We are just coming out of an economic recession, where many investments, including safe investments like people’s homes have shown negative growth.

This article is based on an article that I wrote about a year ago. The article was about increasing your net worth without needing lots of cash.

I am glad to say that my investment would’ve had a positive growth in any economy, even during this economic recession. While I did not offer immediate riches, I did promise that you would increase your net worth, no matter what your current situation is, without needing lots of cash.

I asked you to imagine changing only one thing in your life and receiving almost immediate rewards and then went about showing you the one thing that you could change to receive these rewards.

Despite my guarantee of an increased net worth without investing lots of cash, I am sure that very few people that read the article made the investment. It’s not too late. You can still invest with guaranteed returns!

Why do so few people do this investment?

Ask yourself the question, “How much have I invested in myself the past year?” Compare this to the amount invested in entertainment.

Pareto, an Italian economist, described a phenomenon based on the land ownership in Italy where 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the population. This later became known as the Pareto Principle. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people, 80% of your income will come from 20% of your customers, 80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the people.

80% of the knowledge is held by 20% of the people.

The same goes for this investment, 20% of the people will try to improve themselves. The other 80% will be exactly where they are a year later.

How will this give you a competitive advantage?

Look around you. Look at yourself. How do you rate yourself against the people you work with. How does your knowledge and your expertise compare.

How many “excellents” do you see. I am afraid to say that most people will just be mediocre. Are you one of the “excellents”, or are you one of the “mediocres”?

Are you in the top 80%?

If you are not, then this article can be most important article you’ve ever read!

Your ability to learn faster than your competitors may be your only sustainable competitive advantage – Arie de Geus.

Choose an area you would like to improve in and put a programme in place to manage your learning and make 2010 the year that you turned your life around!

Let’s look at the programme in action

In 1985, at the heart of the anti-apartheid struggle and a product of apartheid education, I entered the workplace, working at the Post Office in one of the units that allowed ‘non-white’ entry.

Today I am the Business Intelligence Manager at a leading fashion retailer in South Africa with solid International and cross-industry work experience behind me.

What is it that made me progress from a poor, non-white Post Office worker to a well paid Senior Manager doing a job that I love?

• It wasn’t favouritism
• It wasn’t political affiliations
• It wasn’t salesmanship
• It wasn’t bribery

It was simply increasing my knowledge in my field of choice!

Our high school principle, Mr Ritchie, gave us one important message: ‘They can discriminate against your colour, your race and many other things, but don’t let them discriminate against your results or your knowledge.’

While I did not realise the value of the message at the time, it later became the core of my modus operandi.

Today I am sharing this message with you, on my own website, designed and hosted by me. Living in a so-called ‘Third World Country’ or ‘Emerging market’, I am able to reach an international audience, writing about topics I love, Mind Mapping and Lifelong Learning.

I don’t view myself as being more intelligent than the next person. In fact, my results at school were pretty average. Yet, my achievements were all based on the ability to acquire knowledge quickly and easily.

With this growth came various promotions and financial reward. I was able to work entirely as a knowledge worker in a foreign country, The Netherlands, where Dutch is not my mother tongue, as part of their highly skilled migrant programme.

I was able to learn the Dutch Language and obtain a Dutch as second language diploma within a year by attending ‘night classes’. I was able to come back to South Africa and work as a contractor, being paid based entirely for my knowledge. I was able to learn enough web design to do this website and a few others. I was able to do a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management and work as a Senior Manager today.

All this, because I discovered that the secret to success is gaining knowledge in your field. So to get ahead, simply increase the knowledge that you have of what you are doing right now!

Applying the programme

Let’s use a simple example to illustrate the point. Assume you are a waiter (or perhaps you are one) and you are not highly educated. What will make you a better waiter than your colleague? I can immediately think of a few things:

• Courtesy
• Friendly Greeting
• Knowledge of the menu
• What accompanies various dishes, etc.
• Memorising orders
• Etc.

I’m sure you can think of a few things yourself, even if you are not a waiter.

Now by simply increasing your knowledge of some of the above aspects, you can easily become the best waiter at your current workplace. You could even do a bit of research on the Internet, like I did, and come across the following site (http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Waiter) on how to be a waiter. You would then be in with a good chance to get a better waitering job, or even be promoted to being in charge of other waiters.

You could take it further, if you realise you are in the hospitality industry and grow your knowledge further…

As you can see, the above scenario illustrates a simple, but effective strategy to get ahead by simply increasing your knowledge.

Short-cutting the process

What am I selling?

To cut to the chase, I am simply saying that because knowledge is the key to your success, doesn’t it make sense for you to learn how to gain knowledge in the quickest possible way?

By learning how to learn you ensure that you have the shortest possible path to increasing your knowledge and therefore increasing your value and your net worth.

With this principle in mind, my wife Jasmine and I decided to put our efforts into learning how to learn. She is currently an Education Specialist in the South African Parliament after being in the same high school class as I and coming from an even more deprived background than mine.

The important point to note is that just focusing on learning was not enough!

We had to learn how to learn. And if we could learn effectively, we could learn faster than the next person, have more knowledge than them about our chosen subject and therefore be seen as an expert and therefore fast track our growth.

We explored all sorts of learning strategies and methods and tested them both in the classroom situation and in the workplace.

The result of all our efforts was our Learning Management Programme.

We wanted to ensure that we had a holistic approach to acquiring knowledge that allowed us to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible. Our methods had to be Easy to Learn, Simple to Use and Produce Fast Results.

We also wanted the programme to be used in all walks of life. Whether you are a high school student, or a doctor doing Post Graduate studies, you will be able to gain by following the programme. The programme is a holistic one that allows you to manage your learning, so that you are in control and therefore ensuring that you are on the path to success.

The framework

I am giving you the framework for no cost at all. Everything that you need to increase your net worth is right here!

But if you want to fast track the process, enroll for our Learning Management Programme.

Our Learning Management Programme started with Studying and Learning Methods. This is still at the heart of the programme, we’ve just added the body!

The Programme covers the following topics:

• Module 1: Motivation to learn – Covers why motivation is poor in so many cases. It then goes on to give step by step instructions to get you motivated to do your best.
• Module 2: Time Management – Teaches you how to get through the volume of work in the time you have available.
• Module 3: Learning Methods - Firstly gets you to evaluate your current methods and then introduces you to a method that can be applied immediately.
• Module 4: The Reading module - Shows you how to read effectively thus increasing your reading speed, comprehension and recall.
• Module 5: Effective Note Taking – Shows you methods that reduce the monotony and boredom of traditional note taking. It shows you how you can get better results with less effort!
• Module 6: Perfect Memory – Is achievable once you know how the brain works and how you remember. You will be given methods to increase both short term and long term memory.
• Module 7: Exam Technique - Prepares you for exam writing.
• Module 8: Sound Mind, Sound Body – Shows you the importance of keeping healthy – mentally, physically and spiritually. It also gives you principles that can be applied no matter what your beliefs are.

So, if you are ready to embark on this journey, enroll now for our programme to fast track your efforts. This is the small investment spoken of in the heading of this article.

Or just simply put a plan in place to focus on your area of expertise and become better at it. This is the ‘free’ investment.

Whatever you choose, good luck in your efforts!

Even with this offer, 80% of my students will come from 20% of my readers!

Technorati Tags: mind maps, mind mapping, learning management

I’ve also written about a simple philosophy for success – find a passion and become good at it. This article was written nearly a year ago, as part of my motivational material for 2009. Have a look at it. If you had applied those principles, where would you have been now? It’s not too late. Start now!

These two skills will give you an advantage by making you the best you can be in your chosen profession. To complement this strategy, a Master Mind Map can be used to document your growth and serve as a roadmap of the knowledge base that you are creating on your subject.

Tony Buzan, the inventor of the Mind Map, recommends creating a single, Mega Mind Map that covers your whole body of knowledge. I’ve tried this and it simply doesn’t work for me. I found that my page simply ends up being too small. I ended up looking for bigger and bigger pages for my Mega Mind Map; to a point that the mere size of it became unmanageable.

The Master Summary Map

I then started to experiment with a Master Summary Mind Map of the Main themes and individual Mind Maps for each of the themes. If you do this, you will end up with one Master Mind Map containing the main themes and each theme at the centre of a new Mind Map. Each theme of those Mind Maps could then become the centre of another Mind Map. This could probably go on forever.

The MindMapTutors we’ve been creating are based on this principle.

Try it

Before going further, take a few minutes of your time and try it. If you are not sure how to make a Mind Map, look at the articles and examples on MindMapTutor.com.

• Take a topic and create a Mind Map of that topic.
• Only put five to seven key concepts on the Mind Map.
• Now create five to seven new Mind Maps, one for each of the topics on that Mind Map.
• Draw five to seven branches on each of those topics and put one idea on each of them.
• You should end up with a set of six to eight Mind Maps on your chosen topic.
• Each Mind Map should be relatively simple compared to one big Mega Mind Map.

Now don’t get me wrong, many people use the Mega Mind Map to great success, as they find having everything on one page to be hugely advantageous. I just find it too complex and therefore started to created a set of related Mind Maps that are simpler to digest and memorise.

If you fill in details for each of those Mind Maps, you will already be miles ahead of most people and have the first framework for building a clear roadmap of your subject.

Organic Growth

You will soon find that your Mind Map starts touching on other subject areas. Many people feel that their knowledge is becoming too scattered at this point and may even feel that their knowledge structure is disintegrating. What is really happening is that your knowledge is becoming so deep and extensive that it is beginning to relate to other areas of knowledge.

Mind Maps enable you to take new knowledge and integrate this into your existing knowledge. The relationships between things become clearer and you develop more insights and even greater meaning leading up to that Eureka moment!

When developing our Learning Management Programme we found exactly this happening. We originally wanted to help people to learn faster and easier with Mind Maps. We looked at various study methods and tested them. We took the Mind Map Organic Study Technique (MMOST) of Tony Buzan and the SQ3R method generally proposed by many learning institutions and combined the two to for a ‘new’ method.

We then found that having a good study method is only a part of the solution. Without motivation and goals you don’t have a purpose. So we developed the Motivation Module. You can be motivated and have your goals set, but if you don’t sit down and do it, it’s useless. Out of this, the Time Management Module was born. We eventually ended up with eight modules.

You will find the same thing, if you embark on a lifelong study of your chosen profession or topic.

Both Jasmine and I have used this method of Mind Mapping in Post Graduate Studies and in the workplace to great effect, but managing the Mind Maps became a problem.

Paper Mind Maps are difficult to manage and sometimes difficult to add to or change.

Mind Map Software

Once we discovered Mind Map software though, everything changed! Mind Map software allows you to change and rearrange your Mind Maps as often as you want. Most of them also allow you to create hyperlinks to other Mind Maps. You can therefore use the method I am proposing to great effect. You can always ensure that your Main Mind Map is clear and uncluttered, but you can also add as much detail as you want in the other Mind Maps.

If you wanted to print them, you could do so at any time. You could also print a single Mind Map as you need it. As each Mind Map is a complete Mind Map, you could simply print the ones that you want to focus on at a point in time.

I’ve given my opinions on some of the software that I use in other articles on this site. As I am not affiliated to any of the commercial software, I won’t propose any of them, but I recommend that you give Xmind, an opensource product, a try. Once you have some experience with the free software, you could either upgrade to the premium version or try some of the commercial ones. Nearly all of them let you ‘try before you buy’.

Reviewing your Mind Map Notes

By reviewing your Mind Maps regularly, you will find that you can not only recall the details on each of them, but also recall related information that is not on the Mind Maps. The Mind Maps will trigger the recall of other topics, as the brain works by association.

A good way to review your Mind Maps, is to do a quick-fire five minute Mind Map burst of the topic before you review it the next time. You will soon be surprised how much you remember without any assistance.

You will then be well on your way to awakening the genius in you. And I would have done my job!

Benefits of the Master Mind Map method

• Build up a consolidated, integrated picture of your subject
• Use less space – hundreds, even thousands of pages can be summarised on a handful of Mind Maps
• Use centrally focused structure for each of your themes to integrate your knowledge
• Increase your brain’s hunger for knowledge
• Relate and integrate existing knowledge with new knowledge
• Quickly and efficiently review your knowledge
• Enhance your memory and understanding of books, lectures & presentations
• Excel in any course of study

I can’t believe that it was a decade ago that we were talking about the next millennium. It was November 1999, with just over a month to go before every computer system in the world could be a potential time bomb. Just a month before that, I was on board a flight to The Netherlands with my wife Jasmine, my six year old son and my four month old daughter to embark on what was to be the biggest adventure of my life.

Having grown up on the ‘wrong side of the line’ in Apartheid South Africa, many opportunities were not freely available to me. I was 25 when Nelson Mandela was released in February 1990, after spending 27 years in prison. He was in jail my entire life. During this time we worked under many restrictions. There was job reservation, the Group Areas Act to keep people of ‘the same kind’ together and of course separate education.

Having passed high school with an average pass in a poor educational system, how was it possible to be able to secure a job as part of a ‘highly skilled’ migration initiative of a first world country? (I went to the Netherlands based on their shortage of ‘highly skilled’ information technology workers for the ‘millennium bug’.)

Before I continue, I want to make sure that you understand that this is not a romantic novel. When I speak of these achievements, it seems to take on a romantic flavour, which is purely unintentional. It was a lot of hard work to get to that point, but the process is simple – find something you love and become the best you can at it.

This simple philosophy enabled me, a previously disadvantaged individual with a poor education, to compete with the best on the international stage.

After Nelson Mandela was released from jail, my whole mindset had to change. While I was not an anti-apartheid activist of note, I was obviously affected by the politics of the country and made certain choices based on this. With Mandela’s release and impending changes in our country, I had to decide what the future would hold. I realised that I could no longer use the laws of the country as an excuse and should stop fighting the institution. I had to find a way to go forward.

Many of the anti-apartheid activists are very wealthy today because of the employment equity and black empowerment initiatives and not because of the contribution they made to society. This was not the route I wanted to follow.

Coincidentally a recent public spat between two ANC officials led one of them to say the following to the media:

‘Since 1994, I’ve seen many good comrades corrupted by power in government, business or both…’

This has validated my decision to earn by ‘giving’ first.

Luckily, I married my wife who was an educator at heart, (co-incidentally in the same year that Nelson Mandela was released). She has dedicated almost her whole adult life to learning and teaching. In fact, it is now 5.30 a.m. on a Saturday morning and she is busy studying while I am writing this.

She has not stopped learning. But more importantly, she has not stopped teaching. Even though she is no longer a school teacher, she is still involved in education, as she now works as an Education Specialist in the Parliament of South Africa.

She taught me the value of lifelong learning and introduced me to Mind Maps. I then became the ‘evangelist’ of Mind Mapping and started using it everywhere, from motivation to goal setting, from time management to memory, from note taking to note making. There was almost nothing I did that wasn’t affected by Mind Mapping.

Mind Mapping enabled me to also get onto the bandwagon of lifelong learning.

It enabled me to go from 1994, when the first democratically elected government was put in place, to The Netherlands in 1998 as a Senior Oracle Database Administrator, passing all the technical tests and requirements to work with a team of Database Administrators from all over the world. It also enabled me to get a Dutch second language diploma within a year.

While my stance did not bring me tons of wealth, it enabled me to experience things that money could not buy.

It was not my intention to give an autobiographical account when I started writing this article, but I hope that it could add some value to your life. I’ve therefore decided not to edit it out.

Let’s get back to the topic at hand, preparing for 2010. I am really going to try and convince you that you need to embark on a programme of lifelong learning. We are so serious about this that we’ve actually developed a Learning Management Programme, that covers a broad spectrum of learning and learning how to learn.

The programme was tested on individuals as well as in the classroom and has now been put online. This has been proven to be more difficult than I imagined, but it is beginning to shape up nicely. We will probably be honing it and improving it for years to come. While it may not make us rich, it does fit into our ’stubborn philosophy’ of first giving before getting.

This was also not meant to be a sales letter. Those of you that have been following my weekly articles for the last year,  will know that this is not a weekly sales letter. It is simply my attempt to use my knowledge and experience to add value to as many people’s lives as possible.

The following topics are covered in our Learning Management Programme. I am going through them here so that you can use this knowledge to develop your own Learning Management Programme if you want to. You can do this by research, as most of the information can be found on the Internet or in various books. Of course, you could also join our Programme and get access to all of this in one place!

It is important to note that spending some time on how you are going to manage your learning will be time well spent.

Motivation to Learn

Motivation is obviously one of the most important, if not the most important, aspects of learning. You need to find out how you can become motivated and stay motivated to achieve what you want to in life. Beware of the motivational tricks offered by many of the motivational gurus, which leaves you ‘pumped up’ while watching them or reading their books, but actually gets you to take no action.

if you’ve ever encountered some of them and felt that you are going to change the world after that, yet remained exactly where you were a few months later, then you know exactly what I mean.

Time Management

There are many time management theories out there. All of them work. Pick One! Picking a method and using it is the best advice I can give you. No, it is the second best advice. The best advice is ‘Things which are more important should never be at the mercy of things which are less important!’

Reading

While you have been reading all your life, how much time have you spent improving your reading skills? Are you still using the same reading methods you used when you where seven years old?

Improving your reading skills is one of the biggest investments in yourself that you can make. With the information overload today, it’s not a case of having access to too little information, it’s a case of having access to too much information! By improving your reading speed and comprehension, you will be able to get through more, understand more and remember more.

Note Taking

By now you should obviously know that I promote Mind Mapping as a note taking method. If you are still using boring linear notes, then Mind Mapping or any other method that introduces colour, imagination and spatial awareness will drastically improve your results.

Mind Maps engage both the left brain and right brain, both the logical and creative side of your brain. I have written a lot about this on MindMapTutor.com.

Perfect Memory

Many scientists believe that our memory is actually perfect. By learning how to improve your memory, you will be able to remember more with less effort. While you may not get to reach the perfect memory state, any improvement will give you an advantage in life.

Learning Methods

There are tons of Learning and Study Methods around. Once again, I recommend that you choose one and work through it. They are like diets. All of them work, but you have to stick to it to make it work.

Exam Technique

If you plan to embark on any formal learning, then learning some exam techniques can really ensure that you get the best results possible. Many learners focus on ‘putting the information in’ and very little time on how to get it out.

Learning these techniques can be beneficial to you whether you are studying formally or informally, as you still have to recall what you put in.

Sound Mind, Sound Body

Looking after your physical and mental state is of the utmost importance. You can do everything else right, but if you ignore this, you are bound to achieve below your true potential.

I really hope that this inspires you to put together a plan for 2010 as soon as possible. Explore some of the concepts in this article and then choose a subject that you love, put a plan together and learn as much as you are capable of throughout the year.

The rewards will come…

Finally, I leave you with a quote that I’ve used frequently and sums up a lot of what I am trying to teach:

Your ability to learn faster than your competitors may be your only sustainable competitive advantage – Arie de Geus.