For those interested in becoming a “SMARTplace” (this makes more sense if you have been to the lecture on the topic), the following steps are recommended:

1 [] Register at www.BetterME.Us and fill out the survey, and attach yourself to the relevant group.  Send me a message if you can’t find your relevant group.

2 [] Watch the following presentations (place blog with links by Friday)

[] This One Thing by Andy Stanley

http://yourmove.is/watch/this-one-thing/

[] Motivation by Dan Pink

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

[] Child Driven Education by Sugata Mitra

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html

[] When Ideas Have Sex by Matt Ridley

http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_ridley_when_ideas_have_sex.html

[] Add 10 years to you life by Jane McGonigal

http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_the_game_that_can_give_you_10_extra_years_of_life.html

3 [] Schedule a training meeting to learn

[] Focused Root Cause Analysis

[] Apollo Root Cause Analysis

4 [] Schedule time for the SMARTliving Lecture Series (four 1 hour lectures)

5 [] Schedule SMARTplace Planning Meeting

6 [] Join Linkedin, and then join the BetterME.Us group.  Here there are 15 different class discussion where you can read about identified people, products, and practices that others are using to advance their grade.  You can also post your own insights.  This allows us to learn from each other.

With this schedule, you can have your SMARTplace operational in approximately 4 weeks 🙂

I had a chance to spend some time with some great people at the Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency.  We talked about SMARTliving and they were charged with:

1. Learning to make their Butterfly;  This is a process that encourages positive emotions and more time living in the present moment.  To do this you must learn to manage three times well.  The first practice is mindful meditation that helps with awareness.  The second practice involves managing fears of the future by just asking what it would feel like to be without the fear (right wing).  The third practice involves looking for the positive meaning in the event that has upset or frustrated you, reflecting on the fact that most of your growth in the past came from dealing with an adversity (left wing) .
2. Mastering the Hand: It was suggested that there are 5 areas that if mastered would be associated with a much more fulfilling life.  Each areas is assigned to a finger; Vision, Health, Finances, Time Management, and Communication.
3. Getting all A’s on the Citizen Report Card: This is a tool that may be used to increase your social fitness.  If you register you can take the survey on line (that would make me happy), or you can download a hardcopy and review.

Click here download handout: SMARTlecture Handout.  Hopefully those that attended found the information helpful.  It was certainly fun for me : )  Hopefully they will have me back to talk about becoming a SMARTplace.

It may not be readily apparent, your prosperity is locked inside of me, and my prosperity is locked inside of you.  The better I do at becoming me the more prosperity you will have, and the better you are at being you, the more prosperity I will have.  This is because of the concept of “Comparative Advantage”  its easier to show than to write about it so I have created a video that explains it:

• “jbetter”: Why we need us: the principle of comparative advantage in 5 minutes (click the link to view the video)

I got this information from watching the following TED presenation which you may also find helpful:

• TED – Matt Ridley: When Ideas Have Sex (click the link to view the video)

This is in part why this website was created.  A sight to share our journey on becoming better 🙂

I hope this helps

-jb