Common sense choices are not always your best choice.

In fact, Albert Einstein once claimed that common sense is just the collections of prejudices that we acquire by the age of eighteen. I have to admit that I agree with him whole-heartedly. Too often, what people call “common sense” is a failure to understand another's point of view, or an inability to think outside of the box.

Obviously, common sense is not all bad. Common sense tells me to not step in front of a moving car. Common sense tells me that if I put my hand on a hot stove I will get burned. I don’t think that I will question the accuracy of my “common sense” in order to test those beliefs. However, many beliefs that we fail to question -- believing they are common sense -- can actually signal a failure to expand a limiting belief system. Here are a few humorous examples of some famous people who failed to think outside of their own limited boxes and ended up going down in history as somewhat foolish men.

_____* In 1899, the director of the US Patent office, Charles H. Duell, is said to have announced, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.”

_____* In 1905, President Grover Cleveland once commented, “Sensible women do not want to vote.”

_____* In 1923, Robert Miliken, Nobel Prize winner for physics, claimed, “There is no likelihood man can ever tap the power of the atom.”

_____* In 1885, Lord Kelvin, president of England’s Royal Society—a scientific organizing, make the assertion, “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."

_____* In 1921, baseball great Tris Speaker is quoted as saying, “(Babe) Ruth make a big mistake when he gave up pitching.”

It seems that we humans can begin to sound foolish when we trust our “common sense” without question and fail to ever look outside the boxes of our own perception. So here is my question, “How well do you think outside of the box?” Here is a riddle that I often give my students in order to demonstrate the human tendency to think inside of the same old patterns. Try to connect all nine dots with only four straight lines while not lifting your pencil. And yes, you are allowed to cross the same dot twice.


Hint: You will never get it right unless you can think outside of the box. If you would like to view the official answer, click here...

Good luck, and let me know how you do...

Can you pass a quiz that over eight percent of its takers fail?

I have posted an intellect quiz on my main website. Give it a try, and tell me if you pass or fail. Here is a direct link...

What are MASTERed Goals?

I have been teaching goal setting for over ten years. Some of my students "get it" right away, and immediately begin to see their goals transform their lives. However, too often my students think they "get it," but still fail to MASTER their goals.

I developed MASTERed goals while teaching the concept of SMART goals. SMART stood for: Specific, Measurable, Accountable, Realistic, and Timely. You can find "SMART" goal articles all across the Internet, but I found that something was missing and decided to teach MASTERed goals instead. MASTER stands for:

Measurable - you need a measurable amount, which you can check off when done

Accountable - nothing but you should affect your ability to accomplish your goal

Specific - make it a specific action that you can realistically accomplish

Timely - give yourself enough time, but not too much time

Exciting - you should feel excited and empowered when you read your goals

Realistic - you should know that you can actually accomplish your goal

Do you notice the difference between SMART and MASTERed? It's the letter E, and the word is exciting.

Your goals should excite you and not feel like punishments. When you MASTER a goal, you start with a dream and work backwards. Once you have identified your dream, you identify the specific and measurable actions that you can realistically take, and over which you have total control, by which you can achieve your dream.

Telling yourself to "find a better job," is not something you control, and therefore you are not accountable. Telling yourself to "apply to five jobs on my next day off," is something you can control, and therefore you are accountable. Next ask yourself, is that realistic? Can you apply to five jobs in one day, or perhaps one job application is enough?

Telling yourself to "lose ten pounds," is not something you control, and therefore you are not accountable. Telling yourself to "eat eight helpings of produce daily and take a daily walk," is something you can control, and therefore you are accountable.

MASTERed goals are not wishes or objectives, they are the specific and measured actions that you can realistically take, and over which you have total control, by which you will achieve your exciting objective. They should make you feel empowered, not overwhelmed.

"Be Happy," becomes "I will do one thing today that makes me happy."

Did you do something today that made you happy? If not, you have not MASTERed happiness as a goal.

Are these Mastered goals?

Been here in LA for going on eight months and it had occured to me that i haven't been doing all that i can do to accomplish my dreams...
These are my mastered goals... Am i going in the right direction?

*Find more than one Job...
*Get money to afford a drivers school...
*Join a Driver's School, or figure out how to get my liscence without having to depend on others because its my responsibilty and no one else's...
*After this play is finished i am making sure that i have nothing limiting me from working...
*Save my money! so by the end of six months and by the end of this strike i can have enough money to live... and be a working actor...
*Buy Postcards and more headshots, so i may send out to casting directors and agents, so i may target...
*Take audition classess
*take workshop classess, after i send out the postcards and things, so casting directors start to recognize me...
*Take MOre acting classess...
*above all get my liscence one way or another... because that is the only things stopping me...
*once i get my liscence figure out how to get into EXTRA work, so i may see how things work on a set...
*Continue to Target
*NO spending money on movies!
*No going out!
*get to the point where i may go to auditions where i don't have to cancel any auditions, and make them on my own...
*audtion! audition! Audition!
*Buy a Guitar, work on my music...
*BE HAPPY!!!

Those are the mastered goals that i feel i might have to accomplish in order to reach my dreams... Are these right?
niki

A shortcut to the tables on personality...

A few of my visitors have expressed trouble finding the tables on personality mention in my recent internet article, so I wanted to post a direct link here. www.navigatinglife.org/differentstrokesfordifferentfolks
Once there, you will find links on the top of the page which take you to the different personality tables.

Hope it helps...

A few words on advice...

One of my favorite moments in Alexandre Dumas's Three Musketeers, or was it Twenty Years After, is when Athos essentially tells D'Artagnan, "I make it a policy to never give advice unless someone asks for it three times. Even then they seldom want, or heed it."

Such good advice to those who love to give advice...

Here is what A River Worth Riding advises about offering advice:

Offering advice, when advice has not been specifically asked for, creates frustration and animosity between people. The dreaded phrase, “Well, if I were you, I would…” will more likely cause eyes to roll than hearts to open. Remember: You are not me. You do not know everything about me. So you do not need to offer me your advice, unless I ask for that advice, regarding what you would do if you were me. Keep your advice to yourself, and I promise to give you the same courtesy.

What is your moral compass?

Your compass is your conscience. Your sense of right and wrong. Your ability to make choices, and your ability to live with your choices without making excuses for yourself, or assigning blame.

Nevil Shute, one of the finest novelists of the twentieth century, wrote a book called Round the Bend. In the book, his protagonist recounts a fable about Moses and Mohammed. This fable has haunted me since I first read it at the age of twelve.

The fable begins with Moses and his journey up the mountain, where he is asked by God to have his people pray fifty times a day. This request is quickly seen as unrealistic, what with the golden calf and all, so God relents and simply asks that his people keep the Sabbath holy. A few thousand years later, Mohammed has his own version of that conversation on the mountain, where he is asked by God to have his people pray fifty time a day. As he returns from his journey, Mohammed meets Moses, and after discussing God’s request, Mohammed is convinced by Moses to return to God and ask for an easier burden. Again, God relents, and this time requires that his people only pray five time a day. At this point in the fable, the storyteller turns to his audience and asks, “But what if we did pray fifty times a day? What if every time we completed a task, we simply prayed, ‘Have I done well?’ If we did,” concludes the storyteller, “We could easily fulfill God’s request for fifty prayers each day.”

Well, I tried it. I was twelve years old; I’d just finished reading the story; my mother asked me to clean the kitchen; and I decided to try it. I washed one dish, then I prayed, “Have I done well?” An amazing thing happened. I felt an answer. I clearly knew that I had done well. After washing each dish, I prayed again. Each time I prayed, I knew instantly whether I had done well, or whether I hadn’t. And by the time I finished cleaning that kitchen, it gleamed.

We all have the gift of conscience; we just forget to listen to it.