YOUR FUTURE LIVES IN YOUR ABILITY TO LEARN
WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU
When General Electric Chairman and CEO Jack Welch retired in 2001, he received a severance (final pay check) package of $417 million dollars – the largest such payment in history at the time. That would be over $609,000,000 (609 million dollars – or well over a half-billion dollars) in today’s money! That severance package was added to his salary, which was substantial in and of itself! Yikes.
The severance package was what the company paid him for the hard work he did to build the company over all the years he led it to substantial profits — the company’s value rose 4,000% under his leadership — and this was a big ‘thank you’ from everyone at the company for helping to ensure their own jobs remained viable.
Mr. Welch, who is still alive at this writing, started his career as a low-ranking chemical engineer earning an annual salary of $10,500 in 1961. He went on to earn a Master’s Degree and Ph.D. in the same field.
Mr. Welch could certainly be called a Rainmaker!
What is his secret?
He believes that continuous, life-long learning is critical to success and that every person who wants to be successful needs to make learning a priority.
When you learn something challenging every day and practice it as needed, you change your brain. Everything you learn is stored in your brain, and the brain can’t store information if it doesn’t physically change in some way every day.
As you learn things, your brain adds neurons (neurogenesis). These neurons allow more learning. More learning creates more neurons. It’s a cycle that will give you an edge at work and in life. These changes will allow you to know and remember more information.
But as more neurons are added, they begin to fire together and reorganize. At some point, the process can actually change the way you think, not just what you know or can remember. The ability of the brain to reorganize itself is called neuroplasticity. And when your brain changes this much, it begins to think in a different way. In fact, some early research indicates that your brain actually becomes more creative and able to solve more complex problems with inventive solutions as you continue to build its capacity.
We recommend that you research how these processes occur. It’s simply a matter of thinking about things in different ways – ways that can positively increase your future learning abilities, improve your emotional life as a human being, and increase your value to an employer — and therefore also increase your salary!
Learning something challenging every day will help you keep your brain ‘learning-ready’ at all times. You will be better equipped to compete than any worker who does not flex his or her brain on a constant basis. You will be able to learn whatever new knowledge or skill you need to keep your job. GEMESA
RAINMAKERS COMMIT TO LIFELONG LEARNING!
Start now to learn, practice, and apply the skills you will need to earn your future success.
Join a Rainmakers Club in your school, local community agency, or online.