3 Simple Questions The Most Successful People Use To Change The World

I’ve heard it said that the most brilliant business ideas are often the simplest. From my experience, it’s true. In fact, when I am fortunate enough to receive sage advice from a famously gifted person, I’ll often ask myself, “Why didn’t I think of that?” So here I humbly share with you a winning formula that I see leaders use again and again and again…to change the world.

Use this formula the next time you feel stuck—whether you are trying to change your industry, your company or your personal life—and I promise you it will work.

Question Number 1: What’s the outcome I want?

Most people seem to get stuck in the moment, caught up in the drama of a situation they don’t like. They unwittingly wind up playing the helpless victim, and as I’ve written in the past, victims can’t innovate because they are focused on the problem—not solutions. You will hear them talk about how things aren’t fair, who has wronged them, and they look for encouragement or excuses to feel better about the status quo. While this may make them feel good, being energized by problems is a recipe for inaction.

Asking the question “what is the outcome I want?” forces the mind to focus on the final destination, not the current bumps in the road. The brilliance of this question is that it immediately puts you in the “creator” mindset. And once successful people envision the destination, they move quickly to the second, world-changing question.

Question Number 2: What stands in my way?

(Hey, I told you these were simple questions.)

The best leaders are masters at identifying and prioritizing obstacles that are between them and the outcome they want. Then they brainstorm ways to eliminate, avoid or neutralize the obstacles.

Last year I saw George Clooney on a late night talk show. He had recently lost 20-plus pounds that he’d put on for a movie role. The host was amazed at how good Clooney looked and asked him how he had managed to lose the weight so quickly. Clooney’s response sounded something like, “I ate less and exercised more.”

Too often in business, we talk about how hard it is to “lose weight” while reaching for a potato chip. But leaders using this formula move quickly from the outcome, to the plan, to the execution.

“I want to be 20 pounds lighter,” says the enlightened leader. “So what stands in my way?” Let’s see…

I don’t seem to make time for exercise.

So I will start the day with exercise or I will block time on my calendar.

So each weekend, I’ll pack my gym bag for the entire week and put it in my car.

I need to eat better because a bad diet will make this impossible.

So I will do my homework, buy healthy snacks and eat small portions throughout the day.

So I will pack my lunch and stop eating fast food.

Without a bunch of accountability, this will never happen.

So I’ll tell my friends, family and coworkers about my goal and when it will be achieved.

So I will buy a digital scale and weigh myself every day.

Question Number 3: Who has figured it out already?

So now our creators have identified the outcome they want. They have created a list of obstacles, prioritize the list and identified ways to overcome each obstacle. This is where some leaders spring into action while others pause to steal ideas. Yes, I wrote steal ideas. But since stealing is a politically incorrect term, we’ll call their strategy parallel engineering.

In the mid ’90s, our company had grown to about 25 people. We had dozens of projects happening at once and needed a more efficient way to manage the growing complexity of our business. So being the brilliant, naïve entrepreneurs that we were, we naturally decided to build a software system to help us track, manage and optimize each project.

After spending roughly $185,000 and hundreds of hours in time, we scrapped the project. Three phone calls later we bought an off-the-shelf system that did 90 percent of the things we were trying to build into our own custom solution.

Gosh, I wish we had paused to parallel engineer ideas.

Intelligence is learning from your own mistakes; wisdom is learning from the mistakes of others. It’s less painful to be wise than smart. It’s also a lot cheaper. That’s why this third question is so important.

Mike Maddock,

Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker and Idea Monkey

Change or Die?

You change or you die.

This is what HTC's CEO told his employees in the annual performance meeting. It is true. Without changing, a business will just continue to make what it is having, until competitor takes over. There are few examples, like the giants Nokia, Kodak, and perhaps Microsoft (in the mid of crisis). The local giants like PROTON and MAS are also the examples of failures without change. 

Change is not about you need to be creativity or you must change no matter how. It's about improvement, bit by bit improvement, every moment and everyday. The world is becoming very competitive today, without change, it is only time matter to over take by others.

It's not only about business, it's about a person as well. If we continue to do the same thing everyday, over and over again and we are comfortable with it, then we can say that we have stopped changing. For example, you are a admin and you are very good in Microsoft Word and Excel. After 5 years, if you are still doing the same thing without other improvement. What if the other person can offer the same thing as you? Where's your value? How do you expect your boss to promote your wages, or perhaps go to other company to get a better offer? 

Another example is investment. If you think investment can make you rich, that's not enough. You have to act on it. If you don't have capital to do so, you have to make a change to the existing condition to enable you to do so. You have to learn to be daring to invest once you have the capital. Not only that, you have to learn to invest as well.

Well, that's about change. Continuously learning with motive can lead to a positive change. And that's what most of the successful person taught. Perhaps we don't really want to be successful like those tycoons, but we do want have a comfortable living lifestyle. It is not only for us, but for our spouse, family and children. 

Learn to stand out from others by making a difference. Once you make it becomes a habit, you are about there. Have a nice weekend ahead.

FW: World of Dating

I'm yet to be success in this field, but I read this article online this morning and found it is very true. Just to share it with you here. Enjoy your Sunday, folks!

"Son, if you're 23 I have some words of wisdom for you. I'm almost old enough to be your dad and my boy and I talk pretty regularly about how the world works so I hope you don't take offense to my tone, it's meant to be helpful.

You need very few things at your age to meet a wonderful woman, but it's a quest. Think of it that way. You're Link, or Luke, or some other hero of the story.

First you must unlock the mystery of self confidence. This is like pulling the sword out of the stone. Only the one true king can do it, but you just didn't know that was you the whole time because you were afraid to try.

Read. Good. Books. Not that PUA sh*t, things that actually make you a better person, not a manipulative jackass. I highly recommend Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People as well as a book called The Magic of Thinking Big [by David Schwartz]. It's been a while, but I remember those as being very helpful to me in life.

Why? Because most people are not socialized well and they are taught to believe they deserve things they don't without effort. You need to know how to be comfortable talking to people. Be genuine. Learn how to not over-share. Relax in your own skin. Be genuinely interested in what someone else has to say.

Now that you know how to communicate and you believe you can be awesome, start being awesome.

If you have problems with having a conversation with a woman, maybe you're just f*cking boring. Fix that. Change your life. Have some hobbies and passions. Work out for god's sake, make your body look good. Do you like being with attractive women? Well, make yourself attractive. Even if your face is a mess, if you take care of yourself it tells someone else "this is a guy that takes care of himself." It will help you.

Now that you're a good communicator, have healthy self esteem, and have become more physically active, we need to talk about your career.

I've had a strong six figure job and a self esteem that was sh*t and couldn't get a date. I've also been a struggling artist and had to almost literally fight dates off. The big difference was passion. It was all what was going on in my head. If you hate your job, reconsider it. Maybe you're in survival mode for money but whatever it is you choose to do, you choose it, and you make it something you can be enthusiastic about.

Mind, body, and soul is important, but the impressions are very, very important. Dress well for f*ck's sake. Everyone in a first world country can clean up. Have at least one outfit that makes you feel good. Polish your shoes, or at least clean your sneakers if that's your thing.

If you're a punk with a mohawk then there's a different but similar thing going on; it boils down to making yourself feel good about you first. If you feel good about yourself you will emanate something that is attractive. You'll be more confident, and that will lead to....

Talk to women in real life. I'm not saying that it's a catch all solution to your problem, but if your goal when talking to women online is to eventually meet them in real life, you could always cheat the system and practice talking to them in the real world, too.

Consider this: If you set up an OkCupid or whatever account, you're saying hi to a woman who has probably been hit on 30 times in the past day. If you go to a nice club, with a haircut and clean clothes and approach a woman, she may have only been talked to by a few guys in the past hour.

The real world is where it's at. Use dating sites to practice having conversations, but its a sucker's game. Go get scared, screw up, grow some confidence, and meet people in the world.

I wish you the best young man, treat her respectfully and go make the old guard proud.

Addition: If you're a virgin you're body is going to be so excited to have sex the first time you're going to be rubbish. You can't expect to be an expert at something you're just trying for the first time. Make sure you go down on her first. Don't watch porn to learn how to do this, read some of the great posts here about it. Have lots of foreplay. Practice kegel exercises. Be a repeat performer. You'll get the hang of it, but make her pleasure important to you.