You have 5 minutes to change the world, one person at a time.
What’s your first reaction to that sentence? Did you think “that’s impossible” or did you think “how does he suggest we do that”? If it’s the former, you’re probably going to disagree with the rest.
It takes 5 minutes for you to realise where and how your business is losing money / can bring in more customers. It takes 5 minutes for you to understand how quantum physics works (5 minutes to understand the basic theory, not the details), 5 minutes to understand how to use a phone, 5 minutes to understand what linkbait is, 5 minutes to understand how twitter works, 5 minutes to…
5 minutes aren’t enough to give you book-length / book-depth knowledge on a topic. 5 minutes are definitely enough to give you a solid grasp of the basics of an idea. What you do with that understanding – that depends on what you want in life and how you plan to get it (hoping / praying / waiting without action is not an option).
There’s two things required for this 5-minute process to work:
- The other person must be open to actionable change.
- You must know how to communicate effectively.
After that, it’s just about listening, practicing, learning from feedback and practicing again until you’re good enough at it to reach your goals.
There’s no magic – the biggest obstacles here are the lack of willingness to change and the inability to communicate ideas and concepts. Once you’ve got that mastered, it’s an easy downhill slope from there (with all the appropriate metaphors about momentum).
Do you have five minutes?