“Analysis of physicist Albert Einstein’s brain revealed that his was slightly smaller than the average human brain. Quote this bit of trivia the next time some macho guy brags about the male brain being bigger than the female one. Look where Einstein’s “small” brain got him!” – National Geographic
This quote is self-explanatory, but in this piece, I “extend” its message to include a tendency in most people across societies the world over, to use physical attributes to draw conclusions about what a person can or cannot do.
This habit stems from a belief many of us grow up to accept from what we see and hear around us, about our capabilities and those of others.
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Tayo Solagbade’s
Performance Improvement IDEAS
(PI Squared) NewsletterMonday 22nd January 2018
NB: This PI Squared newsletter will be published weekly, on Mondays, in place of the Speaking/Web Marketing IDEAS newsletter, starting from today – 15th February 2016. I’m reinventing my Monday newsletter content and theme, to accommodate my vision of serving the growing audience of serious minded individuals and organizations reaching out to me, with information, education. news and research findings designed to help them do what they do better.************
PII 102: You Need Big Ideas – NOT a Big Brain!
“Analysis of physicist Albert Einstein’s brain revealed that his was slightly smaller than the average human brain. Quote this bit of trivia the next time some macho guy brags about the male brain being bigger than the female one. Look where Einstein’s “small” brain got him!” – National Geographic
This quote is self-explanatory, but in this piece, I “extend” its message to include a tendency in most people across societies the world over, to use physical attributes to draw conclusions about what a person can or cannot do.
This habit stems from a belief many of us grow up to accept from what we see and hear around us, about our capabilities and those of others.
For instance, the bigger girl is expected to run faster than the smaller statured one. The bigger girl is expected to be able to jump higher on the basketball court than a smaller sized team mate.
Then there are the silly gender based generalizations.
Men are expected to be braver than women. Males are expected to deal with worry and stress better than females. They are expected to perform better in sports, even business than women.
So, the person with what is considered a “weaker” attitude by society’s majority will often find him/herself not being given a fair and impartial opportunity or consideration to pursue success.
This happens all the time, in various areas of endeavour, all over the world – but in some societies, systems have been put in place to give more balanced access to opportunities to members.
But the truth remains that those biases persist, and people will continue to make unfounded assumptions about other people’s potential for a long time to come.
They WILL do the same to you, and to others you know or care about – including your kids.
This is why you MUST as a matter of urgent necessity, prepare yourself to deal with such potentially limiting generalizations, whenever they may be directed towards you.
I tell my two (11 and 8 year) old daughters this all the time i.e. that they must never let anyone tell them there is something they cannot do.
This is why I started them early in the business of personal development and achievement by way of income-earning vocational skills acquisition (Read: PII 007: Parenting Is NOT A Democracy [Hint: The Need to Assert Yourself to Get Results That Matter – Lesson from True Story of a Girl Who Made Pizza Without An Oven])
The article linked below explains how I got them to attend a 2 week intensive training course organized by the Lagos State Ministry of Youth Development.
It is noteworthy to mention here that the organizers initially expressed doubts that my girls, being so young, would be able to follow the lessons, talk less of being able to actually DO what the instructors would teach.
But on the final (graduation) day, the 8 year old was the centre of attention, with guests coming to record videos of her making up her “client”.
When she was called out to receiving her certificate, the special guest from Alausa, who was doing the presentation looked surprised when he saw her walking up to him.
The presenter, quickly assured him she was the one the certificate was meant for, noting that “she was the youngest participant”. (All the others were females in their mid twenties to over 50 years old)
I told my girls during those 2 weeks that they could do what was being taught as well as any of the other adults, as .long as they BELIEVED they could.
And I made sure to personally take them down and stay with them all through each day’s training session for the duration of the course.
A week later, I’d arranged for them to resume weekly training lessons in hair styling with a lady we’d met at the graduation ceremony.
They began about 7 months ago, but today are developing what is increasingly closer to “unconscious competence” in plaiting various styles (Didi, Ghana Weaving, Senegalese Twist, Patewo and Base, Shut up etc).
The key word n the above last sentence is UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE!
When one has repeatedly carried out an activity to the point that s/he can do it PROFICIENTLY without needing to focus one’s attention exclusively on it, then one can be said to have achieved UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE at it.
People who excel at what they do, in ways that are superior to the average person’s ability to deliver, are often those who possess UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE.
What I have done for YEARS is to actively challenge my kids to hone their gifts, talents and skills to the point of UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE when they use them.
I do this because I have reaped the benefit that comes from possessing that ability. It has enabled me deliver superior performances in every area of endeavour I have ventured over the last 3 decades of my life – right from my days in school, through my time in paid employment and especially over the last decade of my life as an entrepreneur.
My passion for what I do, which is based on areas I’m gifted /talented had made it easy for me to devote thousands of hours for years, without losing enthusiasm.
This is why I succeed in spite of adversity – continually baffling nay-saying others, to bounce back from setback after setback, outlasting delay after delay after delay, overcoming disappointment after disappointment, to advance in pursuit of the BIG DREAMS I have.
And that brings me to the core message I want to pass across this week.
You see, my drive to develop UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE actually comes from my relentless dedication to achieving BIG IDEAS and DREAMS I come up with.
In other words, thinking big is the FUEL that motivates me to develop UNCONSCIOUS COMPETENCE, which in turn equips me to develop and implement my BIG ideas, to achieve my BIG dreams.
I’m coaching my kids to develop the same mental attitude I have of THINKING BIG like I do, and never accepting there is anything they are too small or young to do.
This is why I am constantly coming up with ideas to brainstorm with them, about how they can use the different skills they’ve picked up, to go to the next level – which is to make money.
It’s not been easy for the girls in particular. They’ve often hesitated to take this next step – and I know it’s mainly because they do not see their peers doing any such thing.
But their male (teenage) siblings are already setting the pace in this regard, and I know it’s only a matter of time before they also catch the bug.
One thing is certain – by the time my girls arrive their teens, it’s unlikely that they will be letting anyone tell them being female and having smaller brains means they cannot achieve as much as their male counterparts.
As parents we should aim to help kids understand that they have the ability to achieve anything they set their minds to.
And as individuals, we owe ourselves a duty to BELIEVE that about ourselves too!
Excel-VB Driven Ration Formulator
1. Click here to learn more about this app – watch demo videos etc
2. Click here to watch a 4 part video in which I demonstrate how to use this app to formulate rations using real life data sent to me by an Algerian PhD student.
Click here to contact me about purchasing this product.
EXCEL-VB DRIVEN POULTRY LAYER FARM MANAGER SOFTWARE
Click here to download a detailed PDF user guide and watch 15 screen shot user guide tutorials of the Monthly Poultry Farm Manager that I now offer Farm CEOs.
Click here to contact me about purchasing this product.
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Tayo K. Solagbade*
Self-Development/Performance Improvement Specialist and Multipreneur
*Best Practice Farm Business Support Specialist & Founder of the MS Excel Heaven Visual Basic Automation Club and Competition
Mobile: +234-803-302-1263 (in Nigeria) or +229-66-122-136 (in Benin Republic)
Tayo K. Solagbade is a Location Independent Performance Improvement Specialist and Multipreneur (i.e. a highly versatile/multi-skilled entrepreneur), with a bias for delivering Best Practice solutions to Farm Businesses and others.
Since 2002, he has earned multiple streams of income providing individuals and organizations with personal development training and coaching, custom MS Excel-VB solutions, web marketing systems/ web hosting, freelance writing services, and best practice extension support services (for farm business owners).
Tayo is the author of the Self-Development (SD) Bible™ and the popular Livestock Feed Formulation Handbook. He is also the developer of its accompanying Excel-VB driven Ration Formulator™ and the Poultry Farm Manager™ software.
He has delivered talks/papers to audiences in various groups and organizations, including the Centre for Management Development, University of Lagos, Christ Baptist Church, Volunteer Corps, Tantalisers Fast Foods and others.
In May 2012 he was the Guest Speaker at the Centre for Entrepreneurship Development’s Annual Semester Entrepreneurial Lecture at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos.
On 1st April 2013, Tayo (who reads, write and speaks the French language) relocated to Cotonou, Benin Republic to begin slowly traveling across the West African region.
His key purpose is to deliver talks, seminars and workshops on his key areas of focus and interest to interested audiences (Email tayo at tksola dot com for details).
In a previous life, before leaving to become self-employed, Tayo served for seven years (October 1994 to December 2001) as a high performing manager in Guinness Nigeria. He rose from Shift Brewer to Training & Technical Development Manager, and later acted in senior roles as Production Manager and Technical Manager.
In addition to constantly challenging the status quo and influencing positive work changes, he built a reputation for using self-taught spreadsheet programming skills (starting with Lotus 1-2-3, and later moving to Excel Visual Basic) – in his spare time – to develop Automated Spreadsheet Applications to computerize manual report generation processes in the departments he worked. Over four(4) of his applications were adopted for brewery level reporting.
Tayo holds a B.Sc degree in Agricultural Extension Services from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, having graduated top of his class – with Second Class Upper Division honors – in 1992. He is an Associate Member of the UK Institute & Guild of Brewing, a 1997 National Finalist of the Nigerian Institute of Management’s(NIM) Young Managers’ competition, a Certified Psychometric Test Administrator for Psytech UK, innovator of Spontaneous Coaching for Self-Development™ (SCfS-D™), and Founder of the Self-Development Academy (SDAc).
When he’s not amazing clients with his superhuman skills (wink), Tayo works as the creative force behind his Daily Self-Development Nuggets blog – on which he also publishes The Farm CEO Weekly Newspaper (sent via email to paid subscribers) and his Weekly Performance Improvement IDEAS newsletter.
You can connect with him on Twitter @tksola.com and Facebook.
Visit Tayo Solagbade Dot Com, to download over over 10 performance improvement resources to boost your personal and work related productivity.
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[IMPORTANT NOTE:====On 4th May 2014, Tayo’s 9 year old domain (Spontaneousdevelopment dot com), which hosted his website, was taken over by Aplus.net.
Within a few days however, Tayo used his advanced self-taught web development skills to build a SUPERIOR “reincarnation” of it the website http://www.tayosolagbade.com.
But updates are still ongoing to URLs bearing the old domain name in most of the over 1,000 web pages, and blog posts he’s published.
If you experience any difficulties finding a page or document, email Tayo at tksola dot com.
Click “Tayo, What Happened to SpontaneousDevelopmentDotCom ?” to read a detailed narrative about how the above event occurred :-))
Here’s an article Tayo wrote, to inspire others to defy adversity, and bounce back to even greater reckoning at what they do EVERY time:
Succeed by Emerging from Adversity Like a Phoenix
(TayoSolagbade.com launches extra Hosting plan with FREE Web Marketing!)
And he wrote the one below, to explain why losing a domain name, no matter how old, NO LONGER determines your online success or otherwise:
A Proven Strategy to Find Profitable Buyers Regardless of Your Domain Name
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