I read something about the plateau in some other book referencing the book "Mastery". I now see there is a lot of wisdom in this book. I decided to order it on Amazon.

I thought that mastery means perfection. I love Leonard's description that the master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.
I would say that the master is the one who likes to play a lot. When I play I am willing to try new stuff and concepts. During the play I am willing to make mistakes, learn from them and try again. Playing is also an activity I could practice as long I live.

The challenge for me now is how to turn mundane activities into playful activities. I hope that there will be some hints in the book. Can wait that the book will be mailed to me.

I read another book from Brian Tracy, "Eat the Frog!". Brian Tracy collects some common sense advices and put them in very readable format. I found them very handy and practical. From this note it looks that "Focal Point" contains many good advices, too.

I found the following big ideas for me:

"Zero-Based Thinking" Asking the right question is 1000 times better than having the right answer. And the zero-based thinking looks like one type of right questions.

"Flexibility: The single most important Quality" Playing and moving between the walls of rigidity and chaos.

"Everything is hard before it's easy." I think that it's better so. If I get something very easy, I don't appreciate it so much. On the other hand it make me choose only things that I value the most.

"How's your optimism?" Optimism is for me just a learned response to stimuli from the world, such that I asked myself what good can it mean to me. And here it's also valid that at first it was hard. And now it's a little easier.

"The great truths of life are simple." They may be simple but they are not easy for me. At least not at beginning.

Hi to everybody!

I love this note. There are some ideas worth planting to my every day life.

1. Don't be afraid of failure.
The fact is that failures will happen. When I became more skilled at some endeavor, the rate of failure will drop. But the failures can not be eliminated totally. The example of the basketball star Jordan is very illustrative.
If I start something new, I can expect to make a lot of mistakes at the beginning. There is a saying in Slovenian language that goes something like: He who does not make any mistake is the one who does nothing.

2. Be prepared for the failures.
With some mistakes I can live so I won't do anything to avoid them. Some areas are more important so I should put more effort to avoid the mistakes or at least to avoid the big ones. Some resolutions that pop up my mind are: I could build a safety net so I can practice more relaxed, I can take more time to learn on own mistakes, I can ask others so I can learn from theirs mistakes ... Or perhaps even better some mix of these resolutions.

3. Recovery: micro, mid & macro
I am proud that I put all three types of recoveries in my daily routine. I can affirm that each type of recovery put my mental energy at very high level. The ideas come from nowhere, my creativity bursts.

4. The Platinum Rule:
I realized that I can give to others only those things that I nurture. To be tolerant to others I should first practice tolerance to myself and I should get at least some experiences in these endeavour.

At the end I should admit that I hesitated to write a comment.. English is not my native language and my fear was not to make any mistakes or at least not to much mistakes. But after reading this note and after writing this comment I realized that I can improve my English only by practicing.
That's my first small step toward a bright, more optimalistic future.

Have a nice journey to your optimalistic future!
Boris

WOW! You are totally right. I also tought that the lack of discipline to execute them was my primary fault. But after I read your toughts I am convinced that perhaps my priorites does not come from my heart.
I feel that my true dreams have vanished somewhere. And my next task will be to find them again and plant them back to my heart.

I am grateful for your deep insights.

Sunny greetings to Michigan from Slovenia, a small country in the heart of Europe,
Boris

I feel this book is worth reading. The four agreements sound very sound and easy to implement in daily life.
"Don't take anything personally" used to be a big issue for me. After criticism I felt sometimes like surviving a round in ring with Mike Tyson (I stayed in one piece and my ears too). Then I learned to meditate and that had a huge result. Nowadays it takes a huge effort to derail me.
The third agreement "Don't make assumption" is big part of a good communication. A skill that is very valuable. Easy to do and also easy to omit.
I put this title on my READ-IT-THIS-YEAR list.