Technician or Parts Changer: Which Are You ?

In all walks of life, there are technicians and there are parts changes. Technicians diagnose a problem and understand why something is not working before they try to fix it. Parts changes cast about randomly and simply install new parts, hoping they get lucky and find the one that makes things work. Part of the excitement of being a technician is that you never master what you’re doing because it never remains the same. If what you are seeking to learn is just the basics, and not be looking for new possibilities, you fall into the category of being a changer of parts. You won’t be considered a person wanting more out of life.

Studies have been performed by various groups and agencies and their findings are quite startling. 95% of people in this world live in a vacuum, oblivious to their own potential. How sad. Most people who aren’t looking to improve themselves personally or professionally tend not to be aware of the vast resources of help available, if only they reached out for it.

In this article, technicians are not technical fixer-uppers of any physical equipment. One person cleverly named herself: a technical flat tire. However, she has a vivid imagination, a high desire to seek out the new, a willingness to change, is open to suggestions, and wants to live more fully by enjoying new adventures.

Is learning an enjoyable habit for you ?

You can increase your knowledge substantially in any subject matter you choose - every day. For instance, if you read 10 pages of a book (any type - it doesn’t matter) you could read one or two books a month ! Read articles in magazines or newsletters you enjoy. Learn more about competitors or those in the same field as yours from trade publications. Go over notes from workshops and seminars you’ve attended. Spend that amount of time, at a minimum, listening to recordings or watching something educational on television or via video on the Internet. Think what you can learn in such a short amount of time ! Even with fiction, you learn better skills as you understand better how phrasing and ’word pictures’ are used to draw you into a story. You gain a better understanding of how to utilize the imagination and emotions to make a point. The possible sources and resources for learning are essentially unlimited.

Knowledge can also be gained through the verbal, audio, teleclasses, video calls, and e-mail teaching of others such as face-face classroom time, mentors, coaches, and master-mind groups. The accumulation of information, data, and even fun or entertaining pieces increases your chances of comprehending even more about how things work in the world around you. Wisdom might be defined as common sense, insight, or good judgment. When all of these are added to one another - you become very powerful. A sense of confidence and self-esteem rises to new heights.

Learning through the experiences of others is often a more efficient way of gaining wisdom as you avoid wasting all the time, energy, and expense normally associated with learning from your own experience. The shortest route to success in any field of endeavor and life in general, is to seek the company of those who have a great deal of wisdom. This allows you to tap into a huge reservoir of collective thoughts that no single individual can offer.

How is Your Knowledge Being Used ?

Great and helpful information is already stored in your head from years of living. A lot of people are wasting a lot of potential in many areas of their lives, unable to do what they know is right and good for them. Remember, knowledge is not power…it is only potential power. It has to be implemented and involved in your daily pattern of living.

This storehouse of accumulated knowledge may or may not be totally ‘accurate’. Beliefs and attitudes and remembered behaviors and reactions may not be correct due to your underlying perspective or what other people have told you. These accounts may be different due to how they interpreted the same events. Take care as some of these could limit you without you even being aware of the fact that boundaries have been set by words and actions experienced or learned over years from peers and ‘teachers’ of every age and stage of your life.

Because this knowledge and experience are the building blocks you expand upon, you may have to endure a close examination of who you are at your core. You‘ll consider what brought you to this point in your life that is effective and enjoyable. Then, you‘ll look at what is better to gently address, release, and eliminate. Let the issues and memories you don’t want go away without having to actually burden yourself with guilt or remorse. Going through this process (it can be difficult) will clear your heart, mind, and spirit. It will open you up to your future with a more enthusiastic outlook to seize opportunities and enjoy what can be yours.

This is what being a technician is about. Finding new combinations, possibilities, and a desire to use the knowledge and expertise lodged in the brain and imagination. It’s combing the subconscious with the conscious mind to expand your horizons and want to reach out to others to share. Your inspiring lifestyle will want others to support you and discover their own methods for additional achievements. That’s quite an accomplishment on your part - the desire to develop and change by continually learning.

Technicians are risk takers

Successful people enjoy challenges and taking opportunities. The ability to recognize the opportunity, the willingness to take the initiative and the risk, the work needed to turn the chance into reality - these are where the tactics of a technician come in. There are four primary tactics used to minimize risk.

* Assessing a situation and choosing to take a specific action or not

* Balancing one risk against another (will they conflict or work more in harmony)

* Reducing the possibility of problems or errors in the situation

* Taking actions to modify the decision or make it work - after the choice is made and/or implemented

The use of tactics and strategies

If you begin to believe that tactics are the way to gain control and use them as a short-tern end in itself, you begin to lose the primary purpose of tactics -- to win the main strategy. For example, during negotiations you may concede something in a normal process of bargaining where each side concedes a little - this is normal and expected. Or you may make a concession precisely to lure the opponent into a position of weakness or an area less to their liking. It’s important, as a technician, to be sensitive to the situation in which you are operating and to the true circumstances of any deal. If you are going to have to give in - do it quickly. Then go on to the next issue or concern. Save your energy for the bigger points and times when you’re not willing to give up or give in.

There’s no valid reason to rely only on your skills and expertise in the use of strategic balancing and winning with good tactics. Having a sensible and calculated vision, based on doing your homework and brainstorming, will give you a significant edge to whatever you are striving to succeed at. Combine the elements of luck, timing, and strong instincts and you have an even stronger, more effective and powerful force. Using everything they ‘own’ and have access to is why technicians come in with more wins than those who merely do what is required and no more.

Success in any endeavor is largely about how you take care of people and how sincere you are with your actions. You don’t necessarily have to be smart if you have good people surrounding you and supporting your efforts and dreams. Goals are gained more quickly what you work with others who can fulfill those areas in your life which have not yet received the training required or wanted. You may choose never to learn certain things when others can perform those deeds more efficiently and effectively.

Doing it ‘wrong’ is okay

There is almost always more than one way to fix something so don’t be afraid to try. Innovative ideas are the reward and benefit gained from substitutions, lack of the ‘right materials’, and being unsure of how to proceed. Any time there is only one answer, someone is not asking the right questions or seeking different solutions.

Doing something wrong is a surefire cure for boredom, and it is rare not to learn something of value about yourself or the task along the way. You do want to retain some safety net and not just grab hold of something, of anything. However, your knowledge and expertise is a good guideline for knowing when to reach out with a fair amount of confidence that something or someone will be there to catch you if what you try doesn’t come out quite the way you’d hoped or anticipated. Failings always have value when you figure out what went wrong, take measures to correct it, and try not to take the same inappropriate or invalid steps again.

A mistake can occur for any number of valid reasons and a few unsupportable ones. The person who failed to fix what you are working on now is likely just as capable as you. Remember, someone may be following up some part of your work someday due to a need to correct something you did or with a better plan or a more effective product or service.

You can learn a lot about a person by how they handle a defeat. Those who view it as a minor setback isn’t allowing the event to define him or her. Your self-worth can only be diminished if you allow it to. On the other hand, your good self-esteem can be increased by recognition from others as well as self-acknowledgement. You will lose sometimes. Pick yourself up, learn, and try another possibility. If you are dealing with a person who has set up any type of roadblock and you choose not to pursue moving past it at this time, just tell yourself -- next -- and move on to someone who will appreciate what you have to offer. As a rule, individuals accomplish more wins than errors - all you have to do is take a look at past achievements and know that to be true.

Moving On

Over-coming discouragement and frustration is another segment of learning to accept that it’s okay to have down periods. These can be construed as early warning signs. It’s the brain’s way of telling you that your objective is reachable but another approach would be a good idea. Feeling stuck is a major complaint many people have. Rather than assuming you aren’t qualified or able to move out of ruts on your own, learn to ask better questions to obtain more useful answers to resolve the perceived problem. Handling roadblocks and getting past the normal anxieties of everyday living can be turned around most quickly by simply acknowledging the fact that you are aware that ‘it’ is not working.

Catch your breath. Get some perspective and clarity on the events happening. Quit berating yourself with negative comments. Kick out the inner judge and any other little gremlins of gloom and doom to clear your mind, heart, and spirit. Take breaks and add several deep breaths to your health and exercise routines. Exaggerate the situation to the point of it looking so ridiculous you can’t help laughing at what the fears were and why you were allowing those false expectations (of inability) to appear real. This relaxation allows you to regain objectivity. New strategies and changed approaches can lead to what might be called ‘miracles’ simply because you changed an attitude, a long-term habit, or invited different team players into your game of life.

Now your inner technician can come out to play. Get curious. Try to understand exactly what is happening to you. Ask lots of questions of yourself. Seek help and support from others to continue posing those positive “what if” and “why not” queries. Many times the issue is that the task or goal is not in alignment with or consistent with your values and inner core knowledge of finding a better direction in life. Perhaps the timing isn’t right because the resources aren’t available. A better opportunity may be waiting and you’re supposed to be delaying in order for it to get to you with the best impact possible. You might be fooling yourself about your sincerity to achieve or doing something because you feel pressure from others to accomplish whatever it is they want (versus what you want). Sabotaging and procrastination are signs that the commitment level isn’t as strong as is ought to be for you to feel motivated to take appropriate action.

Remember to Retain a Sense of Humor

If you’re going to be successful as a technician (a problem solver and innovator), be prepared to laugh at yourself and along with others because “Murphy’s Law” will be around. You know the one: if something can go wrong, it will. Being able to laugh is a great way to ‘arrest stress’. When you combine fun with learning it’s a great combination for thriving in business and in life.

Communication: Effective versus Efficient

Losing one-to-one conversations is leading to less interesting interactions, more durable and long-term storage of data which may or may not be accurate, and greater chances of misinterpretation. The sad fact is that many people truly believe that notes, faxes, e-mails, texting, and so on is more efficient. Unfortunately, the instant replies and rapport for relationships to be effective is more easily lost when you don’t get together one-on-one, through a telephone call, or in a face-to-face meeting. The human touch is needed in order to treat people with more respect and honesty. When you look at and/or physically see an individual with subtleties you will establish a basis more easily and quickly which leads to a higher level of realistic expectations, results, and solutions.

Emotional energy is often restrained in the written word. Besides - it takes a greater amount of time to write or type out your point because you want it worded ‘just right’. Why? You think it will cause a better possibility of being understood. In some cases, a written format is done to ‘cover your rear’ . While both of these are certainly important, so much communication could be handled with less time and much more effective efficiency if done in a vocal manner. Another drawback to current day communications via e-mail and texting is the lack of proper spelling and the use of grammar. Bad habits are being learned and ingrained.

Technology has its place, the ‘old way’ does as well. Some so-called improvements in sharing your message are not really productive for decision making and enabling good choices. If there is no verbal contact and/or body language to observe - it’s more difficult to note when someone may be feeling nervous or overwhelmed. This in turn turns into an inability to reach intelligent and common sense solutions and produce good answers.

Technicians insist on more personal interactions to establish and maintain stronger bonds. Many parts changers are content to keep what they believe is a lower profile. They don’t communicate much at all or keep it low-key, neutral, and perhaps a bit stand-offish.

Every Winner Has Scars

This is the title to the following piece of ‘wisdom’ I received in a newsletter. I believe it fits in well with the idea of being a part changer or a technician.

Life is made up of a series of experiences.

Each one will make you stronger, even though it may be hard for you to realize it at the time.

Life is like your classroom in which you’re being tested, tried, and passed.

Always try to stay in the midst of life and activity.

Don’t isolate yourself from the action.

Your character develops itself in the stream of life.

The setbacks and hardships you endure actually help you in your march forward to success.

The world was built to develop your character.

Life expects you to make progress in reasonable time.

That’s why they make those third grade school chairs so small.

Are you still in the grade school chairs being told what to do, when to perform, and how to accomplish something? Then you’re probably a parts changer - not seeking changes or demonstrating an interest in developing your personality or enlarging your lifestyle into something greater than the level it currently exists. If you are regularly squirming and eagerly anticipating what you can learn and implement - you can consider yourself a technician who likes to transform yourself and travel to the next level upon the ‘ladder of success‘. Yay for you ! Have fun during your life journey.

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