How to Reinvent Yourself——Thansfer and Develop your talents

At last Lecture, We studied an interesting topic — Conviction on Identity. During the lecture.

Mr. Hazeer told us a couple of stories about individual reinvention. He showed us the picture of two Indian movie stares when they were young and same age, compared with next picture of same two persons after decades. It really blow my mind — one of them were still looks young and became more attractive, another has aged thoroughly, just looks like an ordinary old man instead of a movie star. This story told us how important the reinvention is.

The next couple of examples were about some contemporary famous cricketers. After retire, some of them tried to become politician, businessman, and coach or play another sport. After decades, though some of them became mediocre, some of them became new heroes, including Imran Khan —the current prime minister of Pakistan, and the fastest man on the planet—Usain Bolt. This story told us how important choosing a right way that you really have talent is.

Mr. Hazeer told us, In general, person's career will start going downhill when they are around 40 years old, but someone who is able to go on next peak through reinvention. This is just my age.

The Pursuit of Happyness(2006)—one of my favorite movie, is about reinvention also. This movie is based on American entrepreneur Chris Gardner's autobiography, his journey from a homeless dad to millionaire stockbroker. He published his autobiography of same name on May 23, 2006. There are two of his advices for people contemplating a midlife reinvention:

Chris Gardner

Ø  Go with what you love, but stay grounded. "Probably the hardest question I get asked is 'How do I choose between passion and practicality?'" Gardner says. "I can't answer that. I had to do both. I was passionate about pursuing a career in financial services. But I was also passionate about feeding my child."

Ø  Play to your strengths. "Your skills, talents and expertise are transferable" to other types of jobs and industries, he says.

For employee, if you can find a way to do both of passion and practicality as same as Gardner, just tightly catch it without any hesitate. If you do not love your present job but can’t transfer to another that you love because of the practicality, you have to transfer and develop you skills, talents and expertise, playing to your strengths. You might be able to revolutionize your present job even your organization. This is another reinvention as well.

For employer, you must try to create a work environment which be loved by your employees, and try your best to provide opportunities and missions to practice them, identify their talent and passion, support your employees to reinvent by themselves to be not only they want to be, but to be what you want also.

A Fantastic Spiral Learning Style from Mr. Kolb in 1984

During last lecture of HR, we learned a very interesting theory—Kolb's learning cycle (1984), it is a fantastic spiral learning style.

Kolb’s learning theory has revealed four distinct learning styles , which are based on a four-stage learning cycle./ training cycle . Kolb’s model is elegant, since it offers both a way to understand individual people’s different learning styles, and also an explanation of a cycle of experiential learning that applies to us all.

Kolb includes this ‘cycle of learning‘ as a central principle his experiential learning theory, typically expressed as four-stage cycle of learning, in which ‘immediate or concrete experiences’ provide a basis for ‘observations and reflections’. These ‘observations and reflections’ are represented in ‘abstract concepts’ that produce new implications for action which can be ‘actively tested’ in turn creating new experiences.

Kolb says that ideally this process represents a learning cycle where the learner ‘touches all the bases’, ie., a cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting. Immediate or concrete experiences lead to observations and reflections. These reflections are then assimilated (absorbed and translated) into abstract concepts with implications for action, which the person can actively test and experiment with, which in turn enable the creation of experiences.

 learning styleKolb’s model works on two levels – a four-stage cycle:

1. Concrete Experience – (CE)

2. Reflective Observation – (RO)

3. Abstract Conceptualization – (AC)

4. Active Experimentation – (AE)

And a four-type definition of learning style, which represents the combination of two preferred styles:

1. Diverging (CE/RO)

2. Assimilating (AC/RO)

3. Converging (AC/AE)

4. Accommodating (CE/AE)

Ideally, activities and material should be developed in ways that draw on abilities from each stage of the experiential learning cycle and take the students through the whole process in sequence.