The Invisible Mentor

Archive for June, 2009

What does the word contemplation mean to you? How often do you take time for contemplation? Once a day? Once a week? Never?

How do you know if you are on track? How do you know if something in your  life is working or is not working? Do you ever take time to reflect on the things that you hear, see, feel, sense and taste? What do you do to engage all your senses?

Achieving success and unleashing your inner genius requires nuturing your soul, as well as feeding your mind. You have to take care of all of you, both the inner and the outer, the seen and the unseen.

Below is a poem about contemplation by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the German writer who lived in the 18th and early 19th century. Is the poem really about contemplation, or is it about something else? What do you think?

Book of Contemplation – Five Things

WHAT makes time short to me?

Activity!

What makes it long and spiritless?

‘Tis idleness!

What brings us to debt?

To delay and forget!

What makes us succeed?

Decision with speed

How to fame to ascend?

Oneself to defend!

By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Now that you have read Book of Contemplation – Five Things, what are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with the point of view? Now read the quotation below by Heraclitus, how do you feel about it?

“Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.” Heraclitus

Are people with a good character likely to manage their time effectively, and make decisions quickly and decisively? How would you connect the poem and quote? There are no right or wrong answers. The point of this exercise, is to look at life more broadly and with different lens so that when you are faced with challenges, you will identify solutions that are superior because you have such a unqiue look on life.

Combining works by Goethe and Heraclitus, or other great thinkers, can only lead to superior thinking. Try comparing and contrasting the works of other greats thinkers, what discoveries do you think await you?

No related posts

Photo Credit: Avil Beckford

If you love to read books, challenging economics times should not be a reason for you not to enjoy your pastime. Listed below are websites where you can download free ebooks, from the classics to more contemporary works. Take some time to explore these websites because I am sure that you will find many books to please your literary palate.

Project Gutenberg

Scribd

Read Print

Wowio

Questia

YouPublish

Anova

Great Books and Classics

Get Free Ebooks

Ebook Mall

As a bonus, in the related posts and articles by Zemanta sections are additional places for you to find free ebooks. Feed your mind and let me know what you think. If you know of other places to find free books or other resources to expand your mind please let me know.

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Five Best Places to Read and Download English Classic Books

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Photo Credits: Avil Beckford

Note: I have written this blog post based on information that I have researched on Earl Nightingale, and I have added my perspective to drive home his point. I have really appreciated Earl Nightingale’s The Strangest Secret and Lead the Field, two of his audio programs. This blog post is my attempt at distilling what he would blog about for his success tips.

Earl Nightingale‘s Success Tips 101

1. The key to success is that “we become what we think about”
2. You have to pay the price to be successful “As ye sow, so shall you reap”
3. Returns = Success: Enrich others and you will be enriched
4. Know where you are going
5. People who are successful have goals. Have a definite goal, focus on that important goal, channelling all your energies into accomplishing it
6. Act promptly and decisively
7. Knowledge is power when you take ACTION, always apply knowledge
8. We can do more than we think we can, so each day do just a little more that you have to do, even if it’s only one percent, because with the cumulative effect you reap big rewards
9. Read broadly and “study the world’s great religions, philosophy and psychology“
10. Be curious

What do you think about the success tips listed above? Do you agree or disagree with them? Think of someone who would make a great Invisible Mentor for you. Study that person and list 10 tips that you believe that person would deliver. How does it feel to do that exercise? The point of this exercise is to learn more about others so that when you are problem solving you have a larger body of knowledge to draw on. This exercise also expands your thinking.

Recommended Reading and Listening

Click here to listen to The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale

Related Posts: A Modern View

Everyone loves a good quote because they come in handy when we are communicating, whether it be orally or written. But many of us always stick to the same quotes. And, there are times when the popular quotes are the best ones, but as a practice, whenever you read, look out for phrases that resonates with you, and in no time you will have a list of quotes that are different.

I conduct many interviews and I am often looking for phrases that strike a chord with me. The following 10 quotations resonated with me during interviews and I included them in my book Tales of People Who Get It. The only place you will likely find these quotes are in my book.

1. “Problems are often complex, and you have to find a multifaceted solution.” Peter Bouffard
2. “If  you are having a challenge on a business level, do not look at how to change others, or even how to change the situation. Look at a way to change yourself.” Lydia Danner
3. “You cannot carry the requirements of a prior position into a new one without first assessing the new situation and its needs. You can bring some things with you if they fit the new framework; the rest you must toss aside.” John Gardner
4. “If you are trying to start a business or trying to do something new you’re innovating. When you innovate you are in a leadership role. in that role,  you have to involve other people and give them ownership, and create what I call “roving” leadership where you let people pick-up things and run with them.” Suzanne Gibson
5. “Without your colleagues you are nothing and trying to truly understand them as individuals is the most respectful thing you can do as a leader. And mutual respect provides the foundation for motivation in almost all cases.” Simon Grant
6. “People who are sitting in their offices at 10:00 p.m. trying to finish a report that is so important, should ask themselves if five years from now if they are going to have any recollection of what was so important about the report.” Claire Hoy
7. “A woman can make a difference even if she finds herself caged in her poor community. She has herself. No one can take that from her – only herself.” Anthea Rossouw
8. “I do not have to do anything extraordinary. All I need to do is wake up and see what’s been here waiting for me all the time. It’s already here and all is well.” Maria Nemeth
9. “I always make time for my family, and the trick is to do the unexpected, not just the expected.” Joe Martin

When you reflect on the above quotes, how do you feel? Do any of the quotes resonate with you? Which ones? Do you have a collection of quotes that you like? What is your favourite quotation and why?

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On Father’s Day, after a friend dropped me off at the Davisville Subway Station in Toronto, on impulse I decided to go to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery to take photos. While I was walking the few blocks to the cemetery, a lady told me that she was going on a walking tour organized by the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). She explained that they would be pointing out the places where prominent people who helped to shape Toronto were buried.

History was not my favourite subject in school, but as I grew older I appreciated the importance of history and what it teaches us as we  move forward. Always looking for content to educate others while educating myself, I decided to participate in the ROMwalks Tour.

Not only did I get a history lesson, but I was able to take some wonderful photos. The Mt. Pleasant Cemetery is not your typical cemetery. It is a place for both the living and the dead and it was designed that way. The designer H. A Englehart said ”Show me your cemetery and I will tell you about your society.” Do you agree with Englehart? Could you get a sense of a place and its people by the look and feel of its cemetery?

When designing Mt. Pleasant Cemetery H. A. Englehart wanted to create a:

• Special cemetery that followed the topography of the area
• Park-like place that was people friendly
• Place where people could walk and job
• An open space with no fences around the burial plots (there was one exception, James Michie)
• Space with lots of trees

At 200 acres, there are 200 different varieties of trees located in the cemetery.

What comes to mind when you hear the word cemetery? Would you want to jog and walk in a cemetery?

The first time I went to Mt Pleasant Cemetery I was absolutely terrified. While growing up in Jamaica, I associated cemeteries with death and ghosts. Deciding to go to the cemetery to take photos was a way of stepping outside of my comfort zone and doing something that did not feel comfortable. Even though I was not alone on the walking tour I realized that I had nothing to fear. I was fascinated by the people who helped to build Toronto, and I was very proud of them for being socially responsible by giving back to the city. Many of these people were benefactors. Most of the names you will recognize if you are a Canadian. William McMaster donated the funds to purchase the 200 acres of farmland for the cemetery.

When was the last time that you did something that was not comfortable?

A few of the people I learned about on the walking tour include: Timothy Eaton, William Lyon MacKenzie, William M. Christie, Egerton Ryerson and Hart Massey.

St Andrew Society Monument

When you look at the images, what comes to your mind?

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Photo Credits: Royal Ontario Museum Doug McG (Flickr)

Other photos Avil Beckford