Do You Question Your Status-Quo?Money loves change. Your comfort-zone is dangerous to your personal growth, improvement and success. Enlarge it. Do You Question Your Status-Quo?Speed Reading Rules Why do 60% of folks view movies they have already seen, once, twice, three-times? We remember our positive emotions, and want to repeat them. We know we will enjoy it. A new movie is an unknown quantity, right? Nostalgia is betting on a sure thing. Millions are buying copies of Jackson's recordings today, to remind themselves why they liked him in the first place. Your Inner Child wants to hear the same stories, true? Evolution favors the status-quo (< L the-state-in-which) because of our need to survive to continue our species. Anything that has survival value (it worked in the past) must be safeguarded. Yogi said, Don't fix what aint broken Change Your comfort-zone (status-quo) conditions you to follow the known path, and fear change and 99% of what is new. Webster's has the word, Misoneism meaning ? hatred, fear of the new or what represents change. Evelyn Wood (creator of speed reading) coined a word for fear of innovation - called Mutaphobia. It combines Mutate (change) + Phobia (fear). She used it to explain the universal hatred by teachers and school administrators of introducing anything new in reading. Some things just do not change. So What Money favors change. We celebrate innovative approaches to make our lives better. Profits are never guaranteed by doing 'same-old, same-old'; companies are always a work-in-progress. If you are not learning, you are moving backward because the world in always changing its requirements and desires. Companies want executives who are improving and adding to their personal productivity. What makes you better today than you were last year? Are you still competitive? Human Resources Departments are constantly searching their records for executives earning over $150K they can replace with a new-hire for $50K, and who will be more productive. Confirmation Bias Don't we view news shows that agree with what we already believe? Republicans and conservatives watch Fox Network, while Democrats and liberals choose CNBC, and Public (non-profit) channels. We like to know what we are getting, before we waste our time on seeing what we will disagree with. Why? It emotionally annoys us to have our Comfort-Zone (status-quo, homeostasis) rocked by obviously stupid-arguments that contradict our long held beliefs. 70% of The Time We are resistant to new points of view 60-75% of the time. Who says? Recent (July 3, 2009) research using 8,000 participants, and reviewed by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and published in Psychological Bulletin. Results: Professor Dolores Albarracin, lead author says: two-thirds of the time, we choose information that supports our point-of-view, and actively avoid reports that contradict what we support and believe. Conformity We choose friends, newspapers, and media that support our politics, economic views, religion, and moral/ethical views. We surround ourselves with like-minded folks, not contrarians. Here it comes: we are not too crazy (passionate) about information that proves we are wrong, even when it is well-documented. We are not truth-seekers, but confirmation of our comfort-zone, seekers. Exceptions The Pareto Rule (80/20 law) was popularized by Joseph M. Juran, American economist in the 1920s. It was the discovery of Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto, who proved that 80% of the assets of his entire country was owned by 20% of the population. In the US in 2009, the 80/20 still is a fact of economics. The 80/20 law also holds that 80% of a company's profits come from 20% of its clients. Rule-of-Thumb: 20% of your executives produce 80% of the pragmatic ideas for improvement. Is this a contradiction of your most cherished beliefs? Disruption Folks who are confident of their own beliefs, based on experience and researched knowledge, are more willing to listen to contradictions to their comfort-zone. In order to learn and improve we must overcome our emotional need to be right. Fear of rejection, failure, and criticism prevent us from changing and limits our ability to learn. We must actively choose to disrupt our comfort-zone (status-quo) before we can make new discoveries. When was the last time something you heard or read something in your field that rocked your world? Game Changer In tough economic times, companies seek out money-saving, time-saving, and labor-saving solutions for greater profitability. Maybe just to survive. Only people who can disrupt their emotional fear of change and newness, break out of their comfort-zone are capable of innovation. How Actively choose new and different expert opinions you would not ordinarily read or hear. You can analyze ? synthesize ? summarize other points of view for new ideas for improvements. The result will enhance your point-of-view, and produce more creativity for change. Hold your emotions to the fire by using your Prefrontal Cortex, reason and analysis, to hijack your Amygdale (emotions) into your Comfort-Zone. Endwords Would it help your personal competitiveness to read and remember three (3) books, articles and reports in the time your peers can hardly finish one? Ask us how. We want to save what makes our life better and easier, and change what can be improved. Lifelong learners win 80% of the promotions, even though they are 20% of the population. How? Do Thought Experiments and then implement the good ideas. Speed Reading rules. See ya, copyright © 2009 H. Bernard Wechsler www.speedlearning.org hbw@speedlearning.org 1-877-567-2500 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author of Speed reading for Professionals, published by Barron's, |
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