Thinking, visualizing and meditating

Lately I have been thinking about thinking, wondering about visualization, and meditating on things.

Thinking can be a powerful tool. I remember reading books when I was younger like Think and Grow Rich and I collected Horatio Algiers books for inspiration. Apparently it was not just a fad and many authors still write on the topic and many more still practice Positive Thinking. The Laws of Attraction are used by many authors, speakers and TV talk show hosts. Gee it works for them they manage to attract money by selling the theme to people who really want to believe.

This much I know about positive thinking, If someone around you is cranky, whining, dull, negative, complainer or just a Debbie Downer, you will want to go off in another direction and rid your self of these people. If someone is a charismatic, trusting, forthright, positive, inspirational leader, you are more likely to follow that leader. You will listen to positive news more readily than negative.

Can we really change the universe with the sole power of positive thinking? Under the umbrella of first do no harm, what can it hurt? If we think that change is positive, say at a job, and we openly embrace the change, will we have a less stressful time accepting and changing technology. I seem to think so. If I look at a new technology and say this will work, I see my self using the new technology for everything the innovators and implementers intended. I visualize myself having success with a new program or new technology, I seek out the positive contributions that new technology will enable. It works for me.

Of course I have observed those that do the opposite. They have negative thoughts about technology change and think technology will fail them. Low and behold, they hit the wrong key and it fails. Some call it Manifest Destiny. When I observe the Refuseniks of change, I recall a book on change Who Moved My Cheese. Sure enough they stay by the old cheese till it gets stinky. Refuse to read the writing on the walls. Sometimes it is just amazing to watch, other times you want to reach out and ask them what are you afraid of doing?

What else can people visualize? Where else can the Law of Attraction be utilized? Can we have positive thoughts about a person and then they become an ally, friend, or partner? Only if we can persuade their pathway of thought. It could do no harm.

Can we hope and pray, (a powerful form of visualization and meditation) that a sick friend or relative gets better? This has been know to happen or at least attributed to prayer. Researchers have interviewed doctors and found that there seems to be something to it.  Under the first do no harm doctrine, what can it hurt?

Today and everyday after, think positively that you can achieve better health and look stronger and appear younger. Visualize yourself doing things as a younger person would, moving in a stronger walk or gait, see yourself in the mirror looking younger.  Do it everyday.

Just for the helluva it see if it works.

Living in the truth

How difficult is it to live in the truth?
I am not talking church stuff here. Just plain being honest with yourself? Have you been using people? Do you manipulate people with half truths and outright lies? How much time do people spend creating the false image of what is happening with them or around them? The maintenance time alone is extraordinary. When you live in the truth you have tons of time to accomplish things. Some great things some just simple meaningful things that have a positive impact on humanity.

I have encountered people who create entire holograms of their reality and it saps their energy of everyday life. Holograms of reality take energy to stay up or they will fade away. I have always wondered what that person could be or become if they were not so plugged into an energy wasting hologram?

Problems occur when you live in the truth and you begin to see truth and light shines on the real reality you are observing or par-taking. For one thing, those who are spending energy on false realities are really adamantly opposed to hearing your truth as it might cause their hologram to collapse.

Being truthful is different from having beliefs. We can and do, have beliefs in what we cannot see, touch, or hear. If we believe in God, everlasting life, spiritual souls, even positive energy healing, we have beliefs in something that is unseen. We rely on testaments of others to believe.

When you do not live in the truth how do you expect people to ever believe in you? Question reality was an old saying from the 60's. I guess it is ok to question reality, but to try to destroy someone's false hologram of their reality is unproductive. So many of us do service to people who by reinforcing and playing along with their manipulation of people and reality. It's really not worth the energy in some cases. But will people ever believe in them? Will people acknowledge them as leaders? Will they ever be able to put their energy to good use to be so recognized that others will give testament. That is the sad part of a false reality. We die without ever really being known.

Right Brains Left Brains, Multiple Intelligences
As I plowed through a master in educating adults, I gathered all these applications to our cognitive sphere called our mind, brain, or just plain noggin. We know we have two separate spheres that communicate with each other but one usually dominates the other. Creative people are not math geeks, and analytical people are not artists. We can feed and nurture the other side of our predominant side of the brain with exercises. Why does it seem analytical brains want to exercise creative side but I do not see many creative people exercising the inner geek in themselves? Innovation occurs when the right brain communicates with the left brain. Or is it the other way around?  Daniel Pink influenced my approach to left brain work. If the skill is a repetitive skill it will be shipped overseas to be done. I thought about that as I saw my job become more repetitive and less creative. I purposefully developed keen lines of strategies for business situations that kept my job from being exported. Once the strategy is in place and executed, the job of recording , be it a financial or tax return, can go overseas.  What about this job of teaching? Can this job be so generic, or commoditized that the job of teaching goes overseas? Well, I can teach online from anywhere in the world. Stands to reason that someone anywhere in the world can take over teaching online courses here in the USA.  How do you stay in Daniel Pinks definition of jobs of the future?  Innovate, create more courses and programs that are well suited for online learning. Not all students and not all courses are suited for online learning. But I we borrow our right brain for curriculum development that delivers engaging courses that provide credentials of value to students in left brain functions like accounting, we can stay ahead of the game. Eventually, if not sooner, online courses will be taught by Masters and PhD's from India and China. After all, we educated them and refused them a home  and a free life in the USA with a legal immigration document.

The next most important brainology thing I learned about our noggin, was this multiple intelligence perspective. Howard Garner developed much of it and many scholars have contributed to it's development.  Folks have various interests and talents in different areas. We reward the Logic and Word smart intelligences in almost all thing academic. We rave on those Music and Body smart when we go to concerts and ball games. Politicians make good on People smart and what would we do with out the aesthetic smart people with Picture and Nature to please our visual curiosity? Fact is we need people with smarts in all of these categories. Recognition and awards are needed for students with all of the various multiple intelligences. We reward those that pay great wages and craft good careers. What is your area of multiple intelligence that you do for love and not for pay?  For me it is nature intelligence. Growing plants and gardening is something I do for love and not for pay. I'd rather be gardening on a good day. Bicycling is body smart, and I would rather be on the bike than anything in the world.

Mama said ther'd be days like this,  ther'd be days like this.....

Singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious day the Lord had made and we drove right through it. Beautiful high ceiling clouds building white, grey, and black across the beautiful green plains of Illinois.

I love the look of the red barn against newly plowed fields in fresh spring time rains.

Nope that's not red barn on rolling fields that's the beach, the sun, and warm weather. I guess it will have to do. Heading over the river and through the woods to Moms house we go. I wonder if those bucolic red barns next to the classic white farm house have owners who long for pictures of the city?

Returning to my blog after a long break.

I am returning to my blog after a very long absence.

I went away so to speak. Buried my self by working full time as a CPA, finishing up a Master of Art in Educating Adults on the weekend and then topping that off with a MBA with some additional Master work in Accounting. I was overbooked and overworked. I managed to finish the program to change from a career in accounting to teaching accounting. I managed to see, nearly blind, my way through one of the most difficult relapses of my mild MS situation. Recovered and thanks be to God, I am back to full steam ahead. Well at least for another 7 to 8 years.

Looking back on the blogs from 2010, there are still postings that are very true and relevant still in 2015, 5 years later. Mom is now 85 and still the most devoted  lifelong learner I know. My electronic subscription to the New York Times came with a free Sunday delivery. You know that print version. I took NYT up on the deal and had the newspaper delivered to mom in Florida. She is a long  lost New Yorker and so far loves the Sunday edition. Mom considers the fashion section to be her "comic section."

Five years ago I entered the world of online learning with enthusiasm. Over the past 5 years, I have taught online and in person. Both are worthy of being legitimate learning  platforms. I took a MOOC from a Harvard Professor and had fellow students from all over the  world. Online learning is great for credentialing learning  from the informal world to the  formal world.

My research eventually supported the 80/20 rule relative to informal and formal learning. We actually do learn 80% of what we know from informal resources. Freebies if you like. We learn 20% of what we know from formal credentialed learning. Mostly paid for and sometimes overpaid for education.

It struck me that five years ago I said" If I were to really make an honest assessment I would say that character was a winner this year.  In the end, people can lose their business, lose property, lose wealth in a time like now.  But one thing is certain, the character, will and the intelligence that is the backbone of so many entrepreneurs in America is never lost.  Small business owners were smart people when they built their successful businesses and after these "Loss Years" , small business owners will still be smart capable people." This has become so true, so true. Some people might not see it that way and still maintain discriminatory practices against people who have experienced failure. But they will learn, hopefully, that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Till then, you have a  stronger case than those that discriminate.

Reflecting on the past year and the past five years, so much growth, so much learning, so much yet to do! I became the educated teacher of accounting and began to practice as a teacher. Funny how we say we are practicing a profession like Certified Public Accountant. We build a practice when we build our business or book of business. But to say we are practicing as a teacher, well that seems unprofessional. Should we practice on the lives of our college students?  I think that is why we like to call it research. Sounds more academic to research and employ continuous process improvement in the accreditation process.

Well this has just been an update to let you know I am back and do intend to keep posting my reflections on teaching and learning in accounting in this blog space. I will address topics like lifelong learning, problem based learning, competency based models, online learning, CPA Examination programs, and numerous other topics in accounting.

We hope , we dream, we learn

New Years is a time of reflection and perspective. We close out the old year. We wrap up the books and accounting of our wins and losses.  It's a time to put things behind us.  A time to start a fresh new year, a new set of books and a new score of wins and losses.  We have hopes of good fortune for profits, companionship and meaningful endeavors.  New Years is a time to dream of possibilities, to wonder what the new will bring.  It's that time when we reflect on what failed this year, or at least did not work out as well as planned.  For a brief moment after the clock strikes twelve, we are all virgins again.

The new year brings a time of resolution.  We promise to ourselves things that we cannot change and attempt to change them.  Resolutions only work when the motivation is there.  New Years does not always usher in a stunning lightening bolt of motivation. When I have made resolutions to change that have worked, it was at anytime of the year. New or not, but when I did make a resolution it was a new beginning.  Motivation is some deep inner self directed slave driver within us that makes us do things.  Some of the best motivations have not been financially motivations.  Intrinsic motivation is the desire to do something even if you were not being paid to do it.

We have hope that things will turn out better next year. Maybe after the great recession we hope only to not repeat another year like this one.  In the task of tallying the winners and losers, which we inevitably do, we wrap up the fortunes and misfortunes of the year and send them all away to our tax accountant.  If I were to really make an honest assessment I would say that character was a winner this year.  In the end, people can lose their business, lose property, lose wealth in a time like now.  But one thing is certain, the character, will and the intelligence that is the backbone of so many entrepreneurs in America is never lost.  Small business owners were smart people when they built their successful businesses and after these "Loss Years" , small business owners will still be smart capable people.  And it's not just business owners.  Knowledge is something you can sell over and over and over again and still have it to sell again.  The inventory never runs out.

So for that brief moment when we all have a virgin slate before us, think about what knowledge can be shared over and over and over again in the new year? What can I learn ...to add to my knowledge inventory this year?

May we all have a profitable new year and many more,
Terri Campbell

Learning Culture in a CPA Firm

It has often been said that formal learning is 30% of what we learn and informal learning is 70%.

We are all familiar with the process of formal CPA training. From the university level, where we are educated in the classical manner of lectures, assignments, reports and a graded evaluation to the continuing education series we are required to obtain. Where we obtained our degree is often the hallmark when we begin our careers in public accounting. The industry places a prestigious emphasis on obtaining a CPA designation that demonstrated competence by passing a rigorous exam. Formal education is characterized by assessment of learning outcomes. And all that accounts for 30% of what we know in this knowledge business!

Informal learning is a haphazard concoction of life experiences, on the job training, coaching, self discovery, and mentoring relationships (just to name a few). They are often unplanned, seldom have stated goals and objectives, most likely have little evaluation of outcomes and possibly with the exception of mentoring relationships rarely train the "teacher" of the informal learning experience.

For a moment put yourself in the shoes of a new accounting intern, who just came from a formal learning environment where maybe 80% of learning is formal and 20% is informal. Then ZAP ZING ZONG !!! you are transported to a learning environment where formal learning is 30% . What's the first thing you are going to think? Most likely that you are not learning as much. A withdrawal from taking tests and getting feedback on what you learned immediately takes place in the intern to 1st year. In most situations the accountant is not aware of the informal learning that is taking place.

Now let's take a look at the firm learning objectives. Most CPE plans are done to achieve the requirements of AICPA, State Licensing, Quality requirement of an industry (such as government audits) and lastly, firm strategy to develop people in the ever expanding breath of service needs to grow a successful firm. If you take a good look at the CPE plan chances are it only addresses the 30% of formal learning. Some firms can add another 10% for having written mentoring plans. So how do we know that the balance of 60-70% of the learning objectives are in alignment with firm strategies?

In my opinion, and that's what a blog is for, there are methods to better plan the informal learning goals and objectives to achieve a learning culture that is one of the keys to a firms success. The first method involve practice based inquiry. According to Johnson and Pratt(2005) for the type of intellectual or cognitive learning to take place in an informal learning the "teachers must expressly articulate their thinking to learners in order to make it visible to them and the learner must also make visible their thinking." On the job training, situational learning, life experiences, and self discovery are all forms of apprenticeship of intellectual cognitive thinking skills. By exercising practice based inquiry at or near the conclusion of an audit the informal learning becomes solidified and recognized in the mind of the learner. Once this visibility is achieved the learner can then apply the knowledge to ever increasing complex intellectual questions and increasingly complex thinking.

Here's a sample of some of the practice based inquiry I use at the end of an audit:

• INDUSTRY- How did you come to understand the industry sector of the recent audit? By hearing? By reading? By experience in the audit? By discussion with client employees? Did you do any self inquiry (such as google)?
• LEVERAGE OF TECHNOLOGY- How was learning accomplished in terms of the new technology? By training sessions? By experience learning? By trail and error? By sharing with co workers?
• RESOURCES- Did having a whiteboard listing the assigned and unassigned areas of the audit help you manage your time? Feel a sense of accomplishment? Did it help you experience the project management tools at work? Did you make use of knowledge based tools during the audit? Did you make any self inquiry or refer to textbooks, CPA review either physically or by recall?
• RISK ASSESSMENT- How did your experience enhance your understanding of audit risk? How did you feel about materiality?
• COMMUNICATION- What opportunities did you encounter? To write? To listen? To communicate?
• PROBLEM SOLVING- Where there any instances in any context in the recent audit?

Keep in mind when asking questions and listening to answers that the intellectual apprenticeship is to "involve you within" rather than "tell you about". The steps are to Model the skill, provide scaffolding support to encourage self discovery, coach with hints and feedback, and finally self directed learning by generalizing the intellectual knowledge and apply it to other situations.

The questions are aligned with the AICPA educational core competencies that were developed for the formal university educational goals. The alignment helps the new accountant transition from the goals and objectives in the formal systems to work life experiential learning. Making visible the 70% informal learning provides sense of accomplishment and clarity of purpose.

----Terri, 8/11/2010

Johnson J. and Pratt, D. (2005) The apprenticeship perspective: modeling ways of being. Ed. Five perspectives on teaching in adult and higher education. Kreiger: Malabar FL.