Curated Nuggets

“…don’t be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing… I’ve sought out mentors, asking guidance from professors or colleagues, and in every friendship soaking up eagerly whatever that friend could teach me…”

Sonia Sotomayor, USA Supreme Court Justice in her memoir  My Beloved World

The emphasis here is that there is nothing wrong in raising your hands to ask for help from the appropriate people. And you should be proactive about it. 

“Failing to grow and expand your network is to your career as failing to regularly change your engine oil is to your car. Improve your network and increase the chances for better performance and advancement in your career”

 Joan Michaels

A soft answer turns away wrath but harsh words stir up anger – the Bible (proverbs 15 v.1)

When next you are in a meeting and a colleague disagrees with your input but turns round to appropriate it,  instead of retorting by saying:

 “ but I just made the same point to which you disagreed..” accompanied with an unfriendly body language

Remember Proverbs 15 v.1 and try this instead:

 “ thank you for explaining my point so succinctly…we could implement it by doing ZXY.   

What do you think?” 

or this

You make a good point, Amanda, could you explain how that is different from my earlier input so we can sharpen the idea?

“In today’s fast changing world, it’s not so much what you know anymore that counts, because often what you know is old. It is how fast you learn. That skill is priceless”

Robert Kiyosaki

Be a lifelong learner. What’s your plan for learning something new this week? 

“The greatest illiterate of the 21st  century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those you cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”

Alvin Toffler

What skills are you learning, unlearning and relearning?

“The word is changing enormously. In any position in a company you need to work very hard on learning new skills every day, but you also need to unlearn some of the old skills from the past”.

Paul Poleman

“Curiosity will lead you to expected new places…to unexpected, sometimes fantastic places! Once something gets your curiosity it will open up  a whole new world of other stuff you did not know about”.

Steve Jobs

My question to you:

What are you curious about?

A popular paradigm in the years when I was growing up was “curiosity killed the cat”. Well, the cat would have discovered something prior to its death! Better still what if the cat never dies? It was Albert Einstein who said that he had no special talents he was only passionately curious!

“To stay relevant, you must continually self-disrupt and self-innovate. You must seek out the new opportunities. You must be proactive. You must be responsible for your development”. 

Joan Michaels

You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, but you cannot have both

Brené Brown

It’s not the absence of fear, its overcoming it. Sometimes you’ve got to blast through and have faith

Emma Watson

The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. 

Dorothy Nevill

Learn to identify the thoughts that should remain thoughts and the words that should remain mind words. The wrong thing said at any time can derail your career progress.

Joan Michaels

When people say to me that I am smart, my response has always been, I only work hard. And that’s literally the truth. 

Joan Michaels

If you are going to fail, fail now, fail fast and fail small

Joan Michaels

A currency of personal growth is self-awareness.

What do you know to be true of yourself - Good | Better | Best  AND Ugly | Uglier | Ugliest?