Monthly Archives: April 2016
Superstar Friends – by Gary S. Smolker
Connecting the Dots
I have a group of friends who are super achievers.
The one thing my super achieving superstar friends share in common is that they are fantastic at connecting the dots.
Superstars Out-Perform Competitors
My super achieving superstar friends dream big and have productive ways of thinking.
Having an active imagination and productive ways of thinking enables my super achieving friends to out-perform other people.
Make Good Choices
Common traits possessed by my super achieving superstar friends:
- They see the whole picture.
- They picture in their minds what they expect to see in GREAT detail.
- They visualize what they expect to see with specificity.
- Then they compare what they see with what they expected to see.
- They compare what they actually see with what they visualized (predicted) they would see.
- This enables them to see opportunities and to recognize problems that others don’t see.
CREATING MENTAL MODELS
- (A) They create mental models.
- (B) They are habitual forecasters.
- (C) Having mental models enables them to process information as it arrives.
- (D) They engage in constant forecasting.
DAY DREAMING
- They daydream about the future.
- When life clashes with their imagination, they pay attention.
INVESTMENT OF TIME
- They are careful about how they invest their time.
- They sign up for/they seek to work on projects that require them to seek out new colleagues, they seek out projects to work on which demand that they develop new abilities and skills.
- They avoid tasks that leverage their existing skills.
- They are drawn to risky assignments, especially new idea projects in their early stages.
- They love to generate theories.
OBSESSIVE BEHAVIOR
- They are obsessive about trying to explain the world to themselves, to their colleagues, and to everyone else.
- They constantly tell stories about what they have seen and heard.
STORY TELLING
- They are much more prone to generate working mental models than people who don’t constantly tell stories about what they have seen and heard.
WHAT IF EXERCISES
- They push themselves to do a lot of “what if” exercises before an event.
CONSEQUENCES
- Superstars build robust mental models at a near constant rate.
- As a result of building robust mental models, including “what if models”, superstars “know” what their options are at all times.
FOCUS
- They know where to focus their attention (they know what is important and what is not important to pay attention to).
- They can figure out what they should turn their attention to and what they can ignore.
- When and if their mental model comes apart, they shift their mindset, they replace the failed mental model with a new mental model.
Conclusion
You can’t delegate thinking.
To become genuinely productive you must take control of your attention.
You must focus on what matters most.
The most productive highest achieving people build the most robust mental models.
Action Implications
Get into the habit of telling yourself stories.
Get into the habit of day dreaming.
Get into the habit of “forecasting”, anticipating what is going to happen next, what is going to happen in the future.
Dream big.
Ideas to Daydream About
A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. – Wayne Gretzky, hockey player
Your focus determines your reality. – George Lucas, movie director
Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. – Alan Perlis, computer programmer
It is not the strongest of the species who survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. – Charles Darwin, naturalist
Everything starts as somebody’s daydream. – Larry Niven, writer
Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep. – Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher
What’s dangerous is not to evolve. – Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com CEO
Life without imagination would be utterly boring. – Shereen Hart, sex therapist
Creation is a drug I can’t live without. – Cecil B. De Mille, film director
How far would Moses have gotten if he had taken a poll in Egypt? – Harry Truman, 33rd U.S. President
If you don’t begin with big dreams, you can never fulfill them. – Donald Trump, real estate mogul and Republican Primary Candidate
You don’t win championships by just being normal, by just being average. – Bill Walton, basketball player
Don’t live in the past. There’s no point. You can’t change anything. – Bob Newhart, comedian
Photograph of Patrick Gisler
I asked my superstar friend to send me a photograph of himself to include in this post.
Pat sent me the two photos below with the comment, “Pick the one you like the best. In the picture on the right, I am the one with the pink nose.”
As you can see from the two photos (above) that Patrick selected to send to me, Patrick is not normal or average.
Not being normal, not being average, having a sense of humor, being brilliant, being well read, being a thinker, being a risk taker, having a robust mental model of how the world works, being lucky and being a high energy guy who perseveres through thick and being in the right place at the right time has made Patrick a super achiever.
By the way, as a hobby, among other things, Patrick breeds highly pedigreed race horses.
Copyright © 2016 by Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved
When Cultures Mix – by Gary S. Smolker
See email correspondence below.
April 23, 2016 Email to Paul Cook from Gary S. Smolker
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Paul,
It is amazing where imagination and technology can take us.
I recently went to a “Virtual Reality” program where one of the speakers described how a virtual reality program he created has been used used at the Cleveland Clinic as a training tool – it allows cardiologists to experience conducting heart surgery in virtual reality.
I recently told a woman about you, in a discussion this morning.
This woman is Irish and verbal. Her code name is SUPERNOVA.
SUPERNOVA told me that it is Irish culture and tradition to be verbal: to tell stories around a fire while getting drunk. According to SUPERNOVA: That is the way the Irish communicate.
SUPERNOVA told me that Jews communicate (stories) by writing; they sit around a camp fire with quill and pen in hand writing down stories being told on vellum.
SUPERNOVA told me that as an Irish Woman she will tell me stories which I as a Jewish Man can and should write down and publish.
That is the way different cultures mix in Los Angeles
Gary
From: Paul Cook <pcook@lpcook.compcook@lpcook.com>
To: Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.comgsmolker@aol.com>
Sent: Sat, Apr 23, 2016 8:09 am
Subject: Re: Seder
On April 23, 2016 at 4:09 AM Gary Smolker <gsmolker@aol.comgsmolker@aol.comgsmolker@aol.com> wrote:
Happy Passover
Check out 25 photos I took at the Seder I attended last night at
https://garysmolker.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/the-seder-I-attended-on-the-first-night-of-passover-april-22-2016-by-gary-s-smolker/
www.LPC3D.com
LIVING HOME-LIFE ELEGANTLY – by Gary S. Smolker
Last night (April 22, 2016, the First Night of Passover), I attended a Seder at a friend’s home.
The Seder was held in the backyard and inside my friend’s home is in Trousdale Estates, Beverly Hills, California.
Below are photographs I took both before the Seder began and during the Seder.
The Table in the Backyard
A religious ceremony was held in the backyard before we came into the house to socialize and have dinner together.
The religious ceremony, which includes eating prescribed food, was held in the backyard.
Below are photographs of the table set up in the backyard at which we all sat while eating during the religious ceremony which Jews all over the world participate in while they celebrate Passover.
Socializing Before Dinner Is Served
After the religious ceremony finished we proceeded to go inside to socialize.
After they came inside some of the women sat down on couches surrounding a table on which were nuts and fruit to snack on.
Some people talked to other people while standing up.
People also talked to one another before dinner was served, various sitting rooms in the house.
Below is a picture of the hostess and her two daughters.
Below are three more pictures of her daughters.
Buffet
Dinner was served buffet style.
Guests selected dishes to eat for dinner from a table laden with entrees and side dishes.
My Plate of Dishes
Below is a picture of what I put on my dinner plate to eat.
Everything was delicious.
Copyright © 2016 by Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved
Gary S. Smolker 