January 29, 2023

Great Success…Through Effective Thinking

Hello and welcome to my first blog post on PGP in a long time. This project has been themed around self-improvement, which has provided me with a lot of useful tips and advice that I will incorporate now and into my future. Tips such as making great resumes, listening to guest speakers about their career and university life, and reading books that promote the art of self-improvement. In this project, we were tasked to chose a book in the “self-help” genre, create an artifact to represent it and present it to the other grade 12s at our school.

What do I need to know to move forward with lifelong learning and active citizenship?

I decided to read “The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking”, a book that arguably gives you the ultimate key to success in anything and everything. I was quite fond of the book for the most part, and had quite a few takeaways that I’ll certainly remember for a long time. One piece of advice that I took back came from the element called “following the flow of ideas”. This described an ability to step back in your thoughts, and come up with a number of ideas and themes that you want to ensure are addressed in your essay. Only once you have determined these ideas, you start to craft the essay. This allows you to come up with a good essay, perhaps even better, in a faster amount of time.

Now before even starting to read the book, we were tasked to create author biographies, which actually allowed me to make more sense of the contents of the book. It was written by Michael Starbird and Edward Burger, both of which who are professors in mathematics but who’s witty personalities even come out in their writing. Edward is CEO of the St David’s Foundation that advocates for health equity in central Texas, and Michael is chair of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers and uses his position to advocate for the use of inquiry-based learning methods. This shows how much they truly care about making a difference in the world, outside of forming the young minds of students. I believe this knowledge also contributed to more success when it came to my final presentation, as the audience could tell how much I truly knew about the book and the authors.

I decided to base my artifact off of a metaphor that the authors mention in the book. They argue that using the 5 elements allows you to think with your “eyes open”, which essentially means excelling to your full potential. These elements are meant to make your life easier with very little additional work, as doing any task with your eyes open is much easier than doing it with your eyes closed. To represent this metaphor I created two boards, one titled “eyes open” and another “eyes closed”. I asked the audience to pick one of the elements from a list and write it down with their eyes closed and then again with their eyes open. By the end of the presentation, I expected to have a board that was very messy and disorganized, and another that was much better looking. This outcome would support the author’s argument in a simple and engaging way as well as hopefully get a few audience members interested in the concept.

My Book Review: The Key to Success in Anything and Everything

Having trouble starting that essay? Solving that super tough math problem? Want to know how to truly master your skills on your beloved instrument? Well this book is the book for you. Recently, I read the only edition of The Five Elements of Effective Thinking written by Michael Starbird and Edward Burger. While I think this book is meant for someone who is the type to always be eager to learn – which is why they’d be interested in reading it in the first place – the book gives out specific evidence proving that these elements can truly apply to anyone or anything. This is essentially the main theme mentioned throughout the entirety of the book: the root of success in anything is thinking, so learning to think more effectively will therefore make you more successful. It is thinking more effectively that will allow you to think with your “eyes open” and reach your full potential. While using much of the language and messages often said throughout my school’s Performance Learning Program, Michael and Edward illustrate to you, the reader, how to become better in anything with hardly any extra work…just thinking differently. Michael is chair of the academy of distinguished teachers as well as promotes the use of inquiry based learning throughout his teachings, workshops and lectures. Having been working in education for several years, having papers published and a dozen books written, you can certainly be assured that the information being read is dependable and useful. As it eludes to in the title, the book was divided into 5 elements – earth, wind, fire, water and the quintessential. It consistently included an introduction to the individual element, expressing how it would apply to real-life, short activities to perform as you read and finally a couple paragraphs to conclude their thoughts. Within each topic, I found that the authors wrote in such an illustrative way that makes it much easier for any reader to better understand the concept and recognize how it can apply to their everyday life, something that I think would exceed any other books in the “self-help” genre. As I said before, about 40% of the advice and language used within the book had already been told to me throughout my five years in the Performance Learning Program, such as through failing to succeed. However, upon reading the book, I’ve been able to realize how the 5 elements can also apply to my life outside of school (ie.sports, work and my volunteer jobs). Even the people that you believe are the geniuses of the world aren’t that way instinctively. They simply see the world differently by applying habits of mind that have allowed them to discover and create new and profound ideas. Now, this underlying theme of the book has been evidenced in several ways. One example from the book being that of a woman who lost 80 pounds by simply changing her mindset to exercise and healthy eating being something that comes naturally to her as she no longer sees it as a task but rather as something fun. Many of the stories used to support the authors’ thesis were of their personal experience as teachers, which I enjoyed immensely and made me want to sit in on one of their lessons. Ultimately, I agree with the thesis stated in the book. The root of success truly is all about your mindset and the way you think. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and arguably Elon Musk are examples of individuals who have used effective thinking strategies uniquely in their pursuits to change the world. They didn’t back out from failures and solved sub-problems to get to the core issue, just a couple thinking strategies that have allowed them to see the world differently and with their “eyes open”.

In the end, the execution of my artifact and presentation was quite successful. The audience was generally engaged in my presentation and thoroughly enjoyed seeing how badly they could write with their eyes closed. I not only made it fun and interactive, but had great knowledge and evidence to back up the metaphor it represented, which allowed me to have insightful conversations with audience members including teachers. Finally, I was happy that I was able to establish a personal connection to each assignment and activity, as I believe that it is an essential pathway to success in the course. I always brought things back to my “calling in life”, and how I hope to affect the world through my future career aspirations in the form of healthcare. The book I read expressed that success is not something you attain, it’s something you’re constantly aiming for and this a piece of advice that will certainly allow me to move forward with lifelong learning.

Post a comment Cancel reply