Thursday, March 26, 2015
makhluk pengabdi
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Challenge the Conventional Wisdom
Author: Hector V. BarretoConventional wisdom is a term coined by the economist John Kenneth Galbraith in his 1958 book The Affluent Society, second edition (New York: Houghton & Mifflin, 1958). It is used to describe certain ideas or explanations that have become generally accepted as true. However, conventional wisdom may actually be either true or false.
Conventional wisdom often stops people in their tracks. This is not necessarily bad. If the conventional wisdom is that a small business will not survive and grow without proper financing -- a truism that has been shown to be true countless times -- and this rightly should act as a stumbling block to the nascent small business owner who intends to start a venture on a shoestring and hope for the best.
But conventional wisdom should not stand in the way when the belief is based on outmoded facts, wrong premises, or prejudice.
As Galbraith said, "The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas, but the march of events." Take, for example, the conventional wisdom of years gone by that the construction trades are clearly a man's world and that women need not apply.
Linda Alvarado and Mercedes LaPorta have never met. They live over 2,000 miles apart, one in Denver and the other in Miami. Both are the head of successful companies they built from the ground up over many years. The stories of their phenomenal success are so identical that at first glance they seem to be the same story. Although they are not the same story, success stories of very different small businesses often seem to have the same roots.
The success of Alvarado Construction, Inc. and of Mercedes Electric Supply, Inc. have at their core the willingness of two women to follow their dreams and to challenge the conventional wisdom that neither of them had any possible chance of success. Both have found success in different facets of the construction industry, which is notably hostile to women generally. Minorities often face that same hostility in management and ownership. When both women started their businesses more than 20 years ago, women doing what they wanted to do were simply unheard of. The conventional wisdom was not simply that they would fail, but that they were crazy to even begin. However, they each pitted their will against this conventional wisdom and in the end not only succeeded beyond anyone's expectations -- including quite probably their own -- but, in doing so, also changed their respective industries, both for their gender and for minorities, generally.
Linda Alvarado was brought up in a highly competitive family with five brothers and no sisters. "Both my grandfathers were Protestant ministers, which was a little unusual because we are Hispanic," she remembers. "As you might imagine, our life revolved around the church."
"My parents were very, very positive people. It was clear what your priorities were growing up. There were high expectations in school that not only would you bring home an A, but you would tell them what you had learned."
Mercedes LaPorta was born in Havana, Cuba, and her family emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago. "As I was growing up, I kind of always knew that some day I wanted to have my own business," she says. "I come from an entrepreneurial family. In Cuba, my father had his own business and my uncles had their businesses. When we came to this country, my dad, as soon as he had saved enough money, opened up a small grocery store. I was about 13 years old, and I would work in the store on weekends. I always had this bug in me that I wanted to own my own business."
Linda Alvarado admits with a laugh she was not born an entrepreneur. "We don't have any entrepreneurial history in my family. I wasn't even a Girl Scout, so I never sold Girl Scout cookies. I never really thought about owning my own business or being my own boss."
During her college years, Linda bucked the conventional wisdom in her first work-study job.Young women worked in the cafeteria or did things like filing and answering the phone. But she took a job working for the college's landscaping department, and in doing so soon found she liked working outdoors. She began to fall in love with the construction industry. "I took very unusual classes for a woman: surveying, estimating, and construction supervision classes. This was very nontraditional as you could imagine."
After college, she went to work for a construction company. "I started actually in a project accounting position on site, later moved into a support position to a project manager, and as my skill level developed, moved into a project engineering function." In those positions, she admits, "I liked being on the construction sites as well, watching the buildings come up out of the ground. When a superstructure went up, it gave me a great sense of the creative process that ended up with this structure of great permanence and beauty."
After high school, Mercedes LaPorta went to work for the A&P supermarket chain and quickly became its first woman buyer, eventually purchasing grocery items with a budget of more than $200 million per year. She also helped end a labor strike by the chain's Mexican-dominated workforce. She could have gone on to senior management with the company, but her entrepreneurial genes surfaced about the same time she and her husband Victor decided they had enough of Chicago's winters.
Mercedes and Victor LaPorta arrived in Miami, Florida, and in March 1979 they began Mercedes Lighting, Inc. They began in a 1,000-square-foot office selling only Sylvania light bulbs. The decision to start her own business was simple. She says, "I always had this bug in me that I wanted to own my own business. I really never wanted to work for anybody else, my first job in Chicago was one born of necessity."
Just three years before Mercedes and Victor LaPorta arrived in Miami, Linda Alvarado had decided to get into the construction business by starting small:
As I was on these construction sites, there were very, very large projects going on. I began to dream about building a project of my own. It was a pretty modest dream at the time and I began to think of it as a possibility. I decided I would start a small construction management company.
My start was very nontraditional. Many times, you draw up a business plan and follow it. I never dreamed of owning a business. I started very, very small, working in the development.
Of course, banks didn't like to fund construction companies. To make a long story short, I had this blue suit and I went to several banks, but I was rejected by all of them, six banks. My parents finally mortgaged their house for me to get going for $2,500. It was the bridge money needed to get me over the gap until I was able to get a small business loan. Perseverance and persistence have kept me going. They are important to the extent that I believe I will outwork most people in finding a solution.
This led to starting a company as a curb cutter and doing sidewalks and foundation work -- it was really a foundation for building my business to what it is today.
The growth of both the companies started by these two woman has been nothing short of inspirational.
Less than 10 years after it started, Mercedes Electric had achieved its goal of being one of the leaders in the distribution of electrical equipment in South Florida. By 1992, Mercedes Electric Supply, Inc. and moved into a 300,000-square-foot warehouse and office building, housing over $2 million worth of inventory.
The company Mercedes now heads acts as an electrical, automation, and data communications distributor that employs 45 workers, has annual sales of over $25 million, and is growing rapidly. It ranks among the 200 largest electrical supply houses in the country. In the past couple of years, as Miami International Airport has undergone a significant expansion and rehabilitation, Mercedes Electric Supply, Inc. has won the largest it won the largest contracts in history. First, it won a $10.2 million contract from American Airlines to supply the electric distribution and lighting system for its new terminal. Then it won a $9.2 million subcontract from the general contractor doing the South Terminal modernization and now has started a $3 million contract on the North Terminal modernization.
Linda Alvarado never lost her dream of building grand projects. Her small sidewalk and foundation company morphed into a small general construction firm and soon became one of the fastest growing commercial general contracting firms in the country. It was one of three firms that built the new Denver Broncos stadium and was also part of the construction of the Denver International Airport and the Colorado Convention Center. Today, it employs 450 workers and has revenues in the multimillions, building projects for public and private sectors, both domestically and internationally.
Both Linda Alvarado and Mercedes LaPorta are successful not because they had some better idea for a new product or service. Both, after all, are in very settled, old line industries. Although both brought innovative techniques to what they do, so did their competitors. Nor are they successful simply because they worked hard. When talking about their years in the construction industry, their stories of what they overcame are so similar that you realize they succeeded because they stood up to decades of prejudice. They chose not just to ignore the conventional wisdom, but to meet it head -- on and steam roll right over it.
Their stories of their early years are very alike. Mercedes remembers with a laugh:
It's hard enough for a woman to start a new small business, but it's doubly hard when that business is typically a "man's business." When I started 28 years ago, I don't remember running into a woman anywhere in this industry down here in South Florida. I had a lot of doors slammed in my face. In the early years, I had to use whatever tools might be available to me to break in. In those times, I was kind of relegated to the back room because I couldn't get my foot in the door anywhere. So my partner, who was a man, would have to go out to make all the calls.
Linda remembers that, at that time, women just weren't welcomed on construction sites:
I experienced graffiti being written on the walls and pictures of me in various stages of undress. Nevertheless, I worked with some really good people and I knew this was an industry that I really wanted to stay a part of.
Being optimistic by nature gave me some sense of personal mission to show that women could succeed in this field. You have to smile because what people are looking for when I walk in the room is somebody six foot five and burley. And in reality, I'm five foot five.
I would be asked, "Do you know what you're doing . . . Do you know you're not going to be welcome?" I was never directly told I couldn't do it, but it was indirect. I was once told, "You have so much potential, have you looked at other fields like teaching or corporate America or even law school?" At the time, women were just making their initial inroads in those fields. "Why don't you look at areas you could fit in?" I was told. I overheard conversations and jokes about me from many people. It was an environment where being the first led to guys putting an arm around me and saying, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"
But instead of becoming discouraged, the hostility made both women dig in their heels and try that much harder.
Mercedes says:
But, in all these 28 years, I've never considered there was anything I wouldn't be able to overcome, whatever problems I had at the time. I always knew I would find a way to do it, and I always did find a way to overcome the obstacles that were in my way.
When a person told me I was going to fail, I just looked him or her straight in the eye and said it would never happen.
Linda remembers:
It was for me, at the same time, both hurtful and challenging. When your credibility is questioned, it's very easy to personalize the criticism, and I had to be very careful not to disqualify myself from opportunities, not to believe the conventional thinking, and not to put myself in a box. That was my biggest challenge. While no one ever told me I would fail, I'm sure there were some bets I would.
My mother always told me you have to start small but think big. That was reinforcement to me and reminds me today that all businesses started as small businesses. Without some pain, there can never be gain. The key is balancing that and measuring that. That little sentence let me go back and rethink and, if nothing else, say, "Look. I'm no different than anyone else in a pickup with a briefcase."
Both have now gone on to be so much more than just business successes.
Mercedes LaPorta is active in numerous civic and business groups including the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) Women President's Organization, the National Minority Supplier Development Corporation, National Electrical Contractors Association, and the National Association of Women in Construction. She is a passionate advocate for women in business, serves on the Enterprising Woman National Advisory Board, and is a WBENC ambassador who works to get large corporations to recognize the importance of supporting the growth of women-owned businesses. She has become a mentor especially to women starting out who own their own businesses.
In the mid-1980s, Linda Alvarado started a company called Palo Alto Inc., with her husband Robert. Palo Alto built and now runs more than 100 fast-food restaurants, including Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken locations.
In the early 1990s, she heard that the Colorado Rockies baseball franchise was up for sale. "I had never considered owning a professional sports team," Alvarado says. But the more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea. No woman had ever tried to buy a Major League Baseball franchise. "It was a huge risk for a woman, especially a Hispanic woman, to own a sports team." But at age 39, she became part owner of the Colorado Rockies.
She now is a corporate director for three Fortune 150 companies and has served as the chairman of the board of the Denver Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and as a commissioner of the White House Initiative for Hispanic Excellence in Education.
But every day both of them still worry about their businesses.
Mercedes confides:
Right now, my business is getting ready to make another significant step in size and volume. So I'm preparing myself for this next step forward by adding technology tools. We have had computer systems and technology for a long time, but as we grow we will need more and more to service our growing customer base. In my warehouse, I'm now using automated handheld devices that will print out orders and inventory. Everything is done by bar codes so that the filling of orders is more accurate and quicker and deliveries can be scheduled automatically. This eliminates errors, it saves us time and money, and above all it upgrades our level of customer service. If we make it easier for our customers, we make it easier for ourselves.
Linda Alvarado admits:
I worry about cash flow, labor, backlogs, cost of insurance, and all sorts of other things. But when I get up in the morning, I can't be paranoid that people are after me.
People measure success very differently. My success has come from my ability to enable others -- the people who work for me and with me -- and to understand that change is constant. In order to be at the top of your game, you have to be able to adapt to change. The only reason I'm a success is I empower those around me to meet our clients' expectations and to make them understand that it's part of their dream also.
Starting off in a man's world, what central lesson have these remarkable women learned on their way to success beyond not paying attention to the common wisdom?
"There are ways to play the game within the rules, but still find ways to win," says Linda Alvarado.
"I think it was the way I was raised, my father raised me always telling me that if you set your mind to do something then there's nothing you can't do," says Mercedes LaPorta. "If you put everything you have into it, you're going to succeed.
"And I've always carried that with me. My dad passed away a few years ago, but all my life he was my inspiration."
Copyright © 2007 Hector V. Barreto
The above is an excerpt from the book The Engine of America
by Hector V. Barreto
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; September 2007;$24.95US/$29.99CAN; 978-0-470-11013-3
Copyright © 2007 Hector V. Barreto
Hector V. Barreto was the second longest serving administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration. For five years, he led the agency's $60 billion support system for American entrepreneurs. A lifelong entrepreneur, he is currently involved in a number of private sector ventures and serves as Chairman of Business Matchmaking. He is a frequent public speaker on small business topics.
For more information, please visit www.theengineofamerica.com.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Challenge the Conventional Wisdom
How to Develop your Wisdom?
Author: NARAIt is very difficult to define ‘wisdom.’
I think, it’s next to information and knowledge which are the foundations for wisdom.
Simply, knowledge with value addition appears to be wisdom.
However, the British philosopher Nicholas Maxwell has called wisdom the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others.
All are potentially wise; some are not having time to become wise.
Some people know what is wisdom and they have an inclination and desire
to become wise.
Another category of people are involved in developing wisdom.
Still one more group is recognized as wise people.
Wisdom is essential to make some one successful in life.
Wise people guide the decision making process towards wiser decisions.
Exposing oneself to various kinds of influences which help in the development of wisdom.
Again there are practices with which one can develop wisdom and become wise.
Intellectual knowledge gathered from novels and biographies can help us to develop wisdom.
Learning the countless examples of wise and unwise behaviour, handling of situations, management of human emotions such as fear, anger, tension, inferiority complex etc., will also help us to develop wisdom with our own freedom.
Various kinds of life experiences teach us wisdom.
Travel to new places, meeting people of different culture, languages, colours, religions, skills, outlooks, hobbies and values are also useful to contribute towards the development of wisdom.
That means an open mind is necessary to develop wisdom.
The path to wisdom is easy; but there should be a will to become wise.
Determination to involve in learning and gathering knowledge from what ever source, ultimately help us to develop wisdom.
Keeping friendship with wise people aids us to imbibe certain qualities.
People behave differently at different circumstances.
It is better observe keenly the behaviour of wise people to learn the underlying values.
Some of the values associated with wisdom are, according to Jason Merchey, courage, creativity, dedication, fulfillment, integrity, justice, kindness, light heartedness, magnanimity, modesty, morality, optimism, passion, respect, responsibility, self-confidence, tolerance, vision and willingness to work.
How to add value to knowledge for making it as wisdom?
It is a very big question!
Making use of the hard earned knowledge by adding some value to it keeps us wise.
Constant thinking, taking into account all pros and cons with certainly help us the type of value we need to add and make knowledge in to wisdom.
Meditation is considered to be the most powerful tool for developing wisdom.
Ultimately, wise people win over the world.
Therefore, we have to become wise by developing it step by step.
‘Our deepest values are revealed by how we actually live over lives.
Retired Professor
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - How to Develop your Wisdom?
Playing the Wisdom Game
Author: Copthorne MacdonaldWhat is wisdom? Like stupidity, we know it when we see it. But because wisdom manifests in so many different ways, it can't be adequately defined in a few words. Short dictionary definitions highlight some of wisdom's characteristics such as "keen discernment," "a capacity for sound judgment," and "the ability to discern inner qualities and relationships," but they don't get to the heart of the matter.
Joseph W. Meeker's eloquent yet concise statement about wisdom is much more illuminating:
"Wisdom is a state of the human mind characterized by profound understanding and deep insight. It is often, but not necessarily, accompanied by extensive formal knowledge. Unschooled people can acquire wisdom, and wise people can be found among carpenters, fishermen, or housewives. Wherever it exists, wisdom shows itself as a perception of the relativity and relationships among things. It is an awareness of wholeness that does not lose sight of particularity or concreteness, or of the intricacies of interrelationships. It is where left and right brain come together in a union of logic and poetry and sensation, and where self-awareness is no longer at odds with awareness of the otherness of the world. Wisdom cannot be confined to a specialized field, nor is it an academic discipline; it is the consciousness of wholeness and integrity that transcends both. Wisdom is complexity understood and relationships accepted."[1]
Wisdom is internal, embodied by persons. Words of wisdom arise from it. Wise behavior arises from it. But wisdom itself is not its products. Wisdom is a mode of cognition — one rooted in perspectives, interpretations, and values. Wisdom is not about facts per se, it is about the context-linked meaning of facts. It is about the significance of facts and their implications. Wisdom is a kind of meta-knowledge that helps us make better sense of the rest of our knowledge. Wisdom does this by relating our ordinary everyday knowledge to a variety of contexts, and by viewing it from a variety of illuminating perspectives. Among those perspectives are:
The self-knowledge perspectiveWise people have a greater than ordinary understanding of themselves. They are aware of their strengths and weaknesses and have developed "workarounds" to stay out of trouble. Because they have paid attention to how their own minds work, they are better able to understand the mind processes of others.
Laws-of-nature perspectiveWe contemplate doing things in the physical world and ask ourselves: Will this work? What will be the consequences of doing this? In such circumstances an understanding of basic scientific laws can at times lead to better, wiser, decisions.
Laws-of-life perspectivesIf we are observant, we eventually sense some general rules that apply in our relations with other people: Sexual infidelity almost always causes pain for someone. Angry words shut down communication. We rarely adopt other people's lists of dos and don'ts, but if we see these generally applicable truths for ourselves they can help guide our actions.
The system perspectiveThe system perspective on reality is a powerful tool for understanding the world around us. Complexity in the natural world emerges as a hierarchy of natural systems or holons which have the property of being a whole at their own systemic level and a part or component in a system at the next level up the hierarchy. The physical hierarchy of systems moves from subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to crystals and cells, to living organisms, then to ecosystems, the biosphere, the solar system, the galaxy, and the universe. In another branch of this hierarchy, human beings start communicating with each other and give birth to those systems we call societies, economies, and nations.
The evolutionary perspectiveWhat is the universe up to? Where does humanity fit in? Have we become agents of the evolutionary process? Some wise people have developed an understanding of our cosmic and evolutionary contexts and found it helpful to look at the human situation from this "big picture" vantage point.
The complexity-of-causation perspectiveThere is a human tendency to simplify causation. We pick out some dominant element in a situation and call it "The Cause," when in fact there are myriad necessary elements — an entire causal matrix — with roots that go back to the origin of the universe.
Broadened-identity and "oneness" perspectivesAs a person develops psychologically and spiritually, their sense of identity tends to broaden. Their circle of concern and identity widens from me, to us — and for a few, to the entire universe and its underlying ground.
The finiteness-of-life perspectiveTime is the raw material of our life, and a conscious awareness of our eventual death helps us to keep our life on a meaningful track and avoid meaningless, life-wasting detours.
A host of "high-values" perspectivesThe deeply-held values of wise people are vantage points from which to view life situations and the world: Is this just? Is this truthful? Is this caring and compassionate? Etc.
THE ROLE OF VALUES IN WISDOM
Nicholas Maxwell has called wisdom "the capacity to realize what is of value in life for oneself and others."[2] The embracing of "high" or "superior" values is a hallmark of wisdom. High values have two roles in the lives of wise people. First, they provide those illuminating slants on the data of life. Second, they guide the decision-making process toward wiser decisions.
Human decision-making is a largely unconscious process in which a constantly shifting hierarchy of internalized values interacts with a constantly shifting set of perceived circumstances and retrieved memories. Some values, such as survival and reproduction, are hardwired. Other values, and their position in the value hierarchy, are the products of life experience and the influences to which we have been exposed. At any given moment our decisions are made by the combined action of:
The brain-mind process currently in charge
The hierarchy of value priorities that exists at that moment
The perceived nature of the situation calling for a decision
Memories of similar or related situations
Regarding item one, above, there are three distinct brain-mind processes, each having its own hierarchy of values:
The instinctive/reactive process located in the earliest parts of our brain to evolve — the structures of the brain stem and limbic system and their change-resistant programming
The intellectual process: Typically centered in the left hemisphere of the neocortex
The intuitive process: Less clearly understood, but generally associated with the right, nonverbal hemisphere
These processes and their values work together to make our decisions and control our behavior in the same way a computer's hardware and software work together to make the computer's decisions and control its outputs. We can look at the three brain-mind processes as the hardware of our behavioral control system. And the internalized values that each process utilizes constitute the heart of the software.
If you ask a person to list their personal values in order of relative importance, you are likely to get a list with some pretty impressive stuff on it. Yet if we look dispassionately at that person's behavior, it might soon become apparent that their deep-down, internalized, operational values are not the same as their professed values — or at least do not have the stated priority. People always do what seems best, and that "best" is determined by how their hierarchy of internalized values interacts with the brain/mind's assessment of past, present, and anticipated future circumstances. As Nobelist Roger Sperry put it, "Human values...can...be viewed objectively as universal determinants in all human decision making. All decisions boil down to a choice among alternatives of what is most valued, for whatever reasons, and are determined by the particular value system that prevails."[3] Superior values, "the values of the wise," produce superior decisions and superior behavior.
The self-actualizing and ego-transcending people that psychologist Abraham Maslow studied were wise people, and Maslow's reports on their behavior and mindsets tell us much about the nature of wisdom and the values that underlie it. Maslow's self-actualizers focused on concerns outside of themselves; they liked solitude and privacy more than the average person, and they tended to be more detached than ordinary from the dictates and expectations of their culture. They were inner-directed people. They were creative, too, and appreciated the world around them with a sense of awe and wonder. In love relationships they respected the other's individuality and felt joy at the other's successes. They gave more love than most people, and needed less. Central to their lives was a set of values that Maslow called the Being-Values, or B-Values: wholeness, perfection, completion, justice, aliveness, richness, simplicity, beauty, goodness, uniqueness, effortlessness, playfulness, truth, honesty, reality, self-sufficiency.
Wise values express themselves in wise attitudes and wise ways of being and functioning. Among the value-based expressions of wisdom that speak strongly to me are:
Feeling fully responsible for one's life choices and actions
A positive, "let's make the most of it" attitude
A reality-seeking, truth-seeking orientation
A desire to learn, and a feeling of responsibility for one's own learning
A desire to grow, to develop, "to become all I am capable of becoming"
Being attentive: aware of mind events and mental processes as well as what is happening around us
Being creative: producing uniqueness and novelty that has value
Being a two-brain-hemisphere person, with intellect and intuition working together
Being self-disciplined: able to work now for a reward later
Being courageous: able to face dangers and fears with clarity and skill
Being aware of one's own eventual death to the degree that it helps guide one's life
Being able to deal with situations appropriately, using a large repertoire of approaches and techniques. Choosing the approach that best fits each situation: appropriate planning, appropriate timing, appropriate problem-solving, dealing with commitments appropriately, etc.
Being non-reactive: able to deal skillfully with powerful emotions
Being deeply loving, and able to manifest love in appropriate ways
Having a sense of wonder
Being compassionate
Behaving in ways that benefit others
Possessing a deep happiness that is independent of externals
Recognizing that there are limits to personal knowledge and to the ability of our species to know
The world is not divided into wise and unwise people. None of us is perfectly wise or totally unwise. We are wise to the degree that characteristics like those mentioned above are part of us, to the extent that we actually live them. The specific qualities developed will differ in kind and degree from person to person, and this results in each wise person's wisdom having a distinctive character or "flavor."
DEVELOPING WISDOM
The good news is that the acquisition of wisdom is not something we must leave to the whims of fate, as many in the past have assumed. If we want to become wiser people, we can develop the characteristics of wisdom and incorporate them into our lives. The bad news is that we're pretty much on our own in doing that. It would be nice if we lived in a wisdom-fostering culture — one in which every institution was dedicated to helping us become wiser. But we don't. So how do we become wiser people? In short, by
exposing ourselves to wisdom-fostering influences, and by
intentionally practicing, with effort, the behaviors and attitudes that we someday hope to become effortless expressions of our deepest, truest self.
THE ROLE OF INFLUENCES
If we don't like the values we have internalized to date or the particular mental process that is calling the shots, then we must change things. We are surrounded by influences that push us toward ordinary behavior and ordinary ways of thinking. But we need not be prisoners of ordinary; we can shift the balance of influences. We can intentionally increase our exposure to positive influences — influences that promote and reinforce the kind of changes we are trying to make. We can, for instance:
Hang out with people who are already living the values we'd like to make our own. Where do we find such people? Groups that focus on personal growth and doing good in the world are a likely bet. Among these are some open-minded, non-doctrinaire religious groups such as Unitarians, Quakers, and Buddhists. Local and online discussion and activist groups are another possibility. Some of these focus on psychological or spiritual growth. Others focus on various social issues. We can experiment, and when we find a group that feels right, get involved.
Find out more about the nature and development of wisdom. As a starting point you might want to visit The Wisdom Page, "a compilation of wisdom-related resources" (A link to it appears with the author information at the end of this article.)
Read biographies of exceptional people. Your local library has many of these, and your librarian would be pleased to suggest some good ones.
Learn from the experiences of others. People all around us are struggling to up level their lives — some skillfully and successfully, others very unskillfully and unsuccessfully. The world's literature, and movies too, present us with countless additional life stories. What can we learn from them? Can we pick out the strategies and behaviors that work and those that don't? Can we start to sense some general "laws of life" behind the specifics?
Be open to wise sayings that energize and motivate. Twice in my life sets of words have resonated so deeply with me that they initiated significant life changes. The first of these was a statement by Etienne de Grellet, a 19th-century Quaker, that I encountered as a university student:
"I shall pass through this world but once. If, therefore, there is any good thing I can do or any kindness I can show, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."
The second turning point, a decision to pursue my own psychological/spiritual development, was triggered by the words "become all you're capable of becoming" at a corporate seminar on Abraham Maslow's theory of motivation.
There was also a third set of words. It didn't change my life direction, but confirmed and clarified it. It is Goethe's admonition to "Go and dare before you die."
THE ROLE OF PRACTICE
Becoming clear about the values we would like at the center of our lives — the values we want to make truly our own in a deep and powerful way — is the first step. The next challenge is to move these values from our head to our heart and our guts. In psychological terms, we must internalize them so they are not merely nice thoughts, but actually guide our behavior. Doing this takes effort, and during one of his trips to North America the Dalai Lama gave an example of what we need to do. He spoke to an audience about the need for everyone to internalize that key value of wisdom, compassion. His advice to those who wanted to develop compassion was to put themselves in challenging situations and then, despite the natural reluctance to do so, behave compassionately. By making the effort to engage in value-based action — again, and again, and again — we eventually internalize the value. Expressing the value in action gradually takes less and less effort until it becomes part of our outlook, part of our natural way of being, part of who we are.
Becoming a wiser person is an exercise in inner development, and there are activities that can help us along the way. Counseling and other forms of psychotherapy can, if needed, help us reach the starting point for advanced work which we might call responsible adulthood or mature ego. A person at this stage is free of psychoses and crippling neuroses and has developed emotional control and empathy to an ordinary degree. To help us move beyond this stage we need other resources. Many people start with writings that discuss the farther reaches of human development. The writings, in turn, lead us to do-it-yourself practices: mind-quieting practices, self-knowledge practices, ego-transcending practices, and oneness-realization practices.
It is widely recognized that the fast track to self-knowledge and other important aspects of wisdom is meditation — particularly the kind devoted to exploring the mind/body process, variously called mindfulness, vipassana, or insight meditation.
WISDOM ON A LARGER SCALE
This essay has focused on what I call life-centered wisdom — the wisdom that results in a happier, more productive personal life and more harmonious interpersonal relations. But there is also the big chaotic world out there that needs all the wise guidance it can get. I have written elsewhere about a variation on the wisdom theme that strikes me as particularly suited to the initiation of wise action in the political, economic, and biospheric arenas. I have called it deep understanding. In short, it involves coupling the wisdom development process just described with the acquisition of intellectual knowledge relevant to the world problematique. To come to grips with the major scientific, social, and economic issues that bear on the present world situation, we must all become more holistic knowers. The way I see it, we can deal effectively with humanity's problems only if we have a deep and comprehensive understanding of the context in which those problems are set. This includes knowledge of the systemic nature of the cosmos, the evolutionary process in its most general sense, consciousness, human cultures, economic systems, and some of the more important principles, laws, and regularities that underlie functioning in all these areas.
If this broader application of wisdom piques your interest, you might want to visit The Wisdom Page. You will find there a compilation of wisdom-related resources — various on-line texts concerning wisdom, references to books about wisdom, information about organizations that promote wisdom, wise activities, and listserv groups concerned with aspects of wisdom. (A clickable link to the site appears with the author information below.)
References
[1] From LANDSCAPE, Vol. 25, No. 1, Jan 1981
[2] From Nicholas Maxwell's book Is Science Neurotic?, London: Imperial College Press, 2004, p. 119
[3] From Roger Sperry's article "Bridging science and values: A unifying view of mind and brain," American Psychologist, April, 1977, p. 237
About the Author:
Copthorne Macdonald is a writer and independent scholar. His interests include the nature of reality (including consciousness and mind) and the development of wisdom. He has written extensively in these areas, and his published writing to date includes 8 books (3 on the subject of wisdom) and over 130 shorter pieces. Since 1995 he has tended The Wisdom Page — a website devoted to wisdom resources.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Playing the Wisdom Game
Activate Your Intuition: Creating Sacred Space to Unleash Your Inner Wisdom
Author: Laura Alden Kamm
It can be said that wisdom is a combination of knowledge, experience, and understanding of life as you know it. Within this wisdom you can access striations of compassion, patience, appreciation, and grace. You naturally feel compassion if a friend’s pet dies if you have experienced that sadness, too. You have tolerance for an elderly man who shuffles across the intersection; though he may keep you from making that all important left-hand turn, as perhaps you have had shuffling parents. Once, on a cross country flight, a seasoned flight attendant commented to me, “If you can sit up and take fluids, it’s a good day!” She knows. She has wisdom. Wisdom highlights the common threads of our humanity.
Your acquired, life-seasoned wisdom is certainly born from these three components—knowledge, experience, and understanding. Yet, you have a deeper wisdom. It lies at such a depth that when it suddenly emerges it can stun or shock you. This wisdom sparks you to say, “Where did that come from?” Now, you’re really speaking from that place of inner wisdom; the variety of which is the deepest treasure you hold. It is the sum of your soul’s knowledge, experience, and understanding, marbled with the lessons learned from this life. This level of wisdom is delivered by your inner voice, your intuition. It is the voice of the eternal you; and you have access to it at any moment, 24/7. With it, you can solve all manner of problems.
So how do you access and activate your inner oracle, guru and self-contained life coach? We have all experienced it popping to the surface when it is needed by either ourselves or a loved one. But is that all we get? Don’t get me wrong, it’s wonderful when we receive or can pass on impromptu wisdom. However, can we create on-demand wisdom? The answer is yes!
To create on-demand, repeatable, and accurate wisdom you need to be willing to put in some practice time in order build your intuitive skill. Yes, we all have soulful wisdom; the hard part is accessing it, trusting it, and managing the skill that brings it forward. Enlightenment is easy, maintaining it is difficult. When we hold a new way of thinking, especially one that we believe will make our life easier, clearer and more gratifying, we tend to become impatient. Impatience is the antithesis of inner wisdom. You have to give yourself, and your inner wisdom, space and patience in order for it to become accessible and at your beck and call.
One key to strengthening your inner wisdom and intuitive voice is to create an environment in which you can meditate, visualize, and pray. This always plays a crucial role in the efficacy of your practice. Later on, as your intuition and spiritual nature develops and seasons, you will be able to stay calm and centered even in the most distracting situations and environments. It is best to have a sacred space in your own home in which to practice. Creating this type of space in your home will lead to a calmness and centeredness in your being and in your life, no matter where life takes you.
Your sacred space does not have to consist of an entire room or wing of the house; it can be simply a tabletop in your favorite room. Creating sacred space in your bedroom is always nice because as you enter sleep and the dream state, you already have a wonderful energy of consciousness surrounding you. Your consciousness is highly suggestible when you are in the sleep state, so why not be the one who creates the space in which your consciousness rests?
If you are really crowded for space, or housemates don’t understand or resonate with your spiritual quest, you don’t have to create a permanent sacred place. What truly matters is what resides in your own heart space—although having a sacred space in your home can lift you out of the occasional shadowed corner of the human experience and assist you through the periodic darkened night of the soul.
If space is limited or there are other constraints, you can create a portable altar. Simply take a small piece of cloth—a square foot works well—and set your sacred items on top of it to create a spiritual space. When you are not engaged in a sacred practice, you can simply wrap up your items and store them in the cloth. Place the bundle in a dresser drawer or a box when not in use. When you are ready to meditate, pray, or do whatever practice you use to enhance your spiritual growth, place your altar items reverently on the cloth before you begin. When you are finished, thank and bless the items for their assistance, gently wrap them back up in the cloth, and put them away.
What things might you put on your altar? A good foundation is important, so it is nice to have a decorative piece of fabric or cloth upon which to set your items. It is preferable to select something made of a natural or organic fabric such as cotton or silk. This type of cloth is easily available and comes in a wide variety of colors and patterns.
Items that you set upon your altar should have significant meaning for you; they need to touch your soul. You might want to have a bouquet of fresh flowers, or, if space is limited, even a single flower. Items such as rocks, crystals, fossils, or feathers that you have found or purchased from an interesting place add grounded earth energy.
You can place any size picture of a loved one or of an exalted master that touches you on your altar. Pictures of masters such as Jesus, Mary, Lord Buddha, Hindu gods or goddesses, Saints from any religion, a cherished guru (teacher), or pictures of indigenous guides and symbols are all appropriate. After all, this is your sacred space and your altar should bring to it the energies and levels of consciousness that are meaningful to you. Furthermore, having such masters present will help you stay focused on whatever level of consciousness you would like to resonate with and therefore achieve. When you sit quietly, pray or meditation you are invoking the connection to your soul’s consciousness through the vehicle of your intuition.
It is also important to know that your sacred space, whether it is contained within a drawer, sits upon a tabletop or is spread throughout your living space, will most likely change as you change. As your spirit grows and soars, the demonstration of how you express your spirit and spirituality will change accordingly. All things are impermanent. Think of the beautiful and meaningful sand paintings of the Native Americans, or of the colorful sand mandalas of the Tibetan Buddhists. They are sacred spaces filled with holy artistic meanings, created to evoke energies and certain levels of consciousness for particular events. These beautiful creations are used for worship in their cultural context, and then destroyed, releasing the spirit and displaying a nonattachment to form.
As you begin the journey to discover the power and intelligence of your intuition, it is best to have a quiet, sacred space to which you can retreat. Your spiritual and emotional intelligence will open, evolve and you will experience the world in a different way. A way that involves the use of your intuition, spiritual knowing and healing abilities. Your intuition, your inner wisdom, is your soul’s consciousness. Your willingness to create a sacred space in your living room, confirms your willingness to create emotional and spiritual space in your heart and in your life. Your personality helps shape this space. It doesn’t have to look like a hilltop monastery or the Vatican. Allow it to reflect what exists deep within you.
It is totally up to you to choose to listen and respond to your wisdom. Your intuitive wisdom is a powerful tool that you can sharpen and hone to the point that you can rely on it in the context of your daily life. The decision to open to and trust what you intuitively receive is entirely yours. My prayer is that you will take this simple tool, one with which you were born, and work with it, develop it and commit to its use. If you do, you will have clarity, purposeful direction and your life will change.
About the Author:Laura Alden Kamm is a medical intuitive, spiritual teacher, wisdom expert, and the author. Doctors have described Laura as “a walking MRI” for the remarkable accuracy of her intuition. Laura has treated over 17,000 individual clients, trains corporate executives in Innovative Problem Solving, and has taught hundreds of classes, speaking to packed houses throughout the world. www.energymedicine.org
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Activate Your Intuition: Creating Sacred Space to Unleash Your Inner Wisdom
Way to Wisdom –is There a True Realization?
Author: Arjunvasan AmbigapathyPreface – one choice; true realization; wisdom of mind
Is it there or not, a wisdom to choose where you want to go. We often leave the choice of deciding our destiny to others. This so called “others” may be god, a leader, a successful personality etc.
Its hard time we imagine how they got their wisdom, is it through a follow made or a choice by own.
With thoughts that flow with this article I wish you will take time to reconsider the wisdom of your choice will in a way might yield a clear way to your destiny.
A Choice – Who makes them in relationship?
From the morning wakeup call everyday our life spins around a group of characters; they may be your fellow mates, colleagues, boss, mentor whatever you call them may be. We depend on them for our living, well being etc.
Something very special to be observed in this type of relationships is that they most often depend on us for their life affairs too; such interdependency may be advantageous or may fail in some circumstances. Relationships can be sometimes abstract like a friend in travel or event may be, but most often the friendship we make is basically for a dependency. Most often we can come to a conclusion that we make relationships when we expect something from them. And so it now becomes a basic choice made by our mind, a tendency that came along with us in this wonderful process of evolution.
The science behind making choice –
Today we have a slim, compact, but powerful iMac PC’s but not to forget the evolution of science from the past. Every invention, discovery in science till the research done in nanophotonics today has always been done with an expectation we had on our results. Whatever we do we do it for some consequence, positive or not but some result.
This is that point where the concept of making a choice arises. Nothing has stopped Einstein from deriving E=mC2, nothing has stopped Newton from formulating gravity theory, but it has been their choices that made them accomplish results. It is their own choices irrespective of what the results might yield.
And surprisingly what we see today in our school science curriculum is the formula framed a long time ago by a school dropout. Einstein made his decision (choice) independently, when he didn’t depend on the words of his teacher or so, but was his innate potential that pulled him out of the usual track and has hailed him in the scientific history as a hero. Surprisingly if we note some of the extraordinary people who lived and are still living in this world, we could note something in common (though no facts). And it is this independent thinking they made in their life.
Mostly the people whom we approach for a solution might have experienced the same problem or a different one. They might have had the same type of situation or a different one when they solved the problem. Hence we cannot make it a point that these people can offer us a better choice in selecting a solution for our problem. They might sometimes solve our problem or may not. As an abstract context we can say Einstein hailed as scientific hero, while other failures might blame them or someone around them for their problem.
One wisdom – One mind
It has always been a choice in our life; every second we proceed in our life has a choice in it. But we humans most often depend on this choice on something or the other. As an example I can say we depend on animals for meat, vegetables for food, him /her for a relationship etc. Our choice now depends indirectly on some other person.
And at this point I raise a question if there is a real wisdom in our life?...
Anyway our choice is being decided by someone around us, then how can there be a real wisdom in life. It is the choice that has created whole lot of activities around this world.
Wisdom – a choice of GOD
At this point of making choices, we mostly put our dependency on GOD. However the concept of existence of GOD has always been a mystery. Lot of people from the past are seeking a true meaning for this one realization (realizing GOD). This realization is the wisdom man has been longing for ages. Wisdom of choice in life, what Buddha made as sage after being a king and others. They all were seeking this one realization”a true wisdom of choice”.
However if we agree these characters had achieved wisdom in their lives, our choice of living has always been dependant. Hence in my opinion I would say wisdom is something that we take it into account. And this one realization in never a prescribed one, but is only in the mind of the person who thinks in himself he has achieved the “WISDOM of true Realization in life”.
“Wisdom in our lives has never been a matter of choice but is a matter of the mind that makes it”.
Not so much....am a amateur but have passion to develop skill...I would love to receive comments from readers if i hope am lucky...
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Way to Wisdom –is There a True Realization?
Intelligence - Wisdom - Knowledge
Author: manoharan thomasINTELLIGENCE - WISDOM - KNOWLEDGE
INTELLIGENCE, WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE are necessary for our survival. Intelligence is the ability to learn, understand and think in a logical way about things; Wisdom is the ability to make sensible decisions and give good advice because of the experience and knowledge that we have. Knowledge is the information, understanding and skills that we gain through education or experience. Simply read the following verses several times. Meditate on them. Then pour out your feelings by praising God. Fortune smiles on you. Success is yours. Be an optimist!
Get wisdom! Get understanding - Proverbs 4:5
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding. - Proverbs 4:7
How much better it is to get wisdom than gold! And to get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver. ….. wisdom brings success. - Ecclesiastes 10:10
Happy is the man who finds wisdom, and the man who gains understandi - Proverbs 3:12
Understanding is a wellspring of life to him who has it - Proverbs 16:22
For wisdom is a defense as money is a defense. But the excellence of knowledge is that wisdom gives life to those who have it. - Ecce. 7:12
The heart of him who has understanding seeks knowledge.
- Proverbs 15:14
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. - Psalm 111:10
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
Proverbs 1:7
Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.- Job 28:28
…. the Lord gives wisdom. From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.- Proverbs 2:6
The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom.
- Proverbs 15:33
Even a fool is counted wise when he holds peace.
When he shuts his lips, he is considered perceptive.
Proverbs 17:27,28
Great is our Lord and mighty in power. His understanding is infinite.- Psalm 147:5
God gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight –Ecclesiastes 2:26
He gives wisdom to the wise, and knowledge to those who have understanding - Daniel 2:21
…. in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.- Colossians 2:3
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him. - James 1:5
…. give to your servant an understanding heart. - I Kings 3:9
…. give me wisdom and knowledge. - II Chronicles 1:10
Teach me good judgment and knowledge. - Psalm 119:66
Behold, I have done according to your words, see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you. - I Kings 3:12
You, through your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies.- Psalm 119:98
The Lord God has given Me the tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens me morning by morning. He awakens my ear to hear as the learned. - Isaiah 50:4
Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times. - Isaiah 33:6
e-mail: Thomas_naz@yahoo.co.in
About the Author:
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Intelligence - Wisdom - Knowledge