177. Let people use you

We often hear the following:

"I can't believe he used me! I can't believe I fell for him!"

"I feel so used!"

"She's just using you, man, I'm telling ya! She's a gold digger!"

Usually, when you hear the above, it's not a good sign!

However, something new is going on today in our Knowledge Economy: the more people use you -- your expertise, experience, knowledge, connections, special access to certain resources, assets, etc. -- the more valuable you become!

For example, 849 complete strangers have used me! And I'm happy about it!

They asked a question on Yahoo! Answers (http://answers.yahoo.com), and I answered it. 151 have even selected my answer as the Best Answer (meaning probably that they would happily use me again!).

My point is that I don't mind being used, because I am able to increase my market value.

How?

By being forced to put on paper (on the Web rather) precisely what it is that I know. If it wasn't for these 849 people, I would never have been motivated to make explicit what I know.

(Here's a secret, but keep it between you and me, all right? I'm planning on publishing a book of my best answers and sell it worldwide. The 849 people who asked me questions, can even become my e-book resellers worldwide).

The bonus is that the people who have selected my answer as the Best often write encouraging comments and even expressions of admiration (especially for this blog that you are reading). I feel pretty good! :-)

In your case, I'm sure you know stuff that you'd be happy to share with others. The simplest way to do so is to create a blog (free) at Blogger (www.blogger.com).

You can just list 10 or 20 topics that you're really knowledgeable about, and then ask friends, coworkers, contacts, etc. to visit your blog and check those topics. They can then ask you anything they want on those topics. You then provide the answers right on that blog.

The key to success in one's career or business, is to help as many people as possible (then, they will remember you when a job opportunity comes along, or a business opportunity pops up). The best (and easiest) way to help people is to share what you know.

176. Knowledge guides and misleads at the same time

Knowledge is power, and power is never innocent. Power always has an agenda.

In practical terms, it means that often, you think you're getting good, useful information when, in fact, you are being deceived -- to enrich someone, of course.

Example:

Malcolm Gladwell is a skilled writer, to be sure, and his best-seller The Tipping Point is ingenious and even instructional for marketers. But his other book, Blink, is quite misleading. The subtitle of the book is, The power of thinking without thinking. You can actually learn a great deal more by reading anything Charlie Munger wrote, or any book on Warren Buffett, or any book by Edward de Bono.

I was pretty glad when another author published a book recently, titled Think, to directly challenge Gladwell (click HERE.)

Yet, the media has extensively covered the book Blink, like as if it had something meaningful to say.

The famous intellectual Alvin Toffler once wrote in Business 2.0 magazine that the means of deception today are multiplying much faster than the means of verification. He was talking mostly about identity theft (10 million Americans every year have their identity stolen through fraud).

I think deception can extend beyond credit card fraud; there are companies and individuals who deceive people in order to profit from the credulity of the masses.

John K. Galbraith calls it "innocent fraud" in his book The economics of innocent fraud.

I don't know whether the fraud is innocent or not, but I do know that millions of people are being deceived every day the minute they turn on their television set.

I was trained as a journalist myself, in 1993, and I can tell you that the best journalists are extremely skilled in the art of story design and story telling. They master story-telling because their livelihood depends on it. They MUST get you interested in a story, in order to boost ratings.

But news stories offer very little value, other than to make us feel vaguely in touch with the world around us.

The news media, like advertising, is just a way for people in power to "manage public response," to borrow an expression from Galbraith's book.

All this discussion about the public being deceived is important, because success depends not only on how skillful we are, but also on how skillful others are in deceiving us. In a war situation, this kind of deception is called Psy Ops (psychological operations) and is designed to preemptively disable the enemy's will to fight (through the spreading of fear, for example).

The success secret is to realize that the more ambitious you are, the more opposition you will find from people (that you may or may not know personally) who intend to stop you.

The character Hannibal, played by Anthony Hopkins, said it best: "People don't always tell you what they think, but they see to it that you don't advance in life."

175. A number can numb or pump up a person

I often advise clients to monitor their performance (in their career or business) by focusing on a few key numbers.

Being able to objectively evaluate one's performance is key to success.

After all, this is how capitalism triumphed over communism: capitalism has a way of rapidly identifying underperformance and "correct" it as soon as possible. The indices of stock exchanges for example are flashed on TV screens every day, all over the planet. You know precisely which companies are doing well and which companies are not.

Of course, I realize there's a lot of hype and inflated market prices due to speculation and media spin, but over a certain period of time, you can see which companies are consistently building sustainable competitive advantages and getting further and further ahead of the competition.

But back to our numbers.

A number that you monitor (for example, the number of visitors to this blog, which you can see on the righthand side -- it's about 1240 so far) can pump you up and motivate you to perform better. Such a number is meaningful and emotionally empowering.

Oftentimes, however, numbers just numb people. For example, the number of resumes that a job seeker sends out to potential employers is quite irrelevant. There's is no strategy behind it, no intention to manage the specific sales process in regards to a specifically targeted employer, etc.

Here's what I consider to be somewhat of a success secret: "going from zero to one takes much longer than from 1 to 100."

For example, it takes a lot (I mean A LOT) of work for a new entrepreneur to get his first customer. But once he does, he could "clone" that customer and get more customers. (Cloning here means identifying people who have characteristics similar to the first customer; the greater the similarity, the greater the chances of getting that second customer).

Another example in a non-business context: once a man can seduce a beautiful woman, he knows for a fact that he can do it again. Of course, I'm not at all recommending serial romantic conquests! And I mean "seducing" in the sense that he truly cares about her and wants to draw her to him for the purpose of a meaningful relationship.

My point is that once you prove to yourself that you can do something, then you have the absolute confidence that you can do it again.

Sometimes, it's really hard to get that first success (i.e. getting from 0 to 1). But there's a solution for that: identify all the key success factors, and rate yourself on how well you perform on each factor.

For example, if you're looking for a first client (or employer, for new graduates), then the success factors could be:

1. Professional resume (10%)
2. Convincing cover letter (10%)
3. Performance at the job interview (20%)
4. Thoroughness and professionalism of the follow-up letter (after the interview) (5%)
5. Demonstration of job-relevant capability (20%)
6. Demonstrated understanding of the employer's industry (10%)
7. Testimonials from previous employers (5%)
8. Other factors (20%)

The percentages refer to the contribution that the factor makes to the probability that you will land the job. Of course, these percentages differ for each situation, but they give you a way of measuring your performance during the "HR seduction" process (Note: nobody "applies for a job" today; it's extremely competitive. We all have to seduce decision-makers in the most premeditated, strategic and foresightful manner).

For example, if you believe that you've got #1, 2, 6 and 7 covered, then your probability of landing a specific job is 35%.

("Other factors" refer to secret techniques that each careerist has. I call them "proprietary pitch technologies." Nobody is crazy enough to share their secret techniques, but you can be sure that your competitors have developed their own "unfair competitive advantages," which they use every time they get a chance.)

My point is simply that in today's hypercompetitive global economy, superior performance is critical. And to achieve superior performance, a person needs to focus (almost like a maniac) on the few key numbers that drive performance.

174. The reward for succeeding is the power to succeed some more

You probably heard the saying "nothing succeeds like success." It means:

a) if you look successful, you will increase people's confidence and therefore they will prefer to do business with you, thereby making you even more successful

b) if you are successful, then you feel more confident, and this drives you to persevere more, which leads to more success

A lot of people try to look successful, but I'm not sure it's the right way to go.

A better way perhaps is to actually be successful at small things, and to build on your (small) successes. That is, create a rhythm of achievement which will drive you to persevere more and strive for more success.

This sounds like common sense, yet many people who start a new career or a new business, often aim for big success. For instance, they either charge too much, or want the best clients, or set goals that are simply not realistic.

It's better to aim for small goals and reach them, than aim for big goals and not stand a chance!

I guess the important thing is to feel successful every step of the way. Feeling that one is successful is the best way to slowly but surely build self-confidence.

But for that to happen, one must be very skilled in the art of goal-setting. Your goal has to be just a little above your capability so you feel challenged, but not so much that you feel stressed about not being able to reach it.

Sometimes, you don't even need to have a goal. For example, you can:

"Do the fastest thing that will succeed the easiest."

In other words, do tasks where the ratio "effort/payoff" is lowest.

Inevitably, this means that the more you focus on using your talent, the more payoff you will get.

Eventually, you get to a point where the effort/payoff ratio is so low that you don't feel like you're working anymore!

In the end, everybody wants "big success": the luxurious house, the nicest car, the executive salary, total fulfillment in one's career, true love, etc.

Yet the secret may lie in designing each step, along the way, so that success is easy. In other words, "do the thing that will succeed the easiest and soonest, and repeat as often as you like."

If you can achieve this, then the journey will be far more enjoyable than the destination.

173. Talentism vs Capitalism

The Age of Talentism officially started on September 11, 2001 when two huge airplanes carrying innocent passengers crashed into the World Trade Center.

The state-of-the-art aircraft technology, as well as the high-grade fuel and the sophisticated information technologies regulating and negotiating the air passageways, were all mere tools in the hands of a few talented terrorists.

Although I'm totally opposed to Al Qaeda and what they try to do, I also see the irreversible shift of power from technology to talent. Talent, in this case, happened to be evil and, frankly, quite cowardly. What kind of warriors -- holy or not -- would kill peaceful men and women who are just showing up at the office to do their day's work?

But let's get back to talentism.

It's the idea, perhaps one day it will become a formal system, that talent trumps technology. Whereas technology is the chief wealth-creation instruments of shareholders on the NASDAQ or other stock exchanges, talent is the chief wealth-creation instrument of individuals.

Shareholders have a problem with that, of course, because they cannot own individuals. That would be slavery, and we all know slavery has been abolished a long time ago.

But what does all this mean for you?

It means, perhaps, that during this shift of power from technology to talent, most people will be confused as to what to do to ensure job and economic security. A few talented individuals will know exactly what to do, in order to leverage technologies in their favor.

Eventually, we will see the rise of sovereign talents (professionals who are so skilled and so much in demand that they (or rather their agents) dictate the precise terms of employment.

On the other hand, the majority of people will still remain "labour", trapped by the socioeconomic prisons set up by capitalists. These are the people who are forced to work for a company till retirement.

It is quite simple: people today have to choose between focusing on developing their unique talent or just doing what the job requires. Focusing on and relentlessly developing their talent can help them achieve economic security without depending on any ONE employer. Of course, this path is hard. (This is why I created with my sister an organization to help women's career advancement: www.talentelle.com)

I predict most people would rather go for a job, in other words, they would gently ignore their real talent and try as best they can to become hard-working, obedient, conforming corporate employees. This is the easier path in the short-term but as capitalism becomes more and more "talentism" (an economic system where talent creates value and technology is only used to deliver value), these people will be at risk.

This is not to say that being a corporate employee is not good. In fact, a person can learn a great deal from how corporations operate. I did precisely that during the 1990s. There are few secrets from corporations (manufacturing, consulting, training, computer services, etc.) that I don't know. They operate like well-oiled and ruthless machines.

My point is simply that the global economy is changing, and people who have unique talents will be handsomely rewarded. There will be no limits to how much they can earn (read The Sovereign Individual, by James Davidson, for more details). This, obviously, cannot be the case for employees, since keeping salaries fixed is the only way that capitalists (business owners) can increase their profit rate over time.

172. Make your knowledge visible

Yahoo! Answers is getting really popular, even addictive. (http://answers.yahoo.com)

(I confess to being an addict myself!).

It's a global message board where you can post questions and also provide answers to people who have questions.

It's quite inspiring actually, because there are people to whom I gave a good answer (they chose my answer as the best) and I see those same people providing good answers to yet other people. It's like a virtuous cycle: the more you help people, the more people are inclined to help others, and on and on it goes.

But here's the success secret: Yahoo! designed the scoring system so that you become (pleasantly) addicted to answering other people's questions.

This addiction, in turn, drives you to write thoughtful answers so that you "earn" 10 points (if your answer is not selected as the best, you only earn two points). The key, of course, is to only answer questions on topics, issues or situations that you are thoroughly knowledgeable about.

But beyond the score, there is something fundamentally more important: you get to make your knowledge visible. This is awesome because once you see what it is that you actually know, you realize one of two things:

1. "Holy cow! I don't know much! Maybe I should start reading some books!"
2. "O my gosh, my knowledge is useful to people! Maybe I should read more books in order to help MORE people!"

In other words, Yahoo! Answers gives you a reality check on what you actually know, and on the degree to which your knowledge is useful to people.

Your performance on Yahoo! Answers is a fair reflection of your performance in life, in your career and in business.

In conclusion, Yahoo! Answers shows clearly those who have power (knowledge) and those who do not have power. Of course, it's never too late to learn and acquire knowledge (power). But it should be done asap because we live in the knowledge society / economy, and those who don't know are economically disadvantaged and eventually will become obsolete.

Filter or Falter

The quality of your life depends on the quality of your decisions.

And the quality of your decisions depend on the quality of your information.

Yet, for the overwhelming majority of people, the information they get is from mass media sources such as TV, newspapers, magazines, etc. They also get information from social (i.e. superficial) conversations, where no real knowledge is exchanged (of course, a lot of emotional support is provided, but I mean "knowledge" in the sense of "capacity for effective action.")

Conclusion:

We get low-value information --> We make low-value decisions --> We get a quality of life way below what we could have had

This is where we begin to understand that "information is power."

In particular, information that helps you achieve your goals.

Here comes the success secret: you cannot possibly get "good" information if you don't have a goal (career goal, life goal, fitness goal, etc.).

For example, my career goal is "To be able to work anytime anywhere by using my passion for learning, my business knowhow and my writing skills to transfer strategic knowledge to people so they can succeed in their worklife."

In other words, once you have a goal or a mission, then they can work for you as a FILTER which eliminates irrelevant information, and allows you to focus time, energy and attention on the RIGHT information. Without a goal (hence, without a filter to screen out information), you falter. That is, you become a victim of information overload.

In short, if you filter, you won't falter.

Why are ideas important?

In a previous episode on the importance of ideas, I wrote:

How does all this relate to you? You are probably a professional who's just trying to do his job. Do you really need more "ideas"? What good would new ideas bring you?

In today's global economy, any ambitious worker from China or India can compete against you by leveraging the power of the Internet. Time and space no longer separate them from YOUR job.

(Read the book The World Is Flat, by Thomas Friedman. It has already sold two million copies. It talks about how changes in technologies and communications enable (empower) people from nations such as India and China to work and compete (quite effectively) against everyone else.)

Because of intense competition, everyone is rightly concerned about their economic survival. We all have to produce more value of higher QUALITY or in greater QUANTITY. In short, we have to produce BUSINESS VALUE.

But what is business? The late guru Peter Drucker said only two things are important in business: innnovation and marketing.

Unless you are a marketing professional (advertising, sales, etc.), you should focus on innovation, that is, how to create new value. Doing the same things day in day out is no longer good enough. The ability to generate new ideas and test them in real situations will secure premium salaries as well as respect from your boss and coworkers.

This is where ideas come into play. An idea is just a new way to create more or better value.

The problem is that the educational system doesn't teach students how to create "new ideas". It teaches students how to come up with the "right answers."

Well, there are no "right answers" in today's rapidly changing marketplace. Whatever the customer says is right, IS RIGHT!

Plus, customers today are demanding. They want new things all the time. And they want it yesterday!

For all these reasons, the single most important skill, I believe, is creativity. I've personally used Edward de Bono's techniques for the last 10 years, and they have served me well. If you seriously want to create wealth by generating new ideas, I highly recommend his books (start with Lateral Thinking, then perhaps Parallel Thinking, then I am right, You are wrong, finally New Thinking for a New Millenium).

Dr de Bono's techniques are one of my success secrets, and as of today, it is no longer a secret!

You are King!

One of the most powerful things I ever heard:

"Madam, if I may. A prince should never flinch from being blamed for acts of ruthlessness which are necessary for safeguarding the state and their own person. You must take these things so much to heart that you do not fear to strike! Even the very nearest that you have if they be implicated."

You might think that such ruthlessness is only for heads of state or shadow advisors (such as Machiavelli or Karl Rove) who stand behind the one wielding power. But in fact, you ARE a head of state. Your life is the realm over which you have total dominion.

I believe there is a God, yet even God does not interfere with your decisions. Have you ever seen an angel appear suddenly before you and say: "Stop! Your intention and course of action are defying the laws of God, and hence I hereby issue the solemn warning that if you proceed, you shall face instant obliteration!"

In comparison, whatever society or humans can do to stop you in your pursuit of your dream is so INSIGNIFICANT. Yet, most people are paralyzed and prefer a comfortable but sterile routine over a bit of risk-taking that accelerates the flow of life through our veins!

The opening quote was said by Sir Francis Walsingham, who advised Queen Elizabeth during her reign. His character was played masterfully by Jeff Rush in the movie Queen Elizabeth.

Of course, I don't recommend ruthless courses of action where you eliminate rivals in your ascension to the throne! But I do recommend with unreserved seriousness a ruthless attitude toward anything or anyone who thwarts your advancement toward your goal.

Don't hurt people's feelings, but at the same time, don't consciously put yourself in a situation where what they say can make you feel bad or raise doubts in you. There are some people that you talk to and, in five minutes, they are skillful enough to kill your dream.

In the end, ruthlessness is about the exercise of sovereignty over your own life. We are all born with a sceptre in our hand, yet we unnecessarily and unwittingly give up our sovereign power when we let other people's opinions exert disproportionate influence over the critical decisions we make in life.

A Spanish proverb goes: "After the game of life is over, both the king and the pawn return to the same box."

In this life, you choose to be either king or pawn. It's really up to you!

Can ideas make you rich?

Tne answer is Yes.

Great ideas will produce great profits for you, whether you are running a career or a business.

But what exactly is an idea? How do you define an idea? When self-made billionaire Ross Perot says, "It just takes one idea to live like a king for the rest of your life," what exactly did he mean?

Think of the acronym I.D.E.A.: it means "Iterative Design for Effective Action."

In other words, powerful and lucrative ideas are not vague entities that float in your head or in someone else's head.

But what is "iterative"? Here are some definitions of iteration: (from www.dictionary.com)

Mathematics. A computational procedure in which a cycle of operations is repeated, often to approximate the desired result more closely.

Computer Science. The process of repeating a set of instructions a specified number of times or until a specific result is achieved.

One cycle of a set of instructions to be repeated: After ten iterations, the program exited the loop.

And what is "design"?

A graphic representation, especially a detailed plan for construction or manufacture.

The purposeful or inventive arrangement of parts or details: the aerodynamic design of an automobile; furniture of simple but elegant design.

Deliberate intention: He became a photographer more by accident than by design.

A secretive plot or scheme. Often used in the plural: He has designs on my job.

In other words, an idea is a useful design that keeps improving through repeated application or implementation. In business, we have a brilliant word for that: "beta."

Check http://answers.yahoo.com, it's an example of "a useful design that keeps improving through repeated application or implementation."

Stan Davis, in his (amazing) book BLUR -- the speed of change in the connected economy, talks about "offers" instead of ideas. For him, an offer is something you, well, offer to the marketplace to see how (potential or actual) customers respond. This is a brutal sort of Darwinian product development: the good offers will stick and make money, while the bad offers will naturally die from lack of demand.

How does all this relate to you? You are probably a professional who's just trying to do his job. Do you really need more "ideas"? What good would new ideas bring you?

More coming up.

To compete is to compute!

This is a success secret that perhaps nobody told you.

If you learn the art of calculating probabilities, you can GREATLY increase your chances of success. Hence, to compete is to compute.

If you cannot compute, you cannot compete. Of course, competing doesn't mean you will win. But at least, you are in the game. (To win, you need an unfair competitive advantage -- a mysterious something that nobody has, and whose very existence should be kept secret).

Junior careerists and first-time entrepreneurs often have no idea of how to calculate the odds of success. Being statistically blind is not a good way to manage a career or a business.

It's actually quite simple. Suppose you want to sell your professional services, and there are 5 critical steps that must be taken in order to close a deal. All you have to do is state these 5 steps, and assign the likely probability of success for each step. Example:

Step 1: Generate a qualified lead
Step 2: Present a compelling sales presentation and answer satisfactorily all questions and objections
Step 3: etc.
Step 4: etc.
Step 5: Close the deal by using the right incentive, at the right time, on the right person, using the right tone and inflection of voice.

The odds could be:

Step 1: 50% probability of success
Step 2: 20%
Step 3: 60%
Step 4: 40 %
Step 5: 40 %

You can see quite clearly that the "bottleneck" is Step 2 (lowest probability of success). Hence, THAT step must be worked on ruthlessly to improve the odds of success.

The exact same process can be used if you're looking for a job, or jockeying at the office for a promotion.

In conclusion, the critical importance of foresightful computation was elegantly captured by the masterful Chinese strategist Sun Tzu centuries ago: "Every battle is won before it's ever fought."

Thank you!

Dear Subscriber,

Every month, I have the priviledge of reaching over 10,000 readers through various publications, and I do take this responsibility very seriously.

In the case of this publication online, focusing on real-time success secrets, I'm even more motivated to share my best information with anyone in the world. The Internet is truly a powerful tool for sharing and learning.

Every day, I see new people subscribing to Real-Time Success Secrets, and I feel honoured, but more importantly, driven and super-motivated to do my best.

I just thought I'd take a moment to thank you for your trust. Please feel free to drop me a line if you have comments, questions, etc. I'd be happy to be of service.

Best regards,

Peter Nguyen
Editor
superscribe@gmail.com

Your second parallel career

No matter how you define a career (based on skills, professional status, earnings, hierarchical level, etc.), we all agree that a career must generate income.

I believe that soon, everybody (especially knowledge workers) will have a second parallel career, in addition to the one they currently have.

Explanation: In the old economy, you earn a paycheck by working, and most people work by showing up at the office or the plant or the store. You had to be there in person to be able to perform the work (and make money).

In today's knowledge economy, you have a new, powerful career ally: your intellectual capital.

If you could capture your most valuable knowledge, and share it on a blog or podcasting site, then you have basically created a second career from which you could make extra money.

Most professionals who make at least $40,000 a year, have valuable knowledge in their head (called "tacit" knowledge). The challenge will be to convert that tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge that can be sold for a profit or traded or even given away for self-promotional purposes.

Wealth = Talent X Technology

This is a little book that will have a big impact on your career or business. The section where Koch talks about "wealth creation multipliers" is quite interesting. Specifically, he states the following equation:

Wealth = Talent X Wealth Creation Multiplier

He then goes on to also state:

Wealth = Talent X Business Genes

(A business gene being what enables your talent to be turned into money).

I would say that Wealth = Talent X Technology, and the rise of Indian brainpower is an example of how smart workers (Infosys, etc.) were able to leverage the Internet to plug and play in the global game of capitalism.

Indeed, while talent is key, it is not enough. A second sort of talent is needed: technoleverage. That is, the ability to use technologies to create business value.

Some of the emerging wealth-enabling technologies include podcasting (www.odeo.com), blogging (www.blogger.com), etc.

Speech recognition software is my latest discovery, and I must say it has enormous potential as a tool that enables professionals to not only improve their productivity by speaking instead of typing, but also to share their valuable knowledge by making it explicit in the form of a typed document that can be shared with anyone.

Valedictorian secrets III

In today's economy, Darwinian rules of competition are revised: Only the fastest learners survive.

In other words, your LQ matters much more than your IQ. Your Learning Quotient depends chiefly on your ability to learn fast, absorb and assimilate new success principles, and apply them accurately in the relevant situations where they can be brought to bear on the issues or problems at hand.

IQ is about how smart you are. LQ is about how smart you are about getting smarter.

This is why I believe that, whether we like it or not, we have to go beyond just learning. We have to learn HOW to learn.

And this can be quite technical. The study secrets I share below may sound simple, but in fact, they embody a vast amount of scientific research (in neurology, psychology, etc.) and universal principles that can simply not fail.

They only "fail" to produce results when the person fails to apply them diligently and consistently.

Aristotle said that one should master principles, for he can then create any method to suit him or the situation at hand. But if a person becomes slave to a method, then he will be at the mercy of that method.

In a similar vein, the following study secrets should be considered as "principles" and be adapted in your own situation. They are not how-to recipes for success.

As usual, please feel free to email me if you have questions.

1. Compete with the teacher, not with other students. If you compete with the teacher, then the best outcome is a "tie." You cannot win because the maximum score you can get in any course is 100%. Few students can outshine their masters (unless you are Wittgenstein, whose genius was immediately evident to his teacher Bertrand Russell).
   
   How do you compete against the teacher? By predicting every possible twist and trap that the teacher can "design" as he formulates a problem to be solved in an exam. By also having a time management strategy when you take the exam, given the fact that many teachers would design a question to be time-consuming so as to lure students into "wasting" time which then prevents them from having enough time to answer all the questions (finance exams or any math exam).
   
2. Read slowly a number of books on speed reading. It's well worth the investment in time. Speed reading workshops and seminars are also available.
   
3. Master memorization techniques by Harry Lorraine. He sells audiotapes etc. online but I think you only need the little book he wrote on memory.
   
4. Use post-it notes to mark key sections of a book or textbook, and write your own comments on those stickers.
   
5. Little by little, does the trick. If you are doing a case analysis, take every single fact mentioned in the case, and infer as many strategically useful information as possible from that single fact. This will systematically enable you to design solutions or recommendations that are highly faithful to the information presented in the case (i.e. your solutions/recommendations will be more realistic).
   
6. Understand the principle of "neural-access hierarchy or prioritization through successive query designs." Man, this principle is too complicated, I will write it in an upcoming post (it's Friday night, my brain is dead!).

Valedictorian secrets II

In a previous post (HERE), I mentioned that I was able to use a few techniques to always get the best grades in high school (even in college and at university).

A few people have asked me to share the secrets with them, so here goes:

1. Little by little, does the trick. Study UNFAILINGLY for a specific period of time every day (e.g. one hour or two hours per day, depending on your course load)
2. Reward yourself with pleasure WHILE you study, and also AFTER you've studied. In my case, I learned calligraphy as a teenager so I really, really enjoyed writing (and rewriting) my class notes! Some people like to study in a sensual environment, or in a nice place like a well designed coffee shop. That works too. Concerning the reward for having studied hard, it's really up to you. But the size of the reward should match the amount of effort that you expended during your study session.
3. Learn and master mind mapping techniques (look for the book Use your Head, by Tony Buzan, the originator of that powerful technique). Most students do not use that technique and that, in my opinion, a severe mistake. You can also download a free (and fun to use!) software for mind mapping HERE.
4. Little by little, does the trick. Study a little every day while commuting (by bus or metro), by using cue cards where you ask questions on one side and provide the answer on the other side.

I will cover more secrets in an upcoming post.