365QOD- Day1422

Learning from Questions

"A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer"- Bruce Lee

I love this quote.  It teaches us a great lesson.  

The lesson it teaches is to be aware and open to learning.  The source for the lesson could be a foolish question.  I know my many students believed that there is no such thing.  Let me tell you a story of the importance of a question.  Even one that seemed foolish.

It was one Saturday morning and I was teaching a special session for a statistics course.  I was trying to explain how to develop a risk profile for investments by dividing a 100 dollar bill into buckets.  One of the students said that she just dd not know how to split it up and asked if it could be done automatically.

My initial reaction was that she was too lazy in her thought process.  BUT when that instant passed I opened myself to the wisdom in her question.  She helped me create a whole new way of looking at risk by looking for consistency. 

Yes I learned from what I perceived a foolish question.  I learned a lot.

Today's question is:
"Are you open to learning from a foolish question?"

365QOD- Day1343

Slow Motion

"Left knee up with right arm up, right knee up with left arm up...repeat"- usual running stride

I run a couple of times a week.  I usually run 3 or 6 miles when I do.  I usually want to do as good as I have done in the past if not better.  If I do not feel good then I give myself a break and do not focus on the time.

The funny thing is that often when I run I see an older gentlemen who also runs.  His style is very unique.  He looks like as if he is running in slow motion.  His body motion is one of a runner but yet the result is a very slow motion looking run.  

I could not resist and one day I stopped him and asked him a few questions.  He told me that he runs a few times a week and that each time he runs 5 miles.  I was impressed.  He had a style that was not jarring to his knees but yet he was in great shape and achieving great results.  It is hard to judge his age but I would guess 80+.  

The lesson that I learned from observing him was that by moving slower one can achieve greater results than rushing to get to the finish line.  

Today's question is:
"Do you believe you can get ahead by slowing your motion?"

365QOD- Day1326

Sword of Wisdom

"With The Sword of Wisdom, Sever The Doubt In Your Heart" - John McConnell Yoga video #22 A practice contemplating a quote from the bhagavad gita

This great wisdom is hard to do.  

Suppose you get some Data.  You manage to turn it into Information.  Over time the Information becomes your Knowledge.  Lastly, it becomes ingrained in you and becomes Wisdom that you can act upon.

This is what I believe happens in the learning process.  The quote, to me, indicate someone giving you wisdom.  With that wisdom you are to sever the doubt and just act.  This is the part I have a hard time with.

As human beings we often turn away from wisdom because it did not originate from us.  As I often phrase it, "We would hit our head on a wall rather than believing that wisdom that someone gave us that the wall is hard."  

This is human nature.  This is why kids do not listen to parents.  But as adults we have no excuse.  We see the wisdom, and as the quote teaches, we must sever the doubt and act.

Again.. hard to do..

Today's question is:
"Could you sever the doubt in your heart with the sword of wisdom?"

365QOD- Day1323

Doing vs. Reading

"You don't have to read the book, you are already doing it"- Jamie Tardy

Recently I was listening to Jamie's show and I heard her offer this advice to a millionaire.  She refered to a book and then acknowledged that the person was already doing what the book recommended.  In next sentence she told the person that because they were already doing it they did not need to read the book.

I do not understand her logic.  Just because you are doing something does not mean you can not learn additional things to compliment what you are doing.  

I would especially have recommended the book for him.  He would have been able to read and understand how someone like him was doing the same thing.  Maybe taht person is getting better results?  Maybe their sequence is better?  

There infinitely many things we can learn by simply studying success in others.  Studying success in others who are doing what we are doing is a gold mine.  You would be able to quickly learn things that others would have to take more time to figure out.  

Today's question is:
"Do you read books on things you are already doing well?"

365QOD- Day1319

Copying Others

"Replicating what other people have done can make you miserable."- A belief

I believe that we can learn great things by studying others.  But we should not copy them.  Copying might be a compliment to the person you are copying but it does not speak well of your creativity.

Don't get me wrong.  We should study success in others and ask ourselves how applicable it is to us.  We need to understand their success and more importantly understand their mindset.

Recently I listened to a podcast in which a successful entrepreneur said that he reads a biography/autobiography every tow weeks.  While he is reading it he tries to put himself into the mindset of the person.  

He even adopts some of the physical habits the person has.  For example, when he studied Buffett he drank a cherry coke at 10:30 and 2:30 each day.  Why?  Because Buffett does that every day.  After he is done studying the person he is able to recall the mindset in the future and gets rid of the physical habits.  

This is interesting to me because I also agree that it is important to study others but I believe that we should try to improve upon what we see others do.  Once I understand a method that someone is using I should be able to ask myself many questions about how to improve upon it.  This extra effort makes it my own.  It might have the other person's method as a subset but the new method will be my own.

Today's question is:
"How do you differentiate between copying and improving upon and idea?"

365QOD- Day1226

Can Both be Correct?

"No I am right."- the ego talking

The other day I watched two people get so mad at each other.  The first had meet  with a customer.  He was told what the customer required directly and saw an  example of what the customer wanted.

When he went to coworker the coworker told him that what he had delivered was wrong. The co-worker said that the product was not in a proper format and that it should be done differently.  This made the  first guy to go to a third guy to confirm. The third coworker agreed with the second guy.  First guy left in a  huff.  An hour later he corrected it the way the two co-workers had suggested.  

What he had he had done was not wrong just did not fit the standard way of doing  the design.  It satisfied  the customer demand but it showed a lack of knowledge.  In his defense, he realized that he needed to follow  the standard.  The customer  got their data but in a different format.

Interestingly, by combining the way he did it and they way he wad told to do it  both would have been  satisfied.  The solution chosen was one of OR and not AND.  The AND solution was a better choice.

Today's question is:

"How do you know when you should follow a standard solution?"

365QOD- Day1223

Keep Doing This, Stop Doing That

“The other day I did the simplest thing. It took 15 minutes. And the amount of value it produced was totally ridiculous.”- Erica Ariel Fox Influencer column

Lately I have become fascinated with 15 minute increments.  Why would that fascinate me?  Well 15 minutes is 1% of our day:

15min=(1/4 of one hour)*(1day/24 hours)==1/96 th of a day=.01042~1.04% of the day

So 15 minutes is about as close as you can get to 1% of a day.

The fascination is how we do not realize this.  And even more importantly what to do to improve my life by maximizing each 15 minute increment.  This ties in with Erica’s blog post.

Erica decided that she would approach two co-workers and ask them to participate in a little brainstorming session in which they would each write down one thing she should keep doing and another one she should stop.  Providing a specific example should be a part of this exercise.

This idea is wonderful and could be very effective.  I suggest you get a set of index cards.  On one side write Keep Doing This, and a few spaces lower, and Please Provide an example of this. On the back of the card write Stop Doing This, and a few spaces lower, and Please Provide an example of this.  Give it to a couple of people with the instruction:

I am trying to become a better X (person, co-worker, team lead, etc.). 

Please help me by filling out this card.  Do not spend more than 15 minutes on it.

I will promise to make an attempt to improve based on your feedback.

THANKS

I believe this card could be used at work, home, and any relationship you wish to improve.  But be ready to truly hear the feedback and make an effort to improve based on it.

Today’s question is:

“Do you have the guts to ask for this level of feedback?”

365QOD- Day931

No Pain...No Lesson

"A lot of epiphanies come at the end of an unpleasant process.  That process is not only necessary to achieve the epiphany, but part of the epiphany itself.  As such, distilling that process down to an axiom isn't as valuable as going through the process itself, however grueling it might be."- unknown

This is the answer to the question, "What is a life changing realization that you wish you'd had sooner?" on the suite Ask Metafilter.  I believe the advice offers a lot of wisdom.
We want the learning process to be easy.  Well, as I have said before,  if it is easy then it is worth
nothing. If I tell you a fact for which I paid dearly it does not mean the same to you.  It can not. 

If you are lucky them you will remember it in the short term add good advice but in the long run you will forget it.  Why?  Because add the quote teaches you did not go through the process where you discovered it. The process is a part of the discovery, the epiphany.  Without the process, your temporary gain us only temporary.

This is kind of sad when you think about it.  It means that others can teach us but we must still go through the process to ingrain the fact.  The best we will be able to do is to speed up our learning but not eliminate it.

Maybe this is why kids repeat the mistakes of their parents even though the parent truss to prevent the pain?

Today's question us:
"Have you had an epiphany without going though the process?"