Category: General

In a work skills class I teach, each person takes a learning style quiz.  Usually, more than half the students identify themselves through the assessment as a kinesthetic (learning by doing) learner, yet most of the way education is structured today is geared towards visual (read it or see it on a slide presentation) and auditory (hear it in a lecture) learning, not learning by doing.  Yet it takes all of these methods in order to maximize learning, regardless of your dominant style.

A key to discovering your talents, passions and values is to actually do something to see what you like and don’t like.  In addition, one of the best ways to maximize what you do like, thus leading to more talent, is to practice, which requires doing.  No one can stop you from learning and practicing.

Interested in pursuing something you have an interest in? Learn about it, and then do it!

Here are some cool sites to aid in your learning:

• Helpouts by Google
• Udemy
• MOOCS (Massive Online Open Courses)- List of courses.  You can also search top universities for their MOOC courses.

What’s your game plan for learning and doing more?

If you’re like me, you may be a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of information that is out there just waiting to be absorbed.  And so much of it is free! It’s exciting to think that so much potential for learning is just a click away, but it can be daunting to think about where to start in consuming the knowledge that may be of interest to you.

Before launching into an in-depth search for learning material based on that in which you are passionate, challenge yourself to discover how you learn best and then find mechanisms that help you maximize your learning based on how you are wired.

Three basic learning styles are:

1. Visual- Learn best by reading, looking at visual images and forming images in ones mind or paper to save to memory
2. Auditory- Learn best by hearing information and committing it to memory
3. Kinesthetic- Learn best by doing, touching and creating to learn in a hands-on manner and then committing how to do it to memory

Want to discover your learning style? Here are two free learning style quizzes here:

Vark Learning Style Quiz

How to Learn Quiz

What were your results?

My good friends at Red Sage posted a fun quiz on Facebook this week- Are you right brained or left brained? Intrigued by all things personality related, I partook in the quiz, which told me I was 78% right brained. Going on the premise that your dominant brainside is the opposite of which hand you write, I have always considered myself a confused-brainer. I write with my right hand, but ask me to do anything else with my right side like throw a ball, shoot a ball or slalom ski and your out of luck. My left side wins.

My late mentor, who was a management professor at the University of Alabama, had a wonderful presentation that he gave frequently about the need for the world to think right-brained. In this presentation, he stated if people wanted to be competitive as individuals, if colleges wanted to turn out competitive graduates and if the United States wanted to remain creative, something had to be done to stimulate and cultivate the creative,innovative side of the mind. His premise: this kind of thinking is what produces long-term competitive advantage. The logical, methodical left-brain mindset does not.

But while taking this quiz, I was sitting with my husband who was watching Moneyball (again). To my Red Sage friends, you will love this movie if you haven’t seen it- he makes reference to the island of misfit toys.

This is this the story of Billy Bean who takes Nate Silver’s (@fivethirtyeight) advice and turns the world of selecting baseball players upside down by employing the logic of economics instead of scout’s intuition to select players. The premise: look at one number- on base percentage- to select players. And they win with it, with players the league has completely undervalued.

So I ask, is this left-brained or right-brained thinking? The bent towards logic and numbers would lead you believe it’s left-brained. However, I would state the idea was very right-brained. It is a true example of outside the box, challenging conventional left-brained structure, choatic thinking. However, the method to implement it, creating complex formulas and crunching numbers, is very left-brained and structured.

The point? Successful leaders use both sides of their brain with ease. After all, we have one organ as a brain, not two. I imagine the great creator designed it for both sides to work together in a way that optimizes human performance and results. Using the right side of your brain to come up with ideas may require the left side to implement.

Challenge both sides of your brain by engaging in activities that stimulate both sides. However, in a world that still seems to gravitate, or place higher value on the conventional thinking of the left side, I’ll defer to my mentor. Maybe we do need to work harder to get more out of our right side in order to fuel long-term competitive advantage. Billy Bean did.

A key to creating career and personal success is to realize that in order to live your mission, there are many things in which you have to say “no”.

If you have worked through the Power of 3 Worksheet, you will notice that there is a section for you to note three things that you need to stop doing in order to live your mission.

I think these things we need to say “no” to come in two categories:

1. Bad habits- Things like not exercising, eating unhealthy, drinking too much, playing Candy Crush for four hours a day (I haven’t tried it yet, I’m afraid my semi-addictive personality will lead me to end up being one who plays it four hours a day!), etc. These things keep us for being our best selves and distract us at the least and prohibit us at the most from our purpose.
2. Unproductive activities that don’t align with your purpose. These things aren’t “bad” they just don’t align with living out personal missions. They may align with someone else’s mission, but do they align with yours?

The best example I have of this is never saying no when you’re asked to be on a committee or serve on a board even when the board has nothing to do with anything that aligns with your purpose. Similarly, accepting a job or work assignment that does not fit with your purpose can be extremely detrimental to living your mission.   Whereas we can participate in things like this in the short-run (especially if we need to put food on the table for a job) committing for the long-term that is counter to your purpose will lead to all things undesirable including unhappiness, feeling overwhelmed, and even resentment. They may be “good” activities, but you participating in them just because you can’t say “no” leads to you to “bad”.

When you say no to things that don’t align with who you are, you end up saying yes to your mission. And when you say yes to your mission, you give light to us all.