In fantasy worlds they say when you wish upon a star - all your dreams will come true. What a load of rubbish!

It is 7:00am Bangkok time and I am sitting in our hotel room working.  Jennifer Goddard and I are here to run the Thai Memory Championships on 4-5 July http://www.jumkeng.in.th/ and last night we met with some of the events coordinators.  Over a very pleasant dinner we discussed many things and Thongchai one of our gracious hosts and a local lecturer on Computer Engineering mentioned that there has been an upsurge of interest in thinking, learning, memory and mind skills in general in Thailand. Later that evening his comment got me thinking about the situation in Australia and many other countries in this regard.

Most small business owners and corporate managers wish they had more hours in the day, many people wish they had a better memory, and many more wish they could get through all they have to do each day and still have time to enjoy a good book, and most wish they could be more creative at times.  But it seems that very few will actually take the time to do anything about it.  And the same goes for most organisations wishing to get a better return on investment through innovation.

The reality is we just don’t make the effort to make our wishes come true, and this applies to many aspects of our lives and businesses.  For example, anyone wishing to get through more information each day can easily do so by learning to range read.  Range reading goes well beyond speed reading and focuses on reading with purpose utilising several method of reading, including rapid reading.  I was fortunate to learn to speed read as an 18 year old in my first week at university back in Canada in 1971, and the more advanced range reading methods I have learnt since have served me well, as they have others.  This simple to learn approach to managing information, when combined with great note taking tools like Mind Mapping, can give an individual several extra productive hours in every day.  If only the time was taken to learn them.

For those wishing they had a better memory, just learning the 12 simple memory principles along with the Recall During Learning and Recall After Learning models can dramatically enhance one’s ability to comprehend and recall information AND even become more memorable.  Any speaker, leader, change agent or indeed anyone trying to make an impression on others can gain a remarkable advantage by learning and applying these simple techniques.  This fact has been well known for many years and even Dale Carnegie’s seminal book ‘How to Make Friends and Influence People’ discussed many aspects of these same concepts.  But do we take the time to learn and apply them?  Not very often.

For individuals and organisations wishing they could be more creative and innovative the same applies.  Many companies today are hoping their wishes will come true by adding Innovation to the mission or value statement, but do they then provide people with the wherewithal to actually be more innovative?  Not often enough.  In reality there are many ways to promote creativity and innovation in an organisation, with hundreds of books and papers on the subject and dozens of courses on creative thinking techniques available.  Unfortunately most business owners and corporate managers have never read any of these.  In addition methods such as Deliberate Creative Thinking embody skills anyone can learn, but it requires a serious commitment, which is not often forthcoming.

So while we all wish and hope for things to be better, for our memory to improve, for our day to become less stressful, and our creativity to flourish, do we take the time to actually develop our skills?  Not likely.  It is like the story Stephen Covey tells about the man too busy sawing with a blunt saw to stop and sharpen his saw.  We all need to remember this simple story.

If you truly want to be more successful, as an individual, business or other type of organisation it takes more than just wishing for your dreams to come true.  We all need to stop wishing and start to learn and apply the many simple principles and methods available to improve all aspects of our existence – and application is the key.  As Bruce Lee said ‘Knowing is not enough, we must apply’.