Living a simple game plan

No doubt winning the knowledge game is a major challenge in modern business. One could also reasonably argue that it has always been our challenge. However, the twenty-first century world of the superhighway and the knowledge worker places enormous pressure and expectation on us.

I would liken the challenge of trying to keep up to date in this field as like pouring sand over your outreached palm. Sometimes you may be lucky and some of it sticks but often it just falls away. The key is to live a game plan that enables you to deal with such volumes and complexity and achieve a good outcome.

Three practical questions have helped me on this journey and may help you:

• Who am I?

• What do I stand for?

• Where am I going?

In business you might ask:

• What is our mission?

• What do we stand for?

• Where are we going?

For me, these questions provide the glue for achieving greater meaning and purpose in life as well as helping achieve excellence and success in business. This is not because these questions are especially clever or new but because it gives us the chance to shape our dreams and to be an active participant in achieving our goals in whatever form they might take.

See winning the knowledge game as something that goes beyond learning the latest, the best or achieving the next target. See it as our way of rediscovering the spirit we need to maintain the fun in our lives, whether it is at home or at work.

Take every opportunity to explore the wonder of learning, whether by reading a new book, playing in the park or tasting a new food. Love what you do and be prepared to find new ways of looking at the world.

Question the so-called truth, go out and test your assumptions and question your intuition. Be prepared to try the untested, the unknown and discover more.

Turn off the television, engage your senses, take on new challenges, stretch your comfort zone and reclaim what it means to be you.