The Invisible Mentor

Posts Tagged ‘Seth Godin’

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I read a lot, about three to four books each week. Included in this list are books that I have reviewed as well as some that I enjoyed but chose not to review.

The Hunger Games Trilogy: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire and Mockingkay by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games series of books is science fantasy written for young adults. The Hunger Games, the first instalment was a page turner so I decided to read the other two, Catching Fire and Mockingjay. Out of the three books the only one that cannot stand by itself is Catching Fire. If you read Catching Fire you have to read Mockingjay or else you’d be disappointed. I enjoyed The Hunger Games series, but in Mockingjay, I felt like a chapter was missing from the book. I will review Catching Fire and Mockingjay jointly tomorrow.

The Hunger Games is This Year’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Foundation Novels: Forward the Foundation, Foundation, Foundation and Empire, Second Foundation, Foundation’s Edge, and Foundation and Earth by Isaac Asimov

Mathematician Hari Seldon developed a field called psychohistory which is supposed to predict the future, and the novel revolves around The Seldon Plan which talks about different crises. The novels in the series push the imagination. I have never been a big fan of science fiction but I forced myself to read Foundation, which was the first instalment in the series that I read. After a while I got into the book and I ended up reading six out of the seven books in the series. I didn’t read the seventh because it was actually the first one and it seemed silly to me to read it after I knew how things turned out.

Review of Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov

A Look at Foundation’s Edge, Foundation and Earth and Forward the Foundation by Isaac Asimov

The Midwife’s Confession, Diane Chamberlain

Diane Chamberlain is an excellent writer, and all her novels that I have read so far are about love, loss, deception, bertrayal, and redemption. There are instances when I hurt so badly because of what the characters go through in her novels. I promised myself that I would take a break from her novels and yet I read The Midwife’s Confession, which is brand new. There are many profound life lessons embedded in her novels.

Review: Keeper of the Light by Diane Chamberlain

The Bricklayer and Agent X by Noah Boyd

Last summer Seth Godin recommended The Bricklayer so I read and enjoyed it. I loved the novel because the protagonist Steve Vail an ex FBI agent is asked to work on a difficult case because they needed someone who could work outside of the system. Vail doesn’t suffer from group think, and he sees problems very differently from others and that’s what makes him so good. But like anything in life, any trait can be a double edged sword. Vail is not good at working as part of a team. Agent X is the sequel to The Bricklayer. Well written fiction books often teach lessons that are relevant to our workplace today, and The Bricklayer and Agent X teach great lessons about working in a team, as well as looking at problems from many angles.

I had intended to have more books for you, but I thought this is more than enough to keep you busy. If you are interested in what I’ll be reading in the next two months, here are some of the books.

• Sunset Bridge, Emilie Richards
• The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and A Vindication of the Rights of Men, Mary Wollstonecraft
• Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki
• Ten Steps Ahead, Erik Calonius
• Killing Giants, Stephen Denny

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

About seven years ago I read The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles by Steven Pressfield and felt that it was a seminal piece of work so I recommended it to several people. Fast forward to a few months ago, its sequel Do the Work was released by Seth Godin’s Domino Project in collaboration with Amazon. I got a complimentary ebook version of Do the Work through the generous sponsorship of General Electric.

So what prevents us from getting our work done, getting our goals accomplished? Is it, not having money? Not doing enough research? Not having enough time? Not having enough experience? Is it because no one has ever successfully done this before?

No, it isn’t any of those things! It’s resistance.

According to Pressfield, resistance is a “Repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work… Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce bully cajole…”

In Do the Work, Pressfield suggests that we remain stupid. Ignorance is bliss. Some of the greatest feats have been accomplished because people had no idea what they were up against and how arduous the tasks they were trying to accomplish really were. He cited Charles Lindberg, Steve Jobs and Winston Churchill as examples – three men who have incredible accomplishments under their belts. They had no idea just how difficult what they were trying to do would be and they were arrogant enough to believe that they could accomplish their goals. And that’s why they were successful. Once they committed to action, nothing could stop them.

Anyone can be bold and accomplish great things, but they have to be stupid, stubborn, passionate, and have blind faith. They have to believe the unbelievable. People who have had the greatest accomplishments in life have crashed and came head-to-head with the brick wall at various times. But they viewed the brick wall as a challenge, a problem to solve, and they worked through it. They faced the dragon, and they slew the beast.

To get any project started, ask yourself, “What is this project about?” When you are crystal clear about what your project is about, you will know what the end point is. If you know the end point then you will know which steps you have to take to get there. If you are not clear about the steps, work your way backwards from the last step to the first.

Steven Pressfield’s Seven Principles of Resistance

1. Principle One: There is an enemy working against us so the trick is to recognize it.
2. Principle Two: The enemy is implacable.
3. Principle Three: The enemy is inside you.
4. Principle Four: The enemy is inside you, but it is not you.
5. Principle Five: The “real you” must duel the “resistant you”.
6. Principle Six: Resistance arises second.
7. Principle Seven: The opposite of resistance is assistance.

When you hit resistance there are two tests, two questions to answer, and your response will determine whether or not you are committed to move through the resistance.

Resistance Two Tests

1. How badly do you want it? (You have to be totally committed)
2. Why do you want it? (Because you have no choice, you absolutely have to do it, or because it’s fun for you)

We all face resistance in our lives every day, but we may not realize that it’s resistance. Do the Work provides many examples to help you recognize resistance and what to do about it. I read Do the Work twice, because there is so much information packed in it, and the best thing is you can read it in an hour. I also liked Do the Work because of the examples it includes. I recommend Do the Work.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book links are affiliate links.

Image by aplumb via Flickr

You have all these projects on your plate, and you are feeling so overwhelmed. There is so much prep work to do before you can start working on them.

When is the best time to start any of your projects?

According to Steven Pressfield, author of Do the Work, “Start before you are ready. Don’t prepare. Begin. Remember, our enemy is not lack of preparation; it’s not the difficulty of the project, or the state of the marketplace, or the emptiness of our bank account. The enemy is resistance…. We want to work, not prepare to work.”

When you commit and immediately take action, there is no room for hesitation. Things fall into place and you get any assistance you may require.

Start your projects and get them done as fast as possible knowing that you have the opportunity to revise, refine and fill in the gaps later. Once you get started you’ll be amazed by the amount that you can accomplish. The trick to getting more work done is to keep the momentum going – version one of your project does not have to be perfect.

I have been planning to start a membership site but I have been so bogged down with the research and getting it right, that I have not created complete sample deliverables. When I read Do the Work, I started to work my way through the resistance. I have started the actual work and I’m making progress.

Tomorrow we will review Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work so you’ll get more tips and insights. How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Book link is affiliate link.

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”  Albert Einstein

Sometimes information only exists in a person’s head, so an interview is a way to extract it so that others may learn from the interviewee. An interview is a data gathering technique, and interviews are great teaching tools, especially when the interviewee is knowledgeable and wise. But it’s important to understand the knowledge hierarchy: data—information—knowledge—wisdom. When you move from data to wisdom, you further your level of understanding. And that’s what you’d like to happen for you when you read or listen to an interview.

It is said that the knowledge hierarchy can be traced back to the T.S. Eliot’s (1888-1965) poem The Rock (1934).

“…The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries

Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.”

To explain the differences among each element of the knowledge hierarchy, I found a website which does so simply and clearly.

“According to Russell Ackoff, a systems theorist and professor of organizational change, the content of the human mind can be classified into five categories:

 

1. Data: symbols
2. Information: data that are processed to be useful; provides answers to “who”, “what”, “where”, and “when” questions
3. Knowledge: application of data and information; answers “how” questions
4. Understanding: appreciation of “why”
5. Wisdom: evaluated understanding.

 

Ackoff indicates that the first four categories relate to the past; they deal with what has been or what is known. Only the fifth category, wisdom, deals with the future because it incorporates vision and design. With wisdom, people can create the future rather than just grasp the present and past. But achieving wisdom isn’t easy; people must move successively through the other categories.” Source: Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom by Gene Bellinger, Durval Castro, Anthony Mills.

This means that data is the most basic level of the knowledge hierarchy. Information adds context, knowledge is more about how to use the information that you now have, and wisdom is more about when to use the information.

Interviews often fall into the information and knowledge levels of the knowledge hierarchy. To get to the levels of understanding and wisdom requires work on the part of the reader and listener. You have to synthesize the incoming information. This is critical if you are using the interview as a learning tool.

How to Synthesize Interviews

To synthesize the information gleaned from interviews does not have to be a difficult process if you follow the simple process below.

I Saw/Heard This + I Know This = Insights.

Whenever each of us take in new information, it’s important to scan out mental data bank to identify what we already know about the subject matter and build on that knowledge.

Implication for the Invisible Mentor Interviews

As you may know already, the Invisible Mentor interviews are in-depth, and are spread over two days. To use them as learning tools, and get the most from them: Ask yourself,

1. What is the interviewee really saying?
2. What do I know that supports what the interviewee is saying?
3. What is surprising about what the interviewee is saying?
4. How can I use this information?
5. How can what I’m learning make a difference in my work and life?
6. Why is the information important (or not important)?
7. If what the interviewee is saying is true and beneficial to me, then what?
8. What action can I take as a result of what I saw or heard? And why is it important for me to take action?
9. Now that I have listened to the interview, have I changed in any way? If yes, how? Is that good or bad? Why?

Answering the above questions moves you up to a higher level in the knowledge hierarchy. You further your level of understanding about something, and gain insight in the process. The questions in The Invisible Mentor Interviews force interviewees to be thoughtful with their responses, which is hugely beneficial to the reader and listener. To take it one step further requires that you interact with what you are reading and hearing.

So when using interviews as a way to learn, use the process described above to make the most of your limited time. You will become more knowledgeable than those who do not understand the knowledge hierarchy. KNOWLEDGE IS NOT POWER, it’s what you do with it that really matters.

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.

Some Interviews Worth Paying Attention To

Seth Godin: The New Face of Publishing

Estée Lauder’s William Lauder: ‘The Consumer Still Wants and Needs to Be Touched’

Why Self-Employed Consultants Fail

Interview with Paul Allen

In case you missed it, here is what we talked about this week on The Invisible Mentor Blog.

Mondays at the Salon

There are times when we have to slow down because life is so stressful. One way to do this is to physically or virtually walk the labyrinth.

How to De-stress – Walk the Labyrinth.

Booked on Tuesdays

We reviewed Seth Godin’s Poke the Box which teaches us to strive for the excellence in us and be remarkable. Seth encourages us to create art and to take the initiative and not wait to be given permission.

Review: Poke the Box by Seth Godin.

Perspective Thursdays and Workshop Fridays

From conducting interviews over the years, one of the things I have learned is that we can learn from the experiences of others. We featured Part One and Part Two of The Invisible Mentor interview with Sean Ward an entrepreneur who is an artist and entertainer. Sean knows how to create art, and he is skilled at starting and finishing. Sean knows how to poke the box!

How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Let’s keep the conversation flowing, please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Many readers read this blog from other sites, so why don’t you pop over to The Invisible Mentor and subscribe (top on the right hand side) by email or RSS Feed.