Business and Money Tips

Many people always tell me (as their coach) that they will start doing the right things when they are more ready tomorrow. Some people say that because currently their career is doing fine, they don't need any coaching or upgrading.  Others claimed that their bosses did not intend to promote them (as there are no such promotion opportunities) and as such they have not started to think about learning on their own.  "I'll learn when I get there", is what they say.  I'm sure you can recognize this: many people live day by day.  They will upgrade their skills when they're feeling confident and good.  Since currently there is too much workload to handle, they will wait until tomorrow when things are more stable to pick up learning. Meet Joe - the person that lives as though there is no tomorrow. Joe makes use of each day to the fullest: he will grab opportunities as they come along.  He does not improve himself or embark on self-learning according to his...

There's a Zen story in which a professor visited a Japanese master to inquire about Zen. The master served tea. When the visitor's cup was full, the master kept pouring. Tea spilled out of the cup and over the table. "The cup is full!" said the professor. "No more will go in!" "Like this cup," said the master, "You are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?" If you want to understand and learn, you need to empty your cup.  So how do people empty their cup when they go for training courses?  From experience in conducting in-house trainings for over 440 companies and over 81,131 people in 14 countries since 1996, there are 7 ways to empty your cup:  (click here for list of courses) (For slides, read here ) Learn with an Open Mind . Do not hold any fixed ideas before the course.  Like the parachute, the mind is only useful when it is open.  Opening your mind also mean...

“It is estimated most human beings only use 10 percent of the brain’s capacity,” Morgan Freeman says in 2014's best-selling movie Lucy. “Imagine if we could access 100 percent.  Interesting things begin to happen.” So is it true that humans only use 10% of our brain?   How can we use our brain more without incurring higher stress?  (Stress reduction with mindfulness at here ) Truth be told, unless you have a traumatic brain injury or other neurological disorder, you are already using more than 10% of your brain. Other than your active brain, like the one you're using now to read this blog, you also use other parts of your passive brain to control automatic bodily functions like breathing and balance.  I'm not a scientist, and until now modern science cannot come to any meaningful conclusion about how much of our brain we're using.  One thing for sure: it is less than 100% and more than 0%.  Whatever it is, we can always use more than 10% ...

Either you fire them up you'll have to fire them is at here My background in retail sales since the tender age of 5 has taught me one important lesson: never take anything for granted.   Never believe anything at first instance, not even your own percep tion. Whether you're dealing with staff, candidates, voters, suppliers, contractors, customers, children or bosses, the first step to getting anything done is to understand your customer .  Customer here refers to people you're serving now, which could anyone of the preceding statement.   To understand your customer, you must open your mind fully to what he says and how he says it .  To do this, you must go beyond your own experience, knowledge and skills.  You must get confused.  When you are confused, you will seek clarification, and you will ask questions.  Like, "What does that mean?  Why is he doing that?  What's going on?"  That's confusion! Confusion is a state of learni...

As we know, a great man is not one that does great things but one that does greatly in what he is supposed to be doing.  We all know what are the right things to do, but due to work pressures and meeting the demands of others, we tend to divert our focus.  If you're reading this newsletter, I hope to inspire you to do the following 6 things so that you can be happier at work: Do the best for the day , and not wait for another day to come.  This means not holding back and give it your all Continuously upgrade your skills, attitudes and knowledge . One good way is to get someone outside (like a Trainer) to challenge your thinking.  For if you change your thinking, your life will change Improve your inter-personal skills .  Know how to empathize with people and not just push your way through. Have high self-awareness and equip yourself with EQ and profiling skills Know how to be tough .  Get driven and be tough to take tough actions.   Know that di...

Note: List of courses is now at here The common problem faced by learners all over the world is not how much they learn but how much learning they retain.  For we know that if your retention is low, your application of the learning will also be low . That means lower training effectiveness.   Here are the top 5 ways that we use to massively increase the retention of learning for our clients: (for the top 7 things that training must cover , read this ) Review and reflection once every half or one hour .  The review and reflection can be in the form of Question and Answer, Case Study and Sharing of Learning IAP - Immediate Action Plan , how can you not remember when you put your learning into action immediately? Funny Video Clips .  A picture speaks a thousand words, and a moving picture speaks a million words.  This is especially so when the video clip is funny and exaggerating, and such ridiculous associations will definitely lock into people's minds Di...

We know that informal learning is the world's biggest and fastest learning.  This is because when one learns informally, one is not using his conscious mind and is thus using less conscious effort. With less conscious effort, one can learn more without feeling tired. That's why when you embark on what you love, you'll have more energy.  Same for learning.  What you learn informally you learn more.  Many people learn the following 5 bad habits at work unconsciously: Pushing Blame.  When something wrong happens, employees learn that if you don't push the blame to someone else, you'll have to shoulder the entire blame. Thus employees learn to push blame quickly, like "I thought that you know, that's why I never follow-up with you" and "You should know as you're more senior than me".   Coming up with Excuses .  Like "I never learnt that in school", "It was always done like this". We know that excuses only serve one...

You'll be surprised if you have a heart-to-heart talk with the people that you sent for training .  "Tell me what have you learnt."  They will say, "Nothing much, I learnt those strategies that we may have taken for granted and not used much".  Is this their real answer? What do people really learnt from training?  You'll be shocked to discover the truths: there are 5 main things that people learnt but dare not tell you: They learnt about themselves: their weaknesses, strengths and most importantly, their potential.   Like people learnt that they can do magic: cut a piece of wood with paper.  Many people are frightened with this new discovery: they are afraid that now that they know they can do much more, will they be worked to death to implement the strategies learnt? They learnt about the best practises that may not be practised in their organization, like having half-yearly dialogue style performance appraisal.  Some are afraid of telling th...

Most people treat learning seriously, but the problem is that they learn too seriously and as a result learn nothing.  Most people are very interested in learning the latest theories, concepts, discoveries and even success stories.  They listen well, take good notes and ask good questions.  Many even go further in reading and watching youtube videos related to the subject.  As a trainer and coach, I am happy for their learning enthusiasm.  But I find them to be lousy learners.  Why? You see, learning is just the first step and is incomplete until you put the learning into action.  It is the application that makes the difference. Only when you apply will you be able to know if what you learnt makes sense.  Most importantly, every person's situation is different and you need to apply the learning differently and adapt to the situation.  You only can adapt when you apply.  You can't apply by doing case studies on paper, doing role pla...

They laughed when they saw me staring at my tablet for the whole day.  What am I so engrossed in?  But when they saw what I saw, they begin to laugh too.  What I am doing is simple: ALT ( Anytime Learning with Tablet ). The modern world is no longer about getting good grades, for things are changing so fast that no school in this world, including the top universities, can teach us new things.  The only way to learn in this world now is to learn on internet .  Not through your PC or laptop, for it is too tiring and inconvenient.  Neither is it through your smartphone, for your smartphone has to be reserved for texting, facebooking and calls.  It has to be through another devise, a portable one that you can bring to anywhere: office, restaurant, bedroom, bathroom, bus, train, lift and bedroom.  With a tablet of a convenient size (e.g. 7 inch), relatively cheap (best cost you less than $200), reasonably fast with good battery, you can do the foll...

UNCOPYRIGHT NOTICE:   This e-article by Scott Dinsmore is Uncopyrighted. Feel free to share it, copy it,  or post it on your blog, like I what I do now at www.AndyNgTrainer.blogspot.sg or at here. Words are incredibly powerful. There are some that empower us to do our very  best and others that can leave us feeling helpless.  Through my own and others' experiences I have found one to be more dangerous  than any other.  On that when used once in a while can give you relief, but when used frequently  can leave you with the deepest feeling of despair.  This most dangerous word is: Later. The scary thing is that 'Later' seems so harmless at first. There are all kinds of  justifications to put things off until tomorrow. A lot of them can feel pretty valid.   And even worse, we seem to use this word most for the things that are of greatest importance to us.  Like exercise and learning.  I'm talking about the big goals and...