Monday, February 22, 2010

Top Skills To Learn For Top Paying Jobs!

What skills are employers willing to pay for?

Most candidates would love to know the inside secret to a great job and career. Are there specific skills sets employers pay top dollar for, besides the basic technical skills required?

There are specific skills that all employers are looking for. You can learn skills if you do not have them, or improved, to enhance the ones you do have.

Numerous studies have identified these critical skills for employment, sometimes referred to as "soft skills.

Top Skills Most Sought After by Employers


* Communications Skills is the most popular
* Thinking Skills to help move an organization forward
* Analytical/Research Skills to assess an issue
* Computer-Literate
* Flexibility/Adaptability
* Managing Multiple Priorities
* Team Player working in groups
* Interpersonal Skills
* Leadership
* Presentation Skills
* Management Skills
* Diversity Skills
* Problem-Solving/Reasoning
* Creativity
* Project Management Skills

Think about the skill sets you are good at, and focus on them to improve your overall performance. Take one of the skills you are weak at and work on strengthening that skill. Learning new skill sets will improve your performance, make you more successful overall, and help you realize your true income potential.

Build your resume and work experience around these skills to improve your chances to secure employment and to find the best job out there for you.

Visit our website for thinking and creativity skills and to help you generate great ideas. Employers pay top dollars for great thinking and great ideas.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

The Essence of Learning New SKills

How we learn new skills, or about new things can be very complicated. To simplify the topic, I've included the essence of how we actually learn about new subjects of interest. Here is the essence of how we learn new skills. How we learn new skils is actually pretty simple and the process is very enlightening.

How We Learn

* 10% of what we READ
* 20% of what we HEAR
* 30% of what we SEE
* 50% of what we SEE AND HEAR
* 70% of what is DISCUSSED WITH OTHERS
* 80% of what is EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY
* 95% of what we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE
__________________________________________________________

Now that you know "how to learn", it's time to bring our attention to the essence of knowing and knowledge. You can't be a great thinker without or learn new skills without understanding the three levels of knowing and the three levels of knowledge.



This model identifies the three levels of knowing.



This model shows the three levels of knowledge. Basic recall is the lowest level in the hierarchy of knowledge. The rest of this article will focus on basic memory, and we will address the higher levels of knowledge in the next two postings.

In simple terms, memory is the mental activity of recalling information that you have learned or experienced. That simple definition, covers a sophisticated process that involves many different parts of the brain and serves us in different and unique ways.

Just like muscular strength, your ability to remember increases when you exercise your memory and support it a proper diet and other healthy habits. There are a number of steps you can take to improve your memory and retrieval capacity. First, however, it's helpful to understand how we remember.

Memory can be either short-term or long-term. In short-term memory, your mind stores information for a few seconds or a few minutes: that's about the time it takes you to meet look up a friends telephone number. Short term memory is fragile, and it’s meant to be. If not, your brain would quickly be faced with “sensory overload” if you retained every phone number you called, every person you met. Your brain is also meant to hold an average of seven items: called the magic of 7 +-2, which is why you can usually remember a new phone number for a few minutes. Anything more than 7 and you have difficultly recalling.

Long-term memory on the other hand, involves the information you make an effort (conscious or unconscious) to retain, because it has some significance or is important to you. For example: information on colleagues, and friends). Some information that you store in long-term memory requires a conscious effort to recall: episodic memories, which are personal memories about experiences you’ve had at specific times; and semantic memories (factual data not bound to time or place), which can be everything from the names of the planets to the color of your child’s hair. Another type of long-term memory is procedural memory, which involves skills and routines you perform so often that they don’t require conscious recall.

So now that we know about basic recall and memory, here are some tips and guidelines to improve your memory and basic recall.

Pay attention. You can only remember what you have learned and you can;t recall it if you have not paid attention to it or made a strong effort to encode it into your brain. It takes about eight seconds of intent focus to process a piece of information through your hippocampus and into the appropriate memory center. That means you can;t do more than one thing when you need to concentrate! If you distract easily, try to absorb the information in a quiet place where you won’t be interrupted.

Tailor information you want to retain to your learning style. Most people are visual learners; they learn best by reading or seeing what it is they have to know. But some are auditory learners who learn better by listening. They might benefit by recording information they need and listening to it until they remember it.

Involve all your senses. Even if you’re a visual learner, read out loud what you want to remember. If you can recite it rhythmically, even better. Try to relate information to colors, textures, smells and tastes. The physical act of rewriting information can help imprint it onto your brain. Relate information to what you already know. Connect new data to information you already remember, whether it’s new material that builds on previous knowledge, or something as simple as an address of someone who lives on a street where you already know someone.

Organize information. Write things down in note pads and datebooks and on calendars; take notes on more complex material and reorganize the notes into categories later. Use both words and pictures in learning information. Understand and be able to interpret complex material. For more complex material, focus on understanding basic ideas rather than memorizing isolated details. Be able to explain it to someone else in your own words. If you can;t summarize it our loud, that means you really have not absorbed or understand it completely.

Rehearse information frequently and “over-learn”. Review what you’ve learned the same day you learn it, and at intervals thereafter for the next 7-10 days. What researchers call “spaced rehearsal” is more effective than “cramming.” If you’re able to “over-learn” information so that recalling it becomes second nature, so much the better.

Be interested and motivated, and keep a positive mental perspective. Tell yourself that you want to learn what you need to remember, and that you can learn and remember it. Telling yourself you have a bad memory actually hampers the ability of your brain to remember, while positive mental feedback sets up an expectation of success.

Mnemonic devices to improve memory. Mnemonics (the initial “m” is silent) are helpful tips of any kind that help us remember something, usually by causing us to associate the information we want to remember with a visual image, a sentence, or a word. Sometimes they are also called moronic systems. Whatever you pay attention too, you will be better able to recall it so these systems put you on the right track to recall.

Common types of mnemonic devices include:

Visual images - a microphone to remember the name “Mike,” a rose for “Rosie.” Use positive, pleasant images, because the brain often blocks out unpleasant ones, and make them vivid, colorful, and three-dimensional — they’ll be easier to remember. Made up acronyms about the subject matter are great moronic memory tools to help you recall.

Sentences in which the first letter of each word is part of or represents the initial of what you want to remember. Millions of musicians, for example, first memorized the lines of the treble staff with the sentence “Every good boy does fine” (or “deserves favor”), representing the notes E, G, B, D, and F. Medical students often learn groups of nerves, bones, and other anatomical features using nonsense sentences.

Acronyms, which are initials that creates pronounceable words. The spaces between the lines on the treble staff, for example, are F, A, C, and E: FACE.
Rhymes and alliteration: remember learning “30 days hath September, April, June, and November”? A hefty guy named Robert can be remembered as “Big Bob” and a smiley co-worker as “Perky Pat” (though it might be best to keep such names to yourself).
Jokes or even off-color associations using facts, figures, and names you need to recall, because funny or peculiar things are easier to remember than mundane images.
“Chunking” information; that is, arranging a long list in smaller units or categories that are easier to remember. If you can reel off your Social Security number without looking at it, that’s probably because it’s arranged in groups of 3, 2, and 4 digits, not a string of 9. “Method of loci”: This is an ancient and effective way of remembering a lot of material, such as a speech. You associate each part of what you have to remember with a landmark in a route you know well, such as your commute to work.


Sources for posting:
1- emind tools- has great tips on memory techniques
2- helpguide.org has plenty of information and isnisgh on memory and recall.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Reflective Thinking-Learning New Thinking Skills From The Inside Out

When it comes to learning skills and learning skill sets, Confuscius said it best...

"By three methods we may learn wisdom First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." - Confucius

They say history repeats itself. Lessons from the past are one of the smartest thinking tools you can use. Embracing the lessons from the past is what reflective thinking is all about. When you reflect, you draw on past experiences. Drawing on past experiences puts things in perspective and sheds a new light on the teachings.
“Reflective thinking turns experience into insight”

Having been through something once, gives you a sense of confidence that experience teaches. Reflecting is a sure fire way to start any thinking process. When you reflect on something you get to see the entire picture. The good and the bad. You can learn something from both perspectives, so don’t turn your back to the negatives side of the lesson.

“Those that forget the past are condemned to relive it”

When you look at both the positive and negative using reflective thinking, it takes a bad experience and turns it into a valuable one. Do not miss the opportunity to get something of value from it.

It’s easy and fun to pull the wisdom from a positive experience. A good experience is the most valuable. Having done it once successfully, you should be able to repeat the positive experience. To ensure that you get the same results with the next new experience, ask yourself these questions:

What was the biggest factor in the experience and what role did it play?
What was the one negative thing about the experience, how could I have prevented, but more importantly, what lesson did I learn?
What steps did I take?
What questions would I have asked if I had another expereince similar to it?
What was my biggest surprise?
What could I have done differently to improve the results?
What did I learn?
What could I have done to improve the past experience?

Exploring the past is definitely inspirational. It also provided integrity to your thinking, and most important of all it puts the past experience into true perspective. You can use this thinking tool for any challenge. You can also use it to just sit back and reflect, you will be surprised what you learn.

Here is a simple exercise. Think back in time, and then think through these subjects:
* Family
* Career
* Hobby
* Giving
* Religion
* Problems
* Work

You can also use this thinking tool to think about any scenarios to see if you experience something similar in the past you can draw on. Always keep balance and perspective in mind when you reflect. If you have a current challenge you are working on, reflect on it, give it some mental energy, give yourself a place to reflect that is quiet and a time that is most peaceful for you

Reflective thinking is the first place to start when you want to think about something and think better.


Exploring into the future is definitely inspirational. Thinking associated with new ideas, planning different objectives and also stretching your creative thoughts on how to proceed in a different way, provides you with loads of positive energy! Use the past to think ahead, set goals and cherisg the insight these thoughts give you.

Try our new E-Book Burning Brighter Than The Rest Of The Stars. A great reference E-Book for people who want to think better, be more creative and generate great ideas.