Becoming as master in anything can be a daunting task. However, as always, if you have a system, there is an almost sure way of getting there. One of the first step to take on your journey to becoming a master (read competent) in anything you do, is to understand the 4 levels of competence, a concept popularised by Tom Hopkins, the Sales Guru. Understanding the path ahead can allow a budding market master to plan his or her development path in a more realistic manner, while at the same time helping to reduce the risk of developing unrealistic expectations.

According to Tom Hopkins, the world-famous sales trainer, the 4 levels of competence (which originated from the work of Maslow) are as follows :

1. Unconscious Incompetence
2. Conscious Incompetence
3. Conscious Competence
4. Unconscious Competence.

Here is a description of each stage of competence everyone has to go through in the journey to become a Master of anything.

1. Unconscious Incompetence

Unconscious incompetents are people who do not know what they do not know. This is the stage of a raw beginner.

A good analogy of this could be little kid living in the farmland of a remote village in China. He watches his parents toil all day using their hands and the help of animals. He has never seen a motor vehicle and don’t know that they exists. He doesn’t know that motor vehicles such as cars and tractors can do the job much better than animals can and as such, as he grows up, he continues to depend on these farm animals to help him do his job. He does not know what he does not know and as such progresses no further.

Many of us go through this stage when we first learn anything. We don’t know what we don’t know!

2. Conscious Incompetence

Conscious incompetents know that they do not know. According to Hopkins, this is where they think to themselves “this is nothing like I thought it would be”. This is arguably the most frustrating stage in the life of master-to-be but yet, it is also one of the most important step he needs to go through. It is only when you know what you don’t know, can you really start your journey to being a master!

Take the case of the boy above. As he grows up, he makes his first trip to city with his parents. This is his first experience seeing cars on the roads. His inquisitive mind starts to whirl and imagine how he can control these motor vehicles like he’s seen people in the city doing it. He now knows there is such a thing as motor vehicles and vows to learn how to drive one of these vehicles. He now knows there is such a thing as motor vehicles and knowing this allows him to take his first step towards learning to master one of the machines.

3. Conscious Competence

Conscious competents know what to do, as long as they think.

Again let’s take the analogy of this boy. He’s now grown up and he made his move to the city. He scrapes together enough money to learn how to drive a car. He know knows how to drive a car but each time he drives a car on the road, he needs to think of what to do each time. When he comes to a junction, he needs to remember to flip his signals. When he sees a traffic light that is turning red, he must remember to slow down and change down his gears and depress his clutch and brakes at the lights so that the vehicle don’t stall. He’s in a stage of Conscious Competence. He knows how to drive a car, but he has to concentrate hard to make sure he takes all the right steps in the right sequence.

4. Unconscious Competence

Unconscious competents are highly trained and highly skilled people.

Again using the analogy above. This man now owns and drives a car for some time now. He is comfortable now and can chat and talk to his passengers when he drives. He does not need to think as hard as his actions now come naturally to him. He reflexes are now instintive. The moment he steps on the brakes and his car slows down to a certain speed, he left leg automatically depresses the clutch just at the right instant to prevent the car from stalling. He is now in a state of Unconscious Competence as far as casual driving is concerned.

Does the above sound familiar to you? Was it the same the first time you learn to swim? As a kid who’s never been to a swimming pool, you never knew that a person could learn to swim(unconscious incompetence). Then comes your first trip to the pool, and you realised that people can actually swim and swim fast too(conscious incompetence). Then you decide that you have to learn and once you have learned to swim, you know exactly what to do but you still to concentrate on each action. If you lose concentration, you start to struggle and choke but you know that if you maintain your concentration, you can conquer your fear of water and get to the other side of the pool safely (conscious competence). Then after some months, you can swim really well. You can even play with your buddies while swimming and sometimes you can even talk to them if your head is above water. You no longer have to think to stay afloat (unconscious competence).

Experts say there is another level. The level of Conscious-Unconscious Competence. You see, to most people who have mastered the art of something, such as cycling or swimming, they do not know who to teach it. If you ask them how they do it, they will have a hard time answering your question because their reflexes has become so instinctive to them that they do not know how to describe it.

However, true masters also know how to teach their art. When you become a true master, you analyse what made you successful and come up with the system to teach others to be successful. You are Conscious of your Unconscious Competence… and this is the stage of a true master!

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I was out for lunch at the Simpang Bedok Food Center a few days ago when I spotted this big sign put up by a local drink seller. I find it rather inspiring to see even local food seller capitalising on the recent Silver Medal performance of the Singapore Table Tennis Team. It was Singapore’s first Silver Medal after 48 years and certainly a cause for celebration!

Sure, they don’t use any high tech marketing techniques but a simple hand written sign will do the job equally well… certainly better than no promotion at all. What’s more, the sign is written in both English and Chinese. OK the English wasn’t that great (”Celebrate Offer”???) but what the heck, I’m sure it works!

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Get Rich Fast schemes always sell, don’t they? People have always been taken in by such “Get Rich” schemes on the market, but how much of these are really true? In my opinion, almost none, I am afraid. There are only a few ways to really get rich fast and here they are :

1. Strike it Rich! - OK, this is not only limited to lottery. It could include Jackpot machines, Casinos etc… and one word describe this way of getting rich; “Gambling”! It’s a once in a lifetime chance and even if you make it, chances are you’re going to lose it and you probably cannot repeat it. Statistics show that people who get rich quick through gambling seldom are able to hold their wealth for more than 5 years.
2. Marry into Riches - Find someone rich and marry him or her. Self explanatory.
3. Stumble onto Riches - This one is just pure luck. You can walk on the streets and pick up a million dollars. Or you could have a rich relative die and decided to leave all his riches to you, but the probabilities are really really slim, so don’t bet on it.

So, other than the above, the only way to become rich is to work hard and smart at it. Here, I’d like to share an article in the local papers recently about all these courses advertised in the papers about “making fast money”!

Companies and individuals are charging up to S$4k and more for some of these get rich classes. Most of these are trading classes, focusing on Options, Forex and more recently Eminis. They tout the high leverage and ease of making money but as with all things, high rewards always comes with high risk.

Some of these promise low investments, as low as US$500.

Personally, I have attended some of these course. While they are not all bad courses, and you do learn a lot cramped into the 2,3 or 4 days the courses are held. Some spend alot of time focusing on just one major strategy without teaching you the rest. Getting into the market with one strategy is certainly no way to make it big.

For example, one of the course I took focus on only Options Gapping strategy.

On strategy these courses use to make you part with your hard earned money is that they set a time limit for signing up at a special discount. They will tell you that if you sign up today, you get a 30% discount and if you walk out, and come back, you’ll have to pay the full price. Well, I’ve learned that this is just nothing but a hard sell sales strategy. If you call them a week later, believe me, they’ll still offer you the same price. Afterall, their costs are fixed, so why not have additional revenue… There was even a course that sells the fact that you will get this and that as free gifts if you are the first ten to sign up. Then I realised that everyone gets them.

Are there good courses out there that do not make such wild “Get Rich Fast” and other unscrupulous claims? Yes, I am sure there are! In fact, I’ve personally experienced some of them. Some time later, I may write a review of these courses I took, just so others may get a good feel of what to expect when they want to sign up. Meanwhile, keep a tight hold on your hard earned cash… they are hard to come by, so invest and spend them wisely!

Cheers!

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It’s been often said that public speaking is the number one fear of most people, even more so than death! However, we all know that it is a skill worth polishing up because it’s the single most important skill which will bring you to the top of the corporate ladder. Have you ever met someone outrageously successful without this ability to speak well in public? I bet not.So if you intend to be successful, this would possibly be the most important skill to learn. But where do you start?

Well, most of us get our first taste of public speaking quite early in our working life, either doing some form of training, sales or product presentation. And this would be a great place to start polishing your speaking skills because this is possibly one of the easiest areas of public speaking. Why? Because you usually have a captive audience and the objectives of the presentation are usually very clear. In fact, knowing your audience and the objectives of the presentation is the most important first step to making a great presentation. Many of us start presenting from a set of “canned” powerpoint slides without first finding out who the audience is, what they want to hear and what you are trying to achieve.

Here are some simple steps to identifying these.I’ve made them easy to remember by starting most of them with the letter “P”.

The first thing to remember is that there are 3 steps to a great presentation. They are as follows :

1. Prepare
2. Practice
3. Presentation

Obviously, of the 3 steps, the Presentation phase is the most important. There are obviously people who can do a great presenation with minimal preparation and practice. However, we know that the majority of us are also not in this category and as such, the first two steps of Preparation and Practice are equally important. So, where do we start the preparation?

The first step to preparation is to know the 4 P’s of presentation. These are as follows :

1. People - Know who you are presenting to. This is important because different people have different expectations. For example, presenting a new product to a group of engineers is different to presenting a new product to the senior management of a company. For the engineers, they are interested in technical specifications, features and benefits while the senior management will probably be looking at Return-on-Investments, profitability etc…
2. Place - Knowing the place where the presentation takes place will help you prepare the right kind of Audio-visual aids. Why prepare powerpoint slides when the room you are presenting at does not have a projector?
3. Point - The point of the presentation keeps you in focus. Too often, we stray from the point of the presentation or meeting as the participants starts to ask questions. So, if the point of the presentation is to introduce a new product to the audience, keep at it.
4. Purpose - This answers what you would like to achieve at the end of the presentation. Would you like the audience to walk away with new knowledge, or do you want them to go back to their purchase department to immediately put up a purchase requisition for your product?

What’s important about knowing the 4 P’s of the presentation? Knowing the 4 P’s allow you to prepare the right presentation aids to be effective so that you can achieve your purpose at the end of the presentation.

Now that you know your 4 P’s, what kind of presentation should you prepare. In essence, all presentation can be divided into 3 major types as follows :

1. Persuade or Convince - This is the typical sales pitch designed to persuade or convince an audience with the ultimate objective of wanting them to take a particular action. In a typical sales pitch, you want your audience to be so convinced that they will part with their money for your product. If you were convincing an audience in an election speech, you would want them to vote for you. In some cases, a presentation to convince may not necessarily lead to an action. If you are presenting your company’s performance to the board of directors, you may just want to convince them that you are doing a good job, without them having to take any particular action.
2. Inform or Teach - Another common presentation type is when you are trying to impart knowledge ie to teach or inform. In theory, there are only one group of people who should really be doing a presentaton to inform or teach… Teachers! Many times, we may be doing a product training thinking that this is a presentation to inform or teach but in commercial product presentation, there is a big part of convincing and persuading built into every product training. The Product people have to convince the trainees to sell their product!
3. Ceremonial - Many times, you come across a presentation which does not seem to achieve any of the first two. For example, if you were the guest-of-honour at the opening of the public library. You have to deliver a speech or a presentation which is purely ceremonial in nature. You’re not necessarily convincing anyone or persuading them to action. Neither are you teaching or informing them of anything in particular.Such would be an example of a Ceremonial Presentation type.

An easy way to remember the 3 different types of presentation is with the acronym, P-I-C representing Persuade/Convince, Inform/Teach and Ceremonial.

Once you have decided on the above, you are ready to prepare your presentation in a way to that will achieve your purpose with maximum impact!

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In Part One, we saw how we can use Mind Power to rid ourselves off negative thoughts that plague us daily. Once we are able to do this consistently, we should proceed further to see how we can continue to use Mind Power to further excel in what we do.

Now that we’ve quickly learn to rid ourselves of negative thoughts, how do we get into the habit of planting positive thoughts into our mind consistently and improve and excel in everything we do? Taking the “garden” analogy again, if we want a garden full of flowers, we have to sow flower seeds! The same concept applies in using mind power. There are 3 techniques we can use to excel in what we do.

1. Seeding – When a farmer wants a crop of corns, he sows corn seeds. It is no wonder that this first technique is called “Seeding”. Seeding involves “planting” the mind with seeds of success. This means seeing ourselves as having already won the race to succeed in whatever we aim to do. Let’s say we want to be very successful in our job and career. We must consistently visualize ourselves being in this position, sitting in the office of our choice and in the position of success. We must be able to feel the positive “vibrations” of this success. There are two keys to the success of seeding :

a. It must be done consistently and regularly

b. Seed the thought as if you already have it

2. Visualization – This technique is particularly useful in improving physical activities. In the book Psyco-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, he mentioned an experiment done by scientists with regard to visualization. Three groups of people were selected randomly and their scores at shooting basketballs were then collected. The three groups were then told to do the following :

a. Group 1 – This group was to come to the gym and practice shooting baskets for half an hour each day for a whole month.

b. Group 2 – This group was to do nothing with regard to shooting basketballs.

c. Group 3 – This group was to come to the gym but instead of shooting baskets, they were told to just visualize shooting baskets successfully in their mind only. This was done for half an hour each day for a full month.

At the end of one month, the results were taken again. Not surprisingly, Group 1 showed an overall 25% improvement in their score and Group 2 showed no significant change in their score at all. What is really interesting and surprising was that Group 3 also showed a 25% improvement in their score.

So if you want to improve your golf swing, you can visualize the perfect swing in your mind, picturing your swing in full detail, in slow motion to the moment it makes contact with the ball, sending it flying 100m in the exact direction you want it to go. Do this for 10-15mins every day and you’ll soon see an improvement in your golf swing. I know that many great speakers use the visualization technique to psyche themselves up before delivering a great speech!

3. Affirmations – Affirmations are short statements you say to yourself continuously for a period of time on a regular basis. Affirmations works best when you are performing an activity, so that distractions are at a minimum. I have found that it works best for me when I am jogging. During the activity, you can constantly say to yourself, “Every and every way, I am feeling stronger!” and keep repeating this for at least 5 minutes or more. Affirmations are also called incantations. You need not say them out loud, and most of the time they are repeated just under the breath.

Three interesting characteristics of Affirmations are :

a. They must be Short – It should preferably be a sentence of no more than 10 words

b. They must be Positive – The mind works by visualizing what you think and say. For this reason, affirmations should never be in the negative. For example, you should not say, “I will not mess up my interview” as the mind will visualize you “messing up” your interview. Instead, you should be saying, “It will be a great interview!”.

c. You need not Believe it – Contrary to what most people think, you need not believe in your affirmations. In fact, if you truly believe in your affirmations, you don’t really need them anymore. Affirmations works best when you don’t have something and want it. For example, if you are always feeling lethargic, you can have an affirmation like, “I have unlimited energy!”

Mind Power is more powerful than most people think it to be. It is more than just positive thinking. It has to do with a lot more than just thinking positive. It has to do with actually feeling the vibrations of positive energy related to the thought because that’s what everything is all about; vibrations!

Try Mind Power today and make it work for you!

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This is the first of a two part series on Mind Power. Everything we do in life begins with a thought. A good and positive thought brings out a good action while the reverse is also true. It is said that most of us use only about 10% of our brain and look at where we are today. Imagine if all of us could put 100% of the mind into use for a common good!

“You are what you think!”. “If you think you’ve lost, you’ve lost!”. We’ve all heard these phrases and similar ones before. But how true are these in real life. Well, it’s as true as it can get. Our thoughts control our life! It’s all about how and what you think. Some time back, I remember coming across this saying that made a lot of sense to me (I think it was from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) :

Sow a Thought, Reap an Action!
Sow an Action, Reap a Habit!
Sow a Habit, Reap a Character!
Sow a Character, Reap a Destiny!

How true! Our thoughts lead us to take certain actions in life. Positive thoughts lead us to take positive action. Negative thoughts lead us to take negative actions or prevent us from taking positive action. If we take an action often enough, it becomes a habit. Experts say that if you continue to do the same thing for at least 21 days, it becomes ingrained in you and becomes a habit. If you practice a series of habits, it becomes a character that people associate you with and this will lead to your destiny!

So how do we use Mind Power to our advantage? Well, first we have to understand that the mind is like a garden and negative thoughts are like weeds. If we want a garden full of nice beautiful flowers, we first have to get rids of the weeds and then sow flower seeds. As the flowers grow, weeds will come again and so, weeding is a continual process. The mind is the same! If we want to sow beautiful and positive thoughts that result in positive and result-orientated action, we must sow beautiful thoughts into our mind. We must also recognise the negative thoughts when they do occur (and they do, always!) and weed them out immediately. The trouble with most negative people today, is that they are sowing negative thoughts without even knowing it (and sometimes even enjoying it from all the attention they are getting!)

Understanding this analogy, we can see that using Mind Power is a two step process. The first step is to rid yourself off negative thoughts. This step is especially important for individuals who have a tendency to go into negative thoughts. This first step is extremely crucial for success in Mind Power. We’re surrounded by negative people. Sometimes the people closest to use are the negative ones.

Once you have acquired the skills of eliminating negative thoughts on a regular basis, the second step is learn how to train your mind to think positively consistently and use mind power to improve everything you do.

There are 3 key ways to eliminate negative thoughts the moment they occur.

1. Label it – The moment a negative thought occur, label it in your mind that this is a negative thought. Imagine yourself physically labeling it (pasting a label that says, “Negative Thought” with a big “X” on it). When you do this often enough, it becomes automatic and the next time this same thought comes again, the “Negative Thought” label will be as clear as light!
2. Exaggeration – This technique involves a bit of imagination. Each time a negative thought comes, you exaggerate it to the point of it becoming totally unbelievable. The best way to illustrate this is with an example. Let’s say, you are planning to invite your new colleagues over for dinner. Negative thoughts may start playing on you such as, “You can’t cook! Your new colleagues are all going to hate your cooking and they will all leave and the whole event will be a disaster for you and your career!” You can then start to think about how your cooking starts to overflow the pot, and into the kitchen and then into the living room. And you can’t stop the flow and you’re burnt by the hot fluid. Your colleagues came and were also burnt. Your neighbors had to call the ambulance to take your whole office to the hospital! Then the next day, the headline reads, “Cooking accident lands owner and colleagues in hospital!”. Have a good laugh at it and throw the thought away!
3. Replace it– The mind is always occupied and thinking of something. What is really interesting is that despite the many thoughts on your mind, it can only think of one thing at a time. With this knowledge, one of the best ways to get rid of negative thoughts is to replace it immediately with another thought. Taking the example above, you can start by replacing the thought that you can’t cook well by thoughts about how all your colleagues will be so impressed with your cooking that they insist you cook every weekend! Or just replace it with a totally different thought altogether. Ideally choose something you love such as perfecting your golf swing!

The above techniques can be used concurrently to create a stronger impact on negative thoughts. For example, Labeling the negative thought allows you to identify it quickly. However, you can still “make fun of it” by exaggerating it and then finally replacing it with something positive to have a lasting effect.

In part two of “Use Mind power”, we’ll see how we can use Mind Power to improve and excel in what we do on a daily basis.

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