Do good ideas have a minimum 2-week germination period?

I've noticed that many thought processes follow this pattern. For example, it takes 21 days to make or break a habit (ie build new neural pathways, muscle memory etc). I see that most of my breakthrough ideas in the past, I've stewed on for a couple of weeks before having that eureka moment when the ideas become actionable.

Secondly, if this theory is true, how many "seed" ideas do we need to plant in order to get a good harvest. Or what amount of nurturing is needed to get the idea to actually go through germination, and actually getting to the point of producing good results? Here's a few insightful answer that were gleened from my favorite Professional Network.

UPDATE: A friend pointed me to a found an interesting article today on Wall Street Journal talking about this very topic.

BOOK REPORT: Managing Oneself

Part of the Harvard Business Review series, Managing Oneself is an excellent and fast book to read packed with insights about how to understand your best skills and abilities using various tools. One key idea presented was the introduction of keeping a journal as a feedback mechanism to measure yourself in key performance areas and conducting some honest and introspective detective work. Doing this will help to you to play to your strengths and talents thereby promoting your career!!!

I love this little book. It was written by a very talented and acomplished HR professional, and consequently has a lot of information packed into just a few words.

BOOK REPORT: The Great Depression Ahead

If you can get past the ominous title, you see that Dent hits another home run with The Greatest Depression Ahead book. Extremely well written, Dent's book includes the same theme as his other book, Great Boom Ahead, 1992. He goes into more detail discussing the shorter time horizon associated with the current economic contraction. He also has a lot more data and charts to back up his demographically based economic theories.

New insights gained from his latest book can be summarized as follows:

1. Economic contractive period to have an intermediate bottom at 2012 and again near 2018 with first significant recovery starting in 2023.
   
2. Inflation presure will result from stimulus in fall 2009 into early 2010. Then deflation will persist beginning strongly near mid 2010 and possibly as early as fall 2009 for several years.
   
3. Gold will not be a safe haven according to Dent.


4. Dow bottom near 4800 near the late 2009 to 2010 period (but Dent has a history of over predicting the magnitude of market fluctuations).


5. Home Prices within the low end of the range (starter homes) will hit bottom and start to recover around 2013


6. Trade up homes, vacation homes, and McMansions will recover after small homes do ...probably around Spring 2014.


7. Agriculture and Energy will rise significanlty in 2009 and 2010. Ag business and Energy stocks will outperform market over the long term based on reaching maximum oil output combined with continued political strife in middle east.

Dent's book comes when there is a lot of questions about the future of the economy. One point of debate is whether we are facing inflation or deflation in the future. While it's not a simple either/or question, Dent seems to down play risks associated with inflation saying that deflation is going to be the longer term trend. This seems like a point of debate since current Federal debt levels are up to $30k/person -a strong indicator for the inflation trend in the near term.

He also includes a new trend that helps him predict wars and politcal conflict by using what he calls his geo-political cycle trend, which while interesting seems to be a little harder to understand than the tried and true babyboomer spending wave. Dent's main thesis continues to hold true and I love his arguments on the Baby Boomer driven economy. 4 stars.

Do you listen with "The third ear, the heart"?

Stephen R. Covey in his book, Spiritual Roots of Human Relations (1975) discusses the importance of listening to others with "the third ear, the heart". On page 107 he writes: "A person needs to express himself freely and fully, without fear of ridicule or embarrassment or censure. He will likely then become open to influence and to reasoning. You may think you understand, and in fact even without listening you might actually understand what is going on, but the other person may not feel understood until he has expressed himself. To him, his problem is unique. It's different. And you just can't simply categorize and generalize."

How do you strike the root of the problem!

For every thousand men hacking at the leaves, there is one striking at the root of the problem (adapted from Henry Thoreau).

The last book I read, Spiritual Roots, touches on a topic that I use in my professional life every day called "Root cause analysis" (RCA). Covey also uses root cause analysis to sort out behavioral problems, although he never really calls it RCA. Basically the way root cause analysis works is that you keep asking the question "Why does this happen" over and over again until the last answer is repeated twice, then you have arrived at the very "Root Cause" of your problems. So in a family situation the analysis could go like this, for example: 1. "Why doesn't my son listen to me (this is the observed symptom), because (fill in the blank ............. with a direct cause). 2. Why does the direct cause happen (rember it is very likely just another symptom of an underlying problem or cause) fill in the blank........... 3. Repeat this line of questioning until you repeat the answer twice. When you get to that point, you have gone beyond just the symptoms and arrived at the very root cause of the problem.

This sounds very simple and it is in some ways. I hope this is something that can help you. This is a great tool to use in many situations in life, whether it's investing in the stock market, or trying to have better peace and happiness in home. A continuation of this discussion can be found at Linkedin. Read further...

BOOK REPORT: Spiritual Roots of Human Relations

Stephen R. Covey is best known for his writing Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which has sold a whopping 10 million copies according to Amazon. The book that was the seed for Seven Habits, probably was another less known book also written by Stephen R. Covey in his forties titled, Spritual Roots of Human Relations.

I recently made a study of his book, Spiritual Roots and found it to be very inspiring and thought provoking. The copy I read was the same one my Dad read when he was exactly my age and so it was neat to see the passages that he underlined. Spritual Roots introduces many of the "Self help" concepts covered in more detail in the Seven Habits, and it takes a more spiritual approach.

One line from the book, "Every interpersonal, leadership, and social problem is actually a spiritual or moral problem." In a day when talking about spirituality is overly-taboo, Spiritual Roots is a refreshing read and insightful in the way it links undesireable behaviors and the underlying or hidden spiritual problems. Great application to family life, work life, and just life in general. In upcoming posts, I plan to write about certain insights gained from reading this book. Read more...

How do you apply the 80/20 rule in life?

Leadership requires the ability to prioritize. One way to prioritize is to use the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule basically says, that 20 percent of what you do produces 80 percent of the results of what you do. So if you can figure out what that special 20 percent is, then you can prioritize your life a little better to achieve success.

I brought this question up on my favorite discussion forum and there were many insights presented. The best insight of all was Gerard Byrne, a business analyst at Meteor Mobile, who said that if you can find out the top of the top 20 percent or 20% squared, then you can get 64% of your current results from only 4% of your efforts. Of course this is a bit of a generalization but it's a fun way to think about prioritizing your time. Especially for a math geek like me. Please read further...