Category Archives: Skills

image and substance

March 19, 2015 6:51 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Back when I was growing up I always heard from my elders that it mattered more to be good than to look good.  The idea that substance mattered more than style.  I was encouraged not to think about how polished or how well I presented myself or my ideas.  The substance was the most important part and for the most part I agreed with this point of view and still do to a small degree.

Time passed of course and I entered college and later went into the workforce and started realizing that style and presentation did matter.  At first style didn’t matter as I was in basic production work and everything that I did or produced would be passed up the chain to a boss or sub-boss who would polish the work and put it into a format that the client would receive.

I was then moved into a position where I had more contact with clients and I began to have an appreciation of style and delivery.  Also I began to appreciate that how you presented yourself might directly affect any possible sales or projects.  I had to write coherent proposals, I had to speak with confidence, I had to become more gregarious and outgoing.  A difficult process that is still ongoing to this day.

So really in the end it has turned out that it’s not good enough to be good or to look good but that you have to both be good and look good at the same time.

Effectively presenting yourself and your ideas can be as if not more crucial than your actual ideas.  But of course if you don’t have a good idea (product, proposal, whatever) in the first place, then all the polish and slick words will mean nothing.

The more I think about this the more I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the way that things have always been.  Even before I was born people have had to both look and be good in order to get ahead.  The notion that this is a new phenomena is preposterous.

So we live in an extremely competitive world where we have to strive and stretch to do our best not just in our business but our personal lives.  Those that can’t look good while being good will find the path to success much more difficult.

 

Posted in: activities, business, culture, life in general, skills

The zen of doing

March 17, 2015 6:43 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I find driving fills me with a self-confidence or smoothness that I have no where else in my life.  The act of guiding a ton and a half of metal down an asphalt path at high-speed seems to fit me like no other activity does.  I seem to have an almost symbiotic relationship with vehicles of any type.  Admittedly when I first get to know a new car or vehicle I’m horrible.  But soon that changes and given enough time I become a virtuoso. I can feel how much or how little pressure it takes to change direction or to alter the weight of my foot on the accelerator to get just enough acceleration to pass someone else without going all out.  In return I can “feel” when the engine makes an odd noise or when the pavement changes or if that driver to the left and behind me is getting too close to my bumper.

Perhaps it’s the affinity of someone who spends a lot of time around vehicles.  Perhaps it’s the stillborn soul of the jet pilot that I never grew up to be screaming for release. The awkward and unsure clod melts away and in his place is a confident and suave operator manipulating the control with a minimum of effort and creating ballet like results on the road.

In Japanese there is the concept of mushin no shin, or loosely translated into English, no mind.  This is a state of mind where someone has so thoroughly mastered a skill or a movement that he can do it without thinking.  The individual does not think at all about the action but the body follows the action perfectly without any need to think.

This state of mind (state of being?) mainly applies to physical actions such as various martial arts or sports where an individual will practice and practice until the actions become innate.

This state however can also be found in other activities that are not physical.  For example, some chessmasters that I have seen play can readily dispatch opponents of lesser skill with the minimum of concentration and very few moves.  Some painters I know seem to go through their painting process seemingly not even drawing a breath but deliberately and systematically painting a scene as if they’d done it a million times.

This is the state of mind that I want to achieve not just in one aspect of my life but in more if not all aspects.  Being so self-confident and so sure of my actions that I can proceed ahead without thought or without hesitation.

If I can focus my intent to this degree then what could I not achieve?

 

Posted in: activities, driving, life in general, skills

add capacity, add capability

October 10, 2014 7:11 AM , Leave a Comment ,

These last few years have been a period of expanding my horizon, shoring up my deficiencies and adding muscle to what I already have.  Hard to say what the overriding motivation has been but the results have been most satisfying.

I’ve had to learn and add new skills to what I could do and learn about things that I never thought I would need to tackle in the past.  The most surprising thing has been that it hasn’t been as hard as I once thought it would be.

For a long time I would not try new things or would not delve deeper into skills and abilities that I already had.  I had grown complacent and content with what I knew.  But one day I looked around and came to the realization that what I knew or what I could do was no longer enough.

People around me, not just younger people but people my own age were passing me by and surpassing me.

“You paint?  when did that happen?”

“you can weld?”

“You know everything about home-refinancing?”

“You can program in Java?”

People around me had a plethora of skills that I never realized that they had and here I was thinking that I knew so much.  Now I’m not saying I’m going to go out and do all these things and master them.  I am however slowly adding to my capabilities and learning more and more.

One reason is that I want to be more self-sufficient and know more about life in general.  Doing things helps me learn about things.  Jumping right in and trying things is a great way to learn.  Another reason is that it keeps me busy and keeps my mind fresh.  Slipping into ruts where you do the same thing year after year is dangerous.

Sure you should have some patterns in your life but don’t get stuck into a fossilized mindset.  Stretch out and try.

 

Posted in: activities, life in general, skills