The value of Tip Lists

We spend a lot of time these days finding out about other people. Google, Facebook, Link'd In, People Magazine, and the Biography channel, among many other conduits, provide us with portals into other peoples' space. Credit checks, background searches, and public document searches help us dig even further.

Why do we do it? Curiosity? Voyeurism? Envy? Identity theft? Self-betterment?

Let's hope it's the latter since imitation of the right role models is not only the sincerest form of flattery; it can also make US better people as well. Emulating the personal performance and principles of other worthy figures can help build-on our own extant values and traits, especially if the expositions we ingest are the result of sincere, targeted probing on our part.

But there might be better, more salutary, way of self-improving. If we just took the time to peer into our own spaces and divine our own dimensions, we might find even more powerful paths to self-enhancement.

Most of us like to think we really know ourselves. Truth be told, it's generally a pretty shallow insight, just enough to create an appealing resume or an attractive page on FaceBook. The self-visions that can truly benefit us typically lie beneath the surface of our psyches, hidden from easy view and flowering only as a result of deliberate introspection. These are the insights that can enable us to meaningfully tap into our latent potencies and buried understandings and, as a consequence, reconfigure ourselves and our capacities in more positive, powerful directions.

By building a new "me" on the foundations of the best attributes we already harbor, we can forge our ids, egos, superegos and all the "stuff" we experienced and learned since age five into a persona that will help us create better lives, careers, and legacies.

We can also bundle this potency-derived-of-self-awareness with the insights we garner from the revelations of others and, thus, muster a distinctive competency that can afford us an edge in all we do.

The first order of business must be self-understanding. But such self-peeping is more easily prescribed than performed. Constructive self-delving takes time, energy and practice. And, like with any job, it is best done with the right tools. In the case of self-examination, one of the most useful and powerful tools is the "list," the time-honored "itemization of related things."

We use ‘em regularly. We have “to do” lists, shopping lists, invitation lists, “honey do,” “to get” lists, checklists, “top ten” Letterman lists, and a host of other listings of things, people, and events to engage, avoid or ignore. So, why not use this simple, but powerful mechanism to probe our own personal dimensions? Who knows what passions, persuasions, potencies, proclivities and psycho-problems we’ll discover?

Notwithstanding the great lists that are available from outside sources, some of the best lists you'll probably produce yourself. These are the ones that let you get to know yourself and your latent powers better than any.

A visit to www.BrainFoodToGo.com/LotzaLists, will show you how to develop new understandings and insights through list-making. The process of self-inspection and contemplation that proper list usage requires can help anyone "cook-up" the kind of BrainFood that will make him or her more successful in his personal or professional lives. Remember, you must not only be able to compile relevant lists, but you must also know how to put your lists to work for you.

Me-Lists™ can help us get acquainted with our inner elements, the ones that enable us to play, with gusto, our roles in life. They constitute a path to self-enlightenment and self-empowerment. An old song advocates “getting to know you; getting to know all abut you.” Me Lists allow us to change the lyric to something even more self-advantageous: “Getting to know me; getting to know all about me.” With the right list headings, we will be challenged to explore and put to new uses our accumulated (but often neglected) inner thoughts, feelings, biases, knowledge, experiences and convictions.

The list-making process allows us to tap into a valuable inventory of insights that is ours alone. Then, through focused contemplation of each list, we can generate otherwise obscure realizations and understandings that will empower us to fine tune our abilities into distinctive personal competencies. Each Me List can ultimately become a one-of-a-kind "recipe" for BrainFood that will fuel superior performance in today's competitive world. Click on www.BrainFoodToGo.com/ListSuggestions for some ideas to get you started on such a journey of self-exploration.

There's another type of list that can be similarly beneficial. BrassTacks TipLists™ are a genre of lists that offers aggregations of other peoples’ experiences, advice, admonitions and guidelines. The bare-bones, to-the-point lists can really tell you things that are both important and useful. Click on www.BrainFoodToGo.com/SampleLists to see some examples. The best ones are compiled by wise people with deep experience. They typically itemize terse suggestions, observations or recommendations concerning a given topic. They offer short, to-the-point, experienced-based bits of advice and insight – often accompanied by admonitions – that, if seriously regarded can expand the efficacy of your actions. It’s the type of easy-to-grasp input that one typically wishes would be offered up by learned, but too often verbose, authors, seminar leaders and operating manual editors. It constitutes “been there; done that” advice and opinion that can be quickly comprehended and acted upon.

BrassTacks TipLists, if well composed, can constitute an especially powerful tool since they are:

Distilled: Getting to the essence of an issue in few words; short and to the point.
Focused: Addressing a narrow and defined topic, issue or challenge that you can easily relate to
Experience-based: Filtered through the experience of an accomplished contributor who has made the effort to learn, usually the hard way.
Action-oriented: Providing terse recommendations that can be immediately implemented.
Connected: Relating directly to current or anticipated circumstances in your life.
Memorable: Easily recalled or easily recorded on a 3x5 index card for reference.
Un-intimidating: Easier to engage that a five-hundred page book (that usually contains only a hundred worthwhile words anyway)
Portable: See "Memorable." Conveniently re-directed to friends and colleagues who could benefit from the input.
Time saving: See "Un-intimidating."
Stimulating: Typically telling a very personal story that, if carefully contemplated, can induce understanding and action.

So, get busy creating your own introspective lists or scanning the lists of others you respect. In fact, if you have a list that you think would be beneficial to others, send it along to me at Willax@BrainFoodToGo.com. It's the easy way of sharing the stuff you learned the hard way.

Keep in mind, some important BrainFood is obtainable only through the process of list-making. My ol' uncle Ollie would probably advise: "it's a task that should be number one on your TO DO list." But that's another story…. or list.