Review Chapter 8 - 10 ( Sometimes you win sometimes you learn by. Jhon C. Maxwell)

Chapter 8 – Problems: Opportunities for Learning

Problems get better or worse based on what you do or don’t do when you face them.

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn delves a bit into problem solving: interesting and useful, but less foundational when it comes to mindsets.

Chapter 9 – Bad Experiences: The Perspective for Learning

How we think when we lose determines how long it will be until we win.

If you are ambitious a danger for you is that you will quickly move past successes and focus on “what you should have done better”. Which way too often means you’re focusing on losses and building regret. But you can’t build on regrets. And the capacity to manage disappointment and loss is key in living a fulfilling life.

The next time you have a bad experience try this:

1. Accept Your Humanness. We will fail sometimes no matter how hard we try. Why? Because we’re human. And that’s what makes you special.

2. Learn to Laugh at Yourself and Life.How much easier would you problem appear if you were able to laugh at them?

3. Keep the Right Perspective. Seeing difficulties as experience is a matter of perspective:
Don’t Base Your Self-Worth on a Bad Experience You are not your worst moment and you are not defined by your performance.
Don’t Feel Sorry for Yourself You are allowed a 24h grace period of feeling sorry for yourself, then pick yourself up (or you might get stuck)
Do Consider Your Failures as a Process to Learn and Improve Look at it like scientists: when it didn’t work, they tested a hypothesis.

4. Don’t Give Up If you want to succeed in life, you can’t give up. Og Mandino said “Your capacity for occasional blunders is inseparable from your capacity to reach your goals. No one wins them all, and your failures are just part of your growth. Shake off your blunders. How will you know your limits without an occasional failure”

Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience. 

Chapter 10 – Change : The Price of Learning

Some people put the minimum effort to distance themselves from their problems without going to the roots, which of course can often be found in themselves.
And of course they never grow and never solve those problems permanently.

Entrepreneur Alan Cohen said, “To grow, you must be willing to let your present and future be totally unlike your past. Your history is not your destiny.”

Here are a few ways to make positive change:

1. Change Yourself. Quit looking at the environment or people as the issue. In life, if you want more, you must become more.

2. Change Your Attitude Your attitude is fully within your control. Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn is all about giving the right attitudes.

3. Change Your Nongrowing FriendsWise is the person who fortifies his life with the right friendships. And of course you have probably heard “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with“.

4. Determine to Live Differently than Average People. The question “who am I” is important, but even more critical is “Who am I becoming?”. Keep an eye where you are and an eye where you want to be.

5. Unlearn What You Know to Learn What You Don’t Know. Before you input new more empowering thoughts in your brain, you have to let go of the ballast you picked up along the way.

In life if you want more, you must become more.

Review Chapter 5 -7 ( Sometimes you win Sometimes you lose by. Jhon C. Maxwell

Review...

Chapter 5 – Hope: The motivation of learning

By reading this paragraph I had the impression John Maxwell was using the term “hope” for “optimism”, but he later says optimism is a passive while hope is active.

It takes courage to have hope because it can be disappointing, but Maxwell is convinced it’s going to be rewarded.

Hope-filled people are energetic, they welcome life and all that it comes with it -including challenges-.
And Maxwell believes it’s no coincidence depressed individuals often lack energy. Lack of hope and lack of energy usually go hand in hand.

Hope is your greatest asset against hardships: it looks for lessons rather than leaving us deflated. It sees what can be done rather than what can’t be done.

Doing the following three things will help you become hopeful:

1. Realize That Hope Is a Choice. And then choose hope

2. Change Your Thinking. We get what we expect in life. Have positive expectations

3. Win Some Small Victories. Success, even in the form of small wins, will encourage hope. And smaller victories show you that bigger ones are within grasp

Chapter 6 – Teachability: the pathway or learning

If you want to be successful tomorrow, then you must be teachable today.

Teachability is a choice and these are the traits of a Teachable Person:

1. Attitude Conducive to Learning People with a teachable spirit approach each day as an opportunity for learning. They know that success is less about natural talent and more about learning.

2. Teachable People Possess a Beginner’s Mind-set. It can be difficult, so you have to remind yourself.

3. Teachable People Take Long, Hard Looks in the Mirror. Always ask yourself “am I the cause?” If the answer is yes, then it’s time to make changes.

4. Teachable People Encourage Others to Speak into Their Lives. Surround yourself with people who know you well and will tell you the truth. This is even more important as you become more successful.

5. Teachable People Learn Something New Every Day. Any day will make you a little larger or a little smaller. Strung many days together and you will be a lot larger or a lot smaller

Daily Practices to Become More Teachable :

1. Preparation. Every day ask yourself in advance what you’re going to learn. You will be amazed by how often you can improve from people and experience in your daily life.

2. Contemplation. Observe and reflect on your experiences. Stopping and thinking allows us to gain perspective on both the successes and failures so that we can find the lessons within them. Only evaluated experiences teach us.

3. Application. The true value of teachability comes when we take something that we learn and apply it.

Recognizing your contribution in your failings, seeking solutions no matter how painful and working hard to change for the best is teachability in action.

If you want to be successful tomorrow, then you must be teachable today. 

Chapter 7 + Adversity: The Catalyst for Learning

Difficulties can be a boost if you face it with the right mind-set.

Adversity Brings Profit as Well as Pain If We Expect It and Plan for It Since adversity is going to be there anyway, we might as well plan for it. Gold medalist winners always expect pain.

Adversity Writes Our Story Adversity is unavoidable, and it’s your chance to be a hero: if you response we, it will be an heroic poem. Will adversity be your tombstone or stepping stone?

“You never win the gold without hurting.” 

Sometimes You Win Sometimes You Learn : by John C. Maxwell

Page : 217

Inspiring, prolific and best-selling author John. C. Maxwell explains how to learn from and cope with failure. Maxwell draws on examples, stories and observations, creating a readable manual filled with practical observations. If you put winning ahead of learning, Maxwell says, you will suffer, because failure is part of life. In the face of loss, he urges, remain hopeful and try to be “teachable.” Maxwell is a breezy, direct writer. His advice carries the weight of hard-earned knowledge and fundamental common sense. Maxwell evokes great thinkers – like psychologist Karl Jung – and the lessons of tiny, everyday experiences. 

Review : 

Chapter 1 – Humility: The spirit of learning

Some people bounce back from losses. Others never recover. What’s the difference?
John Maxwell says it’s humility.

Humility as in the opposite of pride.
Prideful people respond to failure in ways that don’t help them move forward, like denying and blaming others. People with a spirit of humility instead learn from successes and losses (Ed note: this is a what a fixed mindsetdoes).

Here’s what humility does for you:

–Gives you perspective: humility doesn’t mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less. And it will allow you to look at the bigger picture.

–Enables you to admit a mistake: and thus to learn and grow.

–Allows to let go of perfectionism:contrary to prideful people, those with a spirit of humility aren’t afraid of a mistake.

It’s not what we have that determines our success. It’s how we think 

Chapter 2 – Reality: The Foundation of Learning

John Maxwell says that when we accept that life is hard, we begin to grow.

Successful people don’t shy away from difficulties, they learn to face them and move ahead in spite of them.
And here’s a new perspective for you: what if instead of fearing difficulties, you welcome them as a test of character and use them to rise to the occasion.

Roots author Alex Haley said: “Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you”.  Facing reality and accepting the problem will not conquer it, but it’s the very first step to overcome it.

John Maxwell says you should realistically rate the performance independently of whether you win or lose.

And life is definitely harder for those who stop growing and learning. Some people become focused on a specific goal that when they achieve it they relax, because they feel they made it. That mindset has the power to unmake them (arrival plateau).

What if you treated hardships as a welcome test of characters 

Chapter 3 – Responsibility: The first step of learning

John Maxwell says that nothing happens to advance our potential until we step up and say, “I am responsible.”
If you don’t take responsibility, you give up control of your life (external locus of control). Taking responsibility for your life instead puts you in a place where you are always able to learn and often able to win (internal locus of control).

Lack of responsibility means:

• Victim Mentality;
• Blamestorming activity, which is what John Maxwell designs as the creative process to find a scapegoat
• Giving away control of our lives : if you don’t take responsibility for what happens in your life you relinquish ownership of your life
• No growth: and little chances of success-

Taking responsibility means:

• First step in learning : taking responsibility for what you can control and letting go of what you cannot will accelerate your learning process
• Seeing Things in Proper Perspective : The best learners are people who don’t see their losses and failures as permanent (develop a growth mindset)
• Backing Up Our Words With Behavior: Jeff O’Leary wrote “sign your work at the end of each day. If you can’t do that, find a new profession.” When you can take full responsibility for our work, you reach integrity.

Chapter 4 – Improvement: The Focus of Learning

The Stone Age didn’t end because people ran out of stones. It ended because people kept learning and improving.

1. Improving Yourself Is the First Step to Improving Everything Else. Whatever you want to improve in your life, you need to first start with yourself.

2. Improvement Requires Us to Move Out of Our Comfort Zone. Always doing the safe thing will not take you forward. You must surrender security to improve.

3. Improvement Is Not Satisfied with “Quick Fixes”. “Everyone is looking for a quick fix, but what they really need is fitness. People who look for fixes stop doing what’s right when pressure is relieved. People who pursue fitness do what they should no matter what.”

4. Improvement Is a Daily Commitment. If you want to improve, you need to make it a habit. Motivation is nice but short lived. It’s the positive habits you practice consistently that will get you far.

To be continued.....

Synopsis "World War Z: an oral history of the zombie war" by . Max Brooks

Title : World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
A novel written by : Max Brooks
Published September 12, 2006
Page : 342

The story is told in the form of a series of interviews conducted by the narrator, Max Brooks, an agent of the United NationsPostwar Commission. Although the exact origin of the plague is unknown, a young boy from a village in Chongqing, China is identified as the plague's official patient zero. The plague spreads to various nations by human trafficking, refugees and the black market organ trade. Initially these nations are able to cover up their smaller outbreaks, until a much larger outbreak in South Africa brings the plague to public attention.

As the infection spreads, Israel abandons the Palestinian territories and initiates a nationwide cordon sanitaire, closing its borders to everyone except uninfected Jews and Palestinians. The United States does little to prepare because of its overconfidence in its ability to suppress any threat. Although special forces teams contain initial outbreaks, a widespread effort never starts: the nation is deprived of political will by "brushfire wars", and a widely distributed and marketed placebo vaccine, Phalanx, creates a false sense of security.

After a journalist reveals that Phalanx does nothing to prevent zombification, a period known as the "Great Panic" begins. Pakistan and Iran destroy each other in a nuclear warover Pakistani refugees entering Iran. After zombies overrun New York City, the U.S. military sets up a high-profile defense in the nearby city of Yonkers. The "Battle of Yonkers" is a disaster; modern weapons and tactics prove ineffective against zombies, which have no self-preservation instincts, feel no pain, and can only be stopped if shot through the head. The unprepared and demoralized soldiers are routed on live television. Other countries suffer similarly disastrous defeats, and human civilization teeters on the brink of collapse.

In South Africa, the government adopts a contingency plan drafted by apartheid-era intelligence consultant Paul Redeker, known as the Redeker Plan. It calls for the establishment of small sanctuaries, leaving large groups of survivors abandoned in special zones as human baits in order to distract the undead and allowing those within the main safe zone time to regroup and recuperate. Governments worldwide assume similar plans. As zombies freeze solid in extreme cold, many civilians in North America flee to the wildernesses of northern Canadaand the Arctic, where eleven million people die of starvation and hypothermia. Several astronauts stranded aboard the ISS witness the profound environmental impact as most of humanity resorts to burning wood and trash for warmth.

After the U.S. government relocates to Hawaii, the military abandons the eastern United States and establishes safe zones west of the Rocky Mountains. All aspects of civilian life are devoted to supporting the war effort; people with skills such as carpentry and construction find themselves more valuable than people with managerial skills.

Seven years after the outbreak began, a conference is held off the coast of Honolulu, aboard the decommissioned USS Saratoga, where the new United Nations headquarters are located. Most of the world's leaders argue that they can outlast the zombie plague if they stay in their safe zones while the zombies rot away. However, the U.S. president argues for going on the offensive. Determined to lead by example, the U.S. military reinvents itself to meet the specific strategic requirements of fighting the undead. Backed by a resurgent U.S. wartime economy, the military begins the three-year-long process of retaking the contiguous United States from both the undead swarms and groups of hostile human survivors. Encouraged by America's success in defeating the zombies, many countries start to retake infested areas.

Ten years after the official end of the zombie war, millions of zombies are still active, mainly on the ocean floor or on snow line islands. The United Nations fields a large military force to eliminate them. Cuba has become a democracy and hosts the world's most thriving economy. Tibet is freed from Chinese rule, which in turn becomes a democracy as well, and hosts Lhasa as the world's most populated city. Following a religious revolution, Russia is now an expansionist theocracy and adopts a repopulation programme. North Korea is completely empty, with the entire population presumed to have disappeared into underground bunkers or been wiped out in the outbreak. Iceland has been depopulated and remains the world's most heavily infested country.