Generally, people who start their own businesses can be grouped into two broad categories. The first group consists of people who know exactly what they want to do and are merely looking for the opportunity or resources to do it. Usually, these people have already developed many of the skills necessary to succeed in their chosen field. They are also likely to be familiar with industry customs and practices, which can help during the startup phase of a new business.

The second group consists of people who want to start their own business, but don’t have any real definite ideas about what they’d like to do. While these people have developed skills in the course of their employment or education, they may not be interested in opening a business in the same field of endeavor.

How you proceed will depend, in large part, on which group you’re in. For those who know what they want to do, the task is a bit easier. There’s no need to research business ideas and opportunities to decide which might be suitable. Instead, these folks can jump right in and assess their chances for success in the type of business they’ve selected. Those who merely want out of the traditional corporate world have an extra step: choosing the right small business for you.

Source: You Have What It Takes by John Eldredge

Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Helen Haste has identified five that we should begin teaching our students. We  business managers should also consider how to bring these skills to our companies and careers.

• Managing Ambiguity. “Managing ambiguity is that tension between rushing to the clear, the concrete, and managing this ambiguous fuzzy area in the middle. And managing ambiguity is something we have to teach. Because we have to counter the story of a single linear solution.”
• Agency and Responsibility. “We have to be able to take responsibility and know what that means. Being an effective agent means being able to approach one’s environment, social or physical, with a confidence that one actually will be able to deal with it.”
• Finding and Sustaining Community. “Managing community is partly about that multitasking of connecting and interacting. It’s also, of course, about maintaining community, about maintaining links with people, making sure you do remember your best friend’s birthday, that you don’t forget that your grandmother is by herself this weekend, and of course recognizing also that one is part of a larger community, not just one’s own private little world.”
• Managing Emotion. “Really it’s about getting away from the idea that emotion and reason are separate… Teaching young people to manage reason and emotion and not to flip to one or the other is an important part of our education process.”
• Managing Technological Change. “When we have a new tool, we first use it for what we are already doing, just doing it a bit better. But gradually, the new tool changes the way we do things. It changes our social practices.”

. Repetition
Repeat something new over and over and you’ll develop ‘muscle memory’ that will help you memorize a new subject. Whether is a particular set of words or phrases in a foreign language, or cooking a recipe, the secret is to repeat the task over and over several times until it’s stuck in your memory.
I recently needed to learn a new programming language for a project I was involved with. The fastest way for me to learn the new language, was to sit down at my computer at the start of the weekend and, write lots of new software, over and over. I spent the whole weekend working in the new language, writing the same software many times. By the end of the weekend, I was confidently fluent in the new language.

. Association
Associating new subjects with ones you know is a great way of learning. The most popular application is the use of mnemonics. Find a word or phrase and associate each letter (or initial letter of that word) with the topic you’re learning.
For example, the first letters of Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vein spells out the colors of the rainbow in order: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.
Google ‘mnemonics’ and you’ll find plenty of websites listing mnemonics for a huge range of subjects.

. Watch video tutorials
It’s easy to learn from other people, and one of the best ways to do this is by finding how to videos and tutorials. Learning a new piece of software becomes a piece of cake when you can sit in front of your computer, be talked through the process, see exactly what’s on their screen as they talk, and then repeat the actions yourself.
You can do the same for playing a musical instrument, learning a foreign language, drawing, making things, learn new concepts, and more. Have a search around, you’ll find hundreds of examples online.
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Every subject requires a different approach to it depending on its nature. It is not correct to generalize that the best way to learn a new subject or skill is to study small segments or details in great depth rather than to start by trying to develop a sense of the whole.

The method to learn a new subject or skill depends on the type of the subject. In some cases the best way to learn is to study small segments in great depth without trying to develop a sense of whole. In other cases it might be important to develop a sense of the whole to develop an interest in the subject. Sometimes the study requires intermingling of both the techniques.

People always learn a new language by first trying to develop a sense of the whole. The study of a new language begins by identification of important words in that language. These words help people to start making sentences that make sense. These sentences might not be grammatically correct but they can convey what the person is trying to say. It is more practical to study a language this way. For example if a person travels to a foreign country, it would be important for him to understand and be able to convey his thoughts. It would not matter if he does not understand the nuances of the grammar or all the denotations and connotations of a particular word.

Children begin learning new subjects in school by trying to understand subjects as a whole. For example by the time children reach middle school they begin to understand that geography deals with study earth and its environment, science deals with logical explanation of all processes, history deals with the past etc. This introduction gives them the opportunity to decide their field of interest. If the learning of biology began by letting children know in great depth of a particular plant, they would not know biology deals with lots of other things besides that plant. It is important to tell that biology is the study of all living beings because if they are interested to study about animals later, they will know how to go about it and which field to pursue.

On the other hand the learning of a new computer programming language begins by learning its parts in detail. A computer program can be developed in various ways using the same language. The study begins by learning the details of the different syntaxes of the programming language. The students compare and contrast each new syntax with previous ones and try to develop the best way to program in that language. It is important in this case to study each part in great depth to understand the programming language as a whole.

The study of a skill like dance or knitting also requires learning by studying its parts in detail. The study of dance begins by learning to do basic steps. The next step is to learn some simple combinations of these basic steps. As the learning progresses, the student develops the sense of the whole dance form. It is impossible to learn the dance without knowing the steps. The same holds true for knitting.

The study of a new subject on which there is no prior information requires study of parts in a little detail to form a vague idea of the subject. After the formation of the idea, the details of the subject need to be explored further to make the idea stronger. For example the people who took up the study of possibility of stepping into the moon did not know if it were possible. They studied the parts of the moon, the atmosphere between the earth and the moon, the variance of climatic conditions etc in detail before they decided that it was possible for man to go to the moon. Then they explored the details further to prove the fact that it was possible to step the moon.

Source: Articlegarden

Memorable Quotes
Bonnie: George Malley! You learned the Portuguese language in 20 minutes?
George Malley: Not all of it.
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Dr. Bob Niedorf: All right, I’ll start the questions, and I’ll be timing your responses, and we’ll be recording. Any questions?
George Malley: What’s your first name?
Dr. Bob Niedorf: Uh, my first name is Bob.
[George reaches across the wide table to shake hands]
George Malley: Shoot, Bob.
Dr. Bob Niedorf: Right. Name as many mammals as you can in 60 seconds. Ready? Go.
[Starts stopwatch]
George Malley: Hmm. 60 seconds. Well, how would you like that? How about alphabetical? Aardvark, baboon, caribou, dolphin, eohippus, fox, gorilla, hyena, ibex, jackal, kangaroo, lion, marmoset, Newfoundland, ocelot, panda, rat, sloth, tiger, unicorn, varmint, whale, yak, zebra. Now “varmint” is a stretch; so is “Newfoundland” (that’s a dog breed); “unicorn” is mythical; “eohippus” is prehistoric. But you weren’t being very specific, now, were you, Bob?
Dr. Bob Niedorf: [pauses, then stops watch and laughs] Well! Ahh, I’ll, uh – I’ll try to be more specific. You ready for the next one?
George Malley: Shoot.
Dr. Bob Niedorf: Answer as quickly as you can… how old is a person born in 1928?
[starts stopwatch]
George Malley: Man or a woman?
Dr. Bob Niedorf: [stops stopwatch and pauses] Why?
George Malley: Specifics, Bob.
Dr. Bob Niedorf: Okay, one more time. How old is a MAN born in 1928?
[starts stopwatch]
George Malley: Still alive?
Dr. Bob Niedorf: [stops watch, pauses, nods] If a man is born in 1928, and he’s still alive, how old is he?
[starts stopwatch]
George Malley: What month?
Dr. Bob Niedorf: [stops stopwatch] If a man was born October 3rd, 1928, and he’s still alive, how old is he?
[starts stopwatch]
George Malley: What time?
Dr. Bob Niedorf: [stops stopwatch] 10 o’clock… PM!
[starts stopwatch]
George Malley: Where?
Dr. Bob Niedorf: [stops stopwatch; now impatient] Anywhere!
George Malley: Well, let’s get specific, Bob! I mean, if the guy’s still alive, born in California, October 3rd, 1928, 10 PM, he’s 67 years, 9 months, 22 days, 14 hours, and…
[takes Bob's hand to see his wristwatch]
George Malley: … and 12 minutes. If he was born in New York, he’s 3 hours older, now isn’t he?
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Doc: Let’s see, uh… George… George… there’s a tumor in your brain, that’s spread out like a hand, threads of it, you know, everywhere. But instead of dysfunction – now here’s the mystery, George. Instead of destroying brain function, so far it’s been stimulating it. We can’t understand that. You have more area of active brain use than anybody ever tested – ever – because of those tentacles. I mean, we’ve seen tumors like this before, it’s called astrocytoma. And it explains, uh, the dizziness, and… the illusion of light. But the way it’s in there, waking up areas of the brain, it’s a… big mystery. So…
George Malley: And it’s killing me.
—————————————————
George Malley: Now, uh… he didn’t say how long.
Lace Pennamin: Days, or weeks… they don’t, they don’t know.
George Malley: I’m so sorry, Lace. I know how you hate surprises.
Lace Pennamin: I tried so hard not to love you.
George Malley: How’d you make out?
Lace Pennamin: Terrible.
[they chuckle]
George Malley: Hey, would you, uh, love me the rest of my life?
Lace Pennamin: No. I’m gonna love you for the rest of mine.
—————————————————
Lace Pennamin: So, let me ask you something, George. When a man comes over with a basket full of tomatoes, what is he expecting? Dinner?
George Malley: Nah, no, no. Just hoping.
—————————————————
Banes: [speaking about George's transformation] He never really changed at all. Isn’t that right Doc? I mean he never really got any smarter. Doc?
Doc: Banes… how’s your lady love?
Banes: We… um… we broke up.
Doc: Really? That’s too bad, yeah. Now George has a love at his side and she is sticking with him. You know why? Because he bought her chairs. That’s pretty smart to me. You ever buy Lisa’s chairs?’
Banes: Doc’s real drunk tonight.
Doc: Every woman has her chair, something she needs to put herself into, Banes. You ever figure out what Lisa’s chairs were and buy ‘em?
[pause]
Doc: Nope. But, you’re right about one thing, George never changed.
—————————————————
George Malley: Everything is on its way to somewhere.
—————————————————
George Malley: [this is from a scene cut from the normal version, after George has escaped from the hospital] … and this I wrote for you, Nate. This is about soils and some of my own thoughts.
Nate Pope: Your thoughts?
George Malley: Yea.
Nate Pope: You write down the secret to life in here, George?
George Malley: Ahh Nate, you think I know that?
Nate Pope: I think you know something. What? You sum it up in this book here? Or maybe you didn’t sum it up. Maybe you think I wouldn’t get it, or that I wouldn’t understand it.
George Malley: Ahh Nate, you already know it.
Nate Pope: I want you to tell me George.
George Malley: All right.
[pulls out an eraser]
George Malley: Here you go.
Nate Pope: That’s a dumb eraser, George.
George Malley: Come here. Now Nate, everything that we need is already in us, we just got to clear away the crap that it’s buried under. Now I want you to erase something.
[Nate erases]
George Malley: OK. There you go.
[pointing at the eraser]
George Malley: See that? That’s the crap. Love is buried under fear, and partnership, is right there under competition, and there’s compassion underneath the greed. Nate, you gotta take your eraser and do the work. It’s hard work and nobody can do it for you. There’s no drug. That’s the sum of it.
—————————————————
Doc: [after hearing several of the townsfolk openly disparage George in the Bar] Why do ya have to tear him down? What are ya so afraid of? What have you got to lose? He wasn’t selling anything! He didn’t want anything from anybody! He wanted nothing from nobody! Nothing! And you people have to tear him down so you can sleep better tonight! So ya can prove that the world is flat and ya can sleep better tonite! Am I right? Am I right?… I’m right… The Hell with all of ya. The Hell with everyone of ya.
—————————————————
Doc: George, how did you manage to get your pressure to come down?
George Malley: Oh… I found my pace. Simple thing really. Hard to explain.
—————————————————
Doc: [George has just made a pen move across the table] Th-that’s telekinesis!
George Malley: Yeah… is that O.K?