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 The True Meaning Of Wisdom
By
Mohamed Tohami
Do you want to be a wise man? It is true that being wise is a blessing, but have you ever asked yourself what is the true meaning of wisdom?
If you’re like me, I always pictured a wise man as a very old man with white hair and a long white beard - a pensive man of few words who offered profound,
thought-provoking advice after great deliberation. And I always thought of wisdom itself as ancient, little-known knowledge to be found only in fragile volumes
of yellowed parchment!
But is that truly what wisdom is?
I asked myself that question for quite a while until I finally figured out what I believe is the TRUE answer.
After interviewing more than 100 successful people from all over the world - listening to and recording their success stories and timeless success secrets - I came to believe that every successful person is wise, and he who achieves massive success holds in his mind the true essence of wisdom. Therefore, to find true wisdom, you have to study their lives very closely and search for the clues they’ve left behind.
And here’s what I discovered to be the TRUE meaning of wisdom…
As brilliantly stated by George Bernard Shaw, "We are made wise
not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future."
Being responsible for your life and your future gives you the wisdom you need to fulfill your mission in life. Having a clear vision of your future gives you an unparalleled advantage when it comes to successful decision-making and achieving better results faster.
The truth is, YOU are responsible. This is probably the foremost trait of ultra-successful people. They take responsibility for their futures, and that gives them the power to reach unmatched levels of success. You have to realize this fact now: “No one can change your life but YOU.”
People often tell me that they want a better life - but
when I ask them what their vision of a better life is, they can't answer! Or they simply list some vague, wishy-washy things
like “more money” or “better health.”
You must have a crystal-clear
vision and purpose in your life. Wandering aimlessly through life will not do you any good.
Your
purpose and vision are the real source of wisdom and power. Your purpose is the driving force that fires your motivation, gives you a sense of meaning, and holds you up to your dreams.
The true meaning of wisdom lies in taking responsibility for your future and having a clear purpose in your life.
As Stephen Covey says,
"Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power."
To be a truly wise
man you need to do three vital things:
1. Take responsibility for your own future, because no one else can be held responsible for improving your life. It is yours, and nothing will change unless you take the lead!
2. Develop a clear vision of
your future. Eliminate vague wishes and develop specific goals. Exactly how much money do you need? What kind of “better job” are you looking for? How do you define “better health?” Be crystal clear.
Remember, you can't manifest what you can't see.
3. Take
action. Be bold and create your destiny with your own hand. You might listen to thousands of tapes and read all the books in the world, but nothing will change until you take action.
Wisdom is the ability to see your future clearly and to craft
a legacy that will make you live forever in the hearts and memories of others. Wisdom is
the ability to make a difference and bring value to the world to make it a better place. Wisdom is the ability to live with purpose, know
who you truly are, and mine your own diamonds.
Now, are you ready to become THE wise man?
Author's Bio: Mohamed Tohami uncovers the success wisdom of the ages to help you transform your life from making a
living to making a difference. Find out more about the 70 ultra successful people who are spilling the beans about how they
achieved their success, built their empires and live the life of their dreams at: http://www.Success-Avalanche.com
Thought Leaders
By Mike Myatt, Top CEO Coach, author "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual"
"Thought Leaders" seem to be everywhere these days..What is a thought leaders and what does thought leadership mean in today’s business world? In my opinion a
thought leader is not someone who simply restates someone else’s views and positions.
From my perspective a thought leader is someone who has their own views and positions that largely differ from established norms
and conventions. Moreover, the true litmus test of a thought leader is when their unique ideas are implemented in the marketplace they tend to create disruptive
innovation, and often change the way we view the world. In the text that follows I’ll examine the subject of thought
leadership in an attempt to separate fact from fiction…
It is certainly much easier
to look back in time at world leaders, Nobel laureates, religious scholars, philosophers, and captains of industry to identify
historical thought leaders than it is to identify today’s visionaries. This is simply due to the fact that thought leadership
was once a term reserved for a limited few.
Regrettably the label of thought leader has evolved to become a self-bestowed title for anyone who has something to say or promote,
often without regard for qualitative issues. Some would say that the term thought leader, once synonymous with futurist and innovator, is more closely aligned with snake-oil salesman
today. Don’t get me wrong, true thought leaders still exist; they are just much harder to spot these days.
Let me begin by stating that authentic thought leaders, the real deals, are not created via great
marketing and PR alone. While they are oft published, quite outspoken, and many times represented by marvelous publicists,
they are not merely contrived, self-promoted legends in their own minds.
Rather true thought leaders are born out of real-world successes, achievements, and contributions that have been recognized by their peers and competitors alike. Their work is widely regarded
as being innovative, disruptive and market altering. They are not the posers, but the players…They are not spin masters
trying to make it, but are the undisputed market leaders that have already arrived.
It is
important to draw a distinction between personal or corporate branding and thought leadership. While thought leaders often become well recognized brands, there are many well crafted brands that have messaged
thought leadership where none exists.
Don’t allow yourself to get caught-up in the spin and hype associated with
great marketers who will gladly accept compensation, but will leave you woefully disappointed when it comes to living-up to
their billing. Look for real results based upon market leadership and not just brand leadership alone.
The best example I can give you about discerning the difference between brand leaders and thought leaders is that of large consulting companies. I would challenge the brand perception that IBM
or Accenture are the true thought leaders in their sector. I would submit that you will find the true innovation and thought
leadership taking place at the smaller consultancies.
In fact I’ll go so far
as to say that there is almost an inverse relationship between size and thought leadership in that the bigger a company is,
the less likely they are to be innovators. Rather it is those firms chasing the big brands, who must innovate to survive,
that often employ today’s thought leaders.
Over the course of my career I have walked into many businesses that were branded
as market leaders that hadn’t come up with a new idea for years. The fact of the matter is that the more institutional
a firm becomes the harder it is to maintain an entrepreneurial edge driven by a culture of innovation.
I recently read an article by Fiona Czerniawska entitled “Thought Leadership: Are You Making It or Faking
It?” and while finding it to be quite an interesting read, my perspective although similar to hers in many respects
still differs substantially…Fiona’s article dissects the subject of thought leadership as it applies to large
consulting firms and this is where we differ.
While she calls many current practices into question, I tend to go much further in
that my belief is that big consulting firms are the farthest thing from thought leaders. The legions of twenty and thirty-something
consultants employed by McKinsey, Bain, Booz Allen Hamilton etc. haven’t lived long enough to even form their own thoughts
much less become thought leaders…
As Fiona so accurately points out, the large
consulting firms often label themselves as thought leaders (strike one…),
repurpose generic materials across industries and sectors and spin “old” as “innovative” (can you say best practices? strike two…) and they have regrettably become pimps of mass
merchandised mediocrity (strike three…).
As noted above, espousing “best practices” propaganda has nothing to do with thought leadership,
but has everything to do with creating mediocrity (see “The Downside of Best
Practices”).
What I have witnessed time and again is that these purported
thought leaders have in reality weakened businesses, damaged brands, and commoditized competitive advantages for many entities, which ultimately adversely impacts their profitability and sustainability. I know my perspective
may appear jaded, but I’m so tired of reading the drivel of people that don’t have anything unique to say, who
have been deemed as brilliant up-and-comers that I just want to scream…
I have nothing
against the term thought leader and am honored when I’ve been referred to as such. However it is my opinion the label should be reserved as an honor to be given to a few, and not a title to be adopted by the masses. Dilution has
the opposite effect of scarcity in that it diminishes value. Can you remember when the title of Vice President or Managing
Director actually meant something? I can…
Bottom line…judge people on
their actions and results, not their rhetoric. Don’t accept conventional wisdom as
gospel unless you can validate proof of concept, and then only accept it if you can innovate with it, or around it. Challenge everything in business by
looking to improve upon the status quo and differentiate yourself from your competition. I don’t advise my clients to adopt the practices of their peers, but rather to be disruptive with their innovation
such that they create or widen market gaps between themselves and their peers.
Author's Bio: Mike Myatt, is a Top CEO Coach and author of "Leadership Matters...The CEO Survival Manual". As one of America's top CEO Coaches, Mr. Myatt is a sought after
professional advisor known for his refreshing and straight forward approach to business and his tireless efforts in serving
his clients. As an executive Mike Myatt has held numerous C-suite positions, as an entrepreneur he has been a principal in
4 successful ventures and as a professional advisor he has worked with clients ranging from successful professionals to Fortune
100 companies.
Some of Mr. Myatt's accomplishments prior to serving as Managing Director and Chief Strategy Officer
at N2growth include serving as President and COO of a commercial real estate investment bank, Managing Director of a law firm,
Director of Internet Strategy for the country's largest web enablement firm and he founded what is today one of the country’s
leading interactive advertising agencies.
source site: click here
Wisdom, Not Information!
By Emil-Paul Dopson
I continue to be disturbed by the lemming-like rush into oblivion
over the fashionable craving for information. With the booming growth of the Internet facts are just a click away. Sufficient
to say that information, and much of it just trivial and useless, abounds.Our media cannot get enough dirty underwear.Almost
weekly we read of the most amazing breakthroughs in science and technology. We can get so excited when media reinforces such
excitement, and for a while we might imagine things will be better. But our expectations are quickly frustrated and we relapse
into the doldrums.We remain unsatisfied.
Why? Because we often give our time, priority and value to the wrong things.
We allow others to set the agenda for us and we might simply go along with it beacuse we're presented with something new and
which adds a sort of our necessary need for variety. Often, anything is better than nothing. Like children on summer vacation,
we are lazy and have have forgotten our genius for invention and self-amusement. We live in an age where we continually expect
to be entertained because reality is too hard to bear!Well, the bad news is that reality will continue to get harder as we
continue to make the wong choices. Why do we not publicly celebrate the breakthroughs in the human heartand soul? Why are
our newspapers and conversations not filled with compliments rather than malicious gossip?
We are the unwise-intelligents;
the savant stupids.We buy personal development books by the warehouse, but little changes. Strategies abound, yet the core
information we have about ourselves stops any long-term progress because we continue to upload and download rather than offload.
We talk of "getting real" as if we truly understood what the term means, while we explore avenues which take us further
away from where we should be. Unable to discern the real from the counterfeit, we operate our hamster-like treadmills at at
accelerating pace until we come off or the wheel breaks! This is the destination of too much useless information within us.
There is a link between fulfillment and knowledge. We have to start making some critical choices regarding why we
keep getting things wrong as individuals and societies. Why, for instance we can talk to each other through a box or a handset
while thousands of miles apart, yet we cannot be civil and loving with each in the same room other. Technology continues to
amaze us with its ability to sing and dance, and yet it is accelerating away from our real needs at lightening speed. To paraphrase
Dr. Martin Luther King, our technology continues to escape our secular and counterfeit theologies.
The truth is we
already have all the information we need in order to become more compassionate, settled and loving.It has been around for
thousands of years, but we esteem it lightly because we are not courageous enough to live well and for each other. Spiritually,
we have not yet evolved beyond a stumbling toddlerhood; like "cool" teenagers we continue to think we know more than we do,
yet could learn.
Having entered a new millennium in the year 2000 or 2001 - whichever
you prefer - the truth is that our expectations for a better world continue to be unrealized, primarily because our visions are flawed, selfish and materially based!
Immersed in the thick of thin things,
we just manage to keep our lips above what threatens to suck us down. We want more, but know not what is best for us, so we choose more of what already exists and which is easily
available: things, and in all of its material categories.
If we do not learn from the mistakes
of the past we are not only doomed to relive them at a more terrifying and destructive intensity, but we are doomed
to teach them to our children, born and unborn. We speak of values and yet do not question if they are the right ones to have, or whether they are tainted or diluted from their pure forms.
We use language without realising its power to build or obliterate. We are far too careless with our lives.
Over the past few decades we have embraced self-help as a religion but fail to see its real foundation
is based on helping others and a fierce commitment to virtue, despite what the crowd says. A better life will not come if
we are not prepared personally and as a group of responsible and selfless workers to wear out our lives by thinking and doing
good.
And this is where we encounter the real difference between information and
wisdom: information will only tell you about opinions, theories and the little we know of
what exists; wisdom, or the guiding truths of experience, will enable and empower each of us to make better choices so that we can use our passions to create and sustain
rather than to destroy.
We need no longer preserve a tenuous
status-quo which continues to go nowhere, despite the illusory trappings of progress. Ultimately, we must choose between facts or timeless values. It will take time and an expression of our deepest concerns to step back from the precipice and ask questions such as: What
is right? What is the best for all of us? How can we stay focused on the good?
We must
truly begin to ask whether information will nourish us rather than, like hay, merely fill our bellies. Are we better
off using our pooled resources on developing what we most need, or pursue what is possible, but cosmetic and useless?
We do not need to look for the answers "out there" because they already exist within us. However
small the flame within, it still burns. If only we dare to listen and do what the deepest parts of us already know. We cannot any longer afford not to learn vicariously from the lives and
guiding principles which have either blessed or cursed the centuries. We can no longer afford not to choose a better way,
nor can we "cop out" of not choosing, because no choice is always a choice!
What will the
future bring? Whatever you decide? The future history of everything depends on what you choose to learn and live by.
Whether you choose the "safety" of not getting involved with wider life issues or maintaining what you have until you die will make the difference. Or not.
What and how you process what comes into your secret, private, public and global
life is immensely important to you as well as to those you know or who you may never meet. You can learn or let, serve or
sit. But realize there is a moral dimension to everything and that you are also part of history. Future information will include
or omit your presence. Wisdom will decide whether you did or didn't do the right thing.
Meanwhile, information will continue to flood our small planet with much of which
is superfluous, distractive, destructive and needless. It is the relentless child of an age of arrogance which spans thousands
of years of cruelty, inferior progress and needless suffering.
Wisdom has been around at
least as long and teaches us about morality, or how we should treat each other.Often seen as something pretentious or unnecessary,
it is our truest friend and combines the best of both head and heart.
Seek after it.
Appreciate its difference from mere information. Learn from it. Fall in love with it. Live it and live for it in the creation of a better
life for you and your world and it will serve you well as you as you serve those around you.
Author's
Bio: I'm a motivational
human resource trainer who is passionate about people and organizations demonstrating co-operation and creativity. My
background is academic (Philosophy and psychology) and for the past 20 years I've been involved in training and motivational speaking.
Please
contact me at Upward123@hotmail.com with any feedback / comments.
source site: click here
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What is wisdom? For one, it is something that is valued in virtually all cultures throughout the world and throughout the ages wise people lead
the way to a deeper understanding of life.
Wisdom is not about having mere knowledge. It’s much beyond that and in many
ways knowledge itself is not even necessary to have wisdom. Wisdom
is an inner understanding that often contradicts intellectual knowledge.
Wisdom is almost always beyond the
obvious and the conventional. When we recognize a great wisdom it is as if we see ‘a light’ inside our minds – a special feeling inside which leads us to a greater understanding. Wisdom is not something you attain as much as it is something you grow into. For most
of us wisdom is synonymous with an old man and a long flowing grey beard. Although it is
true that wisdom comes with age, you don’t need to be old to be wise.
For me all great wisdom is spiritual by nature. All great insights into life are insights that transcends the physical world and our mere observations. It’s metaphysical (beyond
the physical) and therefore it often contradicts conventional thinking.
Wisdom is about seeing past the obvious appearances of things. When you do this you
cannot help but to recognize something bigger and greater at work behind everything in life. This great invisible force that some call God is not confined
to spiritual thinkers, but is the very force of life that flows through everything.
The true meaning of wisdom is having an intimate knowledge of God and the spiritual and metaphysical dimension that will help you see past the appearances of things to reveal
a greater meaning behind it all. In Dr. Wayne Dyer’s 10 Secrets For Success And Inner Peace, he offers a great insight into wisdom. One of his secrets for success and inner peace is a definition for wisdom. He says that wisdom
is avoiding all thoughts that weaken you.
Every thought you have will either strengthen or weaken you. On this deeper metaphysical level of life, your thoughts create your life. Having the ability to ‘see’ and to realize this is what wisdom
is really about. Virtually every spiritual text refers to the power of thought and how we create our lives through our thoughts. This great law, the Law Of Attraction is a controlling law in the universe that dictates what we attract and create in our lives.
Learning to
distinguish and then to avoid the thoughts that weaken you will give you a greater sense of power and authentic energy in your life. Weak thoughts like anger, hate and jealousy always weaken you because it requires a counter force. Thoughts of love, peace and joy will only strengthen you because it never takes anything from you – it only ‘adds’
to you. In this sense wisdom will allow you to enjoy a greater sense of inner peace and it will help you to move right past conflict and confrontation.
So often we focus on what’s wrong in our lives in an attempt
to ‘fix’ it. What wisdom teaches us is to shift from what’s wrong, to
what’s right. Carl Jung once said that “what you resist persists” – wise words from a wise man who
understood that what you think about, will only recreate itself in your life experience.
The true meaning of wisdom
is to have the insight that’s beyond the obvious. It’s learning to see that beyond the surface level of life experiences, there is something
greater and bigger at work. This invisible (yet knowable) life force is
intimately connected to you and your thoughts.
What you think about expands in your life and learning to avoid that which weakens you will allow you to cultivate your own authentic power and ultimately create for yourself the kind of life you really want to live.
Author's Bio: www.illumen8.com Download a FREE book summary of Wayne Dyer’s The 10 Secrets For Success and Inner Peace, and discover his 10 principles for creating real success, happiness
and inner peace in your life.
source site: click here
Acquiring Wisdom
by Kathleen Howe
I've experienced more than most people experience in a long
lifetime of 100 years in my fifty years on this earth. It's almost as if I can say to you,
"Go ahead, ask me! Whatever it is, I've done it!"
There are some bible verses that describe some
of what I've gone through, for instance when I prayed for patience. This was a big mistake!
Romans 5:3
And not only so, but we glory
in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
I had troubles, tribulations
and trauma, crises and natural disasters ever since I was born. I've made many mistakes and have felt my sanity slip
from me. The importance of my situation has been that I not forget what I have learned and I use the
wisdom I have gained from my heartaches and pain to keep others I care and love about from having to learn their life
lessons the same way - by experience - trial and error.
In my quest to help others through this network
of sites I've hoped that through sharing my wisdom, my costly lessons learned might be of some positive use instead of everything
be for nothing. It is through this belief that I have taken time to share my wisdom with you all. I wouldn't want anyone to
suffer the same things that I have.
I'm sure that you understand what I'm talking
about. We grow up and we share what we've learned with our children, who promptly smile that mischievous grin they have as
if to simply "humor" us by pretending they're soaking it all in. It is through our love for them that we share our pain. They
aren't realizing that we don't want to re-live those grievous times; we want to spare them the same pain.
Wisdom, from anyone is vital in our lives. We
can learn from listening and totally absorbing the wisdom of others. We must learn how to listen first and not want to be
in competition for the most horrible experiences that have happened to anyone.
to be continued.... 5/4/08
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