If it’s not already obvious by the new site title here at Learn This, I hope this site will be a resource for people to learn from. While I plan to publish a lot of articles on many topics (the planned queue is getting larger every day), I do this primarily to help others learn some of the things I’ve learned myself. Now some I’ve learned by watching others, some by trial and error, some I’ve learned by talking with or reading articles from others, and some I’ve learned just by practice and observation. In doing this over the years, I’ve learned that the best way to really learn something is to teach that same thing to someone else. Anytime you have to teach something, you are forced to plan, think and act on what you learned which really drives it home.

There is a LOT of other personal learning benefits to teaching and sharing what you know. Here are some of the advantages in teaching for the purpose of learning:

• When teaching you review content which refreshes your memory of the content
• You get asked questions so need to understand it in order to respond
• Teaching it often makes you ask questions and research or study things in more depth
• Its wonderful to have others appreciate your help and to see them learn
• Makes you feel great to share with others
• Teaching and learning exercise you memory which keeps the brain healthy longer in life
• Commit things to your long term memory to increase your knowledge
• Helps you give advice or information in various situations (depends what you teach)
• Provides great conversation starters talking about things you teach
• Most people are more interested in a person who can teach them something

Take this site for example, while it does take a lot of time to publish a site like this and I’d love to have people think it is simply generous to do so, its not all for the benefit of others, as you can tell from the list above. What are some other things you get out of teaching?

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 4 Comments »

OK, I wrote recently about not setting any new year’s resolutions and that was really because resolutions are generally missed, forgotten, ignored and never adjusted. They are not written, planned or even thought about that clearly. They are VERY different from goals. So, I’m going to be exploring goals and goal setting, tracking and following goals for the next several articles and I wanted to just introduce a bit about goals and what a difference they can make in one’s life.

Setting and achieving goals is a process, it is not a single event. I think this is the biggest mistake that people make with goals. They set them, leave them and eventually realize when its way to late, that they didn’t achieve them and voila, they no longer believe that goals work. That is simply not true. Goals do work, but to make them work, you also have to work your goals. There is a process that is needed to attend to them, track them, adjust them and even to identify them in the first place. They don’t just happen!

What are Goals Really Good For?

Plain and simply, goals are the one fundamental key to success and achievement. They are the key to accomplishment in every aspect of life. Living without having and utilizing goals means living in the wake of reaction and circumstance. Its living just to live instead of choosing how to live and why to live. Goals allow a person to focus their energy and life for purposes and passions. They help to add value to a person’s life by keeping them on track with what means most to them and they help a person to better understand themselves and what is important to them. Goals are a way to live with meaning and obsession for what brings the most joy and satisfaction to a person. They are something to express passion for, to motivate you and others who see your determinism and they simply bring to your life more of what you want.

Different aspects of Goals

So, the point these articles is that I’m going to reviews goals in a few separate sections. Its a big enough topic its easier to take in pieces and helpful if you are already experienced with goal setting but need some helpful tips in just one area. Goal setting really is important enough (and there are many blogs and series out there to show this) that it can be the sole focus for an entire site or longer series as well. I hope to cover a few specific things I’ve learned from using goals through my life and I want to present it in a short and actionable way so it is easy to help others enhance their experiences with goals as well. So, I’ve broken down a few separate articles into the following sections:

• Setting and Identifying goals
• Tracking and Monitoring goals
• Completing and Closing goals

I believe goals should be focused on achieving life lasting skills, relationships and changed behaviors or habits, not simply temporary or material things. The reason I believe this is because temporary and material things don’t really bring a true lasting satisfaction to anyone, so achieving them doesn’t build on the value of goals nearly as much as goal accomplishment in those other areas. A goal that is remembered and lasts forever will be much higher valued and will re-enforce the value of goal setting in the first place, even more. So, through these goal setting articles, keep focused on behavior impact of your goals, things you want with a lasting impact, not just some new job, toy, or even some dollar figure. What will last for years to come? What will you be most proud of on your death bed? What will help you leave a legacy to others when you pass on? Those are the types of content for great goals and accomplishing them is truly something to be proud of.

Goal Setting Series

Part 1: Goal Setting – Introduction
Part 2: Goal Setting – Setting and Identifying
Part 3: Goal Setting – Tracking and Monitoring
Part 4: Goal Setting – Completing and Close

Posted by Mike King under Success | 8 Comments »

This is a chapter title of the book, “Influencer” by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. So far, I love the book and how it focuses so much on behavior. The quote at this chapter is what I really wanted to share, which is:

There are three kinds of men, ones that learn by reading, a few who learn by observation, and the rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

-Will Rogers

I just love this. Its so true in how so many people learn in life. Whether it is business, financing, relationships or even parenting, most people learn by trial without truly observing and learning from others or learning from expert sources like books.

Posted by Mike King under Relationships | No Comments »

What is Passion?

I’m not sure about each of you, but I know that I get very passionate about things I learn. Or is it that I have the passion for those things and so I learn them? Well, I really don’t know, probably a bit of both. I do however, find it very interesting how much I personally find that my learning and passions align so much in my life. Whether its a similarities in my work and personal life or how I explore books, I continually see alignment of how the things I learn apply in so many areas of my life. Those are the areas I’m most passionate about and it continues to feed the passion in a strengthening cycle. The more I learn about something, the more I enjoy it, and so then the more I want to learn even more about it.

Passion Roadblocks

I’ve spent a lot of time reading leadership/management and business books to improve my career and at the same time, most of the authors I’ve enjoyed most mix the business life with a personal touch and write about applying this in your personal life as well. Changing bad habits and improving one self cannot happen solely in the workplace even if business books, performance reviews, your boss and your company are pretty much only concerned only about your day life at the office. Your actions, mannerisms, character and passions are not completely separable from your personal life no matter how hard you try. In order to change these things, you need to change them everywhere in your life. That’s where passion often plays its part. A passion can be so strong it will steer every area of your life, home and work and can drive a person to learn and follow more about that area of desire.

Using Passion

Now, I’m talking about a positive passion, something to improve your life or the life of others. Recognizing this, understanding it, following it and learning from it are then different for each person. Using a passion in your life can lead to an extremely successful meaningful life. Its a sad fact how many people in this world simply “get by” in life and don’t make the most of it. One way to do this is to have and use your passions in life to be more joyful and to live with purpose and meaning. I’m planning to explore the topic of passion in several upcoming articles.

See Part 2: Passion: Find Your Passions
See Part 3: Passion: Express Your Passions

Posted by Mike King under Purpose/Passion | 6 Comments »

I’m writing this article since I feel that it wasn’t until fairly recently in my life that I really felt I have learned some important things.

I had always been a quick learner in school growing up and especially with computers and technology! I got pretty use to doing well in my jobs and often thought I knew quite a bit to succeed. Unfortunately, I was completely ignorant of a lot of knowledge I was blatantly missing out on. Once I learned about them, they changed my life. These two things I hold great value in now, were learning to control my sleep to maximize my life, and learning to read. That’s right, learning to read. I’m got a post lined up about the sleep topic I’ll get online in the next few days. This post however, is about learning to read.

Its not that I literally didn’t know how to read, I just couldn’t read well. I never enjoyed books because I couldn’t keep my focus on them so my mind would wander and I would find myself daydreaming and thinking of other things. So, I would either simply get frustrated by the book and stop or wouldn’t get anything out of the book since I couldn’t stay focused on it. So, this led me to not reading a single book after high school until I was about 28. Sure, I read lots of short articles and magazines and things online, I just would never sit down and read. Then it all changed. I started listening to a few motivational speakers (Steven Covey and Brian Tracy come to mind) and they each recommended LOTS of reading. So, I went online and did some research about the average reader and found out that not only was I reading less than any averages I could find, I also found out about the huge variation in reading speeds. I took a simple speed reading online test online and was at an appauling reading speed of only 175 words per minute. This shocked me so I kept doing research. I found out my slow reading speed was preventing my reading from keeping my mind active and stimulated by the content so it would wander and focus on other thoughts and things in my surrounding, even while reading. I learned that by reading faster Continue Reading »

Posted by Mike King under Learning | 1 Comment »