Linkedin Answers is great and fun way to network!

The above screenshot shows my "performance" on Linkedin Answers, a fabulous message board on www.linkedin.com where you can ask questions and get answers from other users.

I've gotten to know many highly reputable professionals and executives via Linkedin Answers, so I strongly recommend it to everyone.

If you have questions about career management, please feel free to ask me. It seems that on Linkedin, I'm ranked as the top answerer when it comes to Career Development questions! :-)

Are you happy at work?

I answered the question below from a user of Linkedin, and thought I'd share it with you. Many people, indeed, are in great danger of missing their vocation in life. Indeed, research shows that when confronted with a major problem, 85% of percent of people engage in self-denial. Often, to blot out the pain in their lives (such as a meaningless job where they don't feel fulfilled), they will tend to grab superficial pleasures like TV, shopping, video games, etc. The key, really, is to face the problem squarely in the face and do something about it.

Anyways, will post more about this later. :-)

QUESTION:

What is the danger?

What is it about YOUR livelihood that does not provide you with the satisfaction you are seeking? Why is that a problem for YOU?

I am interested in personal experience, not general societal observations. Don't hesitate to reply as a private (email) as I am most interested in real introspective honesty and will absolutely treat your comments with privacy and discretion.

===

ANSWER:

In 2000, I quit corporate America for good, and if you had asked me the question then, I would have been unable to respond. I just knew something was missing, and it did, indeed as you phrased your question, feel like I was in "danger" of missing something important in my life.

So over the following years, I engaged in a search for my true career, and that somehow, most serendipitously, led to the creation of a framework that has helped me to visualize my "ideal career." The framework in fact is called "Ideal Career Framework." (This powerful framework / methodology is currently offered to all North American companies so let me know if you're interested, for personal or corporate use).

Anyways, my master premise is that one cannot build a career without having the basic knowhow about "career design," in the same way that one cannot design and build a building without architectural knowhow. Most people, unfortunately, think about their career in a very narrow-minded, piecemeal, reactive and fragmentary manner, which is why it leads to suboptimal results. We think of "jobs" and "salary surveys" and external stuff like that, which has little to do with who we truly are. This leads to perpetual dissatisfaction and lack of meaning.

Einstein said it best: we live in an age of profusion of means and confusion of ends. We can do basically anything, but we don't know WHAT we want to do (let alone WHO we want to become). These are not general societal observations, but truths that pertain to every human being. Indeed, the funny thing I discovered was that all the tools I created to discover and manage my own career can, in fact, be reused by millions of other people who are serious enough about their career and life to search for their ideal career.

Note: Here's a powerful technique or secret I discovered by talking to my sister Zoonie (founder of Talentelle -- www.talentelle.com) about career and life matters: "You cannot know how you feel unless you hear what you're saying."

And, of course, you cannot hear what you're saying unless you're talking to someone (otherwise, you would be talking outloud to yourself, and people might think you're a crazy person!). At the same time, verbalizing one's feelings is not enough. You have to be able to correctly INTERPRET your feelings. This is why the Ideal Career Framework (ICF) is so useful: it allows a person to correctly interpret and organize her thoughts and feelings. In the end, if there's chaos in your mind, there will be chaos in your life and career.

I will write more on this important subject.

Mind mapping is powerful!

Click HERE to see Tony Buzan talk about Mind Mapping, one of the most powerful form of note-taking I've ever come across!

You can also download a free mind mapping software application at www.freemind.sourceforge.net

Enjoy!

I want you to be happy

The partial mind map above shows a clear process for finding your talent. Drop me a line at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com and I'll be happy to send you the updated mind map (free of charge, of course! But you will need to download the free software called Freemind (which I mentioned in a previous blog).

Why is it important to find one's talent? Because you can then stop WORKING (and making small money) and start HAVING FUN FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE WHILE MAKING ABOUT TEN TIMES WHAT YOU ARE CURRENTLY MAKING! :-)

Indeed, success is worthwhile ONLY if it is based on Self -- on who you truly are.

And one hugely important aspect of who you truly are, is the special talent within you.

Wayne Dyer, one of my spiritual teachers, wrote: "Don't die with your music still inside of you."

I would say something similar: "Don't die without expressing your talent."

Just take a look at your family and friends. You can easily identify who is living according to their talent, and who is not. People who haven't discovered their talent, are just wasting time in front of TV, the shopping mall, mindless video games, gossip, etc.

If you are a parent, you need the above mind map even more, so that you can help your kids discover and develop their special talent early.

My friends, trust me when I tell you that your life will radically change once you discover your talent and spend time in a highly focused manner developing that special talent of yours.

Yes, it takes courage, yes, it takes conviction and it will require discipline and determination, but it's all part of living an amazing journey so that at the end, you have absolutely NO REGRETS.

And the best part is, as you courageously decide to engage in the path that leads to your very BEST SELF, you will inspire everyone around you -- loved ones like family and friends -- to do the same!

The world we live in today needs more heroes, and I believe you are one! :-)

Business startup design mind map, Part 2

For the sake of completeness, I've included the above which is the second part of the business startup design mind map.

As mentioned before, I'll keep refining this mind map and you can get the latest version just by dropping me an email at omnidigitalbrain@yahoo.com

Such a startup business design mind map is useful because it's vital to clearly define, concretely and measurably, what one's business will be like in 3 to 5 years. Future items in this mind map will include:

1. Number of customers served per week
2. Average sale per customer
3. Viral marketing strategies
4. Word-of-mouth strategies
5. Continuous marketing research
6. Forward and backward integration plans
7. Information systems
8. Crowdsourcing strategy
9. Youtube strategy
10. Slideshare.net strategy for training sales reps
11. Sales management
12. And about 50 more items

The success secret is to fully understand that the MORE detailed your vision of what your business will look like, the more focused -- consciously and subconsciously -- you will be in realizing that vision.

Free mind map for designing your startup business

Above is a mind map I show to clients to help them design their business. Unfortunately, the screenshot doesn't cover the entire page, so please drop me a line and I'd be happy to email you the entire mind map. Please note that to open the file, you need to download for FREE the powerful mind mapping software called Freemind available here: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

I will also create a career design mind map shortly for career people!

Tangible and intangible aspects of your career

In the previous posting ("What's your career worth?"), I talked about the importance of treating one's career as a business and being able to sell your career to interested buyers.

But before you can sell your career, it's important to realize a career is made up of two major components: an INTANGIBLE component which includes all the knowledge in your head as well as all the goodwill and relationships with other professionals and managers involved in your career, and a TANGIBLE component which comprises books you wrote, blogs you maintain, plans you developed, workshops you've developed, etc.

The intangible part of your career can only be offered in the form of professional services that you deliver in person (or via the Web using Skype, etc.). It requires the active participation of your client or employer.

The tangible part of your career, however, can be sold as products. You usually do not have to be present.

In his amazing book titled Blur - the speed of change in the connected economy, Stan Davis wrote brilliantly about how a professional can increase the intangible part of his career in order to increase his market value. I highly recommend the book, it's definitely the best book I've read on the topsy-turvy nature of the digitized, connected global economy.

Here's the success secret: if you are a professional, try really hard to "productize" your human capital, so that you can sell it easily via the Web. In other words, capture your knowledge into a document (PDF file, audio recording, etc.) so that you can sell it via Payloadz.

At first, it will seem strange. After all, we were raised to believe that only by working can we get paid. In short, we were taught that "work = money." If you don't show up at the office and work, you won't get paid.

However, that's only half the equation. It might not even be the profitable half of the equation!

The other half is "value = money." In other words, if you provide value to people, you will get paid. This value can be in a digital format, so you pretty much make money WHILE YOU'RE SLEEPING.

Short intro to BMW

I revealed some of the secrets from the BMW workshop here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A33N5GAlhkI

Note: The above presentation is not publicly accessible (i.e. you can't search for it and find it on Youtube). So please feel free to forward the above secret link to your friends and family!

What's your career worth?

I saw the above website and thought it might be interesting (perhaps even critical) to ask a similar question regarding one's career. Indeed, asking "What's your career worth?" can help you at two levels:

1. You find out whether you actually have a career, and if so, how exactly you define it.
2. Assuming you DO have a career, you find out what is the VALUE of that career. This will allow you to plan for future career development.

Note: I ask the same question to entrepreneurs that I coach, to drive home the point that "owning a business" is VERY different from "working as a free agent." I ask them: "If you were to sell your business RIGHT NOW (on http://www.acquizition.biz, for instance), how much would you ask for it?" Here, it's important to realize that it's not the SUBJECTIVE worth of your business that I'm interested in knowing. For instance, people will immediately say, "Oh, I would sell my business for a million dollars!" The real and useful answer is, rather, the OBJECTIVE value of your business, and that can only be provided by an actual person who is actually interested in buying your business. If nobody is willing to buy your business, then you're probably a free agent, NOT the owner of a business.

Let's get back to your career's worth.

If you were to "liquidate" your career RIGHT NOW, how much would you sell it for? For instance, if you have 10 years of experience, and a young person (say, a new graduate) came to you to learn EVERYTHING from you that would be useful to her as she is starting a new career similar to yours, then how much would you charge for all your valuable expertise, experience and insights?

This is a critical question, because it forces you to clarify exactly what is the value you provide to an employer. It also forces you to objectively and rationally evaluate the value of your human capital.

As we will see in future postings, you can sell your human capital on BitWine while using Linkedin Answers as a platform to develop trust-based relationships with future, potential buyers of your intellectual capital.

How do you get ahead?

I used to work for IBM, so I quite like the saying at IBM that goes: "How does a company get to be one year ahead of competitors? One day at a time."

This saying applies also to professionals who must compete for leadership in their field. It's important to realize that most people, for some mysterious reason, are not really motivated to get ahead. They are exactly in the same spot they were two or three years ago. It's sad, but the reality is, human nature doesn't like change.

This is why it's so easy for someone who understands this fact, to get ahead of other people by making a significant effort EVERY DAY.

A friend of mine is a black belt in kendo, 4th Dan (he's also black belt in Tae-Kwan-Do and Aikido). I'm always interested in learning success secrets, so I asked him how he practiced kendo. He said he practices 20 minutes every day. Note: he doesn't actually go to a kendo dojo, he practices from home.

This idea of practicing daily is not new, Brian Tracy has been talking about it for the last 20 years.

So that's really a powerful success secret: first, choose ONE thing at which you would like to become the best. Then, COMMIT to practicing that activity EVERY SINGLE DAY WITHOUT FAIL.

Is being an employee better or worse than being a business owner?

Someone asked that question, so let me share my answer with you.

--

The main mistake people make in life, which accounts for so many people being poor (cash poor or time poor) is that they don't view their career as a business.

Under capitalism, we all work to build, develop and refine our capital (human capital, business capital or financial capital).

By "capital," I mean "concentrated productive capacity." With the Internet, people can also create "cyber capital" (such as my blogs below, to which many people subscribe).

www.iwrotethebookonblogging.blogspot.com
www.linkedinusermanual.blogspot.com

So to answer your question, I would say that one is not better than the other, since both are the same.

Being an "employee" is the same as "owning a business." In both cases, one has to clearly, explicitly and proactively manage the growth of one's capital, develop new solutions all the time, stay close to the customer (your boss is only ONE customer), engage in R&D, promote oneself, be good at selling, etc.

I highly recommend the book The Mystery of Capital, by Hernando de Soto, to people who really, really want to understand what capitalism is all about. It's really a system designed to make people richer and richer, by working less and less. Yet, to achieve that, one must understand that whether one is an employee or a business owner or a free agent, etc. we are all in business and we must therefore proactively manage that business for profitable growth.

Another great book is Ram Charan's Profitable Growth is Everybody's Business.

Intention vs Attention

I'd like to share with you an answer I wrote on Linkedin Answers, in response to Bruce Kane's question. It's about Intention vs Attention. We often hear about the problem of "short attention span," yet I think a deeper problem is that of "short intention."

We don't think nor plan far enough. This planning capability -- the ability to see with the mind, rather than with the eyes or the senses -- is what humans have that sets us apart from animals.

This mind vision is also what sets successful people apart from unsuccessful people, and therein lies the secret of success: you have to be able to see your future before you can get to it.

---

I think it's not the short (attention) span that concerns me as much as the long spin. Every truth and fact seemed to be spinned in society to benefit someone other than the viewer or listener. If there is a constant in society today, it is deception.

This deception doesn't occur at the image level or at the content level of any specific news program, but at the cognitive framework level.

Our kids are not taught conceptual skills, since the entire educational system focuses on facts and perception-level knowledge. They are not taught HOW to integrate all the various pieces of information and knowledge they get at school into a coherent framework or system that would empower them throughout their lives.

This cognitive/epistemological integration skill is taught, but only to elite kids whose parents are foresighted enough to predict that the new world (and new economy) will be very chaotic and fragmented (both on the screens and in the mind). Only through continuous and conscious integration of one's mind can one avoid the inevitable fragmentation of one's thoughts due to continuous exposure to the flickering and meaningless "sound and fury" raging in society.

It's not so much an "attention" disorder I'm worried about, but an "intention" dysfunction. As Einstein said, we live in an age characterized by profusion of means and confusion of ends.

Where there's no intention, attention is up for grabs (and goes everywhere).

It seems we've lost the art of intention. Since we lost the ability to consciously direct our thoughts to fruitful ends, our attention is easily "captured" by anything that moves out there (ideally, it should be colorful, contain titilatting music and move FAST -- of course, it should contain hints of sex or sexual gratification).

Yes, I'm saying that we've become unthinking animals. "Animal" is not a bad word; every animal on Earth is perfect, since it does precisely what it was programmed to do (by the Creator or the evolutionary spirit, depending on your beliefs). An animal is simply beauty unfolding itself and revealing itself to the world.

However, animals are not creative, and only execute pre-programmed automatisms.

Humans ARE creative, yet without intention or conscious endeavour, we are merely drifting wood being swept by the currents of overmediatized images and sounds raging through an expanding array of media platforms assaulting us from every corner of modern social life.

You are perhaps right that this is a new society, and perhaps the best way to deal with it is to reclaim our attention, so as to concentrate it on fewer, more meaningful pursuits. Then, intention will naturally emerge, and help the self-actualization process.

I guess life is about "becoming" who we truly are, not "watching" whatever comes along.

Great question, thanks!

---

QUESTION:

Short attention span theater

I was doing my usual treadmill workout in the local YMCA with my iPod plugged in and cranked up when my eye caught one of the TV's on the wall that was tuned in to MTV or VH1 or one of those video music channels that actually plays music videos these days. (The Y has devices on the TV's that broadcast the audio over short range FM so there's no noise if you're not tuned in.)

I was drawn into the video. What I noticed was that the video couldn't seem to sit still. Every second it was a different view. Of the lead singer. Of the drummer. Of the girl on the hood of the car. Back to the lead singer. To a sunset. Back to the drummer. Guitar solo. Back to the sultry girl. More of the singer looking gloomy. I was getting dizzy just watching a video. (And no, it wasn't because of the cardio workout.) The next video was more of the same - constantly changing views and little context from scene to scene to scene. Cut to a commercial flipping back and forth between talking head and product and talking head and product and product name and close. I was surprised by how similar the images in the commercial were with the music video. Nearly enough that I could see how someone might not see the difference between the entertainment and the commercial.

Is it kids these days and at 38 (!!) I'm too old to understand? I watched MTV in the 80's and I don't remember the videos jumping this often between scenes.

We live in a society where terms like "Attention Deficit Disorder" and "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" are bandied about while doctors proscribe Ritalin and other mind-calming drugs like... ummm... candy. Which is an interesting comparison when I see parents feeding their kids sugar and caffeine and not understanding why the kids are running around, out of control.

So I ask - is it the kids? Or is it the adults? Some combination of the two? Or is this a new modern society? Or am I just too old and I don't "get" it?

BMW book launch in May 2007

May I invite you to take advantage of the special discount for the upcoming BMW book I'll be publishing in May. The book will ship on May 25. If you place your order BEFORE May 4th (the first-year anniversary date of the creation of the BMW workshop), you can save money.

www.talentelle-bmw-products.blogspot.com

This book is the culmination of 7 years of research, beginning on June 2000 when I left corporate Canada for good. I realized there was something wrong with the employment system which does not reward people appropriately, based on their contribution to the employer's bottom line.

Finally, on May 4, 2006 I created a special workshop (whose philosophy is described at www.businessmodelworkout.blogspot.com) for first-time entrepreneurs. I truly felt the workshop was a revolutionary innovation, and that very night, I intuitively felt that from now on, in looking back at my life, it would seem as if there are two major parts: my life BEFORE the BMW workshop, and my life AFTER!

My sincere thanks to Zoonie, my sister and business partner, who drove me to develop the workshop.

I intuitively knew that my life would change forever as a result of the BMW idea/workshop being expressed through me, and shared with anyone who sincerely desired financial freedom.

This is why I'm so excited to share all the secrets behind the BMW workshop with you, in the form of a book.

We live in an age of unlimited opportunities, and great wealth is out there to be seized by anyone who is clear-headed enough and who learns -- and eventually masters -- basic business principles.

People who do not seek business knowhow will, unfortunately, remain "economic prisoners"of capitalists and will be forced to obey, 5 days out of 7, the dictates of business owners (or managers, the representatives of business owners).

Life is just too short to be lived as "economic slaves." Every human being has a brain, therefore every human being already has the ultimate technology with which to create value and receive immense wealth in return.

It is my sincere hope that the BMW book, titled "Systematic Wealth," will empower you intellectually and liberate all your imagination and intelligence and energy so that you can create a life of massive wealth and happiness!

Peter Nguyen, BCom
Author of "Systematic Wealth"

Why did I become a business owner?

Lionel Spearman asked, on Linkedin Answers, the following question. I thought I'd share my answer with you here.

Why did you become a business owner?

Am curious as to what inspired those of you who own businesses to strike out on your own. In my case it was the freedom and something in me knew I could do as well on my own as in corporate America without the politics.

Business owners are a rare breed and compose a super minority of society post industrial revolution. In other circles we would be called crazy. We do not think like other people and people with jobs really have a challenge understanding how we think and why in the world we would leave a perfectly good high paying job in some cases.

===

Why did I become a business owner? Because it's the logical thing to do under capitalism, an economic system designed to make people rich.

I realized this in 2000, when the revenues I was bringing to my employer was steadily growing at a geometric rate while my salary was... flat. That's when I realized the Berlin Wall might have fallen in 1989, yet there was another invisible Berlin Wall in corporate America, where capable people were not paid according to the value (actual $$$) they created.

In other words, I "discovered" the operating principle of capitalism 7 years ago. It's actually a secret Einstein revealed upon receiving his Nobel Prize. It's sad that most people will never truly understand capitalism, and therefore will be forced to work for someone else and build the fortune of other people instead of "minding their own business."

Wisdom as a lethal reflex

Wisdom is the (incredibly effective) reflex of perceiving, thinking and acting from knowledge. By "knowledge," I mean principles and facts that you know are 100% true.

This is not easy, because we live in society, and the only constant in society is deception. (Notice that in contrast, the only constant in nature is truth, which is why people like to go to nature (woods, lake, mountains, etc.) to connect once more to the source and escape from the sea of deception that is society.)

So what happens when a person lives in society is that eventually, her intellectual self-defense system breaks down under the relentless attacks of so many advertising messages (even the evening news is filled with propaganda seeking to influence the mind of the citizenry).

In today's society, it seems so many people have abandoned their faculty of reason. They fantasize rather than think; they wish rather than plan; they justify their inaction and apathy rather than get to work and execute in order to achieve results.

This is why it's not so hard to get rich: the majority of people are not doing anything to lift themselves out of economic poverty. So once you start using your brain, you suddenly differentiate yourself from others, and begin to create value that others can't even imagine is possible.

They have been culturally conditioned to be intellectually lazy. Sure, the charitable thing to do is to help them, but only if they want to be helped. The best way to help them, in fact, is to become an example of a thinking person who uses her brainpower to reach practical conclusions and make sound economic decisions.

Nobody starts a business from nothing

www.43hbb.com

You might have seen the TV commercial regarding the above website. It used to run as an informercial after midnight, but now, it's running on TV in prime time!

Basically, you register your info and have to pay about $10.00 with a credit card to receive the "money-making" kit.

I don't buy it, but feel free to check it out if you wish.

A lot of ads claim that you can start a home business from scratch, but the truth is, nobody starts a business from nothing. You can only start a business from your mind, that is, starting with what you know and are capable of intellectually.

By "intellectually," I don't mean fancy university degrees; I mean the habit of actually using your brain and simple stuff like adding, substracting, multiplying and dividing. Of course, there's also percentages and statistics to master, but they are fairly easy.

Those are precisely the skills that Warren Buffett says a person should master, to be successful in life. I highly recommend the latest book on the wisdom of Mr. Buffett, titled The Tao of Warren Buffett (by Mary Buffett).