Harvey, Jason - Achieve Anything In Just One Year - Be Inspired Daily to Live Your Dreams and Accomplish Your Goals

— Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan was the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, serving from 1997 to 2006, and he won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2001 jointly with the United Nations. He speaks English, French, and several African languages fluently. Kofi Annan has used his education as a powerful tool to become a global leader and work diligently on important issues from human rights to the world economy. One of his strengths is his knowledge. He has the ability to look at problems individually and also globally and highlight the point that personal issues affect the entire world.

The biography of Kofi Annan is a powerful testament to the fact that knowledge is power, whether you agree with his policies and decisions or not. Information is liberating, and education is the premise of progress.

You have no excuse to remain in the dark today. You have access to the tools that will bring you knowledge and aid your progress in this world. How are you building your knowledge right now? What are you doing to liberate yourself from the bonds of ignorance? No one is going to take those steps for you. You cannot blame your lack of education for your failure. You can obtain knowledge in so many ways today, and you do not have to pay a heavy tuition to get it.

What are you doing to obtain the knowledge you need to achieve success in your life?

DAY

189

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”

— Gertrude Stein

Paul had a flat tire one morning. He went online immediately to find the tire shops closest to his house. None of them were open yet, so he called in to work and told his boss he would be a bit late. In the meantime, Paul spent an hour on the Internet. By the time the shop opened at eight o’clock in the morning, Paul had checked out the bus and train routes online, used MapQuest to find out how many miles it was to his office, and used another site calculate the time it would take to ride a bike there, joined an online carpooling network, and submitted a down payment for an electric-assist bicycle.

Paul could have done some work from home, but instead he got sucked into the black hole of information that is available to him through any number of technological devices. He started looking for answers, and his common sense went right out the window.

Has this ever happened to you on some level? You are on the receiving end of a lot of information every day through TV, radio, and the Internet, not to mention other human beings who have also picked up tidbits they would like to share. What do you do to stop the noise and maintain your common sense?

Information isn’t everything. It is also important to have face-to-face communication, relationships, wonder, and peace and quiet, among other things. What can you practice in your everyday life to make sure that you don’t lose your common sense when you go searching for information?

DAY

190

“Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge.”

— Daniel J. Boorstin

You have been thinking and writing in your journal about the difference between information and knowledge for several days now. What are some of the conclusions you have drawn?

Information is merely a collection of data. Knowledge is what you have when you are able to turn information into understanding. It usually comes through experiencing whatever you are learning about. A blind person could be given a stack of information on paper, but it would mean nothing to them, because they have no way of turning that information into understanding. A person who is born and raised at the North Pole could hear stories about what it’s like to live in Florida, but they don’t have real knowledge of what it feels like to sit in the blazing sun and sweat on a sandy beach in Ft. Meyers in July until they are able to experience it themselves.

Information can be a tool for success, but it is important to build your skills at picking out only the information that is important to you and then utilizing that information to develop your knowledge. If you are greedy with information and grab a hold of everything you can get, you will be swimming in data, and it will be difficult to figure out what is important to your ultimate success and what isn’t. Technology is a lot of fun, and it can certainly help you get ahead in life. Just make sure that you are not drowning in information.

DAY

191

“One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter.”

— James Earl Jones

James Earl Jones is an extraordinary American actor, who is probably most widely known for his portrayal of Darth Vader in the popular Star Wars movies. Did you know he is also a stutterer? He said in an interview that he practically gave up talking until high school when an English teacher found out he secretly wrote poetry.

The teacher said, “No one will believe you wrote this, Jim. You should get up in front of the class and read it.”

The mere idea must have struck terror into the heart of James Earl Jones, but it was a big compliment coming from his teacher. He wanted very badly to prove that the poem was his, so he overcame his fear and got up in front of the class. He was able to read the entire poem without stuttering.

The teacher’s response was, “Now we have something to work with.”

It’s hard to believe that someone with the big, booming, confident voice of James Earl Jones was afraid to speak in public when he was a young man. What an amazing talent emerged when he was able to overcome his obstacle and continue to move toward his destiny.

What obstacles do you face today? List them in your journal. Then write about ways you can overcome them. No one on earth is without challenges. The trick is to conquer them and continue on toward your goal. Success will be so much sweeter after you’ve overcome difficulty to get to the rewards.

DAY

192

“We do on stage things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a kind of integrity, if you look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.”

— Tom Stoppard

Theatre is not real. Sometimes it imitates real life, but it is a fantasy world. However, there is a very important real-life lesson that can be learned from life on the stage. Every exit is an entrance somewhere else.

What would happen if you treated your real life that way? Often an exit seems like the end of something in the real world. If you are fired from a job, you may think you will never find such a great position in another firm. You feel like you are at a dead end, or at least a brick wall. Change that thinking. The end of your job is actually the first day of a new adventure, and you have no idea where that new entrance will take you. You suddenly have opportunities that you never had before. You can try your hand at a completely different profession if you want. Maybe you left an accounting firm, but you’ve always secretly wanted to be a chef. Now’s your chance! What a terrific twist of fate!

You are the one who chooses whether an event is labeled as an obstacle or an opportunity. You are writing this script. A change in plans is only devastating if you make it so. Pick one of the obstacles you listed yesterday and work on some concrete ways you can turn the obstacle into an opportunity. How can you make that exit and entrance to a whole new world? Don’t come up with a superficial answer to this assignment. Really get into some tangible ways that you can change your circumstances. You are in control of this play, and you can choose where this entrance will lead you.