Nothing!
In the eternal search to find greatness, I have been reading and listening to lots media published by people who have "made it". In my travels I came across an interesting take on getting ahead.
The Rule of Thirds
The idea behind this was that you spend a third of your time mentoring people who are trying to get where you are, a third of the time with people on the same level as you, and a third of your time with someone who is where you are trying to get to. This was a very intriguing notion to me. I have had lots of training on how to deal with employees and creating an atmosphere where they can succeed. With some of this training we were taught that the only true way to move forward with your own career is to promote others to replace you. In other words mentor the people below you to succeed you. Now if you have worked for smaller companies you will know that this goes against most things that go on. In a lot of cases people inside these organisations still have a scarcity mentality where they horde information so that no one can take their job. I know that I have been through that at several places and therefore I am on board with the first third. As a parent you also get the opportunity to spend copious amounts of time with people who are in need of knowledge and wanting to get to where you are.
The second set of third is also pretty easy. These are generally all of the like-minded people that you surround yourself with every day. Whether it is in business or your personal life probably most of your time is spent among peers. As you develop throughout your life this group will more than likely change and new peers are established.
It is the final set of thirds that until recently seemed to be elusive. I have always struggled with having an "end goal". I have tons of daily, weekly, monthly goals which I strive to achieve every day. Having an overall plan though, where do you see yourself ten years from now, I have no idea. So if you have no idea where you plan on going how do you spend thirty percent of your time with people who are already there? Let's presume you did know where you wanted to end up. How would find someone in that position that would be willing to spend that amount of time mentoring you? If your goal is to one day replace your boss you can probably manage to spend that amount of time with them, assuming that they are okay with you replacing them. What about outside of work? Most people work 40 hours a week and there are 168 hours in the week. Even if you sleep 56 of those hours, seven days at eight hours per day, that still leaves 112 hours outside of your work life. It doesn't seem like a good idea to me to focus solely on only bettering one third of your life. For me this is where Silent River Kung Fu comes in. Initially whenever you enter new circumstances you carry with you things that you have encountered in past experiences. This was no different for me when I originally started taking Kung Fu at Silent River. There seemed to be this group of "untouchables", the black belts, who appeared supercilious or at least I had perceived them this way. Knowing now the effort that it takes to advance in this Martial Art I recognise that my perception was incorrect and that even though there is a certain amount of respect that is owed to them, these black belts are not only willing to help, they are actually passionate about doing so. Being a part of Silent River has helped me develop in so many ways in all facets of my life. Being one of the lower belt level members of the I Ho Chuan it has made even more of the top third accessible.
In the unquestionably minuscule amount of time that I have been practising Kung Fu, there have already been some incredible paradigm shifts. I can hardly wait to see what lessons the future brings, and would like to thank all of you who have helped thus far.
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