tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16692642633797702942024-03-05T00:23:47.456-08:00Historie World ClassAmer Bekichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12160082457152144684noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-39051005345205462222015-12-16T04:10:00.003-08:002015-12-16T04:15:15.743-08:00<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0" height="394" id="flashObj" width="700"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=4655428774001&linkBaseURL=http%3A%2F%2Fti.me%2F1m1r1Cm&playerID=1917933886001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAABGEUMg~,hNlIXLTZFZn-NQOazMchMDWH0SI1hX7f&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" /><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com" /><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=4655428774001&linkBaseURL=http%3A%2F%2Fti.me%2F1m1r1Cm&playerID=1917933886001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAABGEUMg~,hNlIXLTZFZn-NQOazMchMDWH0SI1hX7f&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="700" height="394" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object>Amer Bekichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12160082457152144684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-82091002542953907452014-10-07T07:05:00.001-07:002014-10-07T07:05:51.211-07:00Motivate Yourself to successfully complete A Long Term Goal Or Work Assignment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvGctDMvjr7rd0oATyJJ9N4T_v_LFFSf8Go_9xLwneJshkYjWQ_Lsh1UGbvUb9-pbcoRmV6V1hfhB1Cxl6I93ujXoTsZWoaNROTVyAGh8KSdNzpADggpbI2eeEworbBM5E_D240stk0VMt/s1600/keep-calm-and-motivate-yourself-3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvGctDMvjr7rd0oATyJJ9N4T_v_LFFSf8Go_9xLwneJshkYjWQ_Lsh1UGbvUb9-pbcoRmV6V1hfhB1Cxl6I93ujXoTsZWoaNROTVyAGh8KSdNzpADggpbI2eeEworbBM5E_D240stk0VMt/s1600/keep-calm-and-motivate-yourself-3.png" height="640" width="548" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">I have successfully used the following strategy. It is not my creation alone but I have based it on some popular work in psychology and management. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">When confronted with a choice, our brain chooses the path which requires the least effort for the brain. Example: If your goal is to save money and you decide not to order any pizza home. But one day you feel very hungry. Now you have choice to either order a pizza or cook something for yourself. Cooking involves significant work. Your brain needs to decide what to cook, control your organs to actually get it cooked and so on. So your brain presents ordering pizza as a natural choice and starts providing the rationale to ensure you make that decision. (Such as: this is the last time I will order this pizza or I have saved enough for this month to afford a pizza and so on). </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">So the first trick is: </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Build cognitive bias</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> such that your goal is always the path of least effort for your brain. In case of money decide that each time you bank balance exceeds X you will handover this money to your parents or spouse to be kept save or you will buy some long term investment certificate. So next time when you find yourself in a situation where you really want to spend money you have either a choice of not to spend at all or go and ask your money back. Obviously not spending becomes a much easier choice for your brain. This is how you need to guard your brain. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Secondly: </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Quantify your goal and track the progress by putting a number next to it. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /></b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">This is hard only if your goal is more qualitative in nature such as "to become good at writing". But most goals can be quantified. Every week, month you must check the quantity of your progress. So mark your calendar and do it religiously.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">I am a big fan of batman. Batman always uses his enemies strengths and weaknesses against them. Similarly you can use your weaknesses and strengths to achieve this goal. My weakness for example is that I can not break promises. I will go to any extend to keep a promise even when the other person thinks of it as a trivial matter. so I somehow promise my nears ones that I will achieve this goal and brag about it and eventually I manage to get it done. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Feelings don't count.</b><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Most of the self help books out there tell you that if you want something badly you will end up getting it. This is simply not true. Being unsure of yourself is always better. You should always look at negative things in the path of your progress while ignoring the positive aspects. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Internalize:</b><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Success should be made into a habit. You dont have to do everything optimally to achieve your goals rather you need to do it religiously. When I set a goal to myself that I will learn swimming, I signed up to visit the pool 4 times a week. However after visiting 4 days I use to take a break of three days which use to break my habit and I use to find excuses not to go to the pool. After a month, I had visited the pool only 8 times and had not learned swimming. Immediately I decided that I will go to the pool every day. It was tough but once it became a habit I use to skip parties and family functions for the sake of swimming. Today I am a very good swimmer. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Understand your limitations. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /></b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Each person is different. In my case i realized that I like to work on multiple things at the same time but unable to take a single thing to it's end. You might be a different type of individual. You need to understand yourself better in order to understand your limitations and work against them. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Totems. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /></b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Build a totem. An imaginary source of inspiration. An Utopian concent/figure that should act as a source of inspiration. I am a Hindu and hence I have different gods for every imaginable God. We have a god of sex and a god of bodybuilding, a God of education and a Goddess of money. So it was simple for me.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-44366330819349368482014-10-02T06:35:00.001-07:002014-10-06T12:25:19.593-07:00 The Most Ridiculous Startup Ideas That Eventually Became Successful<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGX6tGv6gW1lPP_5iAbcZVtZo97fyrpDNlpZhCkkDvFiZznMSuP43hTqHA8zPT035Ytf0XqAbOzHYH-BRvGjnzf-iRVMZXnRMmMTQn4GLs_O__64U5-UaWqEcf2tNaTW2Bmrv9D2OfCbT/s1600/market-rules-startup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyGX6tGv6gW1lPP_5iAbcZVtZo97fyrpDNlpZhCkkDvFiZznMSuP43hTqHA8zPT035Ytf0XqAbOzHYH-BRvGjnzf-iRVMZXnRMmMTQn4GLs_O__64U5-UaWqEcf2tNaTW2Bmrv9D2OfCbT/s1600/market-rules-startup.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">The best startups seem obvious in retrospect - this is because by the time we found out about them as users they had already reached critical mass.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">It is possible to crea</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">te a </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">good</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> startup with a </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">good</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> idea, but </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">great</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> startups are often the result of ideas that would have seemed </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">ridiculous</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> if you had heard them prior to seeing them working.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">This is true almost by definition - if they had been so obvious, someone would have done them already.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Ask yourself, if you were a venture capitalist pitched one of these ideas, what would your reaction have been?</span></span><br />
<ul style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Facebook</b> - the world needs yet another Myspace or Friendster except several years late. We'll only open it up to a few thousand overworked, anti-social, Ivy Leaguers. Everyone else will then join since Harvard students are so cool.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Dropbox</b> - we are going to build a file sharing and syncing solution when the market has a dozen of them that no one uses, supported by big companies like Microsoft. It will only do one thing well, and you'll have to move all of your content to use it.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Amazon </b>- we'll sell books online, even though users are still scared to use credit cards on the web. Their shipping costs will eat up any money they save. They'll do it for the convenience, even though they have to wait a week for the book.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Virgin Atlantic</b> - airlines are cool. Let's start one. How hard could it be? We'll differentiate with a funny safety video and by not being a**holes.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Mint </b>- give us all of your bank, brokerage, and credit card information. We'll give it back to you with nice fonts. To make you feel richer, we'll make them green.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Palantir</b> - we'll build arcane analytics software, put the company in California, hire a bunch of new college grad engineers, many of them immigrants, hire no sales reps, and close giant deals with D.C.-based defense and intelligence agencies!</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Craigslist</b> - it will be ugly. It will be free. Except for the hookers.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>iOS</b> - a brand new operating system that doesn't run a single one of the millions of applications that have been developed for Mac OS, Windows, or Linux. Only Apple can build apps for it. It won't have cut and paste.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Google</b> - we are building the world's 20th search engine at a time when most of the others have been abandoned as being commoditized money losers. We'll strip out all of the ad-supported news and portal features so you won't be distracted from using the free search stuff.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Github</b> - software engineers will pay monthly fees for the rest of their lives in order to create free software out of other free software!</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>PayPal</b> - people will use their insecure AOL and Yahoo email addresses to pay each other real money, backed by a non-bank with a cute name run by 20-somethings.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Paperless Post</b> - we are like Evite, except you pay us. All of your friends will know that you are an idiot.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Instagram</b> - filters! That's right, we got filters!</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>LinkedIn</b> - how about a professional social network, aimed at busy 30- and 40-somethings. They will use it once every 5 years when they go job searching.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Tesla</b> - instead of just building batteries and selling them to Detroit, we are going to build our own cars from scratch plus own the distribution network. During a recession and a cleantech backlash.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>SpaceX</b> - if NASA can do it, so can we! It ain't rocket science.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Firefox</b> - we are going to build a better web browser, even though 90% of the world's computers already have a free one built in. One guy will do most of the work.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Twitter</b> - it is like email, SMS, or RSS. Except it does a lot less. It will be used mostly by geeks at first, followed by Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen.</span></li>
</ul>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-57243882472565221362014-09-27T06:56:00.001-07:002014-09-27T06:56:47.508-07:00The man who took on Enzo Ferrari<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-VCKzAcWwh7-M4k8-dQcHybzfG9eROxPWq7tC184wXq7pFR9qmFRLbw_QyKQt5QyUmWyn_P_4xb8saPMJlAczHPnMTd8gNqKfDBL_Be7Qm4xnvitTM_3rjueVdEH8Ookl_3CoRzk8iefG/s1600/ferruccio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-VCKzAcWwh7-M4k8-dQcHybzfG9eROxPWq7tC184wXq7pFR9qmFRLbw_QyKQt5QyUmWyn_P_4xb8saPMJlAczHPnMTd8gNqKfDBL_Be7Qm4xnvitTM_3rjueVdEH8Ookl_3CoRzk8iefG/s1600/ferruccio.jpg" height="640" width="482" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">See this gentleman? Here's his story. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Once, there lived a boy in Italy named Ferrucio. Born to grape farmers in the Emilia-Romagna region, he was always more interested in the machines involved in farming rather than the activity itself. The family wasn't exactly well off, but owing to his tremendous mechanical knowhow, he started manufacturing tractors; the business took off and made him a wealthy person indeed.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">He was the owner of a Ferrari (amongst other cars) but noticed that Ferrari's cars had inferior clutches, and he was also not too happy with their after sales service.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> So one day, he went to Enzo Ferrari himself with the hope of bringing these flaws to the great man's attention. However, Ferrari was too arrogant and said that he didn't need "a tractor maker's advice", and turned him away.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">This provided the motivation for Mr. Ferrucio to go one up on Ferrari, and to start his own automobile company, which exists even today; and if I may say so, is doing rather well too.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Oh, and before I forget, Ferrucio's last name was Lamborghini.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-41435317784855894342014-09-23T11:02:00.001-07:002014-09-24T07:00:33.437-07:00Increase Your Productivity <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRtABP7rkU_PMWi7RsJtZgMOvW2UFTvbtrOoTYHXLaYpLmL-ZMjqAAZB5TqzIlMPrxM5cL5RXk9YW8N6VNTyEaRgmB4XDlpBKV9DHUHXoBZczwK8VHvo6d8xdSlOIQuxzP6Tc9OfztFpD7/s1600/Increase-Productivity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRtABP7rkU_PMWi7RsJtZgMOvW2UFTvbtrOoTYHXLaYpLmL-ZMjqAAZB5TqzIlMPrxM5cL5RXk9YW8N6VNTyEaRgmB4XDlpBKV9DHUHXoBZczwK8VHvo6d8xdSlOIQuxzP6Tc9OfztFpD7/s1600/Increase-Productivity.jpg" height="388" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Over a period of 4 years at a full-time job, I wrote a book and grew a blog from nothing to 4500 subscribers, typically writing a 2000-4000 word post every week. All my work was over a couple of evenings </span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">and Saturday mornings. For the latter part of the period, I was flex-working remotely from a different city so I had a lot more control over my schedule.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">The following are the behaviors I learned and internalized. Now that my entire life is a set of side projects, these really come in handy. Without these I'd get nothing done.</span></span><br />
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Feedback: </b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Create feedback loops involving other people. Blogging naturally contains this. At first you get hooked in a sort of superficial way to the positive feedback/comments. But later, that external loop goes internal, gets hooked up to a gyroscope inside you, and keeps you going even if the feedback is inconsistent. Harder to do with a book, but you can engineer things. In this case, I started a writing group. Not for critiquing (I didn't show my manuscript to anyone until I was done, I abandoned beta-testing after Chapter 1), but for simple writing company. The pressure of having to show up to support others on their writing projects got me into a rhythm on my own project.</span><br />
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Regularity on Main Stuff: </b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">You have to put your main life on autopilot to the extent possible. This means putting all your energy into just 1-2 projects, minimizing interactions to just the critical few people, and putting all the work there on a very steady routine. This does not mean slacking off. It means reducing meta-thinking at your day job as near to zero as you can. This does not mean you become a dumb cog though. It mostly means picking allies carefully, cutting off time wasters, developing extraordinarily strong noise filters, not picking pointless fights, and going for quick, decisive wins when you</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">do </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">fight. That last point implies a certain amount of corporate-warrior talent. You have to develop a solid reputation for a) Being a complete master of your own turf b) not standing fools gladly c) Being extremely effective in helping others when you do choose to help them d) Being a dangerous person to cross. Sweet-natured pushover patsies generally cannot control their work-life enough to do side projects well. They will be taken advantage of in ways that make such autonomy impossible.</span></div>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Win Flextime Privileges: </b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Many people take the low road to flextime. They beg their managers for what effectively amounts to leniency and special treatment. No. Don't do that. EVER. Win flextime by becoming irreplaceable in what you do. Do it so well, and so irreplaceably, that it is clear to all that giving you flextime privileges makes you</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">more </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">effective, not less.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span></div>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Use Flextime Properly: </b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Flextime isn't just an accountability shield (though it is that too, if you mix it with virtual work). It is only a meaningful variable if you use it start partitioning work by type rather than which bucket it belongs in. If you do your best creative work in the morning, save the creative components of</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">both </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">your work and side-project for the mornings, once you have flextime. If your dumb/stupid time is after 6 PM, do the dull busywork on</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">both </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">fronts after 6 PM. Combine errands, look for ways to hit two birds with one stone (but don't rationalize; synergize... yeah, yeah, I used a buzzword). This leads at a higher level to...</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"><br /></span></span><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Find Work-Life Chemistry, not Work-Life Blending or Balance:</b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Most people try to find a mythical "balance." This is dumb. It means you will do both your day job and your side projects with exceptional mediocrity. Slightly smarter is looking for work-life blending: optimizing schedules, rituals and feedback (points 1-3) in ways that get you to "good" on both fronts. Even this is not enough. What you need is to turn a zero-sum or negative-sum game into a positive-sum game. To use a chemical metaphor, you don't want mechanical mixing or an endothermic reaction. You want exothermic. You want your side-project and main work to feed off each other so that people actually see your side project as an asset. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"><br /></span></span><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Own Your Hedging: </b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Unless it is a hobby, a side-project is generally a hedge, and your coworkers will (correctly) suspect that you are building a life-raft and question your commitment to your main work. It's the opposite of burning bridges. I was in denial about this for a while. Then I admitted it to myself. Finally I admitted it to others. The right way to frame your hedging is to openly own it. If you are valuable enough, your side-project serves as a credible BATNA threat (best-alternative-to-a-ne</span><wbr style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"></wbr><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">gotiated-agreement) that will get people to play fair with you. But you need to demonstrate best faith, since the burden of proof that you are</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">not</i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">slacking is on you. You need to deliver at 2x or some other multiple to show others that it is</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">worth </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">negotiating with you. The BATNA should not be a signal that you'll run at the first sign of a fight. It should be a signal that you will fight more aggressively and level-up the game because you have risk insurance. It also keeps</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><i style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">them </i><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">on their toes, to make sure that the project doesn't fail for reasons they control, which gives you a reason to exercise your BATNA. Your "I have better things to do" held in reserve motivates them to increase their own work.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"><br /></span></span><b style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Understand Your Script: </b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">If you are doing side projects, be honest with yourself. Introspect and figure out what that says about your life script. Don't pretend to be a dedicated careerist when your side project suggests that you are looking for an opportunity to start your own startup. You're fooling nobody. Once you understand your script, enact it openly, in a best-faith way. It is important for others to understand where you're coming from. It is even more important that they understand where you're headed. You'll be surprised at how many people want to share part of your journey with you anyway, even when it is clear it isn't a marriage for life.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-34330650660075275602014-09-20T11:10:00.001-07:002014-09-20T11:11:10.557-07:00Reach Your Goals<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBy7acXU5-fqFKgzMXQGweAkqCtP20c8-ARx-5DsnM2GMHyz15817292guRbS-vLNULTz1RdE7DxHT3YHjxeezu3BucQYF6k_l61mFMunkZUD-xQIktE3TwBDl03ckMftyMrUsv6Wl8Y/s1600/shutterstock_78206758.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioBy7acXU5-fqFKgzMXQGweAkqCtP20c8-ARx-5DsnM2GMHyz15817292guRbS-vLNULTz1RdE7DxHT3YHjxeezu3BucQYF6k_l61mFMunkZUD-xQIktE3TwBDl03ckMftyMrUsv6Wl8Y/s1600/shutterstock_78206758.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">I have always had big ambitions and goals and clear direction, but I used to lack everything else that would get me there. I used to play a lot of video games, watch TV for hours and prefer just doing nothing to what I </span><i style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">should</i><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> be doing. I'd feel guilty about being lazy but the guilt was never enough to stop my bad habits.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Today, I hardly watch any TV and I never just sit around. I utilise every second I can to reach my goals.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">It only took me about </span><i style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">six months</i><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> to get to this level of productivity from how I used to be. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">What you need to develop is a drive, and the thing that jump starts a drive is passion. You need to be as passionate about your goals as you can be. You say that you're ambitious, so what exactly are your ambitions? Do you have a clear goal that you want to achieve? </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">And the big question, </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"><i>How much do you want it?</i></b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">This is the thing that I couldn't answer well before. I wanted it, but how much? More than I wanted to relax, more than I wanted to sleep, more than I wanted that instant gratification? At the time, as much as I didn't want to admit it, the answer was no.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">So, instead of reading self-help books (that I was too lazy to read anyway) or repeating positive affirmations, or taking practical action straight away, I started with something much simpler: I focused on my goal. In my own head, I began questioning myself, asking myself if I really wanted it. And I also began visualising the worst case scenario. What if I went through life and never made anything significant of myself? I believed myself to be talented; what if I let all those talents go to waste? What if I die with nothing to my name, no success, no recognition, no respect? All those outcomes absolutely terrified me (and they still do). And as they say "fear is the greatest motivator".</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">From the moment I realised that those outcomes terrified me, they would constantly be on my mind. And they grew. They grew into an overwhelming need to do something, </span><i style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">right now</i><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">. They became a source of very strong motivation. I would spend my whole eight hour work day thinking, questioning and imagining and leave work feeling so pumped to start my "real" work. At first those feelings of motivation didn't last very long and I would slip back into something lazy after being productive for a short while, but the thoughts were never far away, and they never failed to motivate me again. Over time those periods of motivation and productivity grew and grew and now I feel like I could be productive every minute of the day.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Looking back on how I was six months ago, I realise I am still very much the same person. I'm just as tired, just as ready to relax and just as in love with playing video games, but none of those things matter to me anymore as much as my goal does.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Picture your worst case scenario. How do you feel about dying the way you are now, lacking willpower and discipline? That you describe yourself as a "rubbish human" tells me that you hate your current mindset. The only way to get out of it is to do something. Every second you work away from the person you are now, you become closer to the person you want to be. The mind is a powerful thing and it can push you. I guarantee that if you want something enough, you will work to get it. The first step is just realising how much.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908829598550332723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-53940045416712750402014-09-19T02:46:00.002-07:002014-09-19T02:53:01.963-07:00Tips For Exercise, Fitness And Working Out<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiGFSelJy0_fasr75RIfIcyF9z9cXqgU3BBjJVa_opyYguLd_Qi4E6X_0N6BlMZu466HwC06BsDXRI31qTsjSssUQzsbvRkjnqhIUYmiQtu_D4Uzqm0IFxj8KEU3M7CG_NIdWV0y8i57HS/s1600/games2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiGFSelJy0_fasr75RIfIcyF9z9cXqgU3BBjJVa_opyYguLd_Qi4E6X_0N6BlMZu466HwC06BsDXRI31qTsjSssUQzsbvRkjnqhIUYmiQtu_D4Uzqm0IFxj8KEU3M7CG_NIdWV0y8i57HS/s1600/games2012.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are tons of great tips, hacks, and strategies for exercising more, exercising better, and becoming more fit.</span></span><br />
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<b style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Exercising More Frequently</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /></b><span style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">The hardest part of exercising is actually doing it. </span><i style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">The gym is too far, you're tired, you're sore, you need to lose some weight first, you don't have time, your wrist hurts, you ate too much for lunch, you already went three days ago, blah blah blah</i><span style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">. There are plenty of available justifications, and not exercising is so much easier than the alternative. Here are some tips to get past the excuses:</span></span><br />
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Join a gym that is close to where you live or work.</b> Ideally, the gym is within walking distance. A short drive is okay, too. If your gym is 25 minutes away, that means 45 minutes of exercise turns into a two-hour ordeal of driving, sitting through traffic, showering, and, finally, a little bit of working out. The more time-consuming and daunting the routine sounds, the less frequently you will do it -- until you stop doing it completely. It's better to pay a little more for a close gym that you use than to pay less for a far away gym that you never go to. Keeping a little bit of equipment at home is another effective approach.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Find physical activites you think are fun.</b> This is probably the most effective hack for exercising more: find something that <i>is</i> exercise but which doesn't <i>feel</i> like exercise. For some people this might be biking or hiking, for others it's playing volleyball or basketball with their friends. Be open, try new things, and see what sticks.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Exercise in a group</b>: CrossFit, Zumba, spin class, cycling club, whatever. Going to a gym by yourself can be hard because you are your sole motivation. When you sign up for a group class, you get subtle peer pressure and encouragement to work out more frequently. You hear things like "hey, where were you last week?" or "do you want to go to the 5pm class tomorrow?", and so you start exercising more often because you like being with your friends and you don't want to disappoint them.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>If you don't have time to go to the gym, come up with a 10- or 15-minute routine that you can do before taking a shower.</b> For example, do a few rounds of 10 push-ups, 15 sit-ups, and 20 squats (depending on your ability). If you're about to take a shower anyway, spend a little bit of time working up a sweat and getting healthier. As a tangential benefit, the shower will feel even nicer and more relaxing.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Put a pull-up bar in your doorway.</b> Commit to doing one pull-up every time you leave the room. Then do one every time you leave and again when you re-enter. Then do two. Pretty soon, you might discover that you've somehow become able to do 25 pull-ups in a row. A very pleasant surprise, indeed. (If you can't do a regular pull-up, you can try jumping pull-ups or pull-ups assisted with elastic bands. </span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Read a book on bodyweight exercises. </b>A good one is <span class="qlink_container"><a class="external_link" href="http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Your-Own-Gym/dp/0345528581" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; padding-right: 12px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">You Are Your Own Gym</a></span>. If you have a large repertoire of things you can do without any equipment, then you will have the ability to exercise in any place at any time. This is huge, and eliminates excuses like "I sit at a desk all day and don't have access to a gym" or "I'm traveling and don't have any equipment in my hotel room."</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Exercise while you watch TV</b>. Make it a game. For example, do 20 jumping jacks every time there is a commercial or 5 push-ups every time a news story mentions Barack Obama. One of my friends loves watching tennis, and he will do push-ups or sit-ups after each tennis game depending on who won. It's a corny system, but it works.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Sign up for a race with friends</b>. The race could be a mud run, a 10K, a triathlon, or anything else. Having a goal is motivating and having friends to work with makes the training fun. A bonus is that after doing one race, most people want to do more races and end up training and exercising for many years.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Don't be afraid of becoming "big".</b> This advice is mostly for women, who are often reluctant to include weights in their routine for fear of looking bulkier or less feminine. Don't worry, that's not going to happen. Bulking up is 25% exercise and 75% calorie consumption, so if you're not finishing every meal with a 32oz protein shake, you don't need to worry about looking big. Check out the top 3 women from the 2011 CrossFit games in the picture below. They are some of the fittest people in the world and are often working out 3+ hours a day with heavy weights, and yet they still look "normal". If they do not look like bodybuilders despite their time in the gym, then neither will you. </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Exercising More Effectively</b><br style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Once you're exercising, you want to get the most out of it. Here are some ideas for doing that:</span></span><br />
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<ul style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As you get more advanced, <b>start doing interval training</b>. Working smarter often trumps working harder, and exercising is no exception. Studies have shown that protocols like Tabata intervals (20 seconds of hard work, 10 seconds of rest, repeated 8 times) are more effective at improving endurance than long, sustained efforts. Think about that: doing 5 minutes of interval training will help you more with running a 10K than running 10Ks. That's a terrific ROI.</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Keep a logbook</b>. How long did it take you to run 2 miles today vs. last month vs. last year? How many more push-ups can you do now compared to back in April? Having a log book reveals your strengths and weaknesses, shows you where you need to apply more effort, provides clues about persistent injuries ("Hmmm, it seems like my knees hurt whenever I do a hill run that's more than 3 miles."), and indicates progress. Every time you work out, write down 1-2 sentences about what you did, how you felt doing it, and what you'd do differently next time. For example: "Ran around Lake Merced in 34 minutes and 17 seconds. 1 minute faster than last Monday! Felt great, but a little tired and dehydrated in the last mile. I should drink more fluids before the next time I do this."</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Vary your exercises</b>. If you're a professional athlete, your goal is optimize performance in a very specific way. If you're an average Joe or Jane, you probably just want to be healthy and fit. Fitness includes many components: endurance, strength, stamina, coordination, flexibility, agility, etc. Don't just practice one thing at the expense of everything else; practice a little bit of everything.</span></li>
</ul>
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<ul style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Every day, do one thing you suck at for 5-10 minutes</b>. Practice handstands, push-ups, running, cartwheels, swimming, etc. Work on whatever it is that you find frustrating. This has *tons* of benefits: 1) When you suck at something but then get good at it over time, you feel *amazing*. 2) Working on things that are hard for you will make you better-rounded in terms of fitness (see previous point). 3) Plenty of studies show that doing something you don't want to do builds willpower. With more willpower, you'll have ever less trouble exercising on a regular basis. 4) Along with feeling awesome, reaching milestones is very motivating. Once I hit my first handstand, I was incredibly proud, but also wondered if I could hold it for 5 seconds. How about 10 seconds? Could I do a push-up from that position? Several push-ups? Walk 10 feet? 25 feet? 100 feet? (The answer to half of these question is 'no', but it will be 'yes' with enough time.)</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Understand how to use weights</b>. First, you get the most benefit from the reps that are close to failure, so always try to squeeze out one more rep if you can do so with good form. Second, different weights have different benefits: a heavy weight that you can lift 1-5 times will increase your strength; a light weight that you can lift 15 or more times will improve your muscle tone and muscular endurance; an in-between weight gives you some strength and some muscle-building.</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Consume a drink with about 10g of protein and 40g of carbs before and during a long workout</b>. Studies show that a 4:1 carb:protein ratio improves muscular endurance by about 57% percent. </span></li>
</ul>
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<b style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Becoming a Badass</span></b></div>
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<ul style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Work out with a partner and have them encourage you.</b> This is especially useful for intense workouts like CrossFit or Tabata intervals. When you're working out by yourself, you feel like you're putting in 100%, but it turns out that's not true. When someone is on your case, yelling at you to rest a little less or encouraging you to push a little harder, you discover your true level of ability. In CrossFit, I've seen people improve their results on a workout by 10-25% just from having someone to (encouragingly) yell at them.</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Use the 5x5 program for building strength</b>. I haven't used this myself, but a few of my friends have and all of them experienced huge strength gains. Adding 100lbs to a back squat or a deadlift is not uncommon for 6-12 months on the program. Check out the <span class="qlink_container"><a class="external_link" data-tooltip="attached" href="http://stronglifts.com/stronglifts-5x5-beginner-strength-training-program/" rel="nofollow" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: url(data:image/gif; background-origin: initial; background-position: 100% 5px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; padding-right: 12px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">StrongLifts 5×5</a></span> website.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><b style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Recovering More Quickly</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><br style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /></b><span style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Challenging workouts will make you sore, and that soreness turns some people off from exercising. While you can't get rid of soreness entirely, there are things you can do to lessen it:</span></span></div>
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<ul style="line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Protein and carbs improve endurance during a workout, but they also improve recovery after a workout. <b>Try to consume about 15g of protein and 45-60 grams of carbs after you work out</b>. Consuming less is fine, but you want at least a little bit of carbs and protein to kick-start muscle recovery and reduce soreness the following day. High glycemic index carbs work best.</span></li>
</ul>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Do active recovery.</b> If you do a long run or bike ride today, try doing a light jog or short, leisurely ride tomorrow. It seems counterintuitive, but using the same muscles lightly will make the soreness less severe and less prolonged. </span></li>
</ul>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-58505992669665634382014-09-18T08:16:00.000-07:002014-09-18T08:17:16.997-07:00 Work Smarter Not Harder<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhppI6V2o4NOj9SxB5kn3QGAWu9LwzBu1Ukz9lKY65_tj1mj8y4ZsCFsJyOEp0lfYPlWaIhIdhJgkhhP4eEbBluBThBKoxqHkV6cMixJYnqbPhhNiJ7lEz0IYTC8GTNATtrn5J4RkJ4y0Tq/s1600/WorkSmarterNotHarder_img.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhppI6V2o4NOj9SxB5kn3QGAWu9LwzBu1Ukz9lKY65_tj1mj8y4ZsCFsJyOEp0lfYPlWaIhIdhJgkhhP4eEbBluBThBKoxqHkV6cMixJYnqbPhhNiJ7lEz0IYTC8GTNATtrn5J4RkJ4y0Tq/s1600/WorkSmarterNotHarder_img.gif" height="292" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">If you have no motivation to work hard then it is unlikely that you will.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"></span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"></span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Most people want to diet. Most fail.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">There is little evidence that those who succeed are much better off for it.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Most people want to be fitter than they are. Most fail. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Just staying reasonably healthy and taking care of yourself is good enough. </span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">There is little evidence that those who have to be motivated to stay fit can keep it up for long.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Most people want to be better educated than they are. Most fail.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">There is little evidence that being educated beyond what is needed for your work and vocational interests has any benefits.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Most people want to be more attractive than they are. Most fail.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">There is little evidence to suggest that being more attractive offers more benefits than being more reliable, honest, generous, trustworthy, kind, or have any of the attributes that we value in others, and are the basis of good relationships.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Most people want to be more famous than they are. Most fail.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">There is little evidence that fame in itself promotes a better lifestyle unless the lifestyle is itself dependent on fame. In which case it is a very fragile lifestyle to sustain.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Most people want to be richer than they are. Most fail.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">There is a tendency to spend extra money in compensating for the effort and demands required for making extra money if you have to earn it. If the money comes without working then fine, but winners of lotteries are notorious for regreting it.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Unless you have a passion, a dream, a goal, an inspiration, a desire, or a purpose to reach, then working hard (beyond what you would do in a normal course of events) is a waste of time.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">The worst thing you can do in life by far is</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">waste time.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Divide your time into two sections</span></span><br />
<ol style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 28px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Committed time</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Disposable time</span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Committed time includes</span></span><br />
<ul style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Your work</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Your travelling time</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Your study time</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Your duties, obligations, routines, and upkeep of belongings</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Disposable time includes</span></span><br />
<ul style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shopping</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Entertainment</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Social events</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Relaxing</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hobbies</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Any time where you can <br style="line-height: 1.4;" />Choose to do something or not do it<br style="line-height: 1.4;" />Choose to do it now or later<br style="line-height: 1.4;" />Choose to do it or get someone else to do it</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Analyse your Committed time </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Work</b></span><br />
<ul style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you spend less time to earn the same money?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you earn more money for the same time?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you get more than money from your work?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you organise your work to do it with less effort?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you use your work to gain benefits beyond your workplace?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you use the contacts you make at work beneficial outside?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you extend your work experience into your spare time?</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Look at your work as a place to earn, a place to learn, a place to socialise, a place to test yourself, a place to explore ideas, a place to identify with, a place to develop your personality.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Committed time </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Travel</b></span><br />
<ul style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you make your travel time shorter?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you make it cheaper?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you make it more pleasant?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you make it useful?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you incorporate other things into your travelling?</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Committed time </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Study</b></span><br />
<ul style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What is the least you need study to achieve your purpose?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What is the fastest way to learn what you need?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What are the best aids available to you?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What are your main costs in equipment and materials for study?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Can you reduce the study costs?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">How soon can you apply what you have learnt?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What are the main benefits of your studies?</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Are the benefits ongoing or do you stop studying?</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Committed time </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Duties, Routines, etc.</b></span><br />
<ul style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; margin: 8px 0px 8px 16px; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Shopping, cleaning, repairing, upgrading, and all the tasks that need be done to keep your life in a running order.</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They fall into two categories of<br style="line-height: 1.4;" /><b>Urgent </b>(must be dealt with quickly)<br style="line-height: 1.4;" /><b>Important </b>(must be dealt with properly)</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These are divided into:<br style="line-height: 1.4;" />What you can do yourself<br style="line-height: 1.4;" />What you can get someone else to do</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You can also see if any of these tasks can be eliminated, shortened, done more quickly or cheaply, or done temporarily.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">In all,</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"></span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> yo</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">u should not be looking for ways to motivate yourself to work harder, but looking for ways to work less (or Smarter</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">, as they say)</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-31595146657053470412014-09-18T07:16:00.000-07:002014-09-18T07:42:32.245-07:00Motivate yourself to work hard<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpd6p7s9B1UH7mzHg0Pv2bHJ90xqN82Y0JI3krm1IMQc0N-RP5dzluvUrrB4lmh2JEA9oawzMzwAz2zKoI5vgELa_Tq2geB4yHbfQG9Fdk6ikv71bgCmAc7rx_vK2s0CKMfgjIGqlzdcFP/s1600/Motivation-880x566.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpd6p7s9B1UH7mzHg0Pv2bHJ90xqN82Y0JI3krm1IMQc0N-RP5dzluvUrrB4lmh2JEA9oawzMzwAz2zKoI5vgELa_Tq2geB4yHbfQG9Fdk6ikv71bgCmAc7rx_vK2s0CKMfgjIGqlzdcFP/s1600/Motivation-880x566.jpg" height="410" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">There is only one way for me to motivate myself to work hard: I don't think about it as</span><i style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </i><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">hard work. I think about it as part of making myself into who I want to be. I want to be a hard-working person.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">The "hard" part for me is choosing and accepting what it is that I have to do (otherwise known as procrastination, or finding my passion). Once I've made the choice to do something, I try not to think so much about how difficult or frustrating or impossible that might be; I just think about </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">how good it must feel to be that</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">, or </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">how proud I might be to</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> </span><b style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">have done that. Make hard look easy</b><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">. I like that challenge. I like being the kind of person who is capable of that.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Every kind of work has bits that are difficult or challenging or things that might not be so easy to do; try to keep in mind that the icky part is necessary to the whole. If it's not necessary, then you shouldn't do it; and if you can change it or manage and fix it to be less difficult, it stops being so "hard" and instead is just "done". Break your hard work into component parts; it makes it easier to see where the obstacles are so you can be prepared to overcome them.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">If I fail because I lack time or talent or luck or if fate intervenes to keep me from being able to achieve a goal in quite the way I'd hoped, that doesn't mean I'm a failure. But if I fail because I didn't work hard enough, I'm either a half-assed quitter or lazy or stupid, none of which are what I want to be. I can only blame myself; I can't even claim I was beat or not good enough because I didn't try! I hate blaming myself. I'd much rather blame everybody or everything else; I'd guess we all would.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Being able to take on a challenge and persevere and sometimes succeed; being able to transform myself from newbie to capable and experienced; and being able to find </span><span class="qlink_container" style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Flow (state of mind)</span><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"> or happiness in doing work that's satisfying is a well-earned, hard-won reward in itself. I want to be fully immersed, challenged, feeling really good about my effort all the time. I want to be hard-working; that's how I motivate myself to work hard.</span><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><br style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;" /><span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;">Take a lesson from our friends in the Last Mile program at San Quentin: "How You Spend Your Time Becomes Who You Are." </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; line-height: 23.3333339691162px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'd much rather be hard-working than a lazy f'cker, even after I win the megamillions $500MM this weekend. Then I can be hard-working at things like giving away lots of my money just like Oprah and Bill Gates. I'm very motivated to work hard at that.</span></span>Amer Bekichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12160082457152144684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-314792626840319072014-08-27T05:16:00.002-07:002014-08-27T05:17:20.030-07:00Why I stopped travelling to the US and I largely stopped doing business in the US.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI4YrI1_OE1xtzLhsLzMljSLcr2BdyuAiNKTowWRF_GJcL7hLE6doGRJ0_PwM7Jq-2y47vd8lzDvz41a_bWONP3aENgsnhW482OQ0WkzdwdgRPXqWJ2nyC50-8pcb5f0mShxE2qwhUkyOA/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI4YrI1_OE1xtzLhsLzMljSLcr2BdyuAiNKTowWRF_GJcL7hLE6doGRJ0_PwM7Jq-2y47vd8lzDvz41a_bWONP3aENgsnhW482OQ0WkzdwdgRPXqWJ2nyC50-8pcb5f0mShxE2qwhUkyOA/s1600/images.jpg" height="427" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With every trip I've taken to the US over the past 30 years, things have gotten a little worse every time. Things are now so bad that I have stopped visiting the US and i no longer have any clients in the US. Mostly because having clients in the US means having to go there. And I've grown to really dislike going to the US.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm a photographer. I mainly do street photography now, but i still do the odd bit of contract work. I travel with expensive gear though not that much of it. I like to travel light. The INS do not like that. If I turn up with just my camera backpack and a small bag of clean underwear for a one week stay I usually have to spend a lot of time being interrogated for my lack of a huge suitcase. (I guess they suspect I live in the US illegally. Which borders on comical since nobody knows more about my travel patterns than the US government. Besides, my passport is usually filled with stamps that should tell them that I travel a <em>lot</em> and that even if I lived in the US, I spend most of my time flitting around the world)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Paranoid as the INS are, the TSA are even worse. Mostly because they are a huge bureaucracy where nobody seems to be accountable and their on-the-ground personnel are mostly people who had to choose from a range of other low paying jobs. On several occasions I've had expensive gear disappear from my carry-on during security checks and last year a TSA agent dropped my Canon 1D Mk3, smashing both the lens and the camera body. No apology, but more importantly: I was never compensated. I'm not rich and that camera (and the lens) was important to my livelihood. An expensive piece of kit lost that meant that I basically didn't make any money that month.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Oh, and of course, now you have all this nonsense with pat-downs and backscatter X-rays which increases security with exactly zero percent and makes an already tense atmosphere even more tense. Well played.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Taking pictures in the US is another hassle. After 9/11 everyone is utterly paranoid and everyone from security guards to police, and even random passers-by, have hassled me. Claiming that I am breaking the law (I am not) or demanding I explain why I am taking pictures. Believe me, I have spent a lot of time figuring out what laws apply to photography in various states, but on the ground and with a camera in your hand, that means absolutely nothing. Explaining the laws in effect to a law enforcement officer only gets you into more trouble.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I've been to Russia before the cold war ended. I've been all over the middle east. I've been to China. I've travelled all over Europe. I've been to Cuba and I've been to Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Nicaragua.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What all of these places have in common is that going there was a far more pleasant experience than going to the US. Yes, you read correctly: going to the US is more unpleasant than going to Soviet era Russia or even Iran 10 years ago. Sure, you sometimes have to bribe people, but at least I've not had gear stolen off me during security checks or had people break my gear without at least compensating me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And taking pictures. Well, let me put it like this: you are 20 times more likely to get hassled for whipping out your camera anywhere in the US than in, say, downtown Teheran.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I offer this as an observation from the outside. The US is isolating itself and it is becoming a very, very unpleasant place to visit. I often talk to fellow travellers and even a lot of business types in nice suits often relate how they'd rather not travel to the US if they could help it and that they'd rather work with people in Europe or Asia. I can relate to that.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-74883104960638416712014-08-26T12:02:00.001-07:002014-08-26T12:02:38.853-07:00Bruce McCandless II<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvgoM1deY7Y9m81Mjejt-6CMplW2j-5Q7csihpbQSEVxrKh9GsVdquAFcDWev8zUhgfkXVAqIq6js2GqxiXpJFVORqzGmtafwBfp2I7XuCexHKRz3bmdLSZUxCyzdoFJOFgxKNv0uErhIx/s1600/main-qimg-111c1b38343e4e7e3c4e31fcf276025e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvgoM1deY7Y9m81Mjejt-6CMplW2j-5Q7csihpbQSEVxrKh9GsVdquAFcDWev8zUhgfkXVAqIq6js2GqxiXpJFVORqzGmtafwBfp2I7XuCexHKRz3bmdLSZUxCyzdoFJOFgxKNv0uErhIx/s1600/main-qimg-111c1b38343e4e7e3c4e31fcf276025e.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In this mind-blowing photograph, taken 12 February 1984, Mission Specialist Bruce McCandless II, is seen further away from the confines and safety of his ship than any previous astronaut had ever been. This ‘space first’ was made possible by the Manned Maneuvering Unit or MMU, a nitrogen jet propelled backpack.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">After a series of test maneuvers inside and above Challenger’s payload bay, McCandless went free-flying to a distance of 320 feet (97.5 m) away from the Orbiter.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">This stunning orbital panorama view shows McCandless out there amongst the black and blue of Earth and space.</span></span>Amer Bekichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12160082457152144684noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-44447506419497695052014-08-26T11:48:00.001-07:002014-08-26T11:48:45.021-07:00Michael Collins<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyTEFp-mTcJJOKiPXhtCz6bBMibdb9huLVnrgqauUEvDYOpdG4QYYVYz1NgUDhdltMLdjWQfxtL2DkBpwnlTvUabc-_k3j8ERxIZiaW6MRns1Z-H6_lekvuKpzBLVRDE70fIpWWGSduD0t/s1600/main-qimg-35f101613d984b26c7fe21ea1d22569e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyTEFp-mTcJJOKiPXhtCz6bBMibdb9huLVnrgqauUEvDYOpdG4QYYVYz1NgUDhdltMLdjWQfxtL2DkBpwnlTvUabc-_k3j8ERxIZiaW6MRns1Z-H6_lekvuKpzBLVRDE70fIpWWGSduD0t/s1600/main-qimg-35f101613d984b26c7fe21ea1d22569e.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 23.33333396911621px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Michael Collins was a member of the Apollo 11 moonshot, you know, where they walked on the Moon for the first time. The Apollo 11 spacecraft consisted of the Eagle lander, and the Columbia orbiter. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were assigned to Eagle, which deployed from Columbia and landed, Armstrong and Aldrin did their moonwalk thing, I'm sure you've heard of it. Collins, however, had the real butt-end of the deal, because he had to stay all alone in Columbia, which never left orbit. 238,900 miles of spaceflight, and he didn't even get to touch the Moon. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">He did, however, get take this awesome picture while Eagle was returning to Columbia after mankind's first visit to another celestial body. Now, we all know that everything is made of atoms, including us. And we know that the majority of the atoms never leave Earth, at least not the atoms down at our level on the biosphere. Therefore, all people ever, including people dead and yet unborn, are contained within this picture, except for Michael Collins. Uug the Caveman, Jesus Christ, you, Anne Frank, Morgan Freeman, Jeremy Clarkson, the Russian homeless dude you saw in that Fail-GIF the other day, they're all there. I was yet unborn when this picture was taken, but the atoms that later became me were still floating around on that blue ball, in the chicken my mother ate while pregnant with me and in the Coke I drank last week. Everyone except the photographer. That's just darn cool.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-58780897188179625062014-08-26T10:36:00.003-07:002014-08-26T10:38:51.760-07:00Whenever I need motivation, I watch this video.. and then I'm all set again.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_48xvgsOgRPGuuMpdwtOXF7vzC2hhR4i_c9gBdqEeQa98ey8CVtJTHoRn3zfDxncYfv11z_O4bsMrKi-062Pdu1nl5Ykexcd3heHmbVaL8XMjO10vAp8L-leQkpc3WlD6kkTtPgbloGj7/s1600/SteveJobsCloseUp.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_48xvgsOgRPGuuMpdwtOXF7vzC2hhR4i_c9gBdqEeQa98ey8CVtJTHoRn3zfDxncYfv11z_O4bsMrKi-062Pdu1nl5Ykexcd3heHmbVaL8XMjO10vAp8L-leQkpc3WlD6kkTtPgbloGj7/s1600/SteveJobsCloseUp.jpeg" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Transcript of the above video:</span><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">The first story is about connecting the dots.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.</span><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">My second story is about love and loss.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, </span><i style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Toy Story</i><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.</span><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">My third story is about death.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">When I was young, there was an amazing publication called </span><i style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">The Whole Earth Catalog</i><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Stewart and his team put out several issues of </span><i style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">The Whole Earth Catalog</i><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;" /><span style="line-height: 23.33333396911621px;">Thank you all very much.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-41107596498464008592014-08-19T05:30:00.000-07:002014-08-19T05:30:31.217-07:00Six Monsters Tips For Screenwriters To Slay Writer's Block<div style="line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 1px 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’m making this post in the hope that it helps some of the new screenwriters out there, wondering why they get so many rejections or what’s up with their screenplays.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’m a director. I’ve directed successful shorts for a decade. I’ve just completed my first feature film, which was low budget but looks set to do pretty well judging by the way distributors are fighting over it. I’ve just got the greenlight for my second film.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’m not quite a nobody but I’m pretty damn close, so take this with a pinch of salt or just downvote and walk away… but remember, if a script’s flaws are crystal clear to a nobody, it’s unlikely to be optioned by a somebody.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A few ugly monsters rear their heads again and again. If you can keep them in mind when writing or rewriting, you'll end up with a far stronger script.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Monster One</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Almost unanimously, the scripts I reject have no characters. They have clichés. We’ll have Jock 1, 2 and 3, the loser, the idiot, the geek, the guy who’s a ‘pretty much Hugh Jackman’s Van Helsing’, ‘attractive but stupid college girl (who says ‘like’ a lot)’, the stoner (this is usually a pair).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">These aren’t characters, they’re stereotypes and as a director, I can’t see an actor worth their salt accepting the role. I can’t direct them in that role either because the character doesn’t exist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Please, think about your characters. This is too basic and I didn’t expect it to be such a common problem.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Monster Two</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Closely related: Characters don’t make decisions or react to things like real people. Someone will lose an arm or get shot in the leg, but conversation will continue like nothing happened. If an old man kills someone he believes to be a drug addict, he’s not going to carry on cooking dinner without mentioning it to his wife. Selfish people will still have a moment of guilt before sending their best friend out as a decoy to be killed. There needs to be a reason for people to act the way they do on screen, not just because it’s cool or funny or scary. It has to come from something real even if the situation is absurd. Please, don’t let the plot decide how charcacters should act.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Monster Three</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Exposition. So many scripts with unneeded exposition. Bizarre amounts of dialogue telling a story from the past during the opening scene:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">‘Remember the time we took down the Albanian government’ ‘Yeah, you went crazy on all those guards’ ‘Yeah, but you were the one who killed loads of them’ ‘Maybe but you killed the president!’ ‘I do go a little far sometimes’</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Why is this scene one? Why do we even need to know this? Who on earth has ever heard a conversation where two people recount with each other, blow by blow, something that happened to both of them, while filling it descriptions of the </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">character sitting opposite them?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Monster Four</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">SO. MANY. ZOMBIES. The market is flooded to the brim with cheap zombie films now. Five years ago this would have been a good idea, but now you’ll struggle to fund or sell a zombie film – particularly if it adds nothing new. I’ve read a derivative of Shaun of the Dead so many times it’s absurd, and honestly not once seen anything I’ve not seen before. If it’s zombies you’re writing, please make sure it’s unique from start to finish. That holds for any script really. I’m not going to spend the next year or two of my life working around the clock just to make a lacklustre copy of another film. I need to fall in love with the story, the characters and the central message of </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">the script.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Monster Five</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Punctuation and spelling are important. It does take me out of the moment when I’m reading and I can’t tell what a word or sentence means because of a misplaced apostrophe. If it’s full of errors, let me know beforehand that you’re aware of them and will correct </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 1.3em;">them soon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>Monster Six</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I’ve had a huge number of messages offering an idea that hasn’t been written yet. So, why do I insist on completed scripts only? I’ve worked with enough writers to know that the problems only really start once the first draft is complete.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You might have an awesome idea. It might be the next big thing. But until it’s on paper, neither of us will know and I’m not going to do the work pushing you to complete it if you don’t have that drive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I don’t know how fast you work, and it’s quite possible that this first draft might never materialise. You can’t wait for a director, producer or studio to ask you to write your script; you’ve got to have the drive to do that yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Looking at this list, it’s all really obvious: Make believable characters. Make characters drive the plot rather than the other way around. Work on your exposition. Offer something new rather than something derivative. Check your spelling. Finally, write the damn thing so when opportunity comes knocking at the door, you’re ready to answer!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-28434189357375625802014-08-18T03:38:00.001-07:002014-08-18T04:16:12.233-07:00Don't Have the Time to Write? Make Time.<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I see two major reasons for not writing. One of them is a lack of creative energy. Oh, the muse is a fickle creature. Lament the waves of depression that keep the author from her sacred tome and wait until inspiration returns! But there are ways to deal with this, as the professionals know.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To keep the creative juices flowin', one must be able to tap into them. Ritual helps: same place, same time, same tools. A professional writer must be able to write even when she doesn't feel like writing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But this isn't about that problem. The other reason I've seen for not writing is lacking time to write. Yeah, you work fifty hour weeks and have that four year old that needs food and love. Doesn't your family know you have real obligations? Don't your friends realize inviting you to a party is akin to beating Hemingway over the head with a brick and dragging him away from his typewriter?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But just as the professionals have to learn the ability to write when the muse might be hiding, you can't just sit around and wait for time to write. If you're busy -- and most are -- that's never going to happen, or when it does, if you don't have that skill of writing without inspiration beaming from on-high, your previous moment of availability will produce nothing but the sorrow of a blank page.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So the author must make time to write. You're busy. I understand. A lot is going on in your life, but either you're a hobbyist or a pro. If you're a pro, then you've probably got this part down already (as you should have that first problem solved, as well). For the hobbyist, you can think about writing in the same way as any enjoyable activity. If you like to watch baseball, you have to make time to watch baseball. You look at what time the game comes on, make sure you get everything else done, and then you sit on the couch, turn on the TV, and you watch. Easy. If you want to write, you do the same. You make sure you have everything else done, you schedule a time (and if you're trying to knock out both problems at once, you schedule your writing time for the same slot every day/week/etc.), and then you sit down at your desk, pick up your pen, and write down some words. Easy? For many, no, it's not, and maybe that's because writing is seen as an inherently self-indulgent hobby. I've seen people give more attention to building their NCAA brackets than their beloved writing projects. Part of making time to write is putting value in your writing and value in your writing time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You don't need much time to write. Even half an hour is long enough to get a few hundred words on the page, and though you'll progress at a slower pace than your friend who works from home and gets a good three hours a day at the typing machine, you'll have something. That's what the hobbyist can do. That's how you build yourself into a productive writer. If you're schedule is full of other great things, then it's full! If you want to write, make room by taking something else out.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Do you ever find yourself in front of a TV, scrolling through Netflix? That's writing time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Do you drink a cup of coffee in the morning? Do it with a laptop in front of you -- writing time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Friends invite you out during your scheduled writing time? Nope. That's writing time!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you can't find the time, that's really just too bad (said with sympathy and not sarcasm). Time owes you no favors, so don't do it any, either. Make time for your hobby, for your passion. If you can't, then there's likely something else in your life that's taking up more space than it should. You may not be able to get an hour every day or even a half hour every other day, but if you can get that hour on Sunday before the kids wake up or that half hour on Fridays when your husband gets home a bit after you, that's when you hit the keyboard.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you're under the age of twenty two, I don't know what to tell you. Unless you're working two jobs, are already married with kids, and working hard to keep your scholarship, you should have the time to write.</span><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908829598550332723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-77622182598192652172014-08-15T06:57:00.000-07:002014-08-16T09:01:07.726-07:00Do All the Motivational Quotes Really Help?<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Motivational quotes may make you feel good for about 5 minutes, but then you realize you're sitting on your computer trying to find the motivation to do something instead of <em>actually</em> doing something. I feel like, somewhere deep inside us, we want one of these motivational quotes to be the "magic pill" that will cause an irreversible paradigm shift -- we want these quotes to give us a lifetime's supply of motivation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">They won't.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">First of all, most of us are looking to build new habits with motivation. Here's the best way to build a new habit: do the smallest thing possible to build your habit every day. Just start it and declare victory for yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If it's running, just put your running gear on and get your ass out the door. If it's going to the gym, do the same thing. If it's flossing, make a pact with yourself to floss one tooth. Trust that the rest will follow. In my experience, we have a huge resistance to <em>starting</em> things rather than actually <em>doing</em> them. If you make starting a success, you feel good about yourself, regardless of how much you do, and you start to build the habit with a very low investment of time and energy. Sure, you might not do much in the beginning, but if you keep the habit, over time, you'll start to do more and more. It only takes baby steps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's a simple principle, but it works wonders for building a habit. Do it for 30 days and you should be golden. Ultimately, we don't want to have to rely on motivation to take action forever. Instead, what we want to do is build a habit so we don't have to rely on motivation. With a habit, things happen more or less automatically.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Similarly, if you have a system for managing your life, you'll be much more efficient in your planning and execution. I picked up <a href="http://gettingresults.com/wiki/Main_Page" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">Agile Results</a> a couple of weeks ago and I really like it. Check it out if you're interested -- it's by far the best productivity system that I've come across.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another principle that's super simple and very effective is finding someone to hold you accountable. The idea is, if you're afraid of disappointing someone else, you'll be more likely to follow through on your promise. This idea manifests itself in having someone be your gym buddy or hiring a personal trainer. Even giving a small amount of money ($5 or $10) to your mate and telling them to not give you your money back unless you go to the gym or meditate for 30 minutes or whatever habit you're trying to build can be a tremendous motivator.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I think we need to change our behavior in order to change our attitudes. The act of smiling makes you feel better. Taking action makes you feel more motivated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One last thing: taking action isn't sexy. It's not easy, as we all know. It's difficult. There will be voices in your head telling you to stop. Ignore them. Keep going, keep plugging away, and you will be rewarded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As humans, we overestimate how much we can get done in a day but underestimate how much we can get done in a year. Today's workout might not matter much in the grand scheme of things; continuing a workout routine for a month or a year or 5 years is vastly more important. Focus more on the long-term and your consistency rather than your day-to-day activities. If you slip up once or twice in building a habit, that's okay. Don't beat yourself up. Nobody's perfect and it's not the end of the world if you aren't, either. Start the next day, focusing on building healthy habits that last a lifetime.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-5685592407661649342014-08-15T04:34:00.001-07:002014-08-15T04:44:36.734-07:00Are Beautiful People Thought to be Better? <div style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 1px 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To preface, this is not the rantings of an ugly troll who can't get a date - just so you know, yes I am below average but I've been in a wonderful relationship for five years with someone quite hot, but that is not the main argument I am positing. I will be posting a lot of studies from my time in psychology, but the original reference is stored away in a pile of boxes. I will be updating with a digital link to the article over time, and if it is made available for public viewing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The main focus of my view is physical attractiveness as a social capital. Without a doubt, there is a conscious and unconscious preference towards people are physically attractive, this goes for men, women, children and even <a href="http://cogprints.org/5272/1/ghirlanda_jansson_enquist2002.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;">chickens</a>, so to an extent we are all shallow, at least on first impression; but this is often a pivotal stage for the continued success of any relationship. And yes there is a general guideline for physical attractiveness, while body-types may differ based on culture and upbringing, features (especially of the face) generally have a normality for attractiveness, the less you deviate from that ratio - the better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I understand that attractive people are subject to certain prejudices, and I am aware that some of them are:</span></div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Over-objectification</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Attractive people are viewed as less intelligent. There is an interesting study as well demonstrating an inverse relationship between the amount of skin shown and perceived intelligence.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But these issues are easily manageable, unattractive people however are prone to the serious issue of being invisible or dismissed. Like being born into a wealthy family, attractive people will always have better opportunities, pre-established social connections and status, will initially command more respect, the <em>potential</em> for more exposure to culture and education and a significantly easier time achieving long term goals due to the aforementioned.</span></div>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Because I have an ethnic name, I actually get a significantly reduced number of callbacks for interviews when using my legal name in my job application. I replicated this from a study that looked into the same issue, by creating two identities and using a neutral last name i.e. Smith, on the latter. I believe unattractive people face a similar problem of being able to get their foot through the door. Studies show that people will immediately notice the tallest person in a group, unless there is significant case of a person being short, e.g. dwarfism. Unattractive people are often overlooked, and people are less likely to remember them.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unattractive will have more issues regarding self-esteem. <a href="http://www.nerve.com/scanner/2009/09/28/study-says-calling-women-pretty-makes-them-more-likely-to-reject-you" style="text-decoration: none;">The detriments of being complimented on physical appearance</a> aside, not being viewed in a favourable light, especially in adolescent to early adulthood can have long lasting ramifications - especially when people learn that appearance plays a big role in success. There are things people can do to even the playing field - wear nice clothes, consider the significance of scent to desirability, the use of wit and rhetoric - but these are things EVERYONE has to consider. Adhering to these rules does not give you an edge over anyone else observing them as well.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">People are nicer to attractive people, whether they realize it or not. Studies show that we want approval from attractive people, because we implicitly believe that their opinion is of more value. Just to add a tangential point, having attractive friends, like in one study where participants were asked to rate people based on their Facebook friends, also improves people's perception of you. So being attractive actually helps those around you.</span></li>
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<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Unattractive people will always have to try harder, this goes double if you're not-good-looking and are of an ethnicity that is not of the norm of your country/region.</span></li>
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<span style="background-color: #fafafa;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Just to counter a likely argument I'll hear, I am aware character and virtue are more valuable traits in the long term. But my argument is the limitations set by a person's looks are much more difficult to overcome, create a massive gap in terms of social capitol assuming other variables remain constant, and is virtually permanent.</span></span></div>
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Amer Bekichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12160082457152144684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-46320462717447661352014-08-14T10:52:00.000-07:002014-08-20T04:06:02.627-07:00A couple of life hacks that have helped me manage lousy moods<div style="margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I thought I'd write down a couple of things I discovered on my own, over the course of last 3-4 years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong>Drink plenty of water.</strong> You know what it's like when a bad mood starts -- a negative "spark" thought spirals completely out of control, like a lit match in a pool of gasoline. What I've discovered is that drinking "recommended" amounts of water helps me stop that fire from spreading. It doesn't prevent those negative thoughts, but it does make me less inclined to follow them to some extreme end. Drinking water in a disciplined fashion sounds somewhat nutty, I've got to admit, but it doesn't bother me. It's a small activity that provides a big benefit. I've been at it for about a year, and it definitely doesn't annoy me. That said - it might annoy you, so take this whole thing with a grain of salt :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong>Experiment with food.</strong> I found out that food high in sugar makes my lousy moods much more extreme. Sweets of any kind are pretty bad (cookies, pop, candy), but cake is the worst. I feel good after I eat cake, while I'm on a sugar high. But when that subsides ... boy, it gets pretty awful. A negative "spark" thought about 30 minutes after eating cake completely spirals into a monstrosity of negativity. For that reason, I now avoid food high in sugar. Over the past 2-3 years, I've subconsciously cut out sugar from my diet. It's now to a point that I don't eat any. Like with #1 - not consuming sugar doesn't annoy me. That might be different for you :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><strong>Try to lose yourself in an activity.</strong> It seems to work best though when I'm "making" something, because there's a clear goal in mind. I reckon my mind just doesn't have enough resources to focus on, for example, building an awesome wooden airplane and also to self-criticize me or list my mistakes. I have experienced a complete focus on the task at hand during wholly dissimilar activities: wood working, playing video games, computer programming, writing, and running.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That's all my life hacks. I'm writing them down in the hope that they might help you out. Don't worry about trying out any of these right now - it's worth reading them, so that they're in the back of your mind, and when (sorry to be crude) shit goes real south, I hope hacks like this help you out and make life liveable. </span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-88324413758491271842014-08-13T11:55:00.002-07:002014-08-20T12:04:05.949-07:00My story and how I got rid Social Anxiety.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxbhHrk4I5vDHgWK4SbP18FiSJeYU7PAhbGRMkaa2rCHn5kzaHHc0mLcBt3ZQqqOkdoShdwNOLiVly5Jx-3ytnj5Eui-zG6sYuBdNjRKX9XHpFC03xzslEMF_kwxn1xyRUR5W_8PLaBqQ/s1600/pyFS6wD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDxbhHrk4I5vDHgWK4SbP18FiSJeYU7PAhbGRMkaa2rCHn5kzaHHc0mLcBt3ZQqqOkdoShdwNOLiVly5Jx-3ytnj5Eui-zG6sYuBdNjRKX9XHpFC03xzslEMF_kwxn1xyRUR5W_8PLaBqQ/s1600/pyFS6wD.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My whole life I've been really shy. I hated it. I couldn't make phone calls. My family would be mad at me because I'd never talk to them. I would lose friends because I wouldn't make the effort to contact them. My work life suffered. If I saw an old friend at the mall I would hide. But I thought "that's just the way I am."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But a few things happened in my life that showed me that I don't have to be like that if I don't want to.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Psychology. I've always loved social sciences, and it's proven that phobias are treatable. And that's what I had, an irrational fear of humans. :) (Mixed with low confidence)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Reddit. There's a lot of self-help subreddits that helped me. r/getmotivated, r/loveyourslef, r/TwoXchromosomes, and r/seduction. I know r/seduction has a bad reputation, but it really is made for people who have anxiety and undeveloped social skills, and teaches them how to be confident.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I learned to dance. This is like a booster shot of liquid self-esteem. When you're able to just flail your arms and shake your booty without a care in the world as to what other people think about it. It's really freeing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So in the last two years, I've been on a mission to rid myself of my shyness. It's not completely gone, but I'm more than halfway there, and I've never been happier. It's f*cking hard work, but omg is it worth it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Things I do to practice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Look people in the eye when I talk to them. Always terrifying to me before, but gets easier pretty quickly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Smile. It's cliché, but it has lots of positive effects. It makes your brain think you're happy, so it releases dopamine. People think you're friendly so they're more likely to talk to you.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Talk to All The People! Make small talk, then ask open-ended questions. Asking open ended questions is what makes a real connection with others possible. It allows you to really get to know someone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Allow yourself to love yourself. Say supportive and positive things in your mind, or even out loud. Things like "You're awesome!", "I'm the Boss!", and things like that. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-fulfilling_prophecy" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">Self Fulfilling Prophecies work.</a> (Just don't become arrogant, you will if you take it too far.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Start liking people more. I used think I hated people. But I think that was just my brain making excuses because it was afraid of them. I saw a quote from Niel Gaiman that really resonated with me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Everyone has a secret world inside of them. All the people in the whole world, no matter how dull they seem on the outside, inside them they've got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I now think that every single person, has at least one thing that they have in common with someone else. And that one thing can create a connection between those people that they can be friendly over. I think I'm actually turning into an extrovert.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-31320363242025360382014-08-13T10:48:00.002-07:002014-08-16T09:32:53.421-07:00For the gamer in Me, I developed a system that really worked to keep me motivated <div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My husband and I are huge gamers. Needless to say, we've lost a lot of motivation to do much of anything over the years--our willpower became non-existent and we started gliding through life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Dissatisfied with the way it was going, I finally decided I wanted to change things, but didn't know how. After talking with a close friend about my gaming habits, he made the statement: "Well, if you like video games so much, find something you love about video games and apply it to real life to help you get motivated." An impossible feat, I thought.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But one day, when I was playing World of Warcraft, an idea hit me. I was working really hard at this achievement in the game to collect 150 pets. It took me almost 8 months to collect that many from farming them, doing daily quests for them, etc. I was so proud of myself for working so hard. If it could work in a video game, why couldn't it work in real life?</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So I started a system. Every goal, every ambition, every feat I ever wanted to accomplish, I wrote down on a little slip of paper under some sassy title (for added flair, of course) and put points on the slip. I have created my Real-Life Achievement Points.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Every time I complete an achievement I have listed, I put it in a scrapbook. It helps to give me that "Wow, I really did it!" feeling of accomplishment.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now, my husband saw me doing this and decided it was something he really wanted to do, too, so we made one for him. To keep us both motivated to do this, we added in a reward system. For every X amount of achievement points earned, we get a reward. We even have competitions sometimes: whoever makes it 1,000 achievement points first, for example, makes the other one clean the litter box for an entire month. If you don't have any friends or family willing to do this with you, instead of competitions like that, you could make milestones: when I complete 1,000 points of achievements, I will treat myself to a fancy dinner, for example.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To give you an idea of some of my Real-Life Achievements, here are my categories and some of the things important to me that I haven't completed yet:</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Fitness</span></div>
<ul style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 10px 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To The Top! (Climb a mountain) - 50 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Rocky (Run up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art) - 20 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Push it (Do 50 push-ups in a row; do 100 push-ups in a row) - 20 points each time</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Diet</span></div>
<ul style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 10px 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Choke it Down (Eat three servings of vegetables in one day) - 10 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Trimming the Turkey (Lose 50 pounds; Lose 75 pounds; Lose 100 pounds; Lose 125 pounds; Lose 150 pounds) - 10 points each time</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Get Down With Your Healthy Self! (Reach my goal weight of 160 pounds) - 1,000 points</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mental</span></div>
<ul style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 10px 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Polyglot (Learn a new language) - 50 points each language</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Avid Reader (Read every book on <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/4248401/100-novels-everyone-should-read.html" style="color: #336699; text-decoration: none;">this</a> list) - 1,000 points/10 points each book</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Spiritual</span></div>
<ul style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 10px 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A Rosary a Day Keeps the Devil Away (say a rosary every day for a month) - 50 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Holy Moly! (go to church every day for a week) - 10 points</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Relationships</span></div>
<ul style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 10px 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm Sorry (apologize to someone I bullied in high school) - 10 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anniversary! (5 years of marriage; 10 years of marriage; 15 years of marriage; etc.) - 50 points each time</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Professional</span></div>
<ul style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 10px 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Making Money! (get a job) - 50 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So Many Words... (write a novel) - 100 points</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Personal</span></div>
<ul style="list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: outside; margin: 10px 2em; padding: 0px;">
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And Baby Makes Three... (have a baby) - 100 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Karma Whore (adopt a dog) - 100 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Life in the Stone Age (go a day without using electronics) - 50 points</span></li>
<li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Gamer, No Gaming! (go 1 week without gaming) - 20 points</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Those are just some examples of my uncompleted achievements. I have to say, it's been really fun achievement hunting in real life and not on WoW! I've done things I never thought I would be able to do, like ride a bike for an hour straight, lose 20 pounds, build a computer, teach Catechism. My husband seems to really enjoy it, too, and it's a lot of fun having someone to compete against, as well as having a fun little reward system.</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 19.5px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I hope this helps some of you get motivated and keep motivated like it has for me!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908829598550332723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-30147349974100453662014-08-07T05:37:00.001-07:002014-08-16T09:36:44.250-07:00Just Do It!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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" If you’re going to keep complaining about how the hole keeps getting deeper, then stop digging the hole and make an effort to start filling it in! “<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908829598550332723noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-32459035384058933592014-08-04T04:25:00.001-07:002014-08-17T04:10:19.623-07:00Bruce Lee<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="line-height: 21px;"><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="line-height: 21px;">From the Art of Expressing The Human Body</b><span style="line-height: 21px;">, there’s this little story about</span><b style="line-height: 21px;"> Bruce Lee</b><span style="line-height: 21px;">, arguably the greatest martial artist that ever lived, during a training run told by John Little, a close friend of Bruce:</span></span><br />
<blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; line-height: 21px; margin: 10px 0px; padding-left: 16px;">
<i><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace. We’d run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes. Just under eight minutes a mile [Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile]. So this morning he said to me “We’re going to go five.” I said, “Bruce, I can’t go five. I’m a helluva lot older than you are, and I can’t do five.” He said, “When we get to three, we’ll shift gears and it’s only two more and you’ll do it.” I said “Okay, hell, I’ll go for it.” So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I’m okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out. I’m tired, my heart’s pounding, I can’t go any more and so I say to him, “Bruce if I run any more,” –and we’re still running-”if I run any more I’m liable to have a heart attack and die.” He said, “Then die.” It made me so mad that I went the full five miles. Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it. I said, you know, “Why did you say that?” He said, “Because you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”</span></i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> <b style="line-height: 21px;"><i>Either push your limits or die</i></b><i style="line-height: 21px;">. If you’re going to allow yourself to be bound by arbitrary, artificial and anonymous limits, why even bother? One more time (you know you should read it). If you stop at your “limits”…</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 21px;" /></span>
<br />
<blockquote style="border-left-color: rgb(221, 221, 221); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; line-height: 21px; margin: 10px 0px; padding-left: 16px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>…</i><b><i>you might as well be dead. Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.”</i></b></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br style="line-height: 21px;" /><b style="line-height: 21px;"><i>What’s your level?</i></b><i style="line-height: 21px;"> Are you exceeding it or are you dying? Because if you let limits define what’s possible in your life, </i><b style="line-height: 21px;"><i>you’re not growing, you’re dying.</i></b></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-28996721986140517322014-07-27T03:27:00.001-07:002014-08-26T12:19:56.655-07:00Student converts old school bus into versatile mobile home<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"The bus was purchased on Craigslist for $3000, and has had about $6000 in improvements. It’s not pocket change, but it’s less than a down payment on a home, and it’s less than I paid in tuition for my last semester of grad school." </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">"There are too many architecture students who don't understand basic physical limitations of materials or how they can be joined. This project was a way to show how building a small structure with simple detailing can be more valuable</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">than drawing a complex project that is theoretical and poorly understood."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the primary goals during the design phase was to develop a living space in 225sqft that is as open and un-restricting as possible.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;">"The seating space is one of the most versatile, and as it occupies four bays, it is also the largest. In it’s neutral state, the zone features four large seats on either side of the aisle. </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> E</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">ither side of the aisle can be raised or lowered</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> to create a table surface for eating or working."</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The sleeping space is comprised of two narrow beds, of equal width, on either side of the aisle. There are drawers beneath each each bed, deep storage underneath the mattresses, and built-in shelves facing the seating area. In order to accommodate varied sleeping arrangements, the port-side bed rolls into the center aisle, creating a queen-sized sleeping area, with a third mattress revealed in the vacated space. This allows for a total sleeping capacity of up to six adults.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The cabin of the bus almost entirely untouched, except for the rats nest of wires from the added electrical systems. The cabin can be separated from the living space by a sliding door panel, which is left open while on the road to communicate with the driver.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.hankboughtabus.com/"><br /></a></span></span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<h2 style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 11px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">See more at: <a href="http://www.hankboughtabus.com/"> </a></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.hankboughtabus.com/">Hank Bought a Bus</a></span></span></h2>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-60889198535769082772014-07-19T04:17:00.001-07:002014-08-17T04:11:17.981-07:00"Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything that you’re willing to practice, you can do."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12093011600074731451noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1669264263379770294.post-53126457112136305712014-07-14T08:05:00.001-07:002014-09-19T08:05:16.067-07:00You Deserve It.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://pleasestopbeingsad.tumblr.com/post/68279095788">Source</a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908829598550332723noreply@blogger.com1