When you look around, everyone can often seem so much better, financially, intellectually and lots of other words ending in ally.

If you look really closely though you will realise that everything is balanced, and to be good at one thing means you don’t get to be as good at something else.

The 100 coins Concept*

• Imagine that every skill you possess costs money, everything from maths and English to body language and social interaction.
• Each day you get 100 coins to spend however you want (not real coins, but think of it as opportunity to learn)
• You will always spend your 100 coins – even sleeping or “veging” out you learn something, even if it’s just how to relax
• Everyone gets the same amount every day – no more, no less

So everyone is equal

Yes, personally I don’t think anyone is better than any other, it’s just where they spent their coins through out their life. If you put a group of individuals of the same age in a number of situations, no one will be best in all of them.

The age can make a difference, at 40years old you have spent twice as many coins as a 20 year old. Remember though that if the 20 year old spent 5 years worth of coins doing high level maths, and the 40yr old only spend a few weeks worth. In that area, the youngest will come out on top.

Sounds obvious/odd, how does it help?

The idea is really to help people not feel they have wasted their lives, and also make them more conscious of how they spend their coins. Lots of us spend them learning to improve mundane tasks or spending in areas we wouldn’t choose to if we did it consciously.

For an example of the “wasting your life” felling, you usually need a benchmark. The benchmark, I’m sure, will be easy for most people to find. Often they will seemingly have a better life/job/bank balance/confidence/intelegence/modesty.

It’s all about me baby…yeah

What you need to do though is to consider ALL your skills, and instead of comparing with another, think “If I could go back, would I really spend my coins any differently”. You may wish you had followed your dream to be a “Dancer”, but if you spent 80 coins a day to be good enough, you would have less in say social skills or teaching skills say (I’m not picking on Dancers BTW).

Examples 

As an extreme example, Child geniuses – usually suffer with lack of social and interaction skills. People at the top of their sport often suffer this, as they often “gave up their childhood” to excel in a particular area.

In a much lesser example, one of my friends once asked how I know so much about tech and people, I replied I can’t dance and I know nothing about DIY or cars.

A great quote that sums this up better is “You can’t get anything clean without getting something else dirty” - (Cecil Baxter)

So, what now?

Have a think about how you spent your coins. Would you really spend them differently? Would it be a huge difference? Have you thought about how different a person you would be, and would you really want to be them?

How do you want to spend your coins going forward? Try to use, at least some, for learning something new, or improving a skill to a higher level every day. You can’t “waste” them, but you can spend them on the wrong thing – in 6 months you could learn how throw cards to get them to land on a matchbox from 30 yards or you could use it to learn guitar.

It’s nothing new …but…

It is just a different way of thinking about life. It will work for some, and not for others… vive la différence 

* This concept came from a conversation with a friend of mine. Originally I used it to help with peer rating especially when you are new to a role/position, as it’s always hard to know if you are doing well because everyone seems to know far more than you and doesn’t look so lost.