I attended a couple of lectures by Dr Charles Lee in the Creativity and Innovation classes a few weeks ago. After discussing with my girlfriend today about what he said, I am more convinced now and I want to share it with you. Hopefully, it will benefit more people. Essentially his lecture was not only about being innovative, but really, it was the secret to being successful.
Dr Lee described that there are two types of people, the River-people, and the Goal-people. Example of River-people are those who lead a carefree life and doing mostly what they feel like, eg. his elder son who is a successful artist in NY. While, Goal-people target at achieving certain things in life, eg. himself, a venture capitalist.
He said that happiness is in the process of pursuing the goals. Thus, the importance of having goals and plans, in particular, the Plan for Life.
Before we start to pursue our goals, we need health. In order to stay healthy, we should exercise regularly. This means exercise at least every alternate day. It amazes me that even at his age, Dr Lee still exercises at least 3 hours a day, and does head stands! He is probably fitter than me!
Where do we discover our goals? Within ourselves. It has to centered around ourselves. As what we present to others is only a small slice of ourselves. We can only find out what we really want inside us. However, individualism is good if you are prepared to do it for others.
Dr Lee shared the story of Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest individuals of his era and getting late in years. In his late years, he spent his time giving his most valuable things away. Later they discovered a note in his drawer which he had written while he was young. The note said, "I spent the first half of my life making money, and the second half giving it away." That was his goal in life. And it was for the good of others. In the present day example, world richest man, Bill Gates, and his wife set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to bring innovation in health and learning to the global community.
What is your goal and plan? We can either choose to follow the plan others set for us or choose to write our own plans. There are plans that are written by our parents when we were young - which school to go, to learn painting, to learn piano? The plan which most people follow - to graduate and find a good job, get married, have children, retire. Or we can choose a goal in life and plan towards it - eg. to climb Mt. Everest, to set up a foundation that helps the unfortunate, to retire with a comfortable lifestyle at 50, etc.
Once we have chosen our goals. We must write out the plan. It is like a business proposal. In fact, the business we are in is managing our life. Similar to the business plan, we set out the value preposition and the steps in achieving it. What are the intermediary milestones? What we need to do to achieve them?
Next is the execution. In order to succeed in achieving our goals, we have to be disciplined and focused. Guest lecturer, Dr Patrick Sim, gave an example on how to stay focused. He said every morning, he remembers five things he need to accomplish for the day. Five is just an arbitrary number. It can be three, ten, twenty? These are the important tasks to be done for the day. For example, for me it can be to finish developing certain software modules, prepare for a demo, do my class assignments, read some articles to improve my technical knowledge, have dinner with my family. Dr Lee added that he is addicted to his planner. He writes down in his planner what he needs to do the next day, every night. It is important to find a tool that suits you and use it. Any tool is better than none.
Another important but not urgent thing to do is to build relationship, which is what Dr Lee does most these days. I think besides hard work, it is also important to surround yourself with people who wants you to succeed. They provide help and guidance, instead of presenting challenges and competing against you. Example would be to get your boss more involved in your project. Make him/her an important stakeholder. He/she will wants you to succeed as much as he/she wants the project to succeed.
An analogy to achieving these small successes is reaching the top of a mountain. What do you see? The next peak. We must continue to work towards the next peak. To fail is to give up. There are only unsuccessful attempts and successful ones. Persistence and determination are very crucial.
Then what about luck? Well, Dr Lee defined luck as "preparedness meeting opportunity". We must work hard to prepare for our goal, otherwise we may miss the opportunity. I think an example is if you want to excel in work, you must be diligent in polishing your skills. If one day your boss decides to hand you a task which will boost your career, you wouldn't want to feel incompetent and tell him/her that you are not ready to take on it. If it is a small opportunity, it is a good lesson to start preparing yourself. If it is a big one, it may do some big damage on possible future opportunities. Furthermore, I think we should prepare with respect to on our goals and not solely on the present situation, narrowing the scope and possibilities of opportunities. Everything is highly dynamic. Situation changes. One day you are doing your developer job, the next day your boss may ask you to do a sales talk.
Finally, Dr Lee summarized with three statements,
Life is difficult.
Traffic doesn't care.
Look for good.
For now, I will leave the interpretation to you...
Those who went for MLM talks before, may find the above familiar? I guess that is because this is a true open secret to success. In order for MLM to succeed, they are selling you the dream and goal, to get rich. And they tell you the fundamentals, and show you the plan they formulated (to sell their product). However, I don't think everyone's goal is to get rich. The fundamentals is simple - to set a goal, plan the path, believe in it, execute with discipline, and be persistent. Simple, but not easy. We all have different level of ambition and values of importance in life. As Dr Lee would do, I am asking you once again, have you written your life plan yet?
Dr Lee described that there are two types of people, the River-people, and the Goal-people. Example of River-people are those who lead a carefree life and doing mostly what they feel like, eg. his elder son who is a successful artist in NY. While, Goal-people target at achieving certain things in life, eg. himself, a venture capitalist.
He said that happiness is in the process of pursuing the goals. Thus, the importance of having goals and plans, in particular, the Plan for Life.
Before we start to pursue our goals, we need health. In order to stay healthy, we should exercise regularly. This means exercise at least every alternate day. It amazes me that even at his age, Dr Lee still exercises at least 3 hours a day, and does head stands! He is probably fitter than me!
Where do we discover our goals? Within ourselves. It has to centered around ourselves. As what we present to others is only a small slice of ourselves. We can only find out what we really want inside us. However, individualism is good if you are prepared to do it for others.
Dr Lee shared the story of Andrew Carnegie, one of the wealthiest individuals of his era and getting late in years. In his late years, he spent his time giving his most valuable things away. Later they discovered a note in his drawer which he had written while he was young. The note said, "I spent the first half of my life making money, and the second half giving it away." That was his goal in life. And it was for the good of others. In the present day example, world richest man, Bill Gates, and his wife set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to bring innovation in health and learning to the global community.
What is your goal and plan? We can either choose to follow the plan others set for us or choose to write our own plans. There are plans that are written by our parents when we were young - which school to go, to learn painting, to learn piano? The plan which most people follow - to graduate and find a good job, get married, have children, retire. Or we can choose a goal in life and plan towards it - eg. to climb Mt. Everest, to set up a foundation that helps the unfortunate, to retire with a comfortable lifestyle at 50, etc.
Once we have chosen our goals. We must write out the plan. It is like a business proposal. In fact, the business we are in is managing our life. Similar to the business plan, we set out the value preposition and the steps in achieving it. What are the intermediary milestones? What we need to do to achieve them?
Next is the execution. In order to succeed in achieving our goals, we have to be disciplined and focused. Guest lecturer, Dr Patrick Sim, gave an example on how to stay focused. He said every morning, he remembers five things he need to accomplish for the day. Five is just an arbitrary number. It can be three, ten, twenty? These are the important tasks to be done for the day. For example, for me it can be to finish developing certain software modules, prepare for a demo, do my class assignments, read some articles to improve my technical knowledge, have dinner with my family. Dr Lee added that he is addicted to his planner. He writes down in his planner what he needs to do the next day, every night. It is important to find a tool that suits you and use it. Any tool is better than none.
Another important but not urgent thing to do is to build relationship, which is what Dr Lee does most these days. I think besides hard work, it is also important to surround yourself with people who wants you to succeed. They provide help and guidance, instead of presenting challenges and competing against you. Example would be to get your boss more involved in your project. Make him/her an important stakeholder. He/she will wants you to succeed as much as he/she wants the project to succeed.
An analogy to achieving these small successes is reaching the top of a mountain. What do you see? The next peak. We must continue to work towards the next peak. To fail is to give up. There are only unsuccessful attempts and successful ones. Persistence and determination are very crucial.
Then what about luck? Well, Dr Lee defined luck as "preparedness meeting opportunity". We must work hard to prepare for our goal, otherwise we may miss the opportunity. I think an example is if you want to excel in work, you must be diligent in polishing your skills. If one day your boss decides to hand you a task which will boost your career, you wouldn't want to feel incompetent and tell him/her that you are not ready to take on it. If it is a small opportunity, it is a good lesson to start preparing yourself. If it is a big one, it may do some big damage on possible future opportunities. Furthermore, I think we should prepare with respect to on our goals and not solely on the present situation, narrowing the scope and possibilities of opportunities. Everything is highly dynamic. Situation changes. One day you are doing your developer job, the next day your boss may ask you to do a sales talk.
Finally, Dr Lee summarized with three statements,
Life is difficult.
Traffic doesn't care.
Look for good.
For now, I will leave the interpretation to you...
Those who went for MLM talks before, may find the above familiar? I guess that is because this is a true open secret to success. In order for MLM to succeed, they are selling you the dream and goal, to get rich. And they tell you the fundamentals, and show you the plan they formulated (to sell their product). However, I don't think everyone's goal is to get rich. The fundamentals is simple - to set a goal, plan the path, believe in it, execute with discipline, and be persistent. Simple, but not easy. We all have different level of ambition and values of importance in life. As Dr Lee would do, I am asking you once again, have you written your life plan yet?
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