SOFT SKILL BHILAI: Personal Development Phase II

SOFT SKILL BHILAI: Personal Development Phase II: Personal Development is the critical phase that is the cornerstone of the entire foundation to building the structure that will lead us t...

SOFT SKILL BHILAI: ARE WE TRULY FREE?

SOFT SKILL BHILAI: ARE WE TRULY FREE?: "WAKE UP!"   The alarm clock is buzzing freely in your ears obnoxiously letting you know that it is time to go to work. Another day of do...

SOFT SKILL BHILAI: ARE WE TRULY FREE?

SOFT SKILL BHILAI: ARE WE TRULY FREE?: "WAKE UP!"   The alarm clock is buzzing freely in your ears obnoxiously letting you know that it is time to go to work. Another day of do...

ARE WE TRULY FREE?

"WAKE UP!" The alarm clock is buzzing freely in your ears obnoxiously letting you know that it is time to go to work. Another day of doing a job (J.O.B. “Just-Over-Broke”) that you don’t really like, to get paid less than your true worth, of which the majority of the money is already spoken for, before it ever reaches your bank account, never to even touch your hands! How did we get here? Our parents, teachers, and society tells us to go to school, get a good job, and everything will be ok; but is this it?

Ok, ok, but first things first, what is a good job? In the times that we are in today, a lot of us are just happy to have any job, let alone a good one; and if one job isn’t enough to pay the bills, then maybe two or three will do. But, after this is accomplished, if we ever get a chance to breath for a second, we ask ourselves, “When did my job become more important than the time I spend with my loved ones, or taking care of my health?”

 I know, I know, our bills are to maintain our living, and our debts are from more luxury than necessity, but how and when did we rely on trading labor and precious time for meager wages, instead of leveraging ourselves, time and talents to work towardsprofits? If we are truly FREE, then why does it feel like we are slaves to our jobs and current circumstances?

What if we were to take the time to really establish a greater embrace of responsibility as well as discover the gifts & talents that we possess in order to create an environment to serve others with what we excel in? We would create and establish a life that allows for more time, (time to spend with loved ones, maintain our health, go on vacations, enjoy our hobbies, etc.) a sense of fulfillment and enjoyment each day as we do what we love and serve others with it, and an escape from living paycheck to paycheck enslaved to that which we currently are bound. Think FREEDOM!

Despite the laws and cultural status’ of the many nations that make up the world that we live in today, if we take a look at our present situation and mentality of ourselves and as a society, are we truly living in freedom? Before you answer this question in your mind, let us take a journey into freedom and the very nature of its mandate!

 Dr. Myles Munroe defines freedom as:

Free-dominion merged together equals Freedom. True Freedom is therefore “the liberty to dominate the earth through one’s unique gifts and talents in fulfillment of the intended purpose for one.” In essence, each individual was created to dominate the environment through his or her personal gifts and talents, in pursuit of fulfilling the purpose for his or her life and to serve others with that purpose. Freedom is the liberty to fulfill a life of serving others with the gift of that purpose, without restricting or controlling another while that person fulfills his or her purpose and serves you.

True freedom is self-discovery of one’s personal purpose and the liberty to pursue the fulfillment of that purpose according to the Kingdom laws and principles, without restricting others from doing the same. 

“When oppression becomes a mental condition, then physical freedom is not enough.”

It is this crucial principle that the book, “The Burden of Freedom” by Dr. Myles Munroe addresses:

The mind is the key to life. “As a man thinks in his heart [mind], so is he” – proverbs. Therefore, your mental state is more important than your physical state. You are not free until your mind is set free. Freedom is first a mental condition before it is a physical statement.

The source of freedom is not legislation or a key to a chain, but rather knowledge – the discovery of information powerful enough to set you free in your mind. If man is what he thinks, then a man is not free until he thinks free.

We must learn that freedom is not the absence of law, work or labor, but the embracing of responsibility. We must be awakened to the reality that true freedom imposes more laws than slavery [jobs], demands more work than slavery [jobs] and demands more self-control and discipline than slavery [jobs]. The foundation of true freedom is management—self-management and management of our environment. This is the first and ultimate purpose for mankind. In slavery you do not manage—you are managed. Therefore, freedom is a return to the responsibility of stewardship. The first command to mankind was to manage the real estate called Earth. Man was given the management contract to manage the earth, and his freedom is inherent in this dominion mandate. You are not free until you are able to dominate an area of earth with your gift.

Freedom is essential to all moral responsibility, and moral responsibility is one of the institutions of the human mind. However, freedom demands and could be defined as responsibility. There is no freedom without responsibility. Freedom is the delegated right and release of authority to be responsible for governing and managing your designated sphere of influence through your natural gift in fulfillment of the purpose for your life.

Freedom is taking responsibility for your life. It is designing your destiny and deciding your own consequences. True freedom is a matter of the mind—not of human law. Self control and self-discipline are both attributes of true freedom because discipline is self-imposed law. This is freedom.

So as we take inventory of our lives to see whether we are truly living in the freedom that is before us, let us study further the foundational principles of freedom itself. Afterwards we will have a great ascertainment of the steps we should take in the future towards establishing dominion in the area of our gifting and free ourselves from the bondage that enslaves our mind and our circumstances.

The excerpts of this article were taken from the must-read book: “The Burden of Freedom” by Dr. Myles Munroe, he is credited as the teacher of these awesome principles that breakdown freedom in its purest form!

Personal Development Phase II

Personal Development is the critical phase that is the cornerstone of the entire foundation to building the structure that will lead us to Kingdom Success in our life! It is the un-assuming core of our being that is tremendously neglected, which leads us to a minimal portion of our potential that is rarely realized by individuals in our society on a wide scale!

Our educational system focuses on areas of study such as mathematics, language arts, economics, science etc. The system often neglects to provide extensive concentration on our mental mindset, and addressing imperative responsibilities that we encounter throughout our lives. Many of us struggle to understand the importance of time management, and how to live a balanced and prioritized life, etc. catering to the essentials that provide the platform on which the other areas of study should build off of!

From mindset, to vision, leadership, habits, time management and beyond, personal development is significantly important in the foundational building of Kingdom Success; as it is the heart that pumps the actions that we make in every other aspect of our lives.

Take television watching for example, according to a statistics study done by the Nielsen Company, the average person watches approx. 6.5 hours of TV per day! And that’s just the average, which leads to the conclusion that some people watch even more than that! So in the calculation of the average lifetime, that means that we’ll spend +/- eleven years of our lives just watching television! That number also includes the commercials, which equal three years of time by themselves!!! This is an example in personal development, of our time management, habits, and priorities that we subconsciously designate to each day of our lives, depriving us of productivity that could go towards exponentially growing our net-worth, or learning a second language, giving back to the community, etc.

In the book, “The Power of Focus,” Jack Canfield remembers his time with W. Clement Stone that went like this:

When I went to work for W. Clement Stone in 1969, he sat me down for a one-hour interview. His first question was, “Do you watch television?” He then asked me, “How many hours a day do you think you watch?’ After a short calculation I answered, “About three hours a day.”

Mr. Stone looked me directly in the eye and said, “I want you to cut out one hour a day; reduce your TV watching time down to two hours per day. If you do that, you’ll be saving 365 hours per year. If you divide that by a forty-hour work week, you’ll see that you’ll have added about nine and a half additional weeks of productivity to your life. That’s like getting two additional months per year!”

I agreed that this was a great leveraging concept, and then I asked Mr. Stone what he thought I should do with this extra hour every day. He suggested I read books in my field of motivation, psychology, education, training and self-esteem. He also suggested that I listen to educational and motivational cassettes, take classes and study a foreign language.

You see, this is something that is very simple, but can make a world of difference when it comes to the big picture which is our lives as we know it! Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it is the consistent action of mundane tasks that create the extraordinary results that we seek to accomplish!   

Personal Development for Smart People - Steve Pavlina

I got this article from Personal Development for Smart People - Steve Pavlina and this article is not be mentioned in his archives. so take a look here. 

The Power of Desire

"Do you know what desire is?"
- Dr. Ira Graves to Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Schizoid Man"

Like many people I grew up with the bad habit of thinking about what I didn't want. I'd imagine all the ways things could go wrong, and then I'd worrying incessantly about those imaginings. The worst was when I was in elementary school and had to give a speech or presentation in front of the class. I was a shy, nerdy kid who dreaded any kind of public speaking. The speech itself would take only a few minutes, but I'd worry about it for weeks in advance. When I finally got up to do the presentation, however, it would usually go OK -- not great but certainly not as bad as I'd feared.

One time in 8th grade, I gave a presentation on model rocketry, which was a hobby of mine for several years. To my surprise I actually enjoyed giving that presentation, and the class was very receptive to what I had to say. Afterwards I finally began to realize that worrying was a big waste of time and energy -- and a waste of life too.

During my teen years, I gradually developed the habit of thinking about what I wanted instead of worrying about what I didn't want, and I noticed my results improved along with this change. The most obvious result was that I performed better on exams, and consequently I earned straight As all through high school. The key was to replace worry with desire. I couldn't seem to stop my mind from obsessing over things in advance, so I told it to focus on positive outcomes instead of negative ones. I couldn't stop worrying right away, but I could at least rechannel that energy somewhere else. Whenever I caught myself worrying, I'd consciously shift my imagination to a more positive outcome. For example, if I caught myself worrying about an upcoming test, I'd cancel that thought and imagine myself getting the highest score in the class. It didn't matter if the positive vision was realistic or not. What mattered was that it felt better to dream up positive outcomes instead of negative ones. Interestingly, I soon became a top student in many of my classes, but I wasn't investing any extra time in homework or studying.

By the time I was a senior in high school, I had internalized the habit of thinking about what I wanted. I started looking forward to exams because I knew my mind would automatically dream up all kinds of positive outcomes. Some of those outcomes were just as unrealistic and exaggerated as my previous worries had been, but I didn't care because it felt good to imagine them anyway. The better I felt, the better my results. I was already getting straight As, but eventually I started doing so well in my classes that other students got mad at me for "blowing the curve." I was a bit of a smart ass back then, so that only made it more fun for me. One teacher even gave me a personalized exam because he knew the regular tests were no challenge for me. Another teacher asked me to help him solve a problem before class that he couldn't solve, and I solved it in a few minutes. When it came time to apply for college, I got letters of acceptance from many great schools, including U CLA, UC Berkeley, Cal Tech, and Carnegie Mellon.

This habit of thinking about what I want didn't make my life perfect. I still had plenty of problems to deal with -- and created some new ones on my own -- but it did make life a lot more fun.

To this day I still have the habit of obsessively thinking about what I want. It's like the opposite of depression. If I'm standing in line or driving in my car, my mind will just start roaming through all kinds of positive scenarios, envisioning one delicious outcome after another. If I want to consider what might go wrong, I have to sit down and think about that consciously, and even then it's hard because my mind will habitually return to obsessing over how great everything will be.

Shortly before I launched StevePavlina.com, my mind obsessed over many different ways the site could grow and evolve. For example, I imagined all the future visitors that would stop by and soak up life-changing ideas... and how it would be great if they could get all the content for free. I thought about how perfect it would be if I could make a living from this kind of work and eventually shut down my computer games business. And this was before there was any real content or any visitors to speak of. Now fast-forward to the present. StevePavlina.com just celebrated its 3-year anniversary on October 1st, 2007, and it's now the most visited personal development web site in the world. But my mind is still racing ahead, obsessing over all the delightful future possibilities. I had just as much fun running the site even when hardly anyone knew it existed.

Positive dreams benefit us in two key ways. First, dreaming feels good. Whether things turn out well or not, you might as well spend your life in a state of joy and anticipation instead of fear and dread. Secondly, positive dreams can help manifest positive results. When you feel good, you're motivated to take action, your actions are inspired, and you attract other positive people and situations that can help you. When you feel bad, you procrastinate more often, and you repel people from wanting to be near you. Dreaming about your desires won't make your life perfect overnight, but in the long run, it really does make a positive difference -- both in how you feel and what results you experience.

How do you establish the habit of thinking about what you want? First, do your best to catch yourself thinking about what you don't want, and consciously stop and replace those thoughts with positive alternatives. It doesn't matter if the alternatives are realistic or not. This is your imagination we're talking about, so you're free to dream up whatever crazy scenarios you like. All that matters is that you enjoy thinking about them. You don't need to write them down or tell anyone about them. Just enjoy basking in their glow.

Secondly, set aside a few minutes each day to consciously think about positive outcomes. Allow yourself to dream. Imagine how your life could become even better. Do this when you're driving -- put a sticky note in your car with the word "Dream" to remind yourself. Do it when you're standing in line. Do it when you're lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. Eventually this will become a habit, and you'll dream about what you want whenever you have a spare moment. Again, it doesn't matter if you think these outcomes are possible or not. Just enjoy the positive energy you get from thinking about what you want, and also notice that you can apply that energy to improve your current practical results right here, right now.

When I was stuck in the habit of negative thinking, I wouldn't have thought it was possible to change. I figured it was just who I was. A lot of depressed people seem to think that way too. The feeling of helplessness is a byproduct of the habit of negative thinking. It doesn't matter how much time and energy you've invested in this habit already, how many times you've tried to change and failed, or how adept you are at making excuses. You can still begin to pay attention to your thoughts and rechannel them in a more positive direction. You're always free to dream. It may take weeks, months, or even years to reach the point of feeling consistently good about your life, but the time is going to pass anyway, so you may as well get started today.

steve pavlina.

Focus On Soft Skills: A Leadership Wake-up Call

A contribution by Carole Nicolaides 

Summary: In today's working environment, where customers and employees are demanding more, instilling the use of soft skills in your team members is something you simply can't survive without.

The rules for succeeding in business are changing daily. Yet people are still asking for the magic formula that contributes to a successful organization. Is it talented, knowledgeable people plus innovative products? That's a great start, but something vital is missing from this equation.

More and more corporations around the world recognize that, in order to gain a competitive advantage, they also need to make sure their people know how to handle themselves at work and how to relate with their customers and peers. From showing empathy and optimism to extreme self-awareness to knowing what's going on around them, these vital competencies are an integral part of a progressive organization. They fall under the umbrella of Emotional Intelligence (EI).

These soft-skills, or emotional intelligence skills, revelations open the door to a lot of discussion. The western civilization and our traditional management theories tend to lead us in the direction of individualistic promotion. They display our strengths rather than the demonstration of our humanness. These ideas have been so tightly woven into our leadership mentality that they can be challenging to break.

Unfortunately, most graduate schools don't teach you how to cultivate your soft skills. While courses such as Business Writing and Public Speaking are offered, I have never seen a course entitled, "The Effective Art of Listening to Your Customer." We live in a society that measures intelligence through quantifiable metrics. A professor will give you good grades once you know XYZ, but he or she will not increase your grade for being able to deal with a difficult situation, showing compassion, or solving an unexpected problem. Yet most compliments that you or your employees receive deal more with the use of soft skills than with your actual knowledge about a particular situation. Most customers appreciate a "willingness to help" and the fact that "she listened to my complaint." The use of these skills is what elevates your organization above the competition

You don't compete only with products anymore, rather with how well you use your people. Too often we focus on what employees need to "know" when evaluating and hiring them instead of "who they really are." I will illustrate this with an example.

John was promoted to Technical Project Manager at his consulting company. Some people wondered why John had risen to this level of management. His educational level was lower than others in the firm and his degree wasn't in an area that pertained to consulting. However, one of the strengths that was nowhere on his resume was his ability to be positive in all situations and to naturally motivate people. He was quick to smile and see the positive side of every project. He was generous in praising people and was consistently happy. These were his strengths - his natural attributes. They made up the sum of who John was. These soft skills are just as important as what John knows.

The challenge nowadays is to introduce a program that will allow your leaders to learn and capitalize fast on their soft-skills competencies. Soft skills are important and always have been. It seems we have laid them aside and opted to emphasize too much on expertise and credentials. Let's get back to our values and the basics of good internal and external customer service.

Soft skills are the underlying principles that trademark a company for professionalism and excellent customer service. They provide differentiation between all the cookie-cutter look-alikes and play a vital role in customer loyalty. In today's working environment, where customers and employees are demanding more, instilling the use of soft skills in your team members is something you simply can't survive without.

When it's time to focus on soft-skills training as a tool to improve performance, leadership potential, and bottom line organizational success, consider the following:

1. Start Slowly - Instead of getting a large number of people in a room and preaching to them about their soft skills - move slowly. Introduce the concept with an informative and fun workshop. The program should also be designed to enhance their skills.

2. Involve Your People From the Start - Involve as many employees as you can on the decision to create a program, what to include within the program, and how to maintain the program. People support what they help create. Engage them, give them the possibility to make changes with your training curriculum, do a pilot program with key people, and use the pilot program as an introduction to the group.

3. Hire Expert Help - Coaches and Organizational Consultants are experts in building rapport and establishing the right culture for these initiatives. With the right culture and the appropriate training, managers can continue the task of training and cultivating good relationships.

4. Recognize Individual Achievement - There is so much talk about teamwork today that we forget to emphasize how important it is to praise individual achievement as well. From time to time praise your stars. Recognizing personal contributions to the team is an excellent morale booster.

5. Discover the Group's Soft-Skill Identity - All people are not the same, so their soft skills and strengths are not the same either. Once you know who you have on your team, leverage their strengths and differences because these are the facts that will help distinguish you and your organization from the competition. Illustrate how they can leverage each other's strengths inside the team to develop a new group "identity."

The essence of your business is your people. Making soft-skills development a priority will bring your team to a new level because it focuses directly on them. By allowing the human aspect of your employees to shine through, you are encouraging them to do what comes naturally to them. Don't overlook these all-important skills when evaluating areas of improvement for your team. Find a way to incorporate soft skills into your leadership development programs and see results immediately.