This talk was obviously part of a longer piece of teaching, but I think it stands by itself as a great reminder that we often are too close to a problem to find its answer. When faced with a conundrum that appears to have you beat, try the following:
1. Attempt to gain a new perspective. Take a look at the situation through a different lens, or, as in the case with my 9 year old son, through someone else’s eyes.
2. Take a break. As I said in my book, A Month of Italy, sometimes you need to get away in order to get a way. This means that often, as soon as we break with our normal routine and take some time out, our brains, allowed the freedom to work on the problem in the background, will eventually pop out an answer. So sometimes, paradoxically, the best way to solve a problem is to do nothing about it for a while!
3. Seek new combinations. The late Steve Jobs once said that all innovation is really just creative combination. So ask yourself what new things you can mix together that have never been tried. Often the solution is not a stand alone thing, but rather a blending of a couple of your best ideas.
Live Your life with eyes wide open
Mark Twain once called himself a “prodigious noticer.” I love that phrase. It encourages us to make active observation a normal practice. When you look, really see. When you listen, really hear. Try to take in your surroundings in a fresh way, opening your senses to things you might be missing. And above all, live your life with eyes wide open.
So don’t scam yourself out of a rich and abundant life by seeing only what you are used to seeing. Remember these simple techniques and see and feel anew the world around you. Not only might it help you unlock answers to nagging problems, but it will for sure lead to the living of a richer and more fulfilling life.
Have you ever seen the movie Revenge of the Nerds? It’s an oldie but a goodie. Actually, I can’t really say that, as I haven’t seen it since I was a wee teen. However, the premise, that the nerds outsmart their good-looking, athletic, popular, jock counterparts has really come to fruition in our times.
For instance, have you ever realized that those geeky bespectacled kids you used to push around at the bus stop are the ones responsible for terms like “iOS8” and “PDF” being part of our normal vernacular? Or that we are all now living under the tyranny of baud rates and hyper text markup language? It’s as if they all got together and decided to get revenge on those of us who are too impatient and too, well, un-geeky to care about ones and zeros. WE JUST WANT OUR STUPID PHONES TO WORK!!!!
Ah hem. Anyway, there seems to be no end to what the nerds will come up with next. Take the latest round of web address suffixes. As if getting used to .com and .net and .org and .gov and .edu wasn’t enough, some hyper-smart geek got the notion that if those “web properties” (there they go again!) were so valuable, why not create like, I don’t know, 1700 more! And just like that, we’ve got a whole bunch of new cyber real estate to pay for. Suffixes such as .hello, .tattoo, and .plumbing may even make a little bit of sense. But one is left wondering just how far this will go? How many new suffixes could possibly be introduced over time? The answer? A limitless amount!
Some of the more troublesome ones, however, are the curious ones such as .scam and .sucks. Wow. Really? Are there that many people and entities out there being paraded through the mud? With just a few key strokes and a handy-dandy search engine, one can quickly confirm that yes, Martha, nearly everything is being called a scam online these days. From the 9-11 attacks to Mother Teresa, and everything in between (and let’s face it, there’s a lot betwixt those two terms), it seems some mole in an hole somewhere is getting his nerdish satisfaction from hurling the term “scam” or “sucks” at it. So much so, in fact, that one of the many minions in the nerdosphere has seen fit to create a whole suffix just for such purposes.
What a wonderful modern world in which we live!
So, when one asks if Life Leadership is a scam, I guess it should be no surprise! If they’re questioning Mother Teresa . . . .
Is Network Marketing a Scam?
And, further, if anything and everything gets hit with the scam label, why not an entire profession that’s been around for 150 years? Sure!
So what are the answers to these intellectual questions of infinite profundity? Glad you asked. NY Times best selling author and Guinness World Record HolderOrrin Woodward has just released a new book that addresses both of these questions in a most interesting way. Written as a novella with interesting characters and real life questions about the profession in general and Life Leadership in specific, the book is so much fun that I read it in one sitting! (Others are reporting the same). I believe that the questions as to the validity of the networking industry and Life Leadership‘s key position within it are answered eloquently and thoroughly. Of course, I am also biased, as I’ve enjoyed my time in the industry now for over two decades, and can’t imagine life without the opportunity to Have Fun, Make Money, and Make a Difference (all three in one place).
Is Orrin Woodward a ScaM?
Oh man, will the tough questions never stop?
Sidestepping the obvious rebuttal that a person (reference Mother Teresa above) cannot actually be defined as a “scam,” one has to wonder what drives such slander? Is there possibly such a thing in the nerd world as digital assassins? Could there possibly be those who benefit from tearing down a competitor online from the cowardly comfort of anonymity? Could it be that there are actually paid positions to do so? Let’s face it, if the nerds are capable of capitalizing on a .scam suffix, one is left to conclude that anything could be possible!
But I digress.
What I really want to do is introduce you to Orrin Woodward‘s excellent new book, which I technically already did, but forgot to give you the cool photo of its cover, or the interesting video trailer in which Orrin introduces it.
Enjoy!
(And you nerds? Well, just to let you know, I loaded all this media onto this blog post all by myself! So there.)
LIFE and Leadership by Chris Brady 