Hello everyone, today I want to share insights from a book I recently rediscovered called 'Mindshift'. The English title perfectly captures its essence - it's about transforming your thinking to unlock life's second journey. No one should be limited by their past environment; we need to break through, and this breakthrough relies on our ability to shift our mindset.
How can we achieve this mindshift? There's a crucial underlying principle: turn your useless past into an advantage. Take Tania, a Dutch university clerk who handled emails and administrative tasks. She felt invisible, but had one advantage - she loved gaming. When her department needed to manage online forums for remote courses, professors complained about trolls and spam. Tania mentioned managing these troublemakers, but professors didn't even know what trolls were! Her ten years of gaming experience suddenly became valuable, leading to her promotion as network manager.
The book dedicates a chapter to Singapore, explaining why its economy is so competitive. Singapore follows a principle of creating π-shaped talents. We used to talk about T-shaped talents - people with broad knowledge and one deep expertise. But Singapore believes T-shaped isn't enough; you must become π-shaped with two legs, meaning two deep skills. The first skill relates to your work, the second relates to your passion. This is what makes a π-shaped talent.
When your career stagnates, the author says you must first be alert to this stagnation. Many people don't react to being stuck - your job has stagnated, but you think it's fine because you get a steady paycheck every month. This stability will kill you. If you want stability in life, you're actually moving backward. Learning is like rowing upstream - if you don't advance, you retreat. You must maintain an offensive attitude and continuously enrich yourself. You must be vigilant about stagnation.