Expert Professional Advice

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. Twenty-one words from Thomas Carlyle that help lead a life free from worry. Dale Carnegie used that quote to make a point, although he didn’t phrase it this way: You can only work on what you can do, and refuse to be discouraged by anything else. We invent anxiety for tomorrow, and so must turn off thoughts that burden us with the weight of yesterday, and tomorrow. Here is Dale’s magic formula for solving worry situations:

1. Ask yourself, “What is the worst that can happen?”

2. Prepare to accept it if you have to.

3. Then calmly proceed to improve on the worst.

How to analyze worry problems:

1. Get the facts.

2. Analyze the facts.

3. Arrive at a decision – and then act on that decision.

Confusion is the chief cause of worry, so if an individual devotes his or her time to securing facts in an impartial, objective way, the worries will eventually evaporate in the light of knowledge.

Writing down precisely what I am worrying about.

Writing down what I can do about it.

Deciding what to do.

Starting immediately to carry out that desire.

Dale stated this technique for business worries:

What is the problem?

What is the cause of the problem?

What are the possible solutions to the problem?

What solution do you suggest?

I like the following line of thinking stated in the book, represented by the words of Milton:

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.

I would add that where Carnegie missed the point – is regarding human nature, and so I say:

You cannot cure man of being man. Individuals have irrational fears. They cling to them, coddle them, feed them… and they live for them. You cannot interfere with man’s ability to do what is outside of his best interest, to harm himself or herself in some way by making life more unpleasant. This seemingly useless failing may make us come to terms with the concept there is no purpose; no exact method, no golden path, every path is simply a path; and therefore, nothing can bring you peace but yourself. The exact way to go about it cannot easily be described, it must be experienced, failed at, placing ourselves under constant supervision from a higher-level of awareness, and so although Dale’s way of operating without worry has been in print since 1944 – worry has not been cured, or at least has not been cured for very long, for any of us.

1,000 to 2,000 milligrams of American ginseng (from a study at the Mayo Clinic)

The best energy boost is weight lifting. Lifting three days a week can increase energy levels by up to 50 percent even on days you don’t lift according to the May 2008 issue of Best Life magazine, page 24.

This was on the cover of the March 2007 issue of Entrepreneur magazine. The article is a waste of time with advice like: industry experts advise working in a food-service environment first to learn the rhythm of the business and experience its inner workings. Any restaurant experience can be valuable, provided you spend enough time learning the ropes. The article then recommends writing a viable business plan, and choosing a building on a well-traveled street where it’s possible to install highly visible signage. This Entrepreneur article offers almost nothing of value except a quote from a restaurant operator, “Don’t even think about starting a restaurant with less than $100,000 in cash for a bargain-basement opening, or you won’t get even remotely started on the right path.” The amount depends on your location and the local cost of living. In pricey New York, for instance, a different restaurant operator mentioned in the article stated that you’d better have $2 million for a restaurant with 200 seats if you hope to generate $1 million in sales. The article ends with: For more step-by-step information, see Entrepreneur magazine’s StartUp guide #… and they try to get you to order. There was no step-by-step information contained in the article; and yet they expect to lure people in with a lack of quality information. The next page begins a list of the top restaurant franchises for the year, which takes up five pages with ads. This is why I will generally use magazines like this as wrapping paper, so I can find some way to make use of them. If you have any interest in these kinds of magazines let me know, I’ve got extras I can give you.

Yesterday I found this junk message in my inbox. It is an offer from a management association to register for an online seminar:

Simple Steps That Can Make You an Expert in Any Field

(The steps aren’t provided; it’s just an introduction to foolery.)

Whether you’re attempting to gain trust, get your point across, or build relationships—your ability to connect with others immediately through knowledge of a particular subject is a vital skill.

(No, your perceived interest in a particular subject will connect you to others. It seems like an attempt to dress-up the methods of the school of Dale Carnegie.)

The truth is that you can generate amazing rapport with anyone by honing in on the one subject that interests them most: their own area of expertise.

(Dale Carnegie has already covered this when he wrote – talk in terms of the other person’s interests. It’s amazing how someone comes along and thinks they can re-invent/re-design a part of the Dale Carnegie approach without the Dale Carnegie experience set.)

…examines how you can convince others that you “know what you’re talking about”—helping win clients, gain allies, make sales, and much more.

What You’ll Learn

Shortcuts for conducting fast, targeted research on any topic

How to guide conversations to inject information at exactly the right moments

Tips for reading human behavior to determine when others are “buying” your expert insights

How to ask the right types of questions that demonstrate knowledge of the subject

And much more!

(Wow, I’m so unimpressed with this approach, it’s propositioned as mostly nonsense – there isn’t any mention of case studies or anything of substance.)

This hour-long program will explore how you can use sincerity, honesty, and respect for the good of your organization to lead more effectively.

(It leaves me with one choice… pressing delete and blocking all messages from a worn out organization with unproductive communication. If you want to read about the modern sickness of venturing into expert-land for salvation, check out this bookstore for a fun and strange read of I’m No Expert…)

Measure the value of everything you do against the kind of life experience you expect of yourself. No more petty internal arguments, no more inconsequential disagreements with others, no more irrational fears, indecision, regrets, foolishness, lies, self-deception… now we have something meaningful to work toward.

What life comes down to for those of us that live in an industrialized consumer environment is the notion of trying to escape ourselves and yet, balancing fears of non-conformity – the question that we avoid: Who admires you? The winners represent what we could be. I like people that risk it all, or take proportionally huge risks. It not only makes for an interesting story but interesting life experience. Playing it safe might be comfortable in the short-term but you cannot avoid the uncertainties of life indefinitely. We all must come to an end, and all that we can do is to experience a rich life in terms of memories and defeats, only fools demand guarantees for self-comfort and self-inspired safety, while other fools rush toward freely dispensing with prudence and fulfilling their whims at all cost for the potential of the smallest gains, and yet at times we are all guaranteed to play the fool.
Thinking nothing is better than trusting your mind for guidance.
Accumulate more stress, and use it effectively.
If you want to find out the substance of your capabilities, you cannot limit yourself, and you cannot be cautious.
No goals; it is a limitation to long-lasting motivation, and achievement.
Dispense with being a team player: individual achievement is valued more/ranked higher than team accomplishments.
Know when to risk it all; superior performance arises from single-minded purpose.

Show business strategies: Target the experience, extend, repeat, upgrade, and update. Your organization needs to create an experience that customers and employees will want to repeat. When it comes to films, the good ones establish an emotional connection with the viewer, the less interesting ones rely on technical merits to fill a gap. Why is the show business approach so valuable? Because people have TV habits… and they respond to and want customer experience, not customer service.

What matters is the activity, in and of itself, and not the result. Produce for concrete satisfaction, not the abstract purpose of selling a commodity.