A few years ago, I decided to take up magic because I wanted to invest my time to learn a skill rather than simply chill in front of the TV.
Living in Japan I was limited with my access to find people who might be able to teach me so I did the next best thing; a google search.
I read up on some forums about various tricks and some of the best magicians in the world at the time.
All told I ended up purchasing close to a $1000 worth of magic goods on eBay.
At first I focused on trick decks and gimmicks, but over time I found myself drawn to the various training DVDs available. Why?
Because I didn’t want to simply trick my audience with some gimmick but rather amaze them with my skill.
Slowly, but surely, I honed my talent and by the end of that year I was well on my way to becoming a professional.
And while I eventually chose to focus my efforts elsewhere, I learned one very valuable lesson – that with all the great training sessions available it helps when someone can give us a blueprint of which to start with and what to do next.
Without one, it’s much more of a hit and miss game.
I have read over 200 books and listened to numerous audio sessions on the topics of marketing, success and personal development and they took time.
If I could do it over again I wish I had someone who could have cut down my learning time by selecting the most effective material for my level of understanding.
That’s what this site is all about – saving time and money to achieve the results we want. To learn faster and be better prepared for our future.
Adrian Shepherd
From the end of the last month, So You Think You Can Dance season 6 started to air on the Fox channel. This program is one of my favorites. Every season a lot of young people (from the age of 18 to 28 can apply) from all over America challenge to become America’s favorite dancer and $250,000. After ten young ladies and ten young men survive the second–round elimination in Las Vegas, they are divided into ten couples. From that day, they have to performance a different kind of dance each week, but they can’t choose their dances by themselves because their dances are decided by a draw. Naturally some couples are lucky and unfortunately some couples are not lucky. They learn choreography and present a choreographer’s work as their own, and then the following day one lady and one guy are out of the running for the championship by audience voting.
There was a street-dancer in season 4 and every week he tried to show his perfect performance. As a result, he won America’s heart and was voted America’s favorite dance. He was an ambitious man and also he was grateful to accept the judges’ advice.
If we want to master the best skill of something, we need to know our weak points and shouldn’t give up it until the very last minute.
Thanks for yet another comment Mika…SYTYCD is one of my favorite shows as the work they put into the competition is intense. Season 4 in my opinion was the most dramatic and had some of the most amazing routines but just wait till you see season 7. They changed the format slightly and the performances were out of this world.
You’re right when you say that targeting our weaknesses is one key to success. Most of us know just where we’re falling short, the only problem is that we choose not to do anything about it. Hopefully my book will help inspire some people to take the action needed to live a better life.
As Adrian’s blog title says, choosing the right tools is very important. We have all experienced a situation in which we didn’t have the right tools to do the job so we spent many extra hours to achieve the task. If we had had the right tools we could have finished it in short order. But maybe the first thing to do is to define the objective. Then figure out what you can do with the tools you have and then go to see if you can get better tools be it by borrowing them from a friend or searching on the Net etc.
I too have watched the ‘So you say you can Dance’ program on FOX TV and it is amazing how hard these young people have worked to get where they are. They have spent thousands of hours and dollars to get the training they have in order to get on the program and make it to the top 20 and above. But as Ms. Katsura says, we must identify our weakness and be aware of them first before we can start to really improve ourselves.
I think everyone should say to himself, “What kind of person am I? Am I the kind of person I would want to have as a friend? Do I help my friends when they need help? Am I reliable? Am I trustworthy? Am I resourceful? Do I have any weaknesses?” If we start with answering these questions and try to do some self-improvement, we can make real progress. I think Adrian’s book will be worthwhile for everyone to read because he has taken many things he has learned through extensive reading and condensed them down to 127 pages. Wow! That is amazing! I also will continue to read his blog as there are many interesting things to learn from them too.
Thanks for the comments Al, actually the book ended up being about 170 pages but hopefully I’ve written it in a way that people find it easy to read and will be able to get through it quickly.