Ways to distinguish yourself #116 Aim to become a transformer

Ways to distinguish yourself #116 Aim to become a transformer

By Rajesh Setty on Sat 25 Mar 2006, 9:51 AM – 3 Comments

If you ask me what is the simplest discovery that has broad applicability in almost all walks of life, I would say it is the bell curve. You can explain a ton of things just by applying the bell curve theory (if there is one)

Getting advise is really easy. What might be very complicated for you will be easy for a person with a competence in that domain. Many times what you do with that advice is more important than the advice itself. Not everyone follows the advice. I think people fall into different categories when it comes to applying what they learn from a competent teacher.

[Of course, the bigger question is how will you convince this competent teacherr to teach you? Are you willing to pay the price? That’s a separate discussion anyways]

Here is a bell curve segmenting the crowd of learners.

Collectors:

I actually want to call them antique collectors. These people love to collect advice. They read books, blogs and ask people for help. They ensure that the advice they collect becomes an antique in their minds.

Fantasizers:

They want to play around with the advice until they find one or two places where the advice was not applicable. That will be enough for them to stop following through. They will now look for new advice to fantasize.

Followers:

These are serious people. They want to make the most out of what they have got. They apply what they learn in a number of ways. They are quite successful in their life.


Committers:

These people commit themselves to achieve more. They learn quickly and apply what they learnt. They reach new heights in their personal and/or professional life. They become an example for others in their domain.


Transformers:

These people transform themselves and take what they learnt to the next level. They start transforming people around them and extend their circle of influence. They become a shining light in the lives of others and help others become committers or transformers.

Being a teacher, I am interested in helping people who have the potential to become transformers. So, I am careful who I pick to coach. I am sure your teachers will be proud if you are a committer. That’s a gift in itself. However, nothing can bring more joy to a teacher if his or her students are becoming transformers.

Go ahead, aim to be a transformer. That will be the biggest gift you can give to your teachers.

 

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3 Comments so far, Add Yours

Anonymous  on March 27th, 2006

Hi Rajesh,

I totally understand the categorization of all listeners. But I did not get the need to put it under bell curve. On what basis you can quantify this data. I understand, definitely the percentage of tranformers is little less but I am dubious about initial three categories.

Did you have authenticate statistics with this or you are saying it with your own experience?

Anyways, its nicely written and definitely inspiring one to be a transformer.

Thanks,

Aditya

Anonymous  on March 27th, 2006

Thanks Aditya.

These observations (or claims) are based on my experiences over the few years.

On the first three categories – we all will find them around us. I used to be in category 2 (fantasizer) for a while for sure and I didn’t even know about it :( One easy exercise will be to find out what categories people around you will fall into. You will see some people in each of the first three categories.

Best,

Rajesh

Anonymous  on March 28th, 2006

Rajesh,

As always I need to congratulate you for your posting, this is a very crisp way to understand our audience.

Thansk

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