Learning from the Best
It can be inspiring and motivating to see what others have achieved and made of their lives, especially in areas that mean something to us personally. Some people inspire us because they live the type of life we would love to have, others due to their extraordinary expertise. Still others inspire us through having experienced hardships we can hardly imagine, and yet radiating happiness and well-being. Here are three such people.
Brian Tracy is a very successful American speaker and author in economics, business, and self-development. He usually writes and publishes multiple books a year, most of which become bestsellers. He has around 100 training and speaking engagements a year and is always working on countless other projects in parallel, and yet he takes more than 100 days off per year. What an excellent example of effectiveness as it can actually be lived! He has achieved far above average results at work and at the same time has a healthy amount of free time – now that’s real effectiveness.
Meet Anne Jones from the U.K., who won the World Championship Speed Reading Competition six years in a row. Yes, there really is such a thing – a competition in which a bunch of people get together and have their reading speed and text comprehension measured. Reading speed is measured in words per minute, while the level of comprehension is measured by having the candidate answer questions about the text. The percentage of questions that are correctly answered is multiplied with the number of words read per minute to produce a score, and the candidate with the highest score is the speed reading winner. At a public performance, Anne Jones read one of the roughly 800-page volumes of Harry Potter in 47 minutes and answered more than 70% of the subsequent comprehension questions correctly.
Are people like Brian Tracy and Anne Jones simply lucky to have been born with their talent? Is genetics the most important factor here? Or are there also patterns, reasons, and behaviors that lead to extraordinary results in various larger or smaller aspects of life? We are of the opinion that the law of cause and effect is active in many areas of human development. Where there is an effect (for example, being able to read quickly with good comprehension), there is most often at least one identifiable cause that has led to that effect.
The biography of a gentleman named W. Mitchell is extraordinary in a different way. Due to a motorcycle accident that he only barely survived, W. Mitchell suffered extreme burns over more than 80% of his skin. He survived, amazingly, and somehow managed to put himself together again, both physically and psychologically. After spending months in rehabilitation, he was able to start a new career and managed to become mayor of a small city (despite his rather unusual appearance).
Four years after Mitchell’s motorcycle accident, the small plane that he was piloting had an accident during takeoff. Although all the passengers were able to leave the plane with only minor injuries, Mitchell was injured so badly that he has been paralyzed since that time. Most people would have given up on life after this second blow of fate – if in fact they had not done so earlier. Not Mitchell! For quite a few years now he has been on stage and has become an internationally sought-after speaker on the topic of taking responsibility. Despite the lasting effects of his injuries, which present him with challenges most people can’t begin to imagine, he manages his life well and is a role model for thousands of people.
We can also learn a lot from the people around us who have less spectacular stories, people who lead normal lives and have totally normal everyday problems. Such people might be children who don’t want to sleep when their parents really would like them to or colleagues with different work goals. Since there are similarities among most of us, we can find solutions to our problems by observing those who have had similar problems and challenges before.
Following the principle of observing and learning from others, we will explore together the thought patterns of highly effective people, so that you can continue to see the forest despite all the trees in situations where you need to plan and make decisions in the heat of the moment. This will help you keep the overview and with it your time intelligence and time mastery.
You will be able to profit from this technique of observation over the course of this book and learn from the ideas we’ve culled from the very best in many different areas. We find it useful to remember the words of the great English scientist Isaac Newton: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
We would also like to draw your attention to the collection of individual tips (40, to be precise) included in this book, which are aimed at helping you to save time here and there in various life situations. These tips are primarily professionally oriented, though some of them concern private life too.
Sometimes it is the confluence of several small changes that causes a noticeable rise in quality of life. In sum, our goal is to manage more in less time.
Some Key Terms
“I knew it was time to simplify our organization when we started to abbreviate our abbreviations.”
What exactly is the difference between effectiveness and efficiency? Let’s take a look at these terms using the following situation: imagine you live in New York and you want to get to Los Angeles for some important work. If you have a compass and know how to use it correctly, and you march off in the right direction, you are proceeding in an effective manner, meaning you will (most likely) arrive at some point in L.A. Unfortunately, this method is not particularly efficient, since it will take you a very long time to reach your goal.
If, on the other hand, you take a direct flight from New York to L.A., then your chosen method is effective as well as efficient. If, however, you get on a plane to Mexico your behavior is not effective, since your goal was a different one – L.A. At least in this case you are being efficient, since the means of transportation has a good ratio between input (your investment) and output (reaching your goal). The high level of efficiency, however, doesn’t do you any good if you’re traveling towards the wrong destination!
This way of proceeding is comparable to leaning the best ladder in the world against the wrong wall. Let us hope that at least it isn’t your career ladder. And now for the prize question: what combination do you have if you set off in the direction of Mexico on foot (assuming your goal is still reaching L.A.)? Effective? Efficient? Well, let’s just say that a person who does this still has a lot of room for learning.
So we want to be as effective as possible. And how should we define effectiveness? There are many different definitions, but here’s one we like: we have reached effectiveness when success and satisfaction overlap. How much is the one worth without the other?
Another pair of words that often comes up for discussion is “important” vs. “urgent.” What do these mean and what is the difference between them? Urgent is defined purely in terms of time. If you still have a lot of time until the deadline, the matter is not (yet) urgent, while if you don’t have much time left until the deadline, then the matter is urgent. (The origin of the word “deadline” is quite interesting. The dead-line in war camps during the U.S. Civil War referred to the physical line prisoners were not allowed to cross without being shot. Given this historical background, “deadline” denotes a time commitment that is serious and absolute.)
Urgency, however, does not correspond to importance at all. Importance is about impact. If something has a strong impact in a relevant area, then it is important. If the impact is weaker, the importance is also less. Confusing importance and urgency can present a danger for our time management. This concept will be discussed in much more detail later.
The Time Target
“I hate to criticize, but you’ve only