It is your mission that defines the new you, that makes being the man that you want to be possible. In this post, I attempt to lay the conceptual groundwork for an important element of the mission plan: effective utilization of your mind. I examine the area of work/job/skills here, because this area directly interfaces with your mission, and success here will result in a massive boost to your SMV.

Machines are taking over routine/repetitive tasks everywhere, and women are taking over the easier ones. So if you’re stuck doing any low value job, you are essentially keeping the place warm for the automaton or woman due to replace you.

You need to use your mind to catapult yourself into high visibility (read, high SMV) fields/profiles. To most women, men holding low value jobs are practically indistinguishable from machines. You may get some low-mid range HBs in the lower strata, but if you want to break into the higher circuits, you need to elevate yourself.

The first rule is to stay away from routine jobs involving repetitive tasks. That’s the domain of machines. Get into areas that involve application of your mind in ways that machines cannot replicate. I am talking about applied creativity.

I am not talking about purely creative areas, or the arts. They are very enjoyable, and more power to you if you like being in that field, but in my experience, they do not help as core mission elements. As secondary or tertiary components to mission, though, they are gold. They can make a dull life enjoyable, and make an unremarkable man absolutely arresting. I think it was Stephen King who said that life should support art and not vice versa. Some truth there.

By applied creativity, I mean ideation + execution. Each is incomplete without the other. A Japanese proverb indicates why it's so important to be effective here: vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare.

Ideation is what separates you from the herd. It is the catapult that propels you into higher, more rewarding areas, where you have freedom to set your own terms. I cannot tell you what ideas to generate – none can -, but I have some pointers on how to get good ideas for execution.

The points below are based on a 1939 booklet by an advertising man called James Webb Young, which I have found to be exceptionally useful.

“..an idea is nothing more nor less than a new combination of old elements. The capacity to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on the ability to see relationships. Here is where minds differ to the greatest degree when it comes to the production of ideas. To some minds each fact is a separate bit of knowledge. To others it is a link in a chain of knowledge. It has relationships and similarities. It is not so much a fact as it is an illustration of a general law applying to a whole series of facts. Consequently the habit of mind which leads to a search for relationships between facts becomes of the highest importance in the production of ideas…..”

Step 1: Gathering pertinent information - building a rich pool of “raw material” — mental resources from which to build new combinations

This is hard work. But you have an advantage in that you are not starting from zero– your mind is already filled with some pertinent information, and your experiences indicate the direction you need to take to fill up the gaps.

For general information that can augment and keep on replenishing your fund of information, well, it’s a life-long process. Integrate the information gathering into your daily reading habit.

Step 2: Mental digestion, or internalizing the material

Chew on the information like a cow chews cud.

“…take the different bits of material which you have gathered and feel them all over, as it were, with the tentacles of the mind. You take one fact, turn it this way and that, look at it in different lights, and feel for the meaning of it. You bring two facts together and see how they fit. What you are seeking now is the relationship, a synthesis where everything will come together in a neat combination, like a jig-saw puzzle….”

Step 3: Subconscious processing

You make no direct effort in this stage. You “…turn the problem over to your unconscious mind and let it work while you sleep. Drop the problem completely and turn to whatever stimulates your imagination and emotions. Listen to music, go to the theater or movies, read poetry or a detective story…..”

Step 4: Emergence.

Record the emergent idea.

Step 5: Shaping.

Subject the idea to examination. Refine, test, and repeat, till you arrive at an implementable iteration.

The other half of the formula, execution, is what separates us men from boys, women and machines. By execution, I mean hard work to make the idea a reality. There’s one point that I wish to stress here: work smart, not just hard.

What makes work smart? Methods of implementation and processes of exertion that are in conformity with the natural principles of aggregation and concentration.

Ally with people, wherever possible, to bolster your natural strength. Do not squander any advantages you may have – try to use them wherever possible. Don’t go it alone with a Rambo mindset, unless it’s necessary. Learn from evolution: the reason we are multicellular organisms is because as an aggregation, we stands a better chance of combating nature. And the reason humans are at the top is because we have ganged up as groups and cities and armies to present a unified front against evolutionary competitors.

The word concentration here primarily denotes avoidance of dissipation. If you stick to a systematic plan of method and order with space for flexibility, you’ve made it.

I have written this post in mostly abstract terms, so that they may be applied to most situations. I think the material here would be particularly useful to students, professionals, entrepreneurs and those transitioning between careers.

(tl;dr) Ideate and execute effectively.