The 4 Most Deadly Words

There are 4 words that are so deadly, that if you are using them, it almost guarantees you will not be nearly as successful as you want to be.

The Wheel of Personal Success

If you use these 4 words it practically prevents you from being successful. What are they?

"I already know that."

Why are they the 4 most deadly?

Because as soon as you start to think you know everything it closes off your mind, even to the things you don't know.

And it makes it practically impossible to learn new things, grow your awareness, achieve greater successes and breakthroughs.

It keeps you stuck where you are currently at in life, holds you back and may even cause your failure.


And it is a completely ego based mindset. You would rather think you are smart and know everything rather than be open to learning and growing.

Always look to learn from anybody or any situation.

Remove the words "I already know that" from your vocabulary when you go to meetings or seminars, and you'll always end up leaving with stacks of amazing ideas. Not only from what was presented, but all the ideas that are triggered from what people say. By having that open mind it not only allows you to learn new things, but also allows you to think of new ways to use what they are talking about with my business. Or completely new ideas in general.

So what about the things you do already know?

Great question. Let me use an actual example.

Recently the movie The Secret came out. When I started to watch it, you learn early on it is about the Law of Attraction. I already know a lot about that and I could use the 4 Deadly Words and continue to watch it with that closed mindset.

Instead I had the mindset of, "what new things can I learn from this?" They might not be life changing discoveries I make, but even just small subtle enhancements can produce amazing results over the long term.

And I did learn a lot of great new things. I ended up with several pages of notes.


And you know what... that feels great to walk away from something knowing more than you did before. Having new discoveries.

It feels considerably better than walking away thinking I already knew what he was going to be talking about.

Different Effects For Different People.

This shows itself in several different ways.

On the positive... look at anybody who is very successful over the long term, a constant with all of them is their desire to always be learning. They definitely don't have the "I Already Know That" mindset.

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is purposeful and reflective judgment about what to believe or what to do in response to observations, experience, verbal or written expressions, or arguments. Critical thinking might involve determining the meaning and significance of what is observed or expressed, or, concerning a given inference or argument, determining whether there is adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true. Hence, Fisher & Scriven define critical thinking as "Skilled, active, interpretation and evaluation of observations, communications, information, and argumentation." Parker & Moore define it more narrowly as the careful, deliberate determination of whether one should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which one accepts or rejects it.

Critical thinking gives due consideration to the evidence, the context of judgment, the relevant criteria for making the judgment well, the applicable methods or techniques for forming the judgment, and the applicable theoretical constructs for understanding the nature of the problem and the question at hand. Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance and fairness.

(reference: Facione, P. 2007. Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts)

Lateral thinking

Problem Solving: A level of performance is being met. Something happens which creates a problem - performance drops. We need to find out what caused the problem and then figure out ways to fix the problem. The objective is to get performance back to where it should be.

For Example: A production line has an established run rate of 1000 books per hour. All of a sudden the run rate drops to 839 books per hour. Something happened, we don't know what problem caused the production rate to drop by 161 books per hour. We need to find out and fix the problem so we can get back to producing 1000 books per hour. Problem solving is focused on closing this performance gap.

Creative Problem Solving: The objective is to find ways to create new levels of performance that we haven't reached before.

For Example: We routinely produce 1000 books per hour on our production line. In this example creative problem solving could be directed at: finding ways to produce 1500 books per hour; finding other ways to use the production line; finding ways to reduce the cost to run the production line, etc.

Lateral Thinking is a method/tool kit that can be applied during the problem solving and creative problem solving processes to help come up with possible workable solutions.

(reference: Lateral Thinking, Edward De Bono)

Systems thinking

Systems Thinking is any process of estimating or inferring how local policies, actions, or changes influences the state of the neighboring universe. It is an approach to problem solving that views "problems" as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to present outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of the undesired issue or problem. Systems thinking is a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. The only way to fully understand why a problem or element occurs and persists is to understand the part in relation to the whole. Standing in contrast to Descartes's scientific reductionism and philosophical analysis, it proposes to view systems in a holistic manner. Consistent with systems philosophy, systems thinking concerns an understanding of a system by examining the linkages and interactions between the elements that compose the entirety of the system.

Systems thinking attempts to illustrate that events are separated by distance and time and that small catalytic events can cause large changes in complex systems. Acknowledging that an improvement in one area of a system can adversely affect another area of the system, it promotes organizational communication at all levels in order to avoid the silo effect. Systems thinking techniques may be used to study any kind of system — natural, scientific, engineered, human, or conceptual.

(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking)

Characteristic of Mental Model

Mental model is generally:

• found on hardly qualifiable, impugnable, obscure, or incomplete facts
• Flexibility - is considerably variable in positive as well as in negative sense
• effects as information filter - causes selective perception , perception of us only selected parts of information
• compared with the complexities surrounding the world is very limited and even when the model is extensive and in accordance with a certain reality in the derivation of logical consequences of it we are very limited. We must take into account such as restrictions on working memory - ie. well-known rule on the maximum number of elements that we are suddenly able to remember, gestaltismus or failure of the principles of logic, etc.
• source of information, which can not find anywhere else are available at any time and can be used, if other routes are possible, which is linked with the fact that it is not always clearly understood by the other and the process of interpretation can be interpreted in different ways

(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_models)

Double-loop learning

Is used when it is necessary to change the mental model from which depends on our decision. Unlike simple loops in this model try to shift in the understanding of the static to a dynamic, broader, such as taking into account the changes in the surroundings and the need for expression changes in mental models.

(Reference: P.N.Johnson-Laird, The History of Mental Models)

Mental model

A mental model is a kind of internal symbol or representation of external reality, hypothesized to play a major role in cognition and decision-making. Once formed, mental models may replace carefully considered analysis as a means of conserving time and energy.

A simple example is the mental model of a wild animal as dangerous: upon encountering a raccoon or a snake, one who holds this model will likely retreat from the animal as if by reflex. Retreat is the result of the application of the mental model, and would probably not be the immediate reaction of one whose mental model of wild animals was formed solely from experience with similar stuffed toy animals, or who had not yet formed any mental models about wild raccoons or snakes.

According to the theory of mental model we are saving all perceived stimulations and observations to the memory in the form of model , which is designed on the basis sensual information and is combined with already saved informations. Prof. Jay Wright Forrester defined mental model as: "The image of the world around us, which carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head imagin all over the world, government or country. He has only selected concepts and relationships between them and those used to represent the real system.

( Reference: Georges-Henri Luquet (2001). Children's Drawings)

Team learning

Team learning is an educational method that strives to increase student engagement. The following principles guide the formation of the teams of learners:

1. Groups Must Be Properly Formed and Managed. Team size should be 5-7 members with even distribution of member characteristics across groups.
2. Students Must be Made Accountable. "Students must be accountable for (a) individually preparing for group work, (b) devoting time and effort to completing group assignments, and (c) interacting with each other in productive ways."
3. Team Assignments Must Promote Both Learning and Team Development. According to Michaelsen, "most of the reported “problems” with learning groups (free-riders, member conflict, etc.) are the direct result of inappropriate group assignments". Michaelsen adds that "assignments that require groups to make decisions and enable them to report their decisions in a simple form, will usually generate high levels of group interaction."
4. Students Must Receive Frequent and Immediate Feedback

Assignments are characterized by:

1. Same problem, case, or question
2. Making a specific choice
3. Simultaneously reporting of group responses.

Controlled studies of initial implementations of team learning have shown increases in student engagement and mixed results for other outcomes.

(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_learning)

Laws of the Fifth Discipline

• 1) Today's problems come from yesterday's "solutions."
• 2) The harder you push, the harder the system pushes back.
• 3) Behavior will grow worse before it grows better.
• 4) The easy way out usually leads back in.
• 5) The cure can be worse than the disease.
• 6) Faster is slower.
• 7) Cause and effect are not closely related in time and space.
• 8) Small changes can produce big results...but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.
• 9) You can have your cake and eat it too ---but not all at once.
• 10) Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two small elephants.
• 11) There is no blame.

(reference: Senge, Peter M. (1990), The Fifth Discipline)

The Learning Disabilities

• 1) "I am my position."

People fail to recognize their purpose as a part of the enterprise. Instead, they see themselves as an inconsequential part of a system over which they have little influence, leading them to limit themselves to the jobs they must perform at their own positions. This makes it hard to pinpoint the reason an enterprise is failing, with so many hidden 'loose screws' around.

• 2) "The enemy out there."
• 3) The Illusion of Taking Charge
• 4) The Fixation of Events

The tendency to see things as results of short-term events undermines our ability to see things on a grander scale. Cave men needed to react to events quickly for survival. However, the biggest threats we face nowadays are rarely sudden events, but slow, gradual processes, such as environmental changes.

• 5) The Parable of the Boiled Frog
• 6) The Delusion of Learning from Experience
• 7) The Myth of the Management Team

(Reference : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Discipline)

The Fifth Discipline

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (Senge 1990) is a book by Peter Senge (a senior lecturer at MIT) focusing on group problem solving using the systems thinking method in order to convert companies into learning organizations. The five disciplines represent approaches (theories and methods) for developing three core learning capabilities: fostering aspiration, developing reflective conversation, and understanding complexity.

The Five Disciplines

The five disciplines of the learning organization discussed in the book are:

• 1) Personal mastery
• 2) Mental models
• 3) Building shared vision
• 4) Team learning
• 5) Systems thinking
  

(Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Discipline)