Thursday, June 7, 2012
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The 5 Success Senses - Q & A
READER: Peter, you wrote that "Tactical, strategic, business and political senses are harder to acquire. Parents would be making a mistake if they assumed their kids can learn these four senses at school." Can you elaborate?
PETER: I've met kids of wealthy parents who apparently lacked those four senses, so a successful parent may have those four senses without knowing how to teach them to his children. On the other hand, parents of low socioeconomic status or from the middle class could, if they wanted to, encourage their kids to value learning and thinking so that they can develop their tactical, strategic, business and political senses. The bottom line is that a parent cannot teach what he/she has not been able to achieve. Financial freedom, entrepreneurship, the design of a creative and fulfilling career, etc. cannot be taught by a parent if he/she has not been able to achieve it in his/her own life.
READER: You wrote that "There is an eleventh sense, which is very difficult to acquire: the sense of who we naturally are and, by extension, who we are destined to become." What do you mean?
PETER: If you're clay, then you know that you could be shaped into a pot. A nice-looking pot! If you're marble, you know that you could become a great-looking statue. In other words, who you can become is only a particular shape or manifestation (in physical / temporal format) of who you already are. We are all destined to become very useful or very aesthetic (i.e. useful to a higher sense, the spiritual sense) "objects" in the world. Most people are stuck at the "raw materials" stage: they are amorphous lumps of clay or a raw piece of lumber. They don't become refined into a useful or aesthetic object that could occupy a special place in the world. They remain a part of the "they" and never become a unique "I."
This is why pursuing an "ideal" career is vital (download the free Ideal Career report at www.idealcareerframework.com -- password is "idealcareerisideal"). A person should choose a career where she will feel growth, and will feel that she is becoming her best self. Remember what Leonardo Da Vinci said when someone asked him what his greatest achievement was. He replied: "Leonarda Da Vinci."
READER: You wrote that "Without this 11th sense, a person has no "I" and merely becomes a part of "they" -- the crowd where everybody thinks alike and obeys the same fears." Why do people think alike and obey the same fears? What can I do to develop my 11th sense?
PETER: The Industrial Revolution has brought about great benefits but has somehow also created many threats. People have come to believe they are just part of the "masses." The educational system, the factory, the mass media, etc. are all based on the fundamental idea that people are not unique but are part of like-thinking groups. Indeed, it would be too hard for society's institutions to treat people as "unique human beings." Even corporate employers treat people as mere human resources (not resourceful humans). The ultimate proof that people think alike in very unoriginal ways, is that people rarely come up with new ideas.
Think about the conversations you've had with people in your life over the last few weeks. How many new ideas have been voiced by people you know? People are not really thinking anything new, and THIS is the fundamental reason why they can never achieve financial independence. If you always think the same thoughts, you will keep getting the same income.
This is why it's so important for financial freedom seekers to network and meet new people, in order to have new conversations. Without change and new stimulation, something inside us sleeps and rarely awakens. The mysterious thing that does not awaken is our "soul," which is powerful enough to create all the wealth imaginable.
If you think originally, you dramatically increase your chances of becoming financially independent. That's because financial independence depends critically on mental independence. Yet, most people are literally incapable of formulating new thoughts or new ideas. Like Einstein said, they merely "rearrange their old prejudices."
To learn how to think originally, one only has to pick up a copy of Lateral Thinking by Dr Edward de Bono, or The Six Thinking Hats, also by the same author, and then practice again and again and again what Dr de Bono teaches.
PETER: I've met kids of wealthy parents who apparently lacked those four senses, so a successful parent may have those four senses without knowing how to teach them to his children. On the other hand, parents of low socioeconomic status or from the middle class could, if they wanted to, encourage their kids to value learning and thinking so that they can develop their tactical, strategic, business and political senses. The bottom line is that a parent cannot teach what he/she has not been able to achieve. Financial freedom, entrepreneurship, the design of a creative and fulfilling career, etc. cannot be taught by a parent if he/she has not been able to achieve it in his/her own life.
READER: You wrote that "There is an eleventh sense, which is very difficult to acquire: the sense of who we naturally are and, by extension, who we are destined to become." What do you mean?
PETER: If you're clay, then you know that you could be shaped into a pot. A nice-looking pot! If you're marble, you know that you could become a great-looking statue. In other words, who you can become is only a particular shape or manifestation (in physical / temporal format) of who you already are. We are all destined to become very useful or very aesthetic (i.e. useful to a higher sense, the spiritual sense) "objects" in the world. Most people are stuck at the "raw materials" stage: they are amorphous lumps of clay or a raw piece of lumber. They don't become refined into a useful or aesthetic object that could occupy a special place in the world. They remain a part of the "they" and never become a unique "I."
This is why pursuing an "ideal" career is vital (download the free Ideal Career report at www.idealcareerframework.com -- password is "idealcareerisideal"). A person should choose a career where she will feel growth, and will feel that she is becoming her best self. Remember what Leonardo Da Vinci said when someone asked him what his greatest achievement was. He replied: "Leonarda Da Vinci."
READER: You wrote that "Without this 11th sense, a person has no "I" and merely becomes a part of "they" -- the crowd where everybody thinks alike and obeys the same fears." Why do people think alike and obey the same fears? What can I do to develop my 11th sense?
PETER: The Industrial Revolution has brought about great benefits but has somehow also created many threats. People have come to believe they are just part of the "masses." The educational system, the factory, the mass media, etc. are all based on the fundamental idea that people are not unique but are part of like-thinking groups. Indeed, it would be too hard for society's institutions to treat people as "unique human beings." Even corporate employers treat people as mere human resources (not resourceful humans). The ultimate proof that people think alike in very unoriginal ways, is that people rarely come up with new ideas.
Think about the conversations you've had with people in your life over the last few weeks. How many new ideas have been voiced by people you know? People are not really thinking anything new, and THIS is the fundamental reason why they can never achieve financial independence. If you always think the same thoughts, you will keep getting the same income.
This is why it's so important for financial freedom seekers to network and meet new people, in order to have new conversations. Without change and new stimulation, something inside us sleeps and rarely awakens. The mysterious thing that does not awaken is our "soul," which is powerful enough to create all the wealth imaginable.
If you think originally, you dramatically increase your chances of becoming financially independent. That's because financial independence depends critically on mental independence. Yet, most people are literally incapable of formulating new thoughts or new ideas. Like Einstein said, they merely "rearrange their old prejudices."
To learn how to think originally, one only has to pick up a copy of Lateral Thinking by Dr Edward de Bono, or The Six Thinking Hats, also by the same author, and then practice again and again and again what Dr de Bono teaches.
The Internet will make you very rich or very poor
There are no two ways about it: the Internet will either make you very rich, or very poor.
I mean "poor" in the relative sense. That is, as all the people around you -- friends, coworkers, family, etc. -- become richer by using and leveraging the Internet to CREATE new knowledge products and deliver it to customers all over the world, they will become richer. As a result and by comparison, you will become poorer (if you don't use the Web to create and deliver value to people).
In fact, the WWW can be more appropriately called the World Wide Wealth. Of course, this "wealth" is in its raw form, as information. Only a trained mind can turn this information into gold.
The question is, How can you turn your mind into a powerful engine that has Midas capability? How can you develop the rather rare ability to convert information (easily searchable via Google and a host of other specialized search engines) into valuable knowledge that people, anywhere in the world, will be willing to pay you for? (They can even pay you for your knowledge products while you sleep, via Payloadz for example).
Esther Dyson, founder and chairwoman of Edventure, once wrote that wealth will be created not through the SUPPLY of information, but through people who are mentally skilled enough to APPLY the information to real-world problems in order to create solutions.
But to create this kind of wealth, one must be:
1. extremely curious and extremely eager to continually absorb new information and new knowledge
2. extremely attentive to what other people need, in terms of learning and personal growth and professional development
Teaching is really one of the great (and not so hard) ways of creating value and becoming rich.
This is how Robert Kiyosaki, Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Robert Allen, etc. became multimillionaires.
In the same way that "opportunityisnowhere" can be read in two different ways (one is optimistic, the other one is pessimistic), you can view the Internet as just an information utility that will have no impact on your bank account.
I mean "poor" in the relative sense. That is, as all the people around you -- friends, coworkers, family, etc. -- become richer by using and leveraging the Internet to CREATE new knowledge products and deliver it to customers all over the world, they will become richer. As a result and by comparison, you will become poorer (if you don't use the Web to create and deliver value to people).
In fact, the WWW can be more appropriately called the World Wide Wealth. Of course, this "wealth" is in its raw form, as information. Only a trained mind can turn this information into gold.
The question is, How can you turn your mind into a powerful engine that has Midas capability? How can you develop the rather rare ability to convert information (easily searchable via Google and a host of other specialized search engines) into valuable knowledge that people, anywhere in the world, will be willing to pay you for? (They can even pay you for your knowledge products while you sleep, via Payloadz for example).
Esther Dyson, founder and chairwoman of Edventure, once wrote that wealth will be created not through the SUPPLY of information, but through people who are mentally skilled enough to APPLY the information to real-world problems in order to create solutions.
But to create this kind of wealth, one must be:
1. extremely curious and extremely eager to continually absorb new information and new knowledge
2. extremely attentive to what other people need, in terms of learning and personal growth and professional development
Teaching is really one of the great (and not so hard) ways of creating value and becoming rich.
This is how Robert Kiyosaki, Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Wayne Dyer, Robert Allen, etc. became multimillionaires.
In the same way that "opportunityisnowhere" can be read in two different ways (one is optimistic, the other one is pessimistic), you can view the Internet as just an information utility that will have no impact on your bank account.
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