Tag Archives: creativity

New Skills Development Strategies Innovation Can Change Your Destiny-Life’s Path

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New Skills Development Strategies

Innovation Can Change Your Destiny-Life’s Path Or Help You Become A Fast Tracker In Your Carrers Or Business

New Skills- Innovation Can Change Your Destiny- Life's Path

New Skills- Innovation Can Change Your Destiny- Life's Path

New skills development strategies-  what’s in this title?

Besides some  great insight on innovation, we also use the term destiny for those listeners  that believe “destiny prevails, ”and for those doubters that believe destiny does  not exist let alone prevail,  we use the  term life’s path as the meaning behind destiny.

New skills -defining innovation

What is innovation? According to Merriam-Webster, innovation is:

Main Entry:   in•no•va•tion: noun

1 : the  introduction of something new

2 : a new  idea, method or device

New skills –innovation quote

 “Without change there is no innovation,  creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a  better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.”- William Pollard

New Skills- what is destiny noun/

1.The events  that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future.

2.The hidden  power believed to control what will happen in the future; fate.

New skills destiny quote

“Destiny is no matter of chance. It  is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be  achieved.” –  William Jennings Bryan quotes

New skills- a new year

With the New  Year and the birth of 2012, most people view the holiday as a reflective  period, as they transition into a New Year.   The New Year for most people is about stopping or quitting something  they don’t like and want to change about themselves, or it’s the creation of promises  for an improved and better you.

So let’s  look at this subject as a way to potentially make 2012 not only a great year,  but potentially one that will change your life, your so called destiny and life’s path.

New skills innovation, change and creativity

You can’t  talk about innovation without talking about change and creativity.  At the core of innovation lies the need for  improvement.  That’s where the change
comes in.  At the core of innovation lies  creativity.  Creativity is clearly the
catalyst for change, innovation and improvement.

But  innovation is not about stopping smoking, quitting biting your nails or a way to  support the promises we make to ourselves in the form of resolutions.  So keep reading to learn more about what we  mean when we say:  innovation and change  your destiny and life’s path.

To do that,  we need to dial in a little deeper into innovation, sometimes referred to as an idea.  An idea is useful only to the inventor unless it is offered to the public. If the idea improves some product, process or service for the public, then that idea transforms into an innovation.

An innovation can be big or small. Brand-new, or just a bit different: it doesn’t
matter. An innovation can be clearly complex or seemingly simple.  Innovations are often thought of in terms of technical achievement, but can also be a design or process improvement: how you do things. A new product idea, something that solves a problem for example.  The type, industry and style of innovation are irrelevant:  an innovation’s impact determines its qualification.

By now, you are probably asking, innovate, me changing my life, my destiny by innovating.  I don’t see it, or this isn’t me.  And hey, by the way, how many people really develop breakthrough innovations that can change their lives anyway?

OK, I can agree with these truths about true breakthrough innovation, but let’s go a little further to get our arms around innovation as a basic skill set that can
work for you before we move on looking for the next quick fix or shiny push
buttons that just don’t exist.  Along the way I will also show you how to innovate at work to grow personally and professionally…maybe even get you promoted by being seen as a Fast Tracker and go to person.

New skills- and three types of innovation

  1. Sustaining innovation- these are incremental variations, small and minor changes to a theme or project
  2. Breakout  innovation- those that significantly increase the level of play with an existing category.
  3. Disruptive innovation-something just short of break through innovation: yet large enough to cause a disruption to the current way of doing things

New skills-one simple action can change your life and your business-my personal story as an example.

So I’m playing golf on a really hot afternoon: mid 90’s and I can’t seem to drink enough water.  I’m in the middle of a sand trap 165 yards from the green when I look down and see a putter in my hand.  If you’re not a golfer, you may not realize that as a big problem, since a putter is used for short distances and rolling the balls on greens.

So now I realize I am probably dehydrated.  I get through the round and start thinking about how I can drink more water to avoid this problem in the future.  Everyone knows water is bland and not really fun to drink.  But when I think back to times when drinking it was easy, I remember the tastes and flavors of water that some eateries served:  lemon water, cucumber water,
even basil water.

Next was my AHA moment when I realized the common denominators were all flavors.  To make a long story short, I jumped both feet into the world of flavoring and developed the first natural flavor drops to enhance the taste of water specifically then on to tea, coffee and dairy products.

The brand is Yum Drops Flavoring and it is now the number 1 natural flavor concentrate and flavor drop on the internet, with over 50 flavors, serving 23 countries and with 165 sales affiliates.  True story and a real life example of how innovation can change your life and affect your life’s path and with some mental energy and diligence, you can do the same.  It surely changed mine.  Check out my innovation at www.yumdropsflavoring.com

New skills-the power of innovation

Innovation is actually an inherent talent.  That means everyone has it.  Surprisingly many of us don’t think we have this skill.  Let’s look at the power of innovation.  If you’ve ever marveled at somebody’s creative prowess, guess what, you can create and innovate too. It just takes time. Everyone is born creative. The box of crayons in kindergarten was not limited to those who possessed potential; because the truth is, everybody has potential.

You know how long it took to learn to ride a bike, or drive, or to never commit the same mistake again? It’s the same with innovation. It takes some practice and a lot of time before this skill set comes easily-when you want it, at the snap of a finger.

“A single harmless snow flake can cause an avalanche.”

Our next  post will teach you the keys to innovate and once you have them, you can open  the doors to them anytime you want, in any area of your life: work, play,  whatever.  Along with that, I will even give you the insight and strategies to make 2012 a year of innovation, improvement and change, so that even you can in fact: change your life.  Innovation can change your life

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Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-By Learn New Skills Blog

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Top 50 Free Websites 2011 Skills and Perfromance Tools

Top 50 Free Websites 2011 Skills and Perfromance Tools

There is no better time to talk about joy, smiling and laughter than at Thanksgiving when everyone is hopefully in a good mood, sharing and grateful for what life has brought all of us. That’s the theme for today’s post.

Also, next week is Thanksgiving and time for annual top 50 free websites.

Top 50 Free Websites 2011 Skills And Performance Tools

We are getting excited about the BUZZ on our top 50 free websites for 2011. We publish this list just in time for Thanksgiving…keep your eyes open for it.

Why the BUZZ for this list? Our theme explains it best.

No Money. No problem.

All the FREE skills and tools for employees, managers and entrepreneurs looking to learn new skills and tools for improving performance:  Grow Yourself.  Grow Your Organization.  Inlcudes internet performance tools, for small businesses looking to grow and take their business to the next level.  Great for online//offline marketing.

More on that next week, now back to thinking, creativity and laughter.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-Article Post

So now you ask, what does laughter have to do with thinking? OK, let’s look at the medicinal value of laughter and thinking and at the same time, lay down some background on the value of laughter, smiling, joy and happiness.

The good, the bad, the ugly- laughter is the best medicine and when you smile, the world smiles with you.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing- background
Being full of joy, smiling and laughing and enjoying even the smallest things reduces the effects of stress, increases brain activity and heightens creativity, all of which helps you overcome challenges in difficult time.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-the bad

Hey, doom and gloom consumes us today, at every corner. Work and unemployment, economic slowdown and no jobs, 401K’s reduced to 201K’s and the story just starts there. It is easy to get consumed by it and become negative thinking: this is no time to laugh or enjoy life.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-the ugly

It’s easier to be depressed in bad times than good. When you get depressed, your mind shuts down, you lose your creativity and people tend to isolate themselves. Depression comes with a full laundry list of symptoms, none f them good. It’s also a huge precursor to stress. The two make you uptight, cranky and allow you to easily push people away when you need their support the most.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing-the good-
We typically use the left side of the brain in most activities, but not when we laugh and smile and experience joy. When we laugh, we light up the right side of the brain. Our research reveals that when people have been struggling with a problem and feel stuck, our focus narrows, and our ability to solve problems is greatly reduced and limited. Experts say, we do much better when we break a way and enjoy a good hearty laugh.

Here’s the bottom line: if you have a sense of humor, and smile and laugh regularly, you mind brightens up and you come up with fresh ideas and make better decisions and your problem solving abilities are enhanced.

Think Better And Be More Creative By Laughing is published by Learn New Skills Blog.

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Learn New Skills-The Essence of Learning New Skills-How We Learn

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Learn New Skills-

The Essence of Learning New Skills-How We Learn

Learn new skills or learning anything new can be very complicated. To simplify the topic, I’ve included the essence of how we actually learn about new subjects of
interest.  Here is the essence of how we learn new skills. How we learn new skills is actually pretty simple and the process is very enlightening.   Final footnote: we use learn new skills as the premise for our posts, but it is also a metaphor for learning anything you want to learn.

Learn new skills-how we learn

  • * 10% of what we READ
  • * 20% of what we HEAR
  • * 30% of what we SEE
  • * 50% of what we SEE AND HEAR
  • * 70% of what is DISCUSSED WITH OTHERS
  • * 80% of what is EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY
  • * 95% of what we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE

Learn new skills- in three steps

Notice how the amount or retention grows once you begin to use the skill and teach the
skill.  We always used a three step practice to training our employees on new skills.  Shortly you will see how it ties together with the trhee levels of knowledge.

  1. We teach the skill
  2. They use the skill several times
  3. They teach the skill

Once you reach the level where you can teach the new skill you learned, that’s when you really begin to grasp the knowledge. This doesn’t happen overnight, but the quicker you can get through these three stages, the quicker you own and learn new skills.

Learn new skills-the three levels of knowing

Now that you know “how to learn”, it’s time to bring our attention to the essence
of knowing and knowledge. You can’t be a great thinker or learn new skills
without understanding the three levels of knowing and the three levels of
knowledge.

This model identifies the three levels of knowing.

The Three Things You Know

The Three Things You Know

 

 

 

 

 

So now that you know…what are you going to do with it.
Here are few more enlightening statistics when it comes to learning.

  • 75%  will do nothing
  • 15% will look at it
  • 10%-will learn, practice and teach the new skill

That’s the magic number to learn new skills. Statistics tell the tale.  Only
10%- actually it is less than 10% of people will actually even learn new
skills, less will practice the new skill and even fewer will eventually teach
it.  That’s why so few people really ever succeed.

Call it lazy, call it procrastination, call it not fun.  Once you change your mind set
to learn new skills and begin to embrace them as tools that will help you
achieve your goals, get ahead in life and prosper, you will be more inclined to
put yourself in that 10% grouping.

Learn new skills-the three levels of knowledge

This model shows the three levels of knowledge.

Knowledge-The Three Steps To

Knowledge-The Three Steps To

  1. Basic recall is the lowest level in
    the hierarchy of knowledge. That’s where you first learn new skills, your first introduction to learning anything new.
  2. Comprehension- this is where you begin to learn new skills and understand new things.
  3. Application- this is the final step to knowledge the gateway to really learn new skills.  Those who reach this level with a skill, actually begin to develop their real skills.
Learn new skills- the rest of the story

The rest of this post will focus on basic memory, and we will address the higher levels of knowledge in the next posting.

Learn new skills- all about memory

In simple terms, memory is the mental activity of recalling information that you have
learned or experienced. That simple definition covers a sophisticated process
that involves many different parts of the brain and serves us in different and
unique ways.

Just like muscular strength, your ability to remember increases when you exercise your
memory and support it with a proper diet and other healthy habits. There are a
number of steps you can take to improve your memory and retrieval capacity,
especially when you learn new skills. First, however, it’s helpful to understand how we remember.

Learn new skills- short term memory

Memory can be either short-term or long-term. In short-term memory, your mind stores
information for a few seconds or a few minutes: that’s about the time it takes you to meet look up a friend’s telephone number. Short term memory is fragile, and it’s meant to be. If not, your brain would quickly be faced with “sensory overload” if you retained every phone number you called, every person you met. Your brain is also meant to hold an average of seven items: called the magic of (7 +-2), which is why you can usually remember a new phone number for a few minutes. Anything more than 7 and you have difficultly recalling.

Learn new skills-long term memory

Long-term memory on the other hand, involves the information you make an effort
(conscious or unconscious) to retain, because it has some significance or is
important to you. For example: information on colleagues, and friends). Some
information that you store in long-term memory requires a conscious effort to
recall: episodic memories, which are personal memories about experiences you’ve
had at specific times; and semantic memories (factual data not bound to time or
place), which can be everything from the names of the planets to the color of
your child’s hair. Another type of long-term memory is procedural memory, which
involves skills and routines you perform so often that they don’t require
conscious recall.

In our next from learn new skills we will post, we will review improving memory.

Check out our intro price from learn new skills on their Be Thinkful skill development plan.

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Learn New Skills- Develop Your Personal Value Proposition And Learn New Skills

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Increase your value prosoposition with thinking skills

Learn New Skills-Insight Career Development

 Learn New SKills Video-Thinking Skill Development

Learn New Skills-

And increase your value

Are you tired of hearing no?  No, you don’t have the skills we need.  No you didn’t get that promotion.  Maybe it’s time you take steps now to learn new skills that every employer and company are looking for.

 When it comes to increasing your core values as an individual or in growing your company, nothing can enhance your value proposition more than to learn new skills.  Companies spend a great amount of time and money developing their value proposition and here’s way.

Learn new skills- defining a value proposition

A value proposition is promising some value to be delivered and a belief from the customer of value that they will experience. A value proposition can apply to an entire organization, or parts thereof, or customer accounts, or products or services.  Creating a value proposition is a fundamental business component and a critical high level business strategy.  Kaplan and Norton are two world known business strategists, and here is a short summary of what they have to say about a value proposition. “Strategy is based on a differentiation and satisfying customers is the source of a sustainable value creation.

Learn new skills-high level strategy

If it holds true for companies, doesn’t it make sense for individuals as well?  In these tough competitive times with high unemployment, erosion of good quality jobs and intense competition on the jobs that are out there, now more than ever you need to increase your value proposition and the best way to do that is by learning new skills.

Here is the key point to value propositions.   A value proposition is the solution to a customer’s problem and in your case, maybe it’s a prospective employer.  It goes hand in hand with the problem the company or the product is solving or what the company needs from a job candidate.  With that knowledge in hand now we need to take a deeper look at developing a personal value proposition so that you can increase your own personal value.

 A personal value proposition “should be a statement of the tangible results a company will get from hiring you, the unique skills and benefits you will bring to an employer that others won’t.”  That is where a unique and differentiated strategy comes in.  Before we begin to develop a personal value proposition (PVP) let’s digress and look at a new term we need to introduce called: “value drivers” and the best place to start for understand this term is the investment banking world. 

Did you ever wonder why one business has buyers lined up willing to pay top dollar while another sits on the market for months, or even years?   What do buyers look for in a prospective business acquisition? The characteristics buyers seek must exist before the sale process even begins.   It is the job of the business owner to create value within their business prior to a sale.

 Learn New Skills: High Level skills- Value Drivers that enhance value

Here is a short list of the items, common to all industries, which drive up value for an entrepreneur’s called: “Value Drivers.” Here are the critical key value drivers for any successful business:

  • A stable, motivated management team
  • Operating systems that improve sustainability of cash flows
  • A solid, diversified customer base
  • Facility appearance consistent with asking price
  • A realistic growth strategy
  • Effective financial controls
  • Good and improving cash flow

These are the core reasons a buyer is willing to pay a premium price.  The more successful you are in developing each component, the higher your business value. These value drivers are centered on their perception of risk and return.

Now let’s take a look at the core value drivers when you learn new skills to increase your personal value proposition.  These are the critical skills employers are looking for today when you learn new skills.  Interesting to note, for the most part they haven’t really changed for years.

 Job skills and formal education

  • Communications skills
  • Thinking skills
  • Leadership skills
  • Pride in your work and a hard work ethic
  • Creativity and the ability to solve problems
  • Time Management and
  • Self Confidence
  • Flexibility and adaptability
  • Learn new skills

Sure, there are specialized high level skill sets some people have like: project management, graphics art, internet marketing.  The list goes on and on and yes, having high level skill sets greatly increases your value tremendously.  When you learn new skills, these aslo increase your value tremedously as well.

Make the time commitment now and learn new skills.  The best one to start with without a doubt is thinking skills.  Our Be Thinkful© skill set development program includes three skills in one

  1. Thinking skills
  2. Creativity skills
  3. Influence and persuasion skills

Learn these skills now at http://www.bethinful.com/ and increase your value proposition. And most important of all…and keep on learning.   After all, if you have a passion for learning and learn new skills like thinking and creativity, you will already be on well on your way to increasing your value.

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