Today I want to thank Eric Spencer, head and leader of the PathCare Academy, who invited me to address students at their annual ceremony in the Cape Town City Hall on Wednesday evening, where they came together with their families and friends (there were about 500 people in the venue) to celebrate the successful completion of their studies in 2014.
What a fun evening it turned out to be! The beautiful venue took me back about 40 years (ouch!) to the time when I was a student and visited the city hall on Sunday evenings to enjoy performances of the symphony orchestra (if you know the setting – I enjoyed sitting on the stage behind the orchestra…).
I learned a very important thing on Wednesday evening: Keep things simple and engage the people you are working with.
By nature I tend to be a bit verbose but having just 15 minutes to share what I deem to be 5 of the keys to living a productive, happy and fulfilling life made me focus on the essential things in a practical and fun way which I learned from Kevin Horsley. (I suggest you visit Kevin in cyber space and learn more about these techniques to help you learn faster, remember better and be more productive.)
The most rewarding thing was not the applause after the talk, but the comment of a gentleman that I shared a “robot stop” with as I was going to my car on the Grand Parade afterwards: “Thank you so much for your talk tonight – I will remember those 5 things forever!”
And to hear from Eric the next morning that one of his colleagues made reference to my talk during a management meeting and said that the discussion could not proceed until they have more clarity.
Really practical.
“5 keys to living a productive, happy and fulfilling life” that I thought about aloud on Wednesday evening are:
- Have clarity about things before you even try and do something. (From my talk: Get the mud off the windscreen of your car before driving!)
- Align your resources – get everyone in the boat (your life, your family, your team…) rowing in the same direction (aligning the wheels of your car gives you a smoother ride).
- Focus on what you want to do – but a la Steve Jobs also let go of the things that are attractive but won’t get you where you want to be (Keep your eyes on the road and not the surroundings).
- Adapt to changing conditions (…otherwise you might just end up in a “Kimberley’s Big Hole” pothole).
- Keep on learning for the rest of your life (avoid the potholes next time!).
Just one for the week ahead: Be crystal clear about the things you will do to get the biggest possible return on the investment of your time.
Not clear?
Don’t do it.
Perspective: “Once you stop learning, you start dying.” – Albert Einstein
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