Professional Development

Be Fond of Knowledge and Steadily Raise Your Levels of Expectations 

Your business and work results are a reflection of you. Your career and future business results will grow in direct proportion to your own personal growth and development.

As the golfer Jack Nicklaus points out, "Achievement is largely the product of steadily raising one's levels of aspirations and expectations." 

One great way to steadily raise your personal levels of aspiration, according to Chicken Soup for the Soul author and founder Mark Victor Hansen, is to "read books, listen to tapes and attend seminars ── they are decades of wisdom reduced to invaluable hours." 

Another way is to delve into the treasure trove of educational and "how to" video clips at YouTube, one of the largest and greatest sources of free information available.

There are three types of education you will receive in life ── formal learning through school, self-learning through what you read and see, and the teachings that come your way from living your life.

None of these methodologies is necessarily better than the others, though there are some things you cannot learn through formal schooling or reading. Love, for instance. Or how it feels to do something of value for another human being.

What is most important, however, is learning how to learn. In the business world, corporate training programs are based on the concept that the way adults learn is through doing and experiencing, hence the proliferation of breakout groups and role playing in most of these programs. 

As Paul Coelho writes, "Teaching is merely showing that something is possible. Learning is making something possible for yourself."

It is also important to develop a life-long desire for learning. 

For, as Confucius wrote, "To be fond of learning is to be near knowledge." 

This article is partially excerpted from our top-ranked personal development book Project You: Living A Determined Life, which is available in Kindle and paperback formats at Amazon.