Playing Around with Your Learning Potential

Would it be great to learn a foreign language in two weeks? There are people with this capability. In the movie The Edge, Anthony Hopkins' character was a avid reader who's mantra is "if one man can do it, so can another." If a special someone can learn something at accelerated pace, what is the formula for normal people to do this amazing mental feat?


In Colin Rose's book Accelerated Learning, it was proven that when humans engage the spirit, mind, and body into an activity, rapid learning engages. Your ability to learn is hyper accelerated when you have fun. Imagine sitting in French class and just writing french phrases over and over--yawn, right.


Now image going to the Montreal, or Paris and having to speak French to do everything. See yourself going on a scavenger hunt with your classmates thru Montreal, having to ask French speaking natives questions on the city history, get small items like bandaids for free as part of the game, and find directions to various landmarks. You and your classmate fumbling thru downtown Montreal moving to different places like the train station, library, or grocery store. I wager after a week of scavenger hunting in Montreal, French would be indelibly imprinted in your mind thru the game, thru doing the action, thru imposed usage, thru your personal ingenuity.


Let the games begin! Think of things you have to learn. Can you make it a game with yourself or with your peers? The game can even be role playing the professor. Tutoring others is termed as "3rd person learning" as researched by Walter Gong at San Diego State. This is another proven method of long retention of concepts. Take turns teaching, wear a mock pair of your professor's infamous the nerd glasses, don the Berkenstocks with socks, live it up, and laugh a lot. Laughter oxygenates the brain, making it ripe to learn. Fun and games don't have to stop by 5th grade. Play around with your learning potential. You now have license to invent your own games of genius. Go get 'em Einstein!

The Blame-Game: A Win-Win for Your Life

Have you ever been in a situation where you blamed others for your bad fortune? You know, someone cuts you off in traffic, or a guy you meet turns out to be a total player. Ohhh pumpkin, whatever happened, there was no possible way it was your fault. Well,... guess what, that’s a huge blatant lie, hoax, falsehood, con,... whatever you want to label it, just treat it like fruitcake and say ‘no thank you.’ There is no power in being the victim of your life.

Yes, I said VICTIM. As soon as we mentally say, ‘I had no power over the situation,’ we nodded ourselves into wearing the out-of-fashion victim hat.

A guy I dated few months in 2008, still randomly texts me. I do not respond to any of his texts, not even the Happy Valentines Day (oh please). I won’t send back a "stop texting me" message; it is not worth my time [indifference is more powerful statement than anger]. Persistent he has; my effort and attention he lost a long time ago. My attention is valuable. I am not giving any more energy to him aside from making him example for you to learn from.

You’re thinking "Solange, it’s not your fault he’s texting you." Since I figured out this victim thing, I say it is totally my fault. I say it is because I allowed him to text me when we were together.

I absolutely hate texting. I am an old school girl, call me on the phone. Meet me in person to talk about our dreams, not in 140 characters or less. So when he started to text me, I did not ask him to stop. I did not say, "I’m a bit old school, so if we are going to get to know each other, it’s going to be thru phone calls." My mistake numero uno.

I also allowed him to continue to think we were compatible. When we parted, we did not have a conversation on why we do not work romantically. He is very non-confrontational, so I could not get him to discuss our breaking up if I had Ed McMahon with his million-dollar check crew behind me. We just stopped calling each other. In my not telling him why I know we are incompatible, he still thinks there’s a chance. I did not insist on closure, so this is why I get random texts asking why I won’t talk to him. It’s all my fault. I am here, getting random text bombs, because I did not do what I was supposed to do. I totally, without any reservation, blame myself.

How is blaming myself going to empower me? We definitely know proclaiming yourself as a victim dis-empowers you. Thus, the opposite must empower you. In knowing and accepting that I did this to myself, I won’t ever let it happen again. If I say I caused it, I acknowledge that I have the power to stop myself from being there again. You can call Vegas to bet on the next guy who I date won’t be texting me.

Do you see that if you play the victim, you never analyze the events that lead you to where you are today? You in essence threw your hands up in the air, fell to the ground in your toga, saying in ancient greek, "please gods of fate have mercy on me." You have just succumbed to the worst hoax; the hoax that other factors or people control over your life.

Take back the helm of the USS Your Life. The only way you can steer to ship towards the goals you want out of life is to take full responsibility for every aspect of your life. Honestly, you deserve the life, how ever good or bad, which you have now. That’s hard to hear. The truth is like that.

Imagine a minor car accident you caused. After that fender bender, we are much more alert to the proximity of cars to our vehicle. You may even drive slower. You took full blame for the accident, thus are taking action to not let it happen again.

Now imagine an accident you did not cause like a guy not checking his blindspot and clipping your car. Yet, you're still likley decided to drive more defensively after that accident because you don’t want another bozo smacking you. You drive with more distance between you and other cars. You watch for signs of cars merging into your lane without a blinker. You decide not to talk on your cell phone while driving anymore. You are taking action to not ever be an insurance liability again. Though the police did not cite you for the first accident, you take full responsibility for it being in it. Your stepping up, empowers you to self-determine your future. A victim-free future.

So I say, stack on the blame. I’m strong enough. I’m smart enough. I’m brave enough to see it as an opportunity to correct the course of my life. I will only reach my goals faster when I give myself the power of responsibility for my life.

In the court of my life, I’m jumping up and down, both hands waving in the air, screaming "I’m right here! Guilty as charged." Oh I see, your courtroom over there, and you’re starting to get up from your chair too. Great decision baby!

What Can YOU Give Your Mentor?

Finding a great mentor is like the Quest for the Holy Grail. You know what you seek, but does it want you?

A mentor who can help reveal the secrets to thier success, thus injecting your mind with the same serum of success. The people you aim to have as mentors are usually behind layers of people from a receptionist, to an administrative assistant, to a personal assistant. I’m going to suggest a potent way to get these busy people’s attention.

In our world, you never get something for nothing. Even those timeshare tricks of getting you to stay at their resort for free, take half your day sequestered in their sales pitch room. Your time and attention was the trade-off for an afternoon poolside.

Your first question may be 'I’m early in my career path, what do I have to offer.' The winners in life are the imaginative. I am not saying winners are liars. Winners realized each person has unique gifts. You need to know how to tap into your unique power that can help those older and more established than you.

I am 37. I meet 100's of twenty-somethings yearly. I love talking to them. The reason why is they have insight on their generation's psyche, a generation almost 2 decades younger than me. Their generation will be the consumers and leaders of the future. I value the insight young minds, your young mind, for it gives me a path to better relating to their peers.

Do you see the value in being a teenager, a twenty-something? You know your group. You are soaked in with the Facebook, MySpace, and texting mentality. Any business owner needs insight to the minds of young consumers who will soon be power consumers. That’s what you offer to the older generation of business people.

So seek a mentor with the heart of helping them first. They will be ingratiate to you for your time and insights. The doors are then open for two way communication. Good luck. I’m waitng for you on the other side baby!

You Look Like a Carburetor: Why Perception Is Within Us

If a stranger came from across a crowded room and said to you “Hey, you look like a carburetor,” what would you do? I can imagine you’d furrow your brow, probably say “What??” while thinking “this guy is loony tunes.”

What if you are a 110-lb woman who’s 5'2" tall, or a 160-lb man who’s 5’-10", and someone called you obese. You’d respond similarly to when the guy called you a carburetor. 'What are they talking about? May be in Ethiopia I'm corpulent at best.'

What if it was your best friend calling you a porker when you wear size 4 pants or have a 32-inch waist. You’d immediately make them to sit down and drink some ice water for surely he/she has a fever making him/her delirious. What they are saying just doesn’t make sense!

You know the falsehood of those two statements because no where inside of you do you believe you are a carburetor nor believe that you’re dangerously overweight for your frame. This is the key. I know you are not these things.

What if someone, someone who knows you well, says you’re lazy or you are not doing your best. These two hypothetical statements are likely to hurt anyone’s feelings, especially from a person they like and admire. You may even be mad. I know I would, because I did.

Last week, I had a very low moment. My Dad is also my business partner. He started our engineering firm, yet now is a minor partner in his retirement. With the tight economy cutting our clients down to a few, he said “Your traveling too much thus clients are thinking you don’t work hard enough.” I blew up like Old Faithful. I started defending myself, yelling at my Dad. And yes, I started crying too because that’s my release mechanism for pent up stress.

In looking back at this horrible day when I’m yelling at my 70-yr old father, I am totally embarrassed. What if my Dad had said, “Your traveling too much, thus our clients think you are a carburetor.” I would have tilted my head to the side and said “what?” There would have been no volatile emotion, no screaming at a 70-yr old man, no crying in the parking lot of our clients’ office.

I blew up because somewhere inside me, the economic reduction our business touched my insecurities about being a good business owner. Somewhere I felt like a failure for having to let staff go. Somewhere inside, I am thinking I am not working hard enough to get more new projects.

I assure you, I don’t know anyone else who wakes up at 4:15am, rolls into work at 6:00am and stays until 7pm. I work 52-hrs by Thursdays. I can prove, without a doubt, that I am not lazy.

I have rationed my time to complete all my work by Thursday so I can leave on Friday to do leadership seminars to colleges. These talks with students I feel are drastically needed in our nation’s economic downturn. The college students are beginning to doubt their abilities to get jobs, thus doubt the wisdom of choosing engineering as a career. In my eyes, if the young lose faith in engineering as a solid career, then America has lost a great hope for the future. Thus, I drag myself out of bed at 4:15am so I can be in front of wide-eyed students looking to me for any sign of hope on a Friday afternoon in Some Collegetown, USA.

Even though I know it is noble to devote myself to the betterment of the future of engineering, I have insecurities about my business profit being way down, thus the statement of my not working hard enough was just a knife into an insecure scab of my psyche. In seeing how I reacted, I now see the weakness in my mind that I must fortify.

I have to affirm to myself I am doing everything I can this week at work. I have a plan to make new connections, and to maintain the clients we have. I have to reinforce to myself that I 150% hard working and determined to succeed in business. It’s all inside of me. The power of perceiving my world is inside of me.

It’s a new line of thinking that will take conscious effort and time to absorb, for your first knee-jerk reaction is likely boiling emotion. Yet try, next time someone says a remark which starts to irk you, try to pause and see what hurts inside of you. You’ll see that you, and only you, give their comment validity. If you can react as though they called you a “carburetor,” then you’ve mastered your insecurities.

This is what that would look like:
Dad: “Solange, when you travel every week, our client’s think you’re a carburetor.”
Solange: “Hmm Dad, I’m not sure what you mean by that. It sounds like they think being gone one day a week makes me a carburetor. Is that it?”
Dad: “Well, I think it’s about their calling when you are not there that makes it look like you’re a carburetor.”
Solange: “OK, they’re used to getting people on the phone immediately. I can see that. How can we fortify to them that I am actually not a carburetor, and that I’m here 4-days a week from 6am to 7pm to assist them with any issues.
Dad: “Well, I guess we can emphasize that you have a cell phone which gets emails at anytime.”
Solange: “Thanks Dad, I’ll start being more communicative with our clients on my travel dates. Hopefully, this will negate any thoughts of me being a carburetor.”

Now replace every instance of “a carburetor” above with “not dedicated.” In your life, I want you to do the reverse. Feel free to use my carburetor. I don't know what a carburetor looks like nor really what it does for a car. All I know is I am not one.

PS-You’re the best looking carburetor I’ve ever seen. Take your best self out there to be the master your insecurities baby!

The Real Punk'd, hosted by Your Life

MTV’s show Punk’d puts celebrities in the elaborate pranks to push them over the edge, stressing the victims past their normal demeanor. One particularly memorable show had Justin Timberlake on the verge of tears, calling his mom because he thought the IRS was repossessing all his possessions for failure to pay taxes. It is hilarious when we are the ones behind the safety glass of our TVs. For the victim, when they find out "You’ve just been Punk’d" lots of emotions are flying.

Life is not a TV show. Life is not staged with actors and fake scenarios. However, the true mark of a person is how he/she reacts to life. Are you more of the zen monk who just shrugs this off, or a pre-tensioned coil of eruptive emotions?

I usually am mid-ground on the spectrum of reactivity, yet things arise that mash my buttons. In early March, I receive a phone call from a client saying he’s lost a bit of faith in my engineering abilities due to an issue a year ago. The issue took some time to analyze, yet today the problem is not anymore.

Unfortunately, after hearing a disparaging remark, I reacted like the space shuttle at T-minus 6.6 seconds. My self-defense engines clicked on. I was seconds away from solid rocket booster ignition of my ire. His comment was an unexpected knife coated with boiling acid to my back. With my defenses up, I managed to stay cool enough to not get my firm ousted from the team, yet I was far from my most eloquent. I still felt the anger after I hung up the phone. I was a mental mess, swirling with bad emotions.

I wished someone had popped into my office to say, "Ha! You’ve just been Punk’d." That would have ameliorated the pressure cooker in my head. So there I was without a release, stewing in the aftershock of a side comment.

After the day ended, I realized that, in fact, life had Punk’d me. Ashton Kutcher didn’t walk up pointing and laughing at me, yet the little demons in my head were having a mockery of a gala on my tab. They had pushed me to outside of my normal staid demeanor.

As I drove home, I realized that I had all the control in the world over my reaction. I could have calmly replied with "yes, that issue was unexpected, yet as you see today, we as a team solved the matter. That’s what I appreciated, was your working with me to satisfy the client."

There’s a Scrappy-Doo in all of us, ready to fight at first whiff of a threat. As a type-A personality, I understand both sides of pride.

What if I had paused, took a deep breathe to calm myself, suspiciously look out the corner of my eye for the Punk'd cameras, and smiled one of those knowing "OK, when’s Ashton gonna come out?" smiles. It would have helped me to keep my cool, keep level-minded, and definitely stopped the countdown at T-minus 7-seconds before my self-defense mechanisms started.

Here’s a super nova thought: just think of the bad things in life as an episode of Punk’d. Realize that you’ll get over it when the proverbial host, your reasoning logic problem solving mind, walks in to take all the perceived dangers away. You are a genius. You have unlimited capacity to solve problems, build relationships, and lead with your stellar example.

Just remember when your irate meter is nearing the red zone, start looking around, and repeat to yourself "OK, Ashton, come on out baby. You’re not gonna Punk me today."

Help us all learn: what’s your trick to not get hyper-emotional in a tough situation?

Better than First Impressions: The Pa-Pow! Introduction

There is no equal to the first impression. However, there is a stronger key element that happens in many instances prior to you offering a hand shake. It's the introduction of you by a friend/colleague to the new potential client, employer, or even spouse.

How do your friends introduce you? Fair is fair, so I'll also ask how do you introduce your friends? Do you manage the simple, "This is Solange." If introductions were a building, that is the bare minimum ground floor. Where is your top floor penthouse level of introduction?

I have a land-use, real estate transaction lawyer friend. I love him because he's always helping me network, introducing me to his clients who may need my engineering services. Terry introduces me as "Yes, this is Solange, the best civil engineer in town. She's won the Engineer of the Year award for Central Florida." Terry is the master at pumping up his friends with coronation-style introductions. He doesn't lie, I did get the honor of young engineer of the year.... in 2000. For Terry, he believes in my skills thus portrays me as the best.

It is time we remember to pumped each other up. It simply takes is a few adjectives like best, awesome, dedicated, ingenious, motivated, influential... you get the drift of the Pa-Pow! introductory method.

We are not fostering lies. Yet there's nothing wrong with embellishing the truth. A quick story on livening up the truth for the sake of emphasis is my ski friend Jim H. I love to ski thus lead a ski trips for the Orlando Ski Club to Steamboat, CO. Our airport transfer bus pulled up to the lodge around 1pm. Jim, giving his roommate his luggage, jumped off the bus, and headed straight to the slopes for the last 3-hrs of the day. Everyday, Jim skiied from first chair lift up to last tracks down the mountain. He loved skiing. When I saw Jim a few months after our week-long ski trip ended, I introduced Jim as "the only man I know who can ski eight days on a 7-day ski trip!" Now, that's a guy who loves skiing.

Remember to be a gracious acceptor of the Pa-Pow! introduction. Thank your complimentor with a likewise statement of his/her abilities (i.e. "I have to be the best to keep up with the most influential lawyer in town."). Shake hands with your new acquaintance and smile, for your first impression has already been brought up several notches by the Pa-Pow! introduction.

Help us all learn thru your comments: if I were to introduce you, what would you want me to say?

The Most Asked Question of 2009

No one is bullet-proof. It’s a cut throat economy. Companies have cut the 15% fluff and now are making tough decisions about keeping highly skilled personnel. Tenure, rank, degrees, height, hair color, etc., nothing guarantees your current job in this recession. The Walt Disney Co., a mega house of entertainment, offered severance packages to all its Director level managers and higher. It was the upper echelons of Disney management who were asked to leave first, not the hourly worker. No one is bullet-proof.

With six-figure Disney executives on edge, how are you fairing at your cubicle? Are you at your desk’s edge? Sweating a bit because there’s not much work to do. Everyone wants to keep busy, to be viewed as needed. Thus, the most asked question of 2009 is, "what do I do when I have not much to do?"

Just last year, getting tasks done early was prized. A foggy thought is creeping into America: fake being busy.

Granted, with a smaller task back log, there is more time to review reports with the microscope and the time it took to decipher the dead sea scrolls. Unfortunately, there comes a point when staying on one task too long is a huge negative. Your manager will suspect you’re stalling with a small task assigned last week. Having your boss suspect you of riding the clock is worst than admitting you have no tasks left.

So, again Americans plead, "what do we do when there is not much to do?" The answer is the same winning mind set we had during the fertile economy. Simply stay the course as if in a boom era. Complete your tasks as quickly and accurately as ever. Impress your boss by being highly productive no matter the environment. Frankly, you should be zooming through tasks since you don’t have the pressure of 16 more tasks, stirring in your mental stew. Your focus should be sharper than ever with less meat on your plate.

Work even better and faster is highly counter intuitive advice. You did say you didn’t like being idle, and yes, I’m saying do your work even faster which will likely yield more idle desk time. What the heck kind of advice is that?! Let’s dissect the work scenario some more.

Imagine how your boss would feel if you went to him/her and said, "The task I was assigned is complete. I’ve gone thru it thoroughly twice to be sure. I’m ready for my next assignment. I understand if there are no impeding tasks at this time. If there is none, may we talk about how I may spend my hours?"

If honesty and integrity were a big gem, the person who has the courage to say the above is the Great Star of Africa.

A statement like that shows that no matter what the economic environment, you are here to give your best effort. You were hired by the firm to do a task and do it well. Be proud, you have not faltered. Be even more proud that you did not let fear manipulate your work ethic.

If your manager is curious about your ideas of what to do, perhaps you can suggest tasks which benefit both you and the firm. Here are some ideas:

• Read your Board of Professional Regulations website. On area to view are the violations of the code of ethics. The Florida Board of Professional Regulation posts its disciplinary actions; it’s a liken to wood headlock vise in a medieval village square where the accused are put on display. The summaries are lessons in 1) what constitutes a violation of your license, and 2) the severity of misjudgments. If you are a future PE, these cases are a loud warning. If you do not need a PE license, this will a bit of a courtroom entertainment.
  Read trade journals pertinent to your career. You office lobby probably has a stack of them.
• Offer to do file, thin out file folders, scan files, devise new filing system, etc.
• Do side projects that you see can help the firm. Is the website in need of updating with new photos and project tag lines?
• Ask about how to determine profitability of projects? or other business/operations questions.

Here is today's reality: no one is immune from a lay-off (evidence: Disney Executive Layoffs Feb 2008). However, if you still work as if it’s a bursting economy, your supervisor will appreciate how dedicated you are, how focused you are, how positive your attitude is.

The day when the firm’s numbers sadly leads to your forced lay off, I bet,... no, I know that you will be the first person they call back when the firm's numbers pick up.

Just remember, there are ample people who leave a job and the manager instantly rips their name plate off the wall, right into the trash. Leave your work place with thank you’s, a smile, and hand shakes of certainty that they will ask you back. They will make a shrine of your cubicle, reserving it for your return. Stay the course baby, no matter what economy!

Help us all learn: give examples of productive things you're doing while the work load is low.

Saving "Face"book

"Losing face" meaning to be humiliated or lose one’s reputation thus one is unable to show one’s face in public. With a snap of a camera, Michael Phelps lost his wholesome image, a multi-million dollar Kellogg deal, and the respect of USA Swimming. Most of us are not celebrity caliber as Mr. Phelps, yet we each have ample to lose with a capricious quick click of a camera.

As an employer, I aim to hire the best people to enter my firm. All businesses want quality and professional employees. Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube are new avenues to unearth any undesirable qualities on potential candidates. I used the trick of showing someone the "employee smoking area" to unearth their reaction to smoking. Now we have savvier tools to unveil your weekend lifestyle choices.

Whether it’s a water bong, a cigarette, or racy Halloween costume, these choices all are being judged by people other than your circle of friends. Flippant comments like "I’m bored out of my mind here" posted at 10am on Tuesday or a plain yet poignant"work sucks" posted on a web page will furrow the brow of any employer.

There’s a false sense of intimacy Americans have with their computers. You sit alone in the privacy of your home while you upload this past weekend’s highlights. It harmless, right? No one watching over your shoulder making the critical throat clearing sounds. You click send, and you’ve just exposed yourself to all eyes with internet, even dial-up.

Would you wear that sexy kitten costume to work? Well Pussy Cat, you just brought it to work when you posted those pics on MySpace. Think about it. "Mystique" meaning an air of attitude of mystery and reverence developing around something or someone. Your mystique can flat line like Britney Spears’s too.

I am not saying, don’t have fun. Everyone loves fun. I hope you can trust your friends to not sabotage your future with a tagged photo. Rule of hand (thumb is too small), if you cannot trust everyone in your company, simply don’t do or say anything that can sabotage your future. Think Michael Phelps, do you want your future career to Sink or Swim? Swim baby swim!

Help us all learn: tell me about a Facebook/MySpace/Twitter social or career mistake you witnessed.

The Win-Win in Competition

Imagine yourself on the highway and every car is passing you. A tugging feeling starts urging you to speed up, right? In the highway of life, peers are the clutch to your drive. Seeing what gear your peers were in, gauges your pace. Are you near the front or back? Let us discover the virtue of fostering friendly competition.

First, clear your mind of picturing competition with bloody visions of hockey games. View competition as a bright spotlight. Competing gives insight to limiting abilities and areas of improvement. You never lose when you learn.

There are ample opportunities for your star to shine. Do not fret over yesterday's loss. The universe is every expanding, and so are you! Realize that competition is the fire which ignites ambition. Ambition to do a little better each and every day builds you closer to your goal.

Just imagine playing soccer with David Beckham for 45 minutes. Feel the high energy skills you would learn! The wise and truly brave invite equal or higher competitors. Are you going to sit on the sidelines or start kicking some goals? Go for it baby!

Help us all learn: tell me about when you technically lost a competition/bid/job/election yet felt like a winner.

What the Real Estate Market Shows Us about Valuing Ourselves

In the housing market, there’s a bit of sage advice. Find the nicest neighborhood you can afford. Then buy the cheapest house. It’s about location, not the pool or granite counter tops. When your neighbor sells for $100k more than you paid, your equity gets a free boost. Being close in price to the cheapest lot on block, if not the cheapest, allows a greater upward range of valuation.
If you want to increase your life’s potential, meaning high career goals, bigger pay checks, more social connections, do an appraisal of your inner circle. Are your friends pushing your value up?

In college, I tried very hard yet I did not easily absorb Steel Design. When the professor passed out the first tests, I was heart-sunken, disappointed, and bleakly frustrated with a C. Yet I saw light. This one guy in the front row got an A+. "Wow!," my mind yelled, "that guy is super smart." Everyone around me thought my C was grand, for they got the same or worst. The consoling was nice, yet I knew if I wanted to a better grade, I need to change my real estate to the front row, to be more like Mr. A+. I had hung out in the back with the oft half-asleep, other times dueling the crossword puzzles kids long enough.

With determination in my holster, I parked my wagon up front, next to Mr. A+. There were ample seats open, imagine that. Mr. A+’s name was Bill. I settled in, got used to how close the chalkboard was, and said "Hi Bill." I was a stranger in a foreign row, just Bill and me. I was the new neighbor, hoping my test value would go up based on location.

Simply being in the front row changed my view literally and mentally about Steel. When you are inches from the professor, you pay extreme attention. I become a focused sponge.

Politeness was also my strong suit, so I’d make small talk with Bill before each class. We’d just joke about whatever. Soon, we were eating lunch, and studying together. He’d push me to do my homework thoroughly. He was my superior in Steel. He got it quicker, while I was slow as gin.

I saw Bill as someone who could help me improve. I really wished to be "A+Bill" smart. I learned more Steel Design than I could on my own. He pushed me to learn a subject I didn’t love, for my betterment. 15 years later, I still call Bill one of my best friends and motivators ever.

How can you, today, increase your value? First, answer what do you value? Do you value education, money, connections, love?

Education hungry? Hang out with people much smarter than you. Like the cheapest house on the block, your intellectual value will increase just by being in the proximity of their conversations.

Money motivated? Seek the clubs or organizations the wealthy belong to. Ones without a huge annual fee are trade associations, leadership clubs like Rotary, and even non-profit charities. Most all board members of charities are big players with big wallets. Being in their club, professional association, or charity gets you in their line of sight. Say hi to them at every meeting possible, reintroduce yourself 15 times, how ever long it takes for them to remember you as the person they keep seeing. This is the first step in getting their attention. I’ll speak more about getting into someone’s calendar in my next topic.

Connections savvy? Try out every professional club you can. Usually the first meeting is free to newbies. Befriend everyone, for they will tell you other clubs they are members of. Soon you’ll see which clubs house the power connections.

Love struck? Find a group of friends in your same situation with a POSITIVE attitude about love. There are ample comiserates to avoid like capri jeans. Those who love love will keep your mental state in a bright light as you travel thru the dating paths.

If you are serious about improving your life exponential, start by looking at your circle of friends. If you are the richest, most driven, most ambitious, most well-read, most open minded,... Is it time to seek a new cul-de-sac of acquaintances? The circle where you will be the one with the least of all those attributes so your surroundings naturally pull you up. Your life value, like real estate, will increase or decrease based on your surroundings.

Look around and find an "A+ Bill" to befriend. You have no place to go but up. Good luck baby!

Help us all learn: tell me about your "A+Bill".