Top Twelve Questions for Success

I found these 12 questions on a book recommanded in my Leadership class. They are quite easy to understand but useful as well.

1. What do I want?
2. What are my choices?
3. What assumptions am I making?
4. What am I responsible for?
5. How else can I think about this?
6. What is the other person thinking, feeling, and wanting?
7. What am I missing or avoiding?
8. What can I learn?
    ...from this person or situation?
    ...from this mistake or failure?
    ...from this success?
9. What action steps make the most sense?
10.What questions should I ask?
11.How can I turn this into a win-win?
12.What's possible?

Some of these questions may seem easy to you. Like what do I want? But not every minute do we really bear that in mind. Often when we are too busy with current works, we're likely to forget what we wanted in the first place. These questions are all good reminders on our path to success.

Just write these questions down! Write on your notebook, if you have one that always in your pocket, or, type them into your cell phone or compture as a wall paper.

Listen generously is enough?

I grew up in a culture where humbleness is valued. So one of the important ideas of humbleness is to listen to others carefully and no matter you think the speaker is right or wrong, you should still listen because you can always learn something from anyone. This actually agrees with Benjamin's point in his Project on Moral Perfection. Yet even for me who is from such a culture, I find it hard to follow the principle. Sometimes I can't control myself from judging others before listening to them and thus prejudice pops out of my mind. But even in the cases I follow the principle when it is clear in my mind, I find that listen generously should be treated with care. We listen generously but take the words carefully.

After all, we live in the world full of information, from TV, radio, Internet, newspaper.... We are receiving it in a rate much much higher than the past. First of all, to be honest, the information has several kinds: some is real and authentic, the rest is fake, is fabricated or still needs proving. If we listen generously to all these kinds of information, we will loose ourselves. What is real? We don't know until we take time to judge the information. Secondly, true or false is not enough. We still need to find out what information is useful and relevant to our life or our topic. Some true information that seems to be what we need, is in fact a distraction. Recall how Picasso drew a abstract bull. Are the muscles and furs true? Yes they are. And they make most parts of the bull. But in Picasso's eye, to depict a bull, the skeleton is the core information.

Listen generously is the a good start. To make what we learn from listening truly useful to us, we have one more step: judge the information carefully.

Listen generously is enough?

Oh NO!

I didn't pass my first Math exam in college. It's HORRIBLE!！！！！！！！

I was confident that I could at least get 80. I got all my homework right before the test. It's not about missing concepts that I've learned. When I check the mistakes, most of them are because of carelessness. It's actually even more frustrated to find the poor grade is the result of carelessness, not that I have missed some concepts or laws.
Well, consider it as a wake up college test. This is it.

Franklin's Humility and Pride(The thirteenth virtue)

Pride, as Benjamin Franklin said in his Project on Moral Perfection, is one of our toughest natural passions to subdue. He admitted that he wasn’t successful in acquiring the Reality of this virtue; but merely had a good deal with regard of the appearance of it. Probably when really acquires the reality of humility, one would be proud of what he has achieved.

Originally, there were only twelve virtues listed in Franklin’s project. His proud was still there when making his virtue list as he didn’t count humility as one of the virtues until his Quaker friend kindly informed him of the missing point.  Yet his perfection on this virtue turned out to be ‘intimating Jesus and Socrates’. He forbad himself to the use of words like ‘certainly’, ‘undoubtedly’, etc. Instead, he uses ‘I conceive’, ‘I apprehend’ or ‘I imagine’ a thing to be so or so. I think this change of word is just something on the surface. The content following ‘certainly’ or ‘I conceive’ could be totally the same. The change just made Franklin sounded humble. But the other change he made as to the response to something he thought an error, to me, is a useful tool that we can learn from. Instead of immediately reputing, he began his answer by observing that in certain cases or circumstances the seemly erroneous opinion would be right.  This is in fact an uncertainty of what is right and wrong, a reserved way of engaging the conversation. Actually I have been also using this strategy in the conversation and as a result I’m often thought as a comfortable friendly guy to talk to. And when I made a mistake, I don’t have to worry about the embarrassment because I didn’t put my opinion that strongly as if it were the solid truth. Besides that, I find this technique helps open your mind. If one does include ‘observing that in certain cases or circumstances the seemly erroneous opinion would be right’ before judgment, one can always find a proper case for that opinion and very likely, you probably won’t think of that if you were put in the case you found.

But Pride is probably coded into our DNA. No matter how one ‘disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it’, Pride is still alive, always there wanting to show itself. That’s why Franklin used an irony at the ending: ‘Proud of humility’. But is it proper to put an irony here, which made weak the point he made. The same question can be raised when reading his irony about ‘the speckled ax’.  A man who wanted his surface of his ax as bright as the edge, yet finally gave up because of the arduous work needed saying ‘ I think I like a speckled ax best’. I think the reason for the ironies is that we are all common men. Franklin was an uncommon common man himself. The moral perfection is a work against bad habits; struggle to become a better man. It’s especially hard for being a human is already not an easy thing. With humor, Franklin probably wanted to tell us not to be too serious about it; we still need to get on with other people.  Trying to achieve self-command is also compatible with self-accepting. After all, this was intended to be read and learned by all people after Franklin. This made the project of perfection more accessible to common people. A perfect, flawless character can only be admired. It is just a distant perfect man. Feeling closer to a common man like themselves, people will actually be more confident to imitate or learn from him. And that’s the function of the humor and irony I think in Franklin’ Project for Moral Perfection.

The Great Failures

If you haven't failed, you haven't lived.

But what made those great minds stand up after those obstacles?  How did they know that they were heading towards the right direction?

Failure resume!

XXXX XXXX

202 E. Peabody Dr., Champaign, IL 61820・123-321-1111・Don'tSendMeE-mail@nothing.com

EDUCATION

June 2016              Failed to get into the Mechanical Department in The University of

                              Illinois at Urbana Champaign

                                    Lesson learned: I should think closely what I really want to do instead of changing

                                    my mind in the middle of the semester

June 2012              Failed to go to the dream high school 

                                Lesson learned: I didn’t even apply to the school because I thought I’d never be able

                                   to get in. But later, I found I had met all the requirements to go to that high school.

                                   I wasn’t able to evaluate myself properly.

LEADERSHIP AND ACTIVITIES

2011                         Failed to organize efficiently the class chorus

                                      Lesson learned: I was trying to meet everyone’s demand, hoping that doing so

                                      could make everyone satisfied. But in fact it is quite impossible to listen to every

                                      single voice in the group. As an organizer, the basic principle of decision is to

                                      profit the whole group.

June 2011                Failed to be a tutor

                                       Lesson learned: I was rejected after the first try of being a physics tutor of a

                                     middle school student. I am good at physics but I failed to consider who I was

                                     tutoring. I explained most of the concepts in a perspective of a high school student.

                                     I should adjust my teaching method according to whom I am tutoring.

October 2010           Failed to perform actively in a textbook drama

                                       Lesson learned: I was pretty confident I could perform extraordinarily in the

                                     textbook drama since I knew the textbook well. I skipped most of the rehearsals

                                     which I thought was simply a waste of time. But no matter how good I am, I can’t

                                     skip necessary procedures any way.

HOBBIES

August 2012             Lost in the karting racing with my friends.

                                   Lesson learned: When I was racing, I always focused on where my opponents

                                      were. I became rush when I was taken over and felt too good when I was leading.

                                      In competition, it’s necessary to know where your position is. However, never

                                     lose your pace regardless falling behind or leading first. 

I was thinking what HR would react when they see a resume like this? They will 'LOVE' it!

This I believe

What I find most college students like is to always be together with their friends, or to be social. That way they never feel lonely. And when facing troubles, there are always someone they can turn to for help, which makes them feel safe. I really don't need to list any more about why we want to be social as reasons are obvious. We all know that. But what I belive is solitude. NOT isolation with the society, but for a week or a day, I like to have some hours staying alone.Because in order to be with others, there is always some limitation: you are not totally free.

I don't want to offend my math prof., in fact I love his style of teaching, but I have to say that everytime, I can only understand those concepts or thoeries until I finish reading the textbook myself. There is so limited time in class that I swallow the delicious rather than taste them slowly. I even doubt the necessity of the lecture. What can a student learn when he's just rushing writing new concepts without stopping and taking a look at it? I enjoy reading the textbook by myself. No rush at all. I can have a piece of paper and a pencil. When deliberating over a question in the textbook, I draw or scratch messly on the paper which helps with my thinking. I can spend a whole afternoon like this until I see a concept crystal clear. Trust me, group discussion might give one some clues or ideas, but in the end, to truly reach the point of understanding, he has to sit alone thinking the problem through. After all, what prof. or anyone in the group said is what they understand, not me.

No matter you've noticed it or not, being together with others sacrifices some parts of a person. If he wants to be social, he has to compromise to the popular way of doing things or believes. Vincent van Gogh had a very different perspective of the world. He could give up his uniqueness and join the majority. But it was the uniqueness that led to his greatness. As often sited, 'The truth is in the hands of the few'. Great minds often went through solitude. If they compromise, it is the lost of the world.


Feel no fear of solitude. Embrace it. It's just a necessary part in your life as an individual.