want to go down in price. He went down a little but not enough for me. I told him my last price. He said no. I was walking away. He said, “hold on.”

In this article, The ONE key thing to know about negotiation, Eric Sink explains the technique very well.

In negotiation, the one thing that really strengthens your position is the ability to walk away from the deal.That’s it.

Sounds simple, right? It should be, but people still get themselves into all kinds of trouble. Most people think the key to negotiation is figuring out how to manipulate the other person’s perspective. I’ll admit that those tactics can be somewhat effective, but the genuine ability to walk away from a deal is far more powerful.

ReferenceThe ONE key thing to know about negotiation, Eric.Weblog() — Eric Sinks’s blog

Do you want to be successful? Or maybe you already are, in that case, do you follow a pattern?

I have to say that I have been successful in most of the things that I have tried to achieve. But I don’t necessarily have a process. After reading the article, more below, I think that I might have a process: I think of an idea — a goal — and then I stay determined and try to achieve it, over time I look back and see if it was successful. But I don’t really have a structure and the process is mostly common sense, I guess. Scott H Young, in the Patterns for Success article, explains his process. He claims he follows it all the time and it has worked for him. It consists of three steps: Ideas, Implementation, and Review.

This is an excellent article, so I’ll take the most important points from it (read it all, though).

Patterns for Success

(1) IdeasIn order to improve, you need to know how you want to improve. You need to have ideas of where you want to be in a month, in a year. How do you get these ideas? By reading books, listening to audio tapes, he suggests. You can also do it, I think, by going to conferences, and even talking to friends: anything new that you would like to accomplish might be considered an idea. Scott suggests spending “no more than twenty percent” in this phase (interesting).

(2) ImplementationIt’s the most important step in improvement, he suggests “at least sixty percent” in this phase.

Generating ideas is easy, implementing them is the hard part. But without implementation “you can never experience any growth,” says Scott. “Growth occurs only after you have taken your ideas and set them into reality.”

(3) Review“Review is critical to long-term success.” Allocate around twenty percent for this activity.Review helps you “to ensure that you are improving in the direction you want.” It’s a test to see whether you are growing. “Ignoring this step would be like trying to drive a car with opaque windows,” says Scott.

ReferenceIntroduction – Patterns for Success (Series), Scott Young

This is a great advice from lifehack.org blog: Take The Sword In.

You probably haven’t re-read your copy of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People lately, but there’s a great part in Habit 5 (Seek first to understand, then to be understood) that talks about confrontations. I use that advice often, and almost always to the effect that Dr. Covey promises.

Good! You See it Differently

When confronted by a difference of opinion, especially when the person who disagrees with you sounds almost hostile about their opinion, or dismissive, what’s expected is a confrontation. The person arguing with you lunges forward with a criticism. She speaks with no regard for your feelings or ego.

In the audio program, there was always something so genuinely happy in Covey’s voice when he replied to his attacker. The script was like this: Sashi is arguing with Enrique. Sashi says, “This part is all wrong! There’s a big mess here. Things haven’t been taken into consideration.” At this point, Enrique could let his feelings get hurt, but instead, he chooses to say, “Good! You see it differently. Tell me what you think.”

The expression is magical. It takes the attacker off guard. It “takes the sword in.” Thing of someone lunging forward with a sword. Instead of countering with your own blade, you grab theirs, and pull it towards you. Imagine how off-balance one would be if one expected you to strike. Everything would be jarring to him because his bodyweight and strength was geared for a return conflict.

Check Your Ego

The prime ingredients to managing this kind of communication experience are a strong belief that you will eventually be heard, and also the ability to check your ego, to relinquish that sense of having to defend your thoughts and feelings to this other person. If you are strong in your spirit, you can do both. You can wait to make your point. If you execute the interaction well, anyone observing the interaction will most certainly score you higher than you’d imagine. It takes guts to let someone else stomp all over your idea, especially in public, but it takes almost superhero-level powers to reply with, “Good! You see it differently.”

But I’ll tell you: the reward of taking that sword in, of getting the person so off-balance that they accidentally become your ally and help you make the original idea better, is worth more than gold.

ReferenceTake The Sword In, lifehack.org (great, filled with practical advice blog, btw)

I am starting a learning log. In this log, I will enter my thoughts on what I’m learning, what I want to learn: anything that is learning related.

The bottom line is that I want to become a lifelong learner. I want to learn something new everyday. I want to continue on that path until I die. Why? Because that’s what I like to do. I like to learn new things, read new books.

But how did I come about doing this? I am currently reading “The Lifelong Learner” book. In that book, the author suggests creating a learning log and entering stuff into it daily.

I will spend 5 to 10 minutes every day and enter my thoughts into this log. I will create a separate blog on my website and enter all of my entries there. I will read my entries every couple of months. For now, I’m not going to make it public, but I think eventually I will.

As several people said, great thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries all had a learning log. I will have mine as well.

I’m hoping that this will help me. It will help me develop new skills, have a more focused purpose of life. This will help me in almost all of the facets of my life.

We all want to be happy, right? What makes you happy? Do you know? I personally can’t tell you right away. Well, if I don’t know what makes me happy, how can I be happy? Actually, I’m usually happy. Usually. If I could figure out how to be happy all the time… that would be great. That’s why I think the tips below are good for me. They also help me identify some of the things that make me happy.

Here are 9 tips that can help you lead to happiness:

1. Understand what it is that will make you happy.
2. Make a plan for attaining goals that you believe will make you happy.
3. Surround yourself with happy people.
4. When something goes wrong try to figure out a solution instead of wallowing in self pity.
5. Spend a few minutes each day thinking about the things that make you happy.
6. It’s also important to take some time each day to do something nice for yourself.
7. Finding the humor in situations can also lead to happiness.
8. Maintaining your health is another way to achieve happiness.
9. Finally, it is important to understand that you deserve happiness.

The list is taken from the article, below. Read a more detailed version on the website.

Reference9 Tips in Life that Lead to Happiness, lifehack.org

I want to be an expert (in everything I engage in ). I’m sure you do too.

Do you like to do things that are not fun for you to do? (Re-read that.) If so, you’ll become an expert one day. (I’m sure you are aware of this, and you’re doing this consciously.) Most of the people like to do things that they’re already good at. If you’d like to become an expert, however, it is essential for you to practice the things that are a pain for you; it is essential that you suck for a while; and on and on; this will never stop.

Kathy Sierra, in her post, How to be an expert, goes into details about this. She does an excellent job. I believe in what she’s saying. The following is the key paragraph in the post:

Most of us want to practice the things we’re already good at, and avoid the things we suck at. We stay average or intermediate amateurs forever.

Yet the research says that if we were willing to put in more hours, and to use those hours to practice the things that aren’t so fun, we could become good. Great. Potentially brilliant. We need a rage to master.

As for me, I think I’m going in that direction. The hardest thing to do, I think, is to figure out where you want to go, and what are some of the things that you need to improve. As I look back, I’m asking myself: Am I better in this than I was a year ago? Where am I now, what do I need to do to get better? This is a step by step process, inch by inch. I think I’m getting better and I’m happy with the overall process.

ReferenceHow to be an expert, Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users blog

I totally agree with this post, The Importance of Having Friends Who Disagree. I think it is great to have friends who disagree with you, and still be friends. That’s a luxury that I’d love to have. A friend like that will not let you get complacent, keep you motivated (because you want to find out more about the subject). It’s just great. Unfortunately, I think it’s a human nature not to disagree, and a lot of people have ego problems and don’t want to feel or look dumb. I am not one of them. If I disagree on something, I openly say it. If somebody cannot accept that, then maybe he should not be my friend. As simple as that. Open communication is a key to a lasting relationship. I want to have friends who will disagree with me, and who want me to disagree with them.

This is an excellent post.

ReferenceThe Importance of Having Friends Who Disagree, One Man Hacking blog by Ravi Mohan

I want to improve myself all the time. I want to learn all the time. Do you? I think so (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading my blog). If we all follow these tips, below, the world will be a better place. That’s for sure. A nice wish, I think. I’m going to keep an eye on these as I go through life. I think these are excellent (some thought provoking) tips.

1. If you want your dreams to come true, don’t oversleep.
2. The smallest good deed is better than the grandest intention.
3. Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.
4. The best vitamin for making friends….B1.
5. The 10 commandments are not multiple choices.
6. The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.
7. Minds are like parachutes…they function only when open.
8. Ideas won’t work unless YOU do.
9. One thing you can’t recycle is wasted time.
10. One who lacks the courage to start has already finished.
11. The heaviest thing to carry is a grudge.
12. Don’t learn safety rules by accident.
13. We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
14. Jumping to conclusions can be bad exercise.
15. A turtle makes progress when it sticks its head out.
16. One thing you can give and still keep …is your word.
17. A friend walks in when everyone else walks out.
18. The pursuit of happiness is: the chase of a lifetime!

ReferenceI received these from WisdomTips.com daily email service (good stuff).

Am I creative? I don’t think so. I’m full of ideas, and I constantly want to improve something, but I’m not sure that’s creativity. In any case, I’d like to be a creative person. I’d like to more creative. In this article by gapingvoid, How To Be Creative, the author shows 26 tips on how to be more creative. It’s long — 34 pages — but it reads quickly, plus, a shorter version is available. It’s a great article, I recommend it.

Tip 11 (from the article):

ReferenceHow To Be Creative, long version

RelatedHow To Be Creative, short versionHow To Be Creative, book PDF version