Good day, trusting everyone is enjoying the great summer so
far!!
My apologies I must vent a little today. In the social media world I’ve seen so many
articles, blogs etc in which the authors are providing value for people like
you and I. How to be a better leader,
how to do this better how to do that better, it goes on and on. I’m not saying the articles are bad, they’re
not, in fact, most that I’ve seen, are quite good. This issue that I have is not articles
themselves but the fact that for people to change the way they do things, learn
new skills, break old habits, takes time, coaching and a proven process that
works. Reading books and article is not
training, it doesn’t change the way we do things. We may gain some insight, make some minor changes in some areas of our life, but for the most part, we think to ourselves, that was good. And this is where it ends.
For example, I had connected with a gentlemen that works for
a large financial company and he told me that their elite training was reading
Dale Carnegie’s, “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and “Think and Grow
Rich”, by Napoleon Hill. I paused for a
moment and said, pardon, the person responded, you don’t think those are good
books? I said, those are 2 of the
greatest business books ever written, my concern is that you believe that
reading books is training? We talked
about Dale Carnegie’s book and the 30 human relation principles that are in the
book and I asked how many of these principles are you using every day? He had read the book many times, he responsed,
probably not very many.
I don’t want to sound like a person that doesn’t value
reading, because I do. The question is
what is your purpose for reading, gaining knowledge? Studies have shown that success is 80 – 90 %
about skills and attitude, while 10 – 20% of success is about knowledge. Gaining skills and having an attitude geared
towards success seems to me to be more important, than gaining knowledge.
What new skills have you learned lately?
How much have you invested in yourself?
