Tag Archives: Personal Development

Personal Development

Growth Mindset

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The definition of the growth mindset for me is the state of openness to continuous development. Because it is continuous, the growth mindset is easier said than done and it is a process that starts when you born and lasts up until you die.

You will never be able to fully catch up with growth. You will try, read and develop yourself up to a very high standard but these efforts still will be insufficient. You will admire the power of the universe because a lot of things are still unknown and you still don’t know everything.

I have argued for long time that this mentality should be taught in the universities, not an abstract course itself. It does not really matter what you study; it matters how you develop yourself to update your operating system.

One of the biggest selling points of smartphones is simple: They get frequent operating system updates that enable the phones to develop themselves continuously. Otherwise you would need to change them much more frequently, and your current handset would be useless more quickly.

Just like humans.

If one believes that he knows everything and that there is nothing to learn and nobody to get to know, the probability of becoming useless in the very near future increases significantly. And there are many people around like this, even in the high levels.

You should exclude these people from your circle because they can be poisonous.

If, after graduating from university, you still don’t have this mentality, you simply don’t have it. You can survive, but you will survive just like any other breathing animal on the planet.

As you may recall, my book review on Homo sapiens mentioned that Homo sapiens start developing because they confess that ‘we don’t know’.

When one believe that he knows everything, he is excluding himself from the outside world and new updates.

The growth mindset opens you for the world of opportunities, and we are living in our narrow world which some of us think is very big.

It is not, especially nowadays.

I wrote these sentences from beloved and cold London. It is always good to be back to London.

All the best.

Sukru Haskan
@sukru_haskan

Economics, Life, Personal Development, Singapore

Social Mobility

 

If you are born in the Western world rather than Africa today, it is likely that you will not suffer famine in your lifetime. If you are born in England, your life expectancy will be higher than someone born in Mali. If you are born into a family where both your parents have university degrees, it is very likely that you will have access to higher education as well.

Small differences in life such as your place of birth, nationality, your name and your family make huge differences to how your life is lived.

It is very clear that not everybody is born with the same kind of opportunities and prospects. It is the balance of nature—and it is not very fair.

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Social mobility is a big challenge for every country today. A book written by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett concludes that more equal societies almost always do better than others. Their study discovers that there is an inverse relationship between income inequality and intergenerational mobility. Countries with less income inequality, such as Denmark, Sweden and Finland, have some of the greatest mobility, whereas countries with high income inequality, such as Chile and Brazil, have some of the lowest social mobility.

So much talent is wasted because they haven’t been given enough opportunity to show what they can achieve.

For example, George Soros would have been one of the wasted talents, but he was lucky enough to receive an education at LSE.

He subsequently tried his luck in securing employment in England, but was offered only simple jobs rather than his dream investment banking job. Because he did not come from a certain family or circle, he could not establish his dream in England, and so flew to the US to accomplish his dreams.

Today he is one of the greatest philanthropists.

Given that we cannot completely eliminate these inequalities, how can we help the underprivileged to move up the ladder?

No matter what, we have to subsidise education. Children who come from poor families have to make it to good schools if they have the right attitude and skills. Without allowing underprivileged kids access to education, it is almost impossible to speak about social mobility.

I think Singapore is a very good example. Everyone can go to a public school and the monthly fee varies from free to six Singapore dollars if you are a Singaporean citizen. More importantly, Singapore is one of the best countries for your child to be educated, according to the latest PISA results.

There is no guarantee that all kids can make it—but the probability of climbing the ladder significantly increases with a good education.

The legendary investor, Jim Rogers, lives in Singapore with his family and he chose for his daughter to study at a public school rather than a private school.

Social mobility is not only something that helps people climb the ladder, but it is also an insurance against rises in crime and is a bodyguard for a peaceful world.

It is not easy to subsidise a good level of education for everyone and it is very costly, but it is not more costly than the cost of rising crime, of unhappy communities and of pessimistic futures.

Finally, no matter how smart you are, if you are financially well off, it is very likely that you will take it easy. Social mobility is also good for innovation, competition and the promotion of growth.

Hamdi Ulukaya, owner of Chobani yoghurts, is a recent good example of social mobility. A Turkish citizen of Kurdish descent, he was lucky enough to study at Ankara University and lucky enough to go to the US for his English studies. He took a major risk in acquiring a large, defunct yoghurt factory in New York.

Ulukaya’s net worth is USD 1.4 billion as of 2014 and he has pledged USD 700 million to refugees of the Syrian civil war.

It is hard to prove, but I believe people whom you help to move up social ladder tend to help other people as well—just like George Soros and Hamdi Ulukaya.

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Life, Personal Development

What is success to you?

When you are a fresh graduate from a university, you are young and ambitious.

You definitely want to be successful, but many of new graduates do not have an idea of what their passions are and this fact makes it harder for them to be successful.

In my own and plain explanation, success is an ability to achieve your dreams and it starts with setting your own objectives.

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An article published on Harvard Business Review by Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams explains it perfectly with a great example.

“A corporate lawyer may work for a highly respected firm and have a lavish compensation package, but if her career falls short of her dream to become a Supreme Court justice, for instance, or if practicing law seems merely a good way to make a living and doesn’t provide an intellectual buzz, she won’t feel successful.”

Success has different meanings to all of us. Success is a continuous journey which includes failure. Richard St. John from Canada explains success as a process of passion, work, focus, push, ideas, improve, serve and persist.

Many people defines success as a bank account with many zeros. Whilst it may be a conclusion of a success, it is not really a mean and it should not be.

From my own experience, people with an ultimate target to have a bank account with many zeros do fail. In other words, they become unsuccessful as passion is not in place in the first instance.

Remember Richard St. John’s ladder of success?

It does start with passion and money is not involved in any part of the process.

And these are the last words of Steve Jobs…

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world.
In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.

However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.

At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.

In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer…

Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth…
Should be something that is more important:

Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days…
Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.”

Who could argue that Steve Jobs was an unsuccessful person? I think he is successful and innovative but does it really matter what i think?

What matters most is what your self perception is…

My own humble explanation of success is to be a purposeful creature during our life span with adding value to many people’s lives.

Moreover, generating innovative ideas and helping to improve living standards of many cannot be more satisfactory than anything else.

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan

Life, Personal Development

Are you passionate enough?

1 Comment

The Oxford dictionary defines the word passion as ‘strong and barely controllable emotion’ and passionate as ‘having, showing or caused by strong feelings or beliefs‘ .

What great definitions!

To succeed, be meaningful and happy, you need to be passionate about something.

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If you want to stay an average person, you may not bother at all, but then you will have a dull life.

I strongly believe that we are all living on this planet to change things.

Changing things is easier said than done.

You can be passionate about anything: a football team, your family, friends, food, business, travelling and so on.

But there has to be something in your life that you are really passionate about.

What are you passionate about? 

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Going back to the Oxford dictionary definition of passion, it is a strong and barely controllable emotion.

It is really important that you can control it, but only barely. It should be such a strong feeling.

If it is not controllable, it is not your friend any more.

Making things worse, it is actually your enemy.

There is a very fine line between being passionate and obsessive.

The Oxford dictionary defines obsession as ‘an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind’ and obsessive as ‘of the nature of an obsession’ .

When you are obsessed with something, you cannot control your emotion. In other words, you are not your own boss any more.

That feeling/emotion starts controlling you and can potentially destroy you.

From my experience, educated and self-confident people are more likely to control their emotions.

Emotions help them to succeed and be happy in their lives.

Someone with a high ego very likely means someone with less knowledge and less self-confidence who tries to overcome these problems by increasing their own self-importance.

When you hear ‘I am important’ type of statements from someone, just walk away…

I am personally very passionate about Besiktas (a Turkish football team), reading, travelling, technology and meeting new people.

I am passionate about Besiktas, not because Besiktas is a good sports club, but more importantly because it has a unique type of supporter who is quite sensitive to domestic and global issues. Besiktas is a very good platform for good companionship, to channel your knowledge and, if necessary, help those who need them.

I am passionate about reading; as I read more, I develop my thinking, how I see the world, what has shaped the world and the people. More importantly, each book makes me so curious that I want to jump into any different book.

To give you an example, last year I read The World Order by Henry Kissinger, which made me read Hillary Clinton’s recent book, Hard Choices. After reading Hillary Clinton’s book, I wanted to learn more about the Saudis and it made me read Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey.

I am passionate about travelling because the more I travel, the more I understand people with different backgrounds. So far, I have been to only 51 countries and knowing there are many more to go keeps me very motivated. In addition, I know that even if I visit every single country one day, I will need to go to those countries again.

Why? Nothing stands still and I have to be updated!

I am passionate about people because everybody has a unique life story. I am quite privileged to work in the banking profession as it is part of my job to meet new people, understand them and bring unique solutions to each of them.

Am I obsessed with something?

I hope I am not. People who know me should answer this rather than me.

If you cannot find something that you are passionate about in your life, you should start searching for it.

If you can connect your passion with your job, success is inevitable, then! Instead of looking for a living or an extra earning, do not sell your passion for temporary means!

It should wake you up early, always have that in mind and get excited and think positively about the future.

More importantly, it should help you to be meaningful and happy in our limited time on this planet!

All the best from Singapore.

Sukru Haskan
Twitter: @sukru_haskan