The Genius of Amateurs

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Here is a fun little quiz to evaluate how well you know English…

Could you count how many times the letter f appears in the following sentence?

These functional fuses have been developed after years of scientific investigation of electric phenomena, combined with the fruit of long experience on the part of the two investigators who have come forward with them for our meetings today.

People who have been speaking English since years underestimate the number of times a_?fa_? appears in the sentence. They do worse on this test than people who have just started learning English.

Ia_Tve never met a person who speaks fluent English to count more than 8 a_?fa_? in the sentence. The most common answer is 6 or 7.

The correct answer however is 11!

These functional fuses have been developed after years of scientific investigation of electric phenomena, combined with the fruit of long experience on the part of the two investigators who have come forward with them for our meetings today.

Embarrassing disclosure: I myself just got 7 the first time!

Why do experienced English speakers do worse than beginner English speakers on a simple English quiz?

Experienced speakers pronounce the word of with a “v” sound, and because of their habit of reading like they speak, they have more difficulty detecting the occurrences of the letter f than do inexperienced speakers.

As a result:

past experience
actually lowers performance!

Missing Insights

It’s the same with all other fields of endeavours - including blogging: you will miss a lot of “obvious” insights because of your long experience and hard-to-forget habits. So can anything be done about it?

The Genius of Amateurs

The solution is simple. Gather feedback from amateurs. Ask your new blog readers what can be done to improve your blog. Ask your neighbour who yet doesn’t know what blogs are to visit your website. Ask them:

• How to improve your blog layout
• What features should you remove from your blog
• What other topics would they like to read

You’ll be surprised by the insights you receive!

Easy Trick to Achieve All Your Goals

Today, we have something different. A post that won’t only help you in making your blog a grand success - but will help you be successful in your life too. But you have to conduct a short experiment first… ready?

The Experiment

Are you up for a personal experiment? Dona_Tt worry; ita_Ts a very easy experiment.

All you have to do is take a look around you and count all the things in blue you can see. Could be the jeans you are wearing, a pen, maybe the colour of your chair, the water cooler… count as many things as you can. Done? Now try to remember them while we take a slight detour…

The Detour

In 1953, a survey was conducted with the graduating class of Yale. The question in the survey?

a_?Do you write down your goals?a_?

The response showed that only 4% people wrote down their goals.

In 1973, 20 years after the initial survey, the researchers track down the surviving members of the class of a_T53 to see how successful they were. And what they found astounded them. 4% people who wrote down their goals were worth more than the other 96% put together!

The research showed that writing down goals work like magic. But why does it work?

For the answer, leta_Ts get back to our little experiment…

Back to the Experiment

Remember all the blue things you counted around you in your room? Are you ready to narrate them one by one?

Ok - now, without turning around, can you start naming the “brown” things you saw around your room 2 minutes ago?

If you are like most people and don’t have photographic memory, you won’t be able to name more than 2-3 brown things. But you’ll be able to name 8-10 blue things.

How come? Because before you turned around, you had a goal of counting blue things. And your mind was focused on counting blue things - not brown things. It filtered out all the brown things.

Writing down goals is nothing but a filtering device for your brain. You will focus more on the things you’ve written down as your goals. And you will jump on them when they present themselves as opportunities.

Action Summary:

• Write down your goals a_” monthly as well as long term goals a_” and youa_Tll achieve them.
• Read your goals list every day to help your brain focus better.

Mastering One Mountain

a_?The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain — he is inspired by it. The persistent winner is not discouraged by a problem — he is challenged by it. Mountains are created to be conquered; adversities are designed to be defeated; problems are sent to be solved. It is better to master one mountain than a thousand foothills.a_?

- William Arthur Ward

Thank You for focusing on mastering one mountain than a thousand foothills.

Thank You for focusing your energies in creating one A-list blog than 5 ordinary mediocre ones.

(People who know me well enough will know that this is the hardest blog post I’ve made.)