The crux of personal development is the gap between what one plans to do and what he or she actually does.

A second sight place is the same thing for thinking as a workplace is for doing. Do you have it?

The main threat to microblogging are mental simulacra.

«If you want to be boring, talk about yourself. If you want to be interesting, talk about other people». Hugh Macleod

Stumbled upon Brian Clark’s recent article which nails some insightful points about social media marketing.

The most important conversation is not between seller and buyer, but between prospective and existing buyers.

I suppose many sellers would pay dearly to know what existing buyers say to the prospects. The catch is, they don’t have to wait until it happens by itself — it probably won’t, if there are no social objects the conversation can be built around.

And then comes the second step of social media marketing:

While social media marketing with content and conversation will bring you business, you’ll get more business the better you expressly point out the benefits of buying. More importantly, you should expressly ask people to do business with you.

Not an easy task, because, on one side, people are sensible to the sales efforts, and on the other side, people usually have no idea of buying anything unless told so. That’s why writing skills Brian talks about are so important. And that’s where lies a new divide of social media era.

You are brilliant when you live at full, not when you see far or speak eloquently.

Four things are needed to implement a project: people, money, time, and thinking. The first three are in most cases utterly lacking. So, being good at thinking is crucial.

An example of what I mean is David Allen’s natural planning model. Asking “Why?” is so simple, and yet so often it is asked when it is too late.

Being smart isn’t an inborn quality. Thinking is a skill that needs training, and however beautiful are the anticipated results, training requires some effort. And yet, 30 years after Edward de Bono’s CoRT, a thinking course still isn’t included in most school’s curricula. Perhaps that’s why so many projects fail, even those with plenty of money, time and workforce.

As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.

(Upanishad, via Deepak Chopra’s Seven Spiritual Laws of Success).

In fact, it’s an entire program of personal development with four successive levels, starting from discerning desires and then proceeding to will (I think it’s about habits / perception patterns / attention management) to deeds (action management) to destiny. Very close to Ignatius Loyola’s idea of discernment of spirits as the first step of spiritual development.

Back to Chopra’s book — it’s a wise and refreshing one. Deep books often have misleading names, it looks rather like publisher’s advice. It’s also interesting how easily Chopra integrates some Christian concepts, like the expression “state of grace” he uses there. Looking forward to reading “The Third Jesus”.

Our personalities change very gently and slowly, like a tree grows. We just notice one day that formerly it was different.