WOW: Multiply Excellence and Chutzpah

WOWOW: Education × Curiosity

Education × curiosity. Continuous education × insatiable curiosity. Learning is important, it is hard and you need it to maintain excellence. In this spirit, travel, language, and quantum physics, again.

7 Websites You MUST Check Before You Go On A Vacation --

Since there are different needs for everyone planning to go on a vacation, there are huge number of websites on the internet offering different solutions to those needs.
I wanna go there --

... where independent travellers can share up-to-date information and recommendations with other independent travellers – organised in a practical way to help us planning our trips and discovering new destinations.
100 Helpful Web Tools for Every Kind of Learner --

Many people understand material much better when it is presented in one format, for example a lab experiment, than when it is presented in another, like an audio presentation. Determining how you best learn and using materials that cater to this style can be a great way to make school and the entire process of acquiring new information easier and much more intuitive.
Best Online Language Tools for Word Nerds --

Beside the standard-issue dictionary and spellchecker offered by most word processors and operating systems, there are several web-based language tools at your disposal that can get you just the information you need.
Visuwords --

Look up words to find their meanings and associations with other words and concepts. Produce diagrams reminiscent of a neural net. Learn how words associate.
Quantum Physics Revealed As Non-Mysterious --

Quantum physics shows that reality doesn't exist apart from our observation of it, or Science has disproved the idea of an objective reality, or even just Quantum physics is one of the great mysteries of modern science; no one understands how it works.

There was a time, roughly the first half-century after quantum physics was invented, when this was more or less true. Certainly, when quantum physics was just being discovered, scientists were very confused indeed! But time passed, and science moved on. If you're confused about a phenomenon, that's a fact about your own state of mind, not a fact about the phenomenon itself -- there are mysterious questions, but not mysterious answers. Science eventually figured out what was going on, and why things looked so strange at first.

There. More education to come. Much more. Be well, know where you are, know where you want to go, and enjoy everything in between. Everything.

Labels: business, chutzpah, curiosity, decisions, education, excellence, insanity, language, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+development, productivity, quantum+physics, success, travel, vanity

WOWOW: Optical Illusions, Math and the Singularity

edited by Alexander Becker

The power of optical illusions, magnetic fields, the singularity, maths, and food portion sizes.

Key to all optical illusions discovered --

Humans can see into the future, says a cognitive scientist. It's nothing like the alleged predictive powers of Nostradamus, but we do get a glimpse of events one-tenth of a second before they occur. And the mechanism behind that can also explain why we are tricked by optical illusions.
NASA scientists make magnetic fields visible, beautiful --

Magnetic fields are invisible, at least usually. But Scientists from NASA's Space Sciences Laboratory have made them visible as "animated photographs," using sound-controlled CGI and 3D compositing. It makes the fields, as explained by the scientists, dance in an absolutely gorgeous movie called Magnetic Movie.
The singularity
Math for the layman
300 calorie food picture gallery

Take a look at the above, have a nice week and play it where it lies.

Labels: business, chutzpah, excellence, illusions, insanity, lifehacks, lifestyle, magnetic+fields, marketing, maths, personal+development, productivity, singularity, success, vanity

WOWOW: Fibonacci, Plants and Rules

edited by Alexander Becker

Some pure gold this week: the Fibonacci sequence; if you never heard about it, study it now, this is required knowledge. Herbs help, also, that quote, enjoy.

The Fibonacci Sequence in Nature --

In mathematics, the limit of Fibonacci series is called as Golden Ratio. This ratio is approximately equal to 1,618. In nature, one can come across this ratio in many areas of art and science.
20 Common Cooking Ingredients that Act Like Medicines --

The use of herbal treatments for everything from sore throats to cancer has become more and more common with every passing year. We all know about the herbal supplements like St. John's Wort that can help you with chronic health problems, but did you know that many common edible herbs, spices and vegetables can provide impressive health benefits?

While you probably already use these ingredients in your home, you may not realize that they can do much more than just making your meals tasty and interesting. Here are some common foods that do double duty as effective herbal treatments.
How to Break All the Rules --

Tell me, Rabo- said Slazinger, if I put on that same paint with the same roller, would the picture still be a Karabekian?

Absolutely, I said, provided you have in reserve what Karabekian has in reserve.
Like what? he said.

Like this, I said. There was dust in a pothole in the floor, and I picked up some of it on the balls of both my thumbs. Working both thumbs simultaneously, I sketched a caricature of Slazinger's face on the canvas in thirty seconds.
Jesus! he said. I had no idea you could draw like that!

You're looking at a man who has options, I said.
Compulsories vs. Freestyle
How to Legally Apply The Rules of Con: Guy Ritchie's Revolver
Two Ways of Owning a Law

Have options. Always.

Labels: business, chutzpah, creativity, excellence, fibonacci, herbal+medicine, insanity, lifehacks, lifestyle, personal+development, productivity, rules, success, vanity

WOWOW: The Comfort Paradox

edited by Alexander Becker

Your too comfortable discomfort, your (Google) health, your habits and your finances.

Get uncomfortable, finally --

You may be unhappy. You might be miserable. But are you unhappy enough, miserable enough to get you moving, finally?
Are you a comfort junkie?

Yep, being addicted to comfort can be somewhat problematic, if not catastrophic, for the wanna-be, modern-day success story. The truth is, if you’re not experiencing and dealing with pain, discomfort and fear on at least a semi-regular basis, you’re probably not learning, growing, changing, adapting and exploring your potential as you should be.
Google Health: A quick hands-on look --

Google has also created specific in-depth pages for hundreds of health topics. When you enter a condition into your profile, there is a reference link to one of these pages where you can do more research. These are really helpful. They give a summary of the symptoms, treatment, causes, and prevention of different conditions; illustrations where appropriate, as well as links to related news, Google Groups, and search trends.
Can you become a creature of new habits?

HABITS are a funny thing. We reach for them mindlessly, setting our brains on auto-pilot and relaxing into the unconscious comfort of familiar routine. “Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd,” William Wordsworth said in the 19th century. In the ever-changing 21st century, even the word “habit” carries a negative connotation.
Five basics for building a solid financial future --

The stark truth about managing our money these days is that we are mostly on our own.

Once you solve the comfort paradox, everything changes. Have an uncomfortable enough week.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, excellence, finances, google, habits, health, insanity, lifehacks, lifestyle, nyt, personal+development, success

Get Uncomfortable, Finally

edited by Alexander Becker

The situation: Complacency. Complacency on even the lowest level: A feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation, condition, etc.

Homeostasis. The human body and the human mind resist change as hard as they can.

Unhappy Enough

You may be unhappy. You might be miserable. But are you unhappy enough, miserable enough to get you moving, finally?

As long as it isn't that bad, there is no real reason for a change. After all, the change is endangering the status quo.

The resolution: Get uncomfortable with the status quo. Escalate the status quo to the point where it gets really uncomfortable and you are ultimately required to get up and finally move.

Your Mind is Playing Tricks on You

Please note that you are already unhappy with your situation. Do you really think that an eventual change will make things worse? Could it be remotely possible that your mind is playing tricks on you, tricks to prevent change? Any change? Even the change to something better?

Something better. That's what is almost guaranteed. What do you think is going to happen after a long stretch of discomfort? The mere change, change itself, will make you feel better, once you overcome the inertia that your mind builds up to save itself.

Make it Worse

How? Do something stupid. Something stupid that will turn out to be ultimately intelligent. Break that situation by doing something against your values that will literally make you want to run away. Of course, stay somewhat sensible but -- you have to break that situation by going just far enough for yourself. You don't want to destruct other people's life and lives when all you need to do is to break your own mindset. The usual disclaimer applies here.

Drive that car into the ground, quit that job, and leave that relationship. Do you really think that anything will be worse that it is now? Make it worse now and expect nothing but the best in return.

Again, the plan is not to blow up the situation in a negative way. I do not suggest to provoke getting fired for bad performance; instead, get fired for excellent work; get too big for your current situation.

The decision is made. Right? That's the part where thinking can pause and step back for doing. Think up the plan to quit, to change the situation and then do without further thinking. Let go. Avoid rationalizations like the plague.

Avoid Rationalizations

I can't stress this enough: Fight rationalizations. Dismiss them once the decision is made. The beauty is that you don't know yet what is to come. The trick is to move on anyway. How? It doesn't matter. One thing is for sure, though: It will be better, especially since you don't know what it is. Don't you love surprises? I know that you don't, by the way, but you will love this one.

Enjoy and embrace your discomfort and move now, finally.

Set a Deadline

Set up a deadline, a really outrageously tight, deadline. One that is so tight, it isn't possible to linearly achieve. Set a goal of quitting in 4 weeks, whatever it is. That said, what about tomorrow? Today?

The Process

To sum it up, the steps are roughly as follows --

You are comfortable and complacent.
You set a ridicoulously tight deadline to end complacency.
You get really uncomfortable with the little you have.
You realize that it will be better.
You fight rationalizations.
Your mind is playing dirty tricks on you.
You have your mind in check and your actions are pursuing the deadline.
Quantum leaps happen.

Are you uncomfortable enough?

Labels: business, chutzpah, complacency, decisions, escalation, excellence, insanity, lifehacks, lifestyle, personal+development, productivity, success, vanity

WOWOW: Jazz and Entrepreneurship

edited by Alexander Becker

The right mix between laid-back and fighter-pilot focused; Jazz and the art of continually starting up.

100 essential Jazz albums --

These hundred titles are meant to provide a broad sampling of jazz classics and wonders across the music's century-long history. Early New Orleans jazz, swing, bebop, cool jazz, modal jazz, hard bop, free jazz, third stream, and fusion are all represented, though not equally.
100 ways to be a better entrepreneur --

Need help reenergizing your business? Out of creative ideas for reaching your business goals? We've compiled a list of the top 100 tips to improve your business. Consider it your checklist for maintaining a successful business.
How to start a startup --

You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.
Brand Tags --

The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people's heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, is what it is.
Are You in Personal Branding Prison? --

Too much personal branding can be damaging to a professional. If you brand yourself too strongly, you can’t take a break, because there’s no one else to fill your shoes. Without you, your business has no value.

That said, mix right and mix wise, and have a successful week.

Labels: branding, business, chutzpah, decisions, entrepreneurship, excellence, insanity, jazz, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, music, personal+development, productivity, startup, success, vanity

WOWOW: Innovation and Skills

edited by Alexander Becker

Changing the world with Larry Page, innovation with Brad Bird, intelligence analysis with the CIA, and the 75 skills for every man to master, all without any limits.

Larry Page on how to change the world --

Breakthrough ideas are around the corner, says the Google co-founder. But most of us are failing to take a chance on them.
Pixar's Brad Bird on fostering innovation --

This week The McKinsey Quarterly asks: what does stimulating the creativity of animators have in common with developing new product ideas or technology breakthroughs? Apparently, a lot.
Never have a limit on your income --

If you sell pens for a living and someone orders a million pens, no problem! You just place an order with your manufacturer for a million pens, get them to the customer, and celebrate.
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis --

A classic in my library, examining the influence of bias on accurate analysis, among other things. Must read.
The 75 Skills Every Man Should Master --

A man can be expert in nothing, but he must be practiced in many things. Skills. You don't have to master them all at once. You simply have to collect and develop a certain number of skills as the years tick by. People count on you to come through. That's why you need these, to start.

Have a successful week and make sure to measure your progress.

Labels: analysis, brad+bird, business, chutzpah, cia, esquire, excellence, google, insanity, intelligence, larry+page, lifehacks, lifestyle, no+limits, personal+development, pixar, skills, success, vanity

WOWOW: Survive a Plane Crash while Refining Your Learning Skills

edited by Alexander Becker

Now that pseudo-productivity is declared dead, let's go back to the drawing board. Start with art, disaster prevention and recoevery, some interesting research projects, and the latest news on how your memory works.

The impossible art of Li Wei --

Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics.
How to survive an airplane crash --

According to the statistics, two-thirds of the people involved in air crashes survive. Approximately one-third of the third who do die could have survived if they had known what to do and almost all of these died from smoke or fire. If it seems certain the plane is going to crash, here's what to do while the plane is going down.
25 leading-edge IT research projects --

While universities don't tend to shout as loudly about their latest tech innovations as do Google, Cisco and other big vendors, their results are no less impressive in what they could mean for faster, more secure and more useful networking. Here's a roundup, in no particular order, of some of the most amazing and colorful projects in the works.
The world in 2058 --

The consensus view is that we'll muddle through many of the issues that vex us today -- including climate change and terror threats. And we'll hit upon so many medical and technological wonders that today's 50-year-olds will have a fair chance of finding out firsthand how the world will look in 2058.
Want to remember everything you'll ever learn? Surrender to this algorithm --

... there is an ideal moment to practice what you've learned. Practice too soon and you waste your time. Practice too late and you've forgotten the material and have to relearn it. The right time to practice is just at the moment you're about to forget. Unfortunately, this moment is different for every person and each bit of information. Imagine a pile of thousands of flash cards. Somewhere in this pile are the ones you should be practicing right now. Which are they?

Make this week yours. Even art is not impossible.

Labels: art, business, chutzpah, disaster, education, excellence, insanity, lifehacks, lifestyle, memory, mnemonics, productivity, research, success, the+future, vanity

WOWOW: Money for Nothing and Better than Free

edited by Alexander Becker

Money for nothing? Adding value makes even free eventually satisfying.

Seth Godin has another short ebook that you absolutely need and I absolutely missed --

Be useful, unique and updated.

... and make sure to apply this to life on all levels.

Also, to the same tune, what's better than free --

When there are infinite copies of something, charging for one is almost impossible.

Kevin Kelly has eight generatives better than free --

In the digital arena, generative qualities add value to free copies, and therefore are something that can be sold.

Immediacy

Personalization

Interpretation

Authenticity

Accessibility

Embodiment

Patronage

Findability

You see --

Software, free. The manual, $10,000.

Making you look good, all of you, free. Making YOU look good, making you excel at what ONLY YOU can do best -- ask me for a quote.

Useful, unique and updated.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, excellence, kevin+kelly, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, money, personal+branding, seth+godin, success, value

WOWOW: True Fans Want True Charisma

edited by Alexander Becker

True fans, true charisma, and true assholes, what's the difference anyway -- and the trouble with Steve Jobs.

Kevin Kelly does it again, and it is amazingly, beautifully simple: You need 1000 true fans --

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author -- in other words, anyone producing works of art -- needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

Ok? Here is the secret, from the angle of Bob Sutton's (no) asshole perspective --

All accounts about Jobs make clear that he is not all asshole all the time -- that he uses nastiness strategically at times or sometimes simply loses his temper. As I show in the chapter on the virtues of assholes, if you want to be an effective asshole, you can't be all asshole all the time.

... it is interesting how often his anger seems to focus on two issues: aesthetics and ease of human use. Examples include his temper tantrum about the color that the vans were painted at NEXT, a story an engineer told me about how unhappy Jobs was with the color of the bolts inside a computer (he wanted the technicians and geeks who opened it up to be impressed with the beauty), and a story -- which is pure rumor -- that he fired someone from the Apple store because he didn't like the color and quality of the bags that she ordered.

(...)

I worry that, by glorifying Jobs, we are making the world safe for asshole infested organizations and fueling the belief that assholes make more effective leaders.

The Fortune article: The trouble with Steve Jobs: Asshole, genius, or both?

Jobs likes to make his own rules, whether the topic is computers, stock options, or even pancreatic cancer. The same traits that make him a great CEO drive him to put his company, and his investors, at risk.

Finally, Steve Jobs speaks out himself --

We had a big debate inside the company whether we could do that or not. And that was one where I had to adjudicate it and just say, We're going to do it. Let's try.

This is exactly the point.

What are you called when you're an asshole but no CEO? You're charismatic. When you're the CEO, it's all about charisma and unpopular decisions. As a leader, you're admired for making decisions, admired even for making unpopular decisions, admired as a martyr -- and ultimately, secretly, you're admired as an asshole -- because after all, it's your job, you have to do it.

Just make sure that you act because you have to act like you have to act, that is, as long as you're being an asshole out of passion, charisma, or even chutzpah, your true fans will remain true fans and become even more fanatic. When it is fear that makes you act like an asshole, well, this is what you get: No fans, no charisma, no chutzpah, no passion, and certainly no reward.

The more unique the vision, the more elaborate the idea, the farther ahead of the pack, the more charisma you need to just do it and to convince everybody else that you are right and that it works anyway. Again, the more charismatic, the more you polarize your peers.

The trick is to appear as a total asshole not all the time and not no everybody at once but to try to appear civilized half the time or to half the people. This way, your reputation remains stable.

One more thing: If you had a dream, would you want anyone -- except yourself -- to interfere, influence, or even taint the outcome of what you know would be the most beautiful thing in your life? Wouldn't you fight with everything you've got?

I thought so.

Chances are, that the asshole trait (or is it a gene?) makes any dream a little -- if not much -- more realistic.

Have a great weekend and at least try not to abuse your peers too much. On the other hand, what are you waiting for? Make your dream come true already!

Your true fans will take care of themselves.

Labels: asshole, bob+sutton, business, charisma, chutzpah, excellence, genius, insanity, kevin+kelly, lifehacks, lifestyle, steve+jobs, success, vanity

There Are No Rules

edited by Alexander Becker

Setting rules, following rules, bending them, or breaking them?

Will Turner: You didn't beat me. You ignored the rules of engagement. In a fair fight, I'd kill you.
Jack Sparrow: That's not much incentive for me to fight fair, then, is it?

You decide.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, pirates, rules, success

WOWOW: Functions, Wonders, and Phenomena

edited by Alexander Becker

Copyrights, more autism, evaluating web content, overused words, maths, castles, and various Déjàs.

Autism: The truth about autism: Scientists reconsider what they think they know --

But then the words "A Translation" appear on a black screen, and for the next five minutes, 27-year-old Amanda Baggs — who is autistic and doesn't speak — describes in vivid and articulate terms what's going on inside her head as she carries out these seemingly bizarre actions. In a synthesized voice generated by a software application, she explains that touching, tasting, and smelling allow her to have a "constant conversation" with her surroundings. These forms of nonverbal stimuli constitute her "native language," Baggs explains, and are no better or worse than spoken language. Yet her failure to speak is seen as a deficit, she says, while other people's failure to learn her language is seen as natural and acceptable.
Education 1: Evaluating web content --

This guide offers tips for evaluating the quality of content on the Web. In recent years, the Web has become a rich environment of Web pages, blogs, wikis, social networking sites, free research services, media types and more. It can be a challenge to figure out which content to trust. This guide will help you to identify the type of site you are visiting and to evaluate its content.
Education 2: Commonly overused words --

When you write, use the most precise word for your meaning, not the word that comes to mind first. Consult this thesaurus to find alternatives for some commonly overused words.

Overused? I thought we were making use of keywords... Here are the alternatives for --

Excellent: superior, remarkable, splendid, unsurpassed, superb, magnificent.

Nevermind.
Education 3: Handbook of Mathematical Functions --

An electronic copy of the tenth printing of this famous reference.
Copyright: Copyright this --

Intellectual property's social value may trump copyright law.
Architecture: 7 abandoned wonders of the European Union: From deserted castles to retrofuturistic factories --

The rich stories of individual European nations can be read in part through the amazing abandoned buildings found across the continent. It is truly remarkable how intact some of these structures are even after centuries.
The Mind: Top 10 strange phenomena of the mind --

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time – of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances -- of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it! --Charles Dickens
Your Life: It's march folks, how about reloading some abandoned resolutions --

By now, most resolutions have been abandoned and life goes on. Let's see if we can reanimate one of them. Actually, the calendar year is just another occasion. You can just as well start on any given day and work the plan.

Expect more than others think is possible. Always.

Labels: architecture, autism, business, chutzpah, copyright, decisions, education, excellence, insanity, ip, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, maths, personal+development, phenomena, success, vanity

Cascading Diet Recommendations

edited by Alexander Becker

Improving your health through your diet isn't an all-or-nothing game.

The two general directions -- exercise × nutrition -- apparently weren't enough.

Try it this time with some structured and even more importantly, cascading recommendations, meaning you start with the first and work up the ladder with each adhered-to point making your diet more and more healthy and your body more and more lean.

Let's set up a baseline to work your way up from --

Each one of the following nos works almost equally as a less. In other words, you don't have to go strict, instead you can go slower on these items and benefit as well -- albeit slower. It's a simple progression. Please note that, the higher on he list, the more important it is to say no rather than less.

What to avoid

Transfat; therefore no fried foods.
(Even partly) hydrogenated fats; therefore no margarine, no peanut butter (except natural) -- eat regular butter if you like.
Refined, white flour; that's no cake.
Simple or added sugar; no candy, that is.

What to eat

The goal: Eat as much "whole and natural, fresh food" as you can.

Note that this is no advice to go low-carb, eg. on a diet low in carbohydrates. In fact, it is nothing more than trying to get you to eat as healthy as possible.

How much?

As much as you want. Chances are you don't eat enough anyway.

And no. A calorie is not a calorie. Or do you really think that a five-hundred-calorie cake is worth the same, nutrition-wise, as five-hundred calories in vegetables or meat?

That's it. Again, eat as clean as possible and move as much as you can. Everything counts.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, diet, excellence, insanity, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, nutrition, personal+development, productivity, success, vanity

WOWOW: The Illusions Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

Idleness, datamining, obsolete skills, illusions, autism, language, and keywords.

Idleness: Determine never to be idle: A simple productivity strategy --

First of all, let's define what is meant by "idle". In my opinion, idle time is the time we spend on something other than what we are supposed to do. We know we should do something, but we procrastinate doing it or get distracted by something else. That is idle time.

What is your default mode? --

The best way to prevent a potentially negative aftermath to any accomplishment is to set up some idle-time protocol.
Datamining: Special reports 10 emerging technologies 2008 --

Technology Review presents our list of the 10 technologies that we think are most likely to change the way we live.
Obsolete skills
Language 1: Keyword research for bloggers: A comprehensive guide --

Keyword research, at its essence, is market research. It tells you what people are interested in, and in what relative numbers. Better yet, it reveals the actual language people are using when they think about those topics, which provides you with insight on how to converse with them via your blog.
Illusion: The anatomy of an illusion -- and what it tells us about the visual system --

Take a look at this amazing illusion created by Arthur Shapiro
Language 2: Autism breakthrough: Girl's writings explain her behavior and feelings --

Autism is hard because you want to act one way, but you can't always do that. It's sad that sometimes people don't know that sometimes I can't stop myself and they get mad at me. If I could tell people one thing about autism it would be that I don't want to be this way. But I am, so don't be mad. Be understanding.
Language 3: Study finds some thoughts really do require language --

Some research suggests that understanding the thoughts of others -- having a theory of mind -- is one such process. Many children who are late in learning language are also late in developing a theory of mind.
Seth Godin: No user servicable parts inside --

Here's a simple secret of success: ignore the sticker.

Figure out how to use the tools that the most successful people in your field understand innately.

Nothing is for real. Nothing.

Labels: autism, business, chutzpah, datamining, excellence, idleness, illusions, insanity, language, lifehacks, lifestyle, obsolete+skills, personal+development, success, vanity, wow, wow-linking

Intensity and Excess, Forever?

edited by Alexander Becker

Intensity vs. forever, that is.

I don't want to be with you forever -- do you know why? Well, first, forever is quite a long time, where some of us, at least temporarily, might get bored or boring, second, almost nothing is forever; and this comes from the guy who once invented forever...

What I do want is being with you right now, in person, in practice, as intense as it gets, forever is just theory and you nor I can't hold that kind of intensity for this long.

That is quality over quantity. Let's try to take quality over quantity as often as possible. The result is even more quality.

You can't endure and enjoy excess forever either.

Right now

The rest of time -- beyond now -- isn't supposed to be out of the mind at all. We are still responsible for our future and since we strive to have many more moments of intensity and excess to come, we'd do best to behave as sustaining and responsible as we possibly can.

Self-destruction is not the most elegant way to appreciate excess, intensity, and that moment.

Sure, it is not going to be the last moment but if it was, it would be great nonetheless. And since it is not the last moment, you just have to repeat it. Again.

And again.

What about that kind of forever?

A series of nows instead of a extended then.

A repetition of quality moments, as long as it lasts.

Labels: business, chutzpah, excellence, excess, forever, insanity, intensity, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, productivity, quality, success, valentines, vanity

Why Chutzpah?

edited by Alexander Becker

Excellence is easy. Excellence is doing the best you can with what you have. Chutzpah is where it gets tricky because you can't just get better, faster, more, ... Why?

Chutzpah is nonlinear, it involves creativity, timing, and confidence.

Pondering how to get gutsy ... guts translates to a willingness and ability to embrace risk.

Well, to me, it is chutzpah and it translates to the ability to completely ignore the possibility of risk because you have absolut confidence that your endeavour is going to succeed.

Chutzpah is intensity of life. If nothing else makes you feel life, chutzpah will.

So, why again? Because it works. Because it makes you think different. Because it changes things. Because the majority is always wrong.

There.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, success

WOWOW: The Artists Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

Something for my beloved artists -- papercuts, teaching effectively, and procrastinating successfully. Also for the attention-span impaired; then again, we're not after sheer count of items.

Insanity

Many, no doubt, are well disposed, but sluggish by constitution and by habit, and they cannot conceive of a man who is actuated by higher motives than they are, accordingly they pronounce this man insane, for they know that they could never act as he does, as long as they are themselves. --Henry David Thoreau

Art

The papercuts of Peter Callesen -- Strange and beautiful.

Education

The movie director’s guide to effective teaching --

Research has shown that learning most frequently happens at the start and at the end of a message. Your message could be a presentation, advertisement or a lecture, it doesn't matter -- people remember the beginning and ending more than the middle. It's called the primacy-recency principle and was first studied in the 1920's. Movie directors understand this to well -- that's why in most movies something big usually happens within the first couple minutes and the best song is left until the end. They want you to remember the start of the movie and feel good at the end. We can apply this concept and provide a better learning experience for your audience.

Procrastination

Seven ways to procrastinate for better results --

Where problems go away with time.

Where problems are best ignored.

Where you have good back-up and support systems in place.

Where something more important comes up.

Where you are getting into a deal.

Where you are tired, hungry or angry.

Where people are on your back because you are known to be a doer.

As always, creating a significant difference between work and play heightens the sensations of both. Feel, appreciate, and enjoy your weekend and your week.

Labels: art, business, chutzpah, decisions, education, excellence, insanity, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+development, procrastination, productivity, success, vanity

What is your Default Mode?

edited by Alexander Becker

What is your default mode, how do you act when it's over, when you're done? Finally idle again? How does it feel?

You're idle, in between projects or right after a show. You've just completed the big project. That is exactly where the potential to do something really stupid is the greatest.

The best way to prevent a potentially negative aftermath to any accomplishment is to set up some idle-time protocol.

Raw idleness tends to be -- especially between bouts of higher achievement -- relatively negative. You can't be high all the time. Also, to really feel the high, you need, by definition and for comparison, the corresponding low. What follows is, that the higher the high, the lower the low.

Try to establish a baseline or maintenance program that will prepare you for the next project, restore your physical and mental energy and backup your intellectual resources. Start immediately upon exhaustion to appreciate and use the void, as long as it lasts.

This void, this emptiness does indeed exist and it infects potentially anyone. Creating some routines prevents the "hole" that opens up after finishing any kind of creative work from becoming all too deep.

My protocol, for example, consists of a strict diet, exercises and -- to contain and to enforce -- discipline. Whenever I become idle, which isn't all too often but especially at the crossroads between projects, before and after, I quite literally fall back into a set of default habits of eating cleanly, exercising hard and absolutely regular, and so on...

Debriefing; analyzing the finished project is often hard since it's all over and done and you can't change the outcome anyway, but it is an important conclusion of anything you worked so hard for. Just recount what you will be proud of and note what and how to improve when trying next time.

Research, study, and refining skills are part of my strategy. The more unrelated the better, seemingly unrelated that is, inspiration comes best when the field of research seems way too remote.

Enjoy the low and appreciate it, for the greater the difference, the more pronounced the reward will be. Live both the low and the high as deeply as you can. Just make sure and try to establish a default mode somewhere in the middle between high and low, defaulting to either high or low makes the respective opposite state unbearable.

Revise your resume or CV. How does your new perspective affect the way you describe what was important about your previous experiences?

Labels: business, debriefing, decisions, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, productivity, recovery, success

WOWOW: The Real Hacks Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

I'd like to focus on real hacks, not the kind you find filed and dug away under 50 more list-items to improve your shut-eye through extended boredom, so, sleep, progress, and how-to -- not.

Relax like a pro: 5 steps to hacking your sleep --

For longer naps, test multiples of 90 minutes, which is called an "ultradian" rhythm in some papers, though the proper term should be "infradian" since it's less than 24 hours. Thomas Edison, despite his vocal disdain for sleep and claim to sleep only four hours per night, is reported to have taken two three-hour naps daily.

Don't forget to factor in your time-to-sleep. It often takes me up to an hour to fall asleep, so I'll set my alarm for seven hours ((4 x 90 minutes) + 60-minute time-to-sleep).

... and it's even true: The 90-minute increments work like magic. I'm not exactly sure on how to factor in the time-to-fall-asleep though. I tend to count only true sleep time.
4 ways to stay on track --

The bottom-line is that no matter what speed bumps inevitably appear, there are a number of ways to stick to your training program. Cop-outs are unacceptable, excuses are even worse. Even if you don't know exactly what's going to be thrown at you, with just a little planning, you now know how to handle almost any less-than-perfect situation.
Everything does not require a 'How To' manual --

There are many situations in life where following your inclinations, without the manual of instructions, is the best approach.
The above article is from "the linguist," who provides our educational food for this weekend, a method -- LingQ -- to learn nine languages, for now.

Everyone learns to speak their native language. Why not use the same approach with a second language? Surround yourself with meaningful input that matters to you. Start at an easy level and work your way up.

Have a nice weekend, change the world as much as you can and make sure to keep smiling along the way.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, excellence, how+to, lifehacks, lifestyle, linking, progress, sleep, success, testosterone, tracking

The Best In The World: What's the Point?

edited by Alexander Becker

Once in a while the question comes up: Why?

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will. --Chuck Palahniuk

I hope this helps.

Even more interesting is the point itself: Everybody is best-in-the-world at something. The trick is to find out what it is and to find it out in time. This brings up the next question: Why does it take so long for most people to find out what they are here for?

Excellence × Chutzpah = Irresistible + Invincible

Multiply excellence and chutzpah to achieve peak performance, become irresistible and invincible and look even better in business, fitness, on stage, and beyond.

That's what it says, at least.

Why does anyone would not want to look better, in any sense of the word?
If it is possible to improve, would you? Would you want to?
The best in the world? Do you want to be the best at anything?

It is not merely about "accomplishing something", not about "getting things done" and out of the way. The best way to get things out of the way is by getting them out of the way. What it is about is getting things done the best way possible, the most elegant, beautiful, effective, whatever, way there is...

Accomplishing nothing but the best, whatever it takes. Yes, that's elite. That's real performance. Why not? Courage. Advocating insanity? Probably. Endurance? Doing things anyway. More and more. Faster.

Maybe you need hardcore, dirty, hacks to get the best out of what you have.

Attack common sense, because, by definition, common sense is average. Make decisions as fast as possible.

Do everything as good as you can, if you know someone to do it better, get him to do it. Doing everything the best you can is not the same as doing everything the best way possible. That is what it is about. Exceed expectations.

Doing the best you can might imply finding someone else to do and complete the job.

Doing the best you can is always doing more than you are expected to do. It's a little more than you planned to do.

Immortality is a collateral of best-in-the-world. You are not going to care, though.

Labels: best-in-the-world, business, chuck+palahniuk, chutzpah, delegation, elite, excellence, immortality, leadership, lifehacks, lifestyle, management, marketing, productivity, success

WOWOW: The Observer Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

Food or fuel? The universe and your own university, more resolutions and the observer question.

Pick up these 20 foods to snack on for enhanced productivity --

Most people eat to lose weight, get healthy and build muscle. There are some people, however, who snack correctly in order to enhance their productivity.

... to the tune of the previous "food is fuel" recommendation --
Accurately monitoring the progress of your resolutions helps to keep them and you on track: 5% down, 95% to go --
Today is January 22nd. That means 21 days (3 weeks) have already passed in 2008. That's a little over 5% of the year gone already. So let's do a quick "goal review" or a resolution recall. Are you 5% towards your goals?

The point is - you need to constantly assess where you are in relation to your desired outcomes.
- Are you on track?
- Are you headed in the right direction?
- Have you even moved off the starting line?
There is still time to reload your resolutions and start all over.
Knowledge is still king: How to set up your personal university --

No, you don't need to rent a campus, hire professors and start charging tuition. Setting up a personal university means taking your self-education as seriously as any schooling you manage pay for. While regular university is expensive and stops when you get a degree, your personal university continues indefinitely and can be run for free.

Please consider the necessity to authenticate the authority of any expert, yourself included.
A great way to put things in perspective, especially You, is a look at the universe within 1 billion light years and the neighbouring superclusters --

Galaxies and clusters of galaxies are not uniformly distributed in the Universe, instead they collect into vast clusters and sheets and walls of galaxies interspersed with large voids in which very few galaxies seem to exist. The map above shows many of these superclusters including the Virgo supercluster -- the fairly minor supercluster of which our galaxy is just a minor member. The entire map is approximately 7 percent of the diameter of the entire visible Universe. Individual galaxies are far too small to appear on this map, each point represents a group of galaxies.

Make sure to zoom in...
Finally, the question of the week: The key to innovation: Becoming an observer --

We all need to innovate to stand out from the crowd. But what is the key to innovation? The answer, or at least an important answer, is becoming an observer. By observing how we and other people do things, we will spot opportunities for improvements. The more we observe, the more opportunities we will find. We can then work to provide solutions for some of the problems. By becoming a good observer, we will recognize the problems before many people do and have first-mover advantage.

... this is, obviously, correct. It is valuable information for anybody at least remotely concerned with observing.

What people are yet to realize is that most things you cannot learn, either you are an observer or you are not. Yes, you can learn anything and everything, I know, but when it comes to competition day, the born observer, the naturally talented observer will have the divine advantage.

Build your skills and to get started, study as broad as possible but make sure to not neglect finding out what you are best at.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, education, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, nutrition, productivity, resolutions, self-education, success, tracking, universe, university, virtuosity

WOWOW: The Inspiration Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

High speed links: Inspiration and creativity, assholes (ooooh sorry -- not really), pirates, and chutzpah, again.

Working In Close

And, sorry, all those romantic notions you have of absinthe spoons, manic episodes and Kerouac-like rambling on a long roll of butcher paper really aren't operative. Creative work is mostly showing up every day and enduring a million tiny failures as you feel your way to something a bit new.
Are You A Certified Asshole?

I'm sure that none of you need to take this test, but you might know someone who does.
The Pirate's Dilemma

The Pirate's Dilemma tells the story of how youth culture drives innovation and is changing the way the world works. It offers understanding and insight for a time when piracy is just another business model, the remix is our most powerful marketing tool and anyone with a computer is capable of reaching more people than a multi-national corporation.
The Danger of Free

Again: Nothing is for free.
The Yiddish Handbook: 40 Words You Should Know

Chutzpah -- Or khutspe. Nerve, extreme arrogance, brazen presumption. In English, chutzpah often connotes courage or confidence, but among Yiddish speakers, it is not a compliment.

Yiddish speakers, on the other hand, get the meaning immediately.

Until next week, stay safe, work hard and don't forget the balancing play hard

Labels: business, chutzpah, creativity, decisions, inspiration, lifehacks, lifestyle, linking, marketing, personal+branding, pirates, success

Reload Your (Abandoned) Resolutions

edited by Alexander Becker

One goal, three to-dos, and a trick, each day.

Or...

1000 tasks and a gun to your head.

This post is not too late. Quite the opposite is true. By now, most resolutions have been abandoned and life goes on. Let's see if we can reanimate one of them. Actually, the calendar year is just another occasion. You can just as well start on any given day and work the plan.

I read so many make-2008-the-best-year-ever articles (no links here) these days by everyone remotely concerned with hacking life... yet it is so easy.

One Goal

Did you achieve your primary 2007 goal?

Did you set a primary 2007 goal in the first place?

We all know the distinction between urgent and important -- have-to-do and should-be-doing.

I want you to pick one goal for this year. One primary goal and only one that has absolute priority in 2008. Choose wisely because you will have to stick to it.

Obviously, we're looking at the should-be-doing stuff. What is it that you know you should be doing but for whatever reason you never really started. Pick an important goal that will advance you and you life towards the fulfillment of your dreams -- or one of your dreams for now.

Now, list your potential should-be-working-on goals and sort them and make one a priority. Make one of them your resolution. Everything else is and remains secondary for the current year.

Three To-Dos

Alright. So you've set your goal. What now? Of course, you already expect the answer: To-dos. Please note that you will have lots of unrelated to-dos of the have-to-do variety each and every day so we are going to add just three more to-dos -- the voluntary ones, you know, the sexy ones -- and we resolve to set them every night for the following day and we further resolve to execute, to really do them -- whatever it takes.

Make small, small, small to-dos at first. The smaller the better. Set up three babysteps for each day and do what it takes. The trick is do make the tasks worthy, manageable and doable because we resolve and make a contract with ourselves that we are not going to break. Again, plan small tasks, three of them and do them.

The Trick

To make it even easier for you, set your list of three up for the next day and what you don't manage to do; cross it off the list anyway. It's gone. No second chances. No 2 items today and 4 tomorrow. If you don't do it today you're not allowed to try again tomorrow. Realize that you will lose your task when you don't do it today.

Since all your tasks are important -- otherwise they wouldn't be scheduled for an important goal -- you definitely don't want to miss even one of them. Three tasks a day are hard enough to determine, don't spoil them without a reason -- and there is no reason.

Imagine today as your last day and it'll become even easier to get up and just do it.

That's why we start with small tasks. The point is to not break your contract. Don't be afraid to plan ridiculously easy tasks, remember, as long as you move, you will eventually arrive.

That's it. Choose one priority goal. There can only be one priority. Test it and make sure you have what it takes to stick to it.

Start and set three to-dos for each day. Start small but steady.

Remember, it is not important to achieve something big every day. What is important though is persistence, that you do something -- three things -- every day. Think up three pathetically easy to achieve tasks and just do them and see your motivation ask for more...

1000 Steps are Enough

Don't overdo it. Sometimes it feels like three is not enough. Don't think about it. It is enough. In fact it is 3 × 365: A good thousand tasks. Instead of asking for more tasks, make them bigger.

1000 steps should be sufficient. The beauty is that you don't even have to come up with a thousand tasks. Once the goal is clear, improvise and play it where it lies.

Did I already mention to progress slowly? There is no going back. If you expect the next day to be packed with urgent have-to-dos, schedule three lightweight items that reward your mind instead of stressing you even more.

A Variant

Sometimes it is hard to find three tasks for that one goal on a given day. This is where your other, non-priority goals come into play. You still have to do three tasks each day but you advance your secondary goals as well. This requires you to at least determine and tackle one task for your primary goal; allocate the remainder for that day to other should-be doings. This leaves you with still three important steps each day and one excuse less in case you lag behind your scheduling skills.

Summary

Commit to your resolution in writing and post it where you can see it.

Determine and remember your one goal. What should you be doing?
Schedule three to-dos every night. Easy or hard but three.
Yesterday's to-dos are not allowed to be finished today. If you didn't do it, it's gone, no matter how precious, important, or beautiful it was supposed to be. If it was that important, you'd better done it.

Labels: business, chutzpah, decisions, excellence, goals, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, motivation, persistence, personal+branding, resolutions, success

WOWOW: The Motion Mountain Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

Renaissance, polymath questions of the week, music lessons, free content, and free links.

How do objects and images move? How can animals move? What is motion? How does a rainbow form? Is levitation possible? Do time machines exist? What does 'quantum' mean? What is the maximum force value found in nature? Is 'empty space' really empty? Is the universe a set? Which problems in physics are still unsolved?

A free physics textbook that tells the story of how it became possible, after 2500 years of exploration, to answer such questions. The book is written for the curious: it is entertaining, surprising and challenging on every page. With little mathematics, starting from observations of everyday life, the text explores the most fascinating parts of mechanics, thermodynamics, special and general relativity, electrodynamics, quantum theory and modern attempts at unification. The essence of these fields is summarized in the most simple terms. For example, the text presents modern physics as consequence of the notions of minimum entropy, maximum speed, maximum force, minimum change of charge and minimum action.

Speaking of renaissance men --

Ten Things I Learned from Einstein

6. Where you are now doesn't predict where you will be in the future.

plus ...

10 Golden Lessons from Albert Einstein
9. You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.

Learn the rules of your game and start playing it best. Keep competing like your life depended on it. And after a while you will have no one else but you to compete against. At that point, better your best.

... gives us 20 Einstein nuggets to take note of.

WOW is about being extraordinary, or in Seth's words, remarkable. I'm still not ignoring the music industry --

Seth's Music Lessons

People pay a premium for a story, every time.

This isn't about having a great idea (it almost never is). The great ideas are out there, for free, on your neighborhood blog. Nope, this is about taking initiative and making things happen.

While we're here, it is the permission model again --

Free Without Exploitation

While your business model might depend on and benefit from giving away free information and ideas, it should never be free at the expense of your business. Your advice has value but only to the level you allow it.

Oh yeah... one more thing. The most stunning thing you can do these days is posting a link to some book on Amazon and omit your referer id. Yes. Linking to a book solely for the content.

The 48 Laws of Power. Choose one --

Law 3

Conceal your Intentions

Keep people off-balance and in the dark by never revealing the purpose behind your actions. If they have no clue what you are up to, they cannot prepare a defense. Guide them far enough down the wrong path, envelope them in enough smoke, and by the time they realize your intentions, it will be too late.

Law 17

Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability

Humans are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people's actions. Your predictability gives them a sense of control. Turn the tables: Be deliberately unpredictable. Behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off-balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves. Taken to an extreme, this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.

Press on. Happy weekend and do everything you can, whatever it takes.

Labels: 48+laws+of+power, albert+einstein, business, decisions, education, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, motion+mountain, music, personal+branding, polymath, renaissance, success

The Key to Successful Collaborations

edited by Alexander Becker

Combining your excellence with mine. The less overlap the better, though a minimum is helpful to facilitate communication.

Perfect collaborations consist of projects where each partner's excellence is required to finish the whole thing.

The outcome has to be a priority for each party involved. Have one give less than his or her best and you undermine the success of the whole project.

Your excellence is in mine and in your interest, as well as my excellence is in yours and mine alike.

So we need two ingredients, our best and a matching project that requires a combination of exactly those bests.

Delegation × Excellence

Are you the very best for the job? If yes, complete it. If no, find the best and delegate -- in fact, even if you do not find the best for the job right away, it is probably wise to delegate anyway.

So, is it a goal for everyone to do what they're best at?

Furthermore, is it a goal to deal with only the best ones in each respective field?

Imagine to have each and everyone only doing their best and interacting in exactly this one fashion.

What do you do best?

Labels: business, collaborations, delegation, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, project+management, success

WOWOW: The Death and Underachievement Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

Underachieving and resolutions and social objects and modest change. Let's see where we end up.

Discovering Personal Excellence

There is a difference between corporate and personal achievement. Of course, excellence is about working as good as you can, always and without excuses but the point here is that personal endeavours have to be committed to with at least a comparable amount of excellence.

There is no such thing as corporate passion. It is your personal thing. It is you who makes the dent in the universe, not your company. If it seems like it is the other way around, run. Make one yourself. A dent and a company, that is.

Resolutions

Death and Underachievement: A Guide to Happiness in Work by Ryan Norbauer pretty much sums it up --

But we'll deal in a moment with what to do with our newfound perspective; for now it's enough just to note the facts. And all the facts point to a universe that is utterly indifferent to your body-mass index, your latest promotion, or how well-organized your reference filing system is.

... and...

We do the best work we can, but we don't fret when we fail, nor do we jeopardize the quality of our work -- or the happiness of our days—by bowing to the pressure to take on more than we can handle.

... and...

As The Underachiever's Manifesto has it: striving is suffering. It is only by accepting the illusory nature of achievement that we can hope to transcend it. Would it be mawkish of me to invoke Steve Jobs?: our time is limited, so don't waste time living someone else's life.

... and...

There are also more sublunary and practical reasons why the pressure for extraordinary achievement is counterproductive. The diet that permits the occasional bucket of french fries is the one more likely to be adhered to, and the exercise regime that demands only a gentle stroll every day rather than a heart-pounding decathlon is the one more likely actually to be followed. Extreme expectations apply extreme stress and create extreme resistance and procrastination. In so doing, they undermine our ability to get anything we want. We forfeit perfectly serviceable rewards in the pursuit of enormous and unattainable ones.

Yes and no. Sure, Ryan is perfectly right, but even better to do the decathlon if you actually follow it.

... and...

The hard part of life is done: you are here and alive to read these words. As the Manifesto commands, stop worrying about being perfect. Dedicate yourself to the pleasures and benefits of mediocrity.

Social Objects

Hugh explains Social Objects for Beginners --

The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that "node" in the social network, is what we call the Social Object.

... where the social object is a "neutral third party", something that isn't part of neither mine nor your privacy. It is some safe haven. A clutch for you and me to hold onto until we think to know each other and start "connecting" for real.

... and he goes on with...

Why The "Social Object" is the Future of Marketing --

... She'll only talk about it if it serves as a Social Object. A "hook" to move the conversation along. A hook she can use it as a way to relate to her fellow human beings.

The trick to have people talk about you, then, is to become a social object. This makes it less interesting to talk to you, though.

Presence of Mind

Another one from 43f --

Beginning the Year with Fresh Starts & Modest Changes

Don't miss this little gem --

Have you ever put up with a squeaky door for years and then one day, for whatever reason, suddenly found yourself grabbing the WD-40 and lubricating that particular nuisance out of your life? I have, and I'm here to tell you, it's awesome. You actually stand there wondering why you never had the presence of mind to affect such an improvement -- ridiculously trivial though its solution may be.

Other than that, time does in fact matter, ask Steve Jobs.

Labels: business, death, decisions, hugh+macleod, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, social+objects, steve+jobs, success, time, underachievement

WOWOW: The Scissors Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

Please, quickly, we're almost there. Have a look at the last ones for this year. Just a glance and you're done.

The Secret to Winning at Rock, Paper, Scissors --

Research shows that stone, also called rock, is the most popular of the three possible moves in the game. That means that your opponent is likely to choose paper, because they will expect to you to start the game with stone. By going with scissors, you achieve an early victory.
How to Set Up a Portable Personal Nerve Center --

You can get the best of both worlds by setting up a web-based Personal Nerve Center (PNC) and making it ubiquitous and redundant so it's available from anywhere, even offline.
Charisma versus Innovation --

I wonder if there is a trend in blog reading that we like nicely packaged, un-challenging, charming blogs, just like the tabloid celebrity culture we are all familiar with.

Not for everybody.
Why Self Actualization Requires Exercise --

Maslow's advice is more applicable today than it ever has been. Maintaining our physical health is absolutely necessary to keep our journey towards self-actualization on a firm foundation. Make the investment in your physical health, and you will continually receive dividends throughout the other facets of your life.
Intelligence Redefined: Are You A Gifted Person?

In the process of lauding top scorers and scholarship winners we may be crowding out those who actually have advanced and complex patterns of development but just don't fit the system's definition of 'top students'.

Just make sure to have the one to asses be someone who is either absolutely intelligent (doesn't exist) or one who has completely overcome ego (wouldn't assess other's intelligence)...
Hack Yourself --

You can be happy. You can live the life you want to live. You can become the person you want to be. This is what I've figured out so far.

Hacking yourself? The following comes up every year or so, but still --
Drugs to Build up That Mental Muscle --

Despite the potential side effects, academics, classical musicians, corporate executives, students and even professional poker players have embraced the drugs to clarify their minds, improve their concentration or control their emotions.

That's it. It's over. Time flies. See you soon.

Labels: business, charisma, doping, intelligence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, maslow, personal+branding, success, wowow

Tales of Virtuosity: Excellence at its Best

edited by Alexander Becker

What moves you the most? What makes you believe? Hope? What makes you shiver?

Fundamentals, Virtuosity, and Mastery

Virtuosity is defined in gymnastics as "performing the common uncommonly well." Unlike risk and originality, virtuosity is elusive, supremely elusive. It is, however, readily recognized by audience as well as coach and athlete. But more importantly, more to my point, virtuosity is more than the requirement for that last tenth of a point; it is always the mark of true mastery (and of genius and beauty).

Grace

Seemingly effortless is leaving the possibility that we can help a little bit here and there. Is grace about moderation? Can we polarize even grace?

Seemingly effortless beauty or charm of movement, form, or proportion.

A characteristic or quality pleasing for its charm or refinement.

Virtuosity

Excellence. Absolute excellence in any given field. Virtuosity. I can't help but admire the signs of virtuosity. It's magic to me.

The legendary Kolisch Quartet had the singular distinction of playing its entire repertoire from memory, including the impossibly complex modern works of Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, and Berg. Eugene Lehner was the violinist for the quartet in the 1930s. Lehner's stories about their remarkable performances often included a hair-raising moment when one player or another had a memory slip. Although he relished the rapport that developed between them without the encumbrance of a music stand, he admits there was hardly a concert in which some mistake did not mar the performance. The alertness, presence. and attention required of the players in every performance is hard to fathom, but in one concert an event occured that surpassed their ordinary brinkmanship.

In the middle of the slow movement of Beethoven's String Quartet op. 95,just before his big solo, Lehner suddenly had an inexplicable memory lapse, in a place where his memory had never failed him before. He literally blacked out. But the audience heard Opus 95 as it was meant to be played, the viola solo sounding in all its richness. Even the first violinist, Rudolph Kolisch, and cellist, Bennar Heifetz, both with their eyes closed and deeply absorbed in the music, were unaware that Lehner had dropped out. The second violinist, Felix Khuner, was playing Lehner's melody, coming in without missing a beat at the viola's designated entrance, teh notes perfectly in tune and voiced like a viola on an instrument tuned a fifth higher. Lehner was stunned, and offstage after the performance asked Khuner how he could have possibly known to play. Khuner answered with a shrug: I could see that your finger was poised over the wrong string, so I knew you must have forgotten what came next.

From The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.

Always look for tales of excellence, moments of excellence. Examples of virtuosity ignite and create sparks of inspiration like nothing else.

Art is man's expression of his joy in labor. --Henry A. Kissinger

Virtuosity is excellence at its best. Virtuosity doesn't need to be advertised nor marketed. It is obvious and only needs to be seen to be recognized as what it is. No need to brag, no need to bring out the stats, just show what you can and it will be evident.

Humility

While virtuosity is the highest form of excellence, what about chutzpah taken to the extreme? How's eccentricity as an elaborate form of high-end chutzpah? Again, at some point there is no need for audacity anymore. It is obvious then that what may look like audacity to some is just the way it works. That, in fact, is humility.

To conclude, interestingly, both virtuosity and giga-chutzpah find their ultimate superlative in the unexpected -- humility. Humility is what ultimately remains and is a significant, characteristic marker of the truly best there is.

Awe. Hair-raising.

Labels: audacity, business, chutzpah, decisions, excellence, grace, humility, kolisch+quartet, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, success, virtuosity

WOWOW: The Kids Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

Square watermelons this week, a bunch of nested lists, the what and the where, and something for the kids, from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates -- no, not the fisticuffs...

Brainstorming

... discovering blog topics, yes, but even more, following your excellence works this same exact way --
The Reverse-Process Technique of Discovering Blog Topics --

Have a good think about the activities and events in your own routine, what can you find that gets results, sets you apart, or might be interesting then drill right down. Think from the point of view of a curious prospect and you might be surprised how many topic ideas you can think of!
Also, compare mindmaps here and there, where Hundreds of Post Ideas for Your Blog create the luxury of selecting the best and most appropriate ones --

The key when you do it is to let your creativity run wild (because it can take you in some wonderful directions) but then to be ruthless in culling ideas that don't actually add anything to your blog. Remember - everything that you post on your blog either adds to or takes away from your blog's perceived value - so not everything that you come up with should make it through to the front page of your blog.
Ultimately, make sure to keep it in check: Master Your Muse and Multiply Your Blogging Effectiveness
Square Watermelon Problem Solving is one more instance of the common uncommon --

Been there, done that: Believe it or not, your problem has most likely been encountered by others. This could be other companies, other departments within your company, even the guy sitting next you right now. Seek out those that have had similar issues and study their response. You shouldn't necessarily mimic what others have done, but clearly there is something to be said for taking an idea and customizing it so that it solves your problem.
... with a mention of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving), which 40 principles I happen to use, printed on small index cards --
Two basic principles in TRIZ maintain that:
1. Somebody, someplace, has already solved your problem or one similar to it. Creativity means finding that solution and adapting it to the current problem.
2. Don't accept compromises. Eliminate them.

Knowledge Units

Speaking of already solved problems: Google to Wikipedia: "Knol" thine enemy --

The system is called "Knol" -- which refers to a "knowledge unit" -- and it will let anyone create, edit, and profit from creating a page packed with information on a specific topic.

What to do and How

Triple Your Productivity Tomorrow on a --

Project-Kill Day. This is a day where I am at my most productive state. I set aside large amounts of time to kill off the projects on my to-do list and get ahead. I've found, if you plan it properly, you can make tomorrow up to 3 times as productive as ordinary days.
From the Duh-department, but still --

Provide Context for Better Ubiquitous Capture

If it's worth capturing, it's worth capturing well, so take the extra couple seconds to remind yourself what the hell you were thinking about.

Where to Get and How

Should You Write a Personal Mission Statement?

Absolutely --

Your personal mission statement should be a concise representation of what's most important to you, what you desire to focus on, what you want to achieve, and, ultimately, who you want to become. In its purest form, it's an approach to your life, one that allows you to identify a focus of energy, creativity, and vision in living a life in support of your inner-most beliefs and values.

[...]

A great personal mission statement is one that inspires you, motivates you, and offers you the opportunity for continued happiness and fulfillment.

Making you look even better.
While we're here --

Achieving Your Dream: How to Take the First Step
Don't --
- Wait until the situation is perfect.
- Wait until other people agree with you.
- Wait until your skill is good.
Do --
- Believe in your dream.
- Visualize your dream.
- Expect a hard way ahead.
- Take one bite at a time.
In other words: Baby steps are still all the rage -- la rage, that is........
Tony Soprano's Top 11 Tips for Success

Three out of eleven --
- The smartest route isn't always the easiest one -- in most cases there will be multiple paths to obtaining your goals. Instead of going with the easy route, you need to go with the smart route.
- Think things over -- if you are angry or desperate you probably start acting based off your instincts in hopes of satisfying your feelings. Instead of acting on things right away, start thinking things over because then you will be able to act based on logic instead of on feelings.
- Don't show off -- there is nothing wrong with buying nice things every once in a while but don't buy something just to show off. Although attention is good, if you are someone worth knowing sooner or later people will get to know you. People who just show off draw too much attention and in many cases are hated by others due to jealousy.
Why I Started Punching Jerks Again

Is there a chance that we would have fewer AK-47-toting high schoolers if it were socially acceptable to take of a glove, slap it across an offender's face, and issue the good 'ol Sir, you have insulted my honor challenge? I think a little fisticuffs would do most men a world of good, giving options to the masses who put up with too much, consequences to loudmouthed idiots who would then think twice, and a release valve to a gender that otherwise comes up with far worse things to do to men, women, wives, and children.

Don't miss the comments. Very insightful and they prove the point. Either point.

Do what is right. You decide.

Kids Corner

5 Signs That You Have Settled --

So all this begs the question: what do I do if I have settled? As Steve Jobs said in the same speech: if you haven't found it yet, keep looking... As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
Bill Gates: The skills you need to succeed --
- A solid working knowledge of productivity software and other IT tools has become a basic foundation for success in virtually any career.
- Beyond that, however, I don't think you can overemphasize the importance of having a good background in maths and science.
- Communication skills and the ability to work well with different types of people are very important too.

Don't settle.

Labels: bill+gates, business, decisions, excellence, fisticuffs, kids, knol, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, mindmapping, mission, personal+branding, purpose, steve+jobs, success, triz, wowow

Integrate Life, The Renaissance Way

edited by Alexander Becker

Integrate everything with everything else. Circles of peers and friends, knowledge, skills.

Integrate all planes of life. Short-circuit your output and discover and follow universal principles.

The Renaissance Spirit

When someone is called a Renaissance Man today, it is meant that he does not just have broad interests or a superficial knowledge of several fields, but better that his knowledge is rather profound, and often that he also has proficiency or accomplishment in (at least some of) these fields, and in some cases even at a level comparable to the proficiency or the accomplishments of an expert.

Historically (roughly 1450–1600) it represented a person who endeavored to develop his capacities as fully as possible (Britannica, "Renaissance Man") both mentally and physically. Being an accomplished athlete was considered integral and not separate from education and learning of the highest order.

It seems to be important to make a distinction between the true reanaissance man and the so called "Jack of all trades" whose knowledge is merely superficial and doesn't stand the tests. Achieving proficiency is -- despite an often cited information overload -- still possible with the intelligent application of the principles of learning and triage, for example.

Leonardo da Vinci

A scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician, poet and writer, Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the "Renaissance man" or universal genius, a man whose seemingly infinite curiosity was equalled only by his powers of invention. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most diversely talented person ever to have lived.

Infinite curiosity

Strive for an olympic gold medal competing in decathlon and a nobel prize in science, for example. It's not about the actual medal or the nobel prize as rewards or recognition. It is the ability, the knowledge, and the excellence to get there. Be a scientist and an athlete.

Integration

The synthesis of knowledge is combining completely different fields, nourishing one another and generating ever escalating output. Creativity is a collateral of universal curiosity. You start to see connections all over the place, drawing conclusions will be inevitable and an endless set of stairs building on top of one another is your reward.

Integrate it all, make it personal, even more so, mix personal and business, it's not a no-no if you really want it...

I don't do it -- not often enough, not on all planes -- and I know that you don't integrate everything either. But just in case you wonder, that's the exact reason for things to fail or to not work out perfectly as intended.

Integrate everything with everything else. Only then can you start to divide and rule.

Labels: business, creativity, decisions, integration, leonardo+da+vinci, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, polymath, renaissance, success, universal

WOWOW: The Social Media Edition [Links of the Week]

edited by Alexander Becker

This week comes in loose categories, check out Sandy, branding, and protein tips, the best anabolic agent, fear, laziness and laser-like focus, and finally the blogging vs. social networking debate.

Business

The Elements Of A Personal Brand

Be Yourself: In the world of the Internet, with "me too" applications abound, branding is often superfluous, if everyone just figures you're just like someone else.
Be Yourself and Make it Personal.
I Want Sandy and so do you --

Sandy, please crawl this page and remind us to actually read the included links... @recommendations

Exercises

How To Make Exercise More Fun Than Sex, really!
How To Easily Get 1g/Lbs Protein Daily To Build Muscle
The Ten Commandments

Two out of ten --

3. The best anabolic is water.

4. Did you eat breakfast? If not, don't ask me anything about nutrition.

Motivation

Check out Inquiringmind Magazine and their beautiful picture on the start page.
The 5 Myths Of Positive Mental Attitude
The Long Day by Geoff Thompson, who concludes his guest post on dealing with fear with --

Just because I am the man that wrote the words it doesn't mean that I am a man that doesn't need to reads the words again.
11 Tips For Nuking Laziness Without Becoming A Workaholic

Productive rest, as in --

Keep Work and Play Separate. Although I'm not perfect in application, I strive to follow the "work hard, play hard" mantra. This means that when you allocate time for working on big projects, you focus entirely on that for a set period of time. The time you have remaining is yours to use however you like. This removes the guilt during rest periods and urge to procrastinate during work periods.
6 Simple Steps To Achieve Laser-Like Focus
WOW: Quotes on Excellence and Chutzpah

Social Media

Blogging Is Dead? According To Whom?
Also: Blogging vs Social Networking

I was offered a job through my blog....

I have 9000 'friends' at facebook and myspace....

I used to know most of my readers by name and knew that they all knew mine - even though there were only 200 a day....

I know a lot more people see my profile on facebook - but most of them just are hunting for friend bait....

I used to spend hours writing things that meant something on my blog....

I now spend hours updating people on the lattes I drink and people I meet on Twitter....

I had a brand of my own on and on my own property on my blog....

I now have a brand on someone else's property....
And: Are You Someone's User-Generated Content?
While: Marketing is NOT Social Media-Social Media is NOT Marketing.
Finally: Give Me Some Love

While there's no substitute for a warm smile, firm handshake and face-to-face conversation, social networking sites such as Facebook can be useful tools for building relationships. They are great for finding and reconnecting with friends -- and they give you easy access to all their friends.

... just make sure to keep it real, real world that is -- as opposed to collecting xx-thousands of "friends", friend-bait, where the add-to part is all there is to it.

Keep it real, be yourself, and make it personal.

Labels: blogging, brian+clark, business, darren+rowse, fear, fitness, focus, hugh+macleod, keith+ferrazzi, laziness, lifehacks, lifestyle, linking, personal+branding, protein, sandy, success, wowow

Opinionated? Hell Yeah!

edited by Alexander Becker

Chris Garrett asks whether your blog -- or mine, for that matter -- is opinionated.

The answer is of course, hell yeah, is my blog opinionated!

Let me give you an example: Chris Shugart at Testosterone Nation has that Phoenix Theory, where from its own ashes, the fiery bird is reborn. --

The failure — the person who hasn't begun properly and hasn't set himself on fire — will find plenty of reasons to avoid the tough exercises and rationalize laziness.

The phoenix — the angry person who has burned away all his previous excuses — will get mad at himself for slacking. He'll remind himself that he must earn his post-workout drink, and if he needs to, he'll slap himself across the face until he feels like getting into the squat rack.

Think I'm kidding? This is how truly successful people push themselves. They're not hand-holders; they're ass-kickers... even if it's their own ass that needs kicking. They drive themselves, and usually not with positive affirmations.

While the theory sounds familiar and I definitely subscribe to it, the opinionated part is yet to come. Here goes --

Phoenix Theory goes against what most hand-holding motivational "gurus" preach. But I'm not a motivational guru; I'm an experimenter and an observer. I'm not interested in what works in corny "personal growth" books; I'm interested in what works in real life, in the field. And what works in the real world isn't always pretty. But the results are.

That is pretty much the point where some ways have to part. Call it Elite, Machiavellian, Utilitarian, Biblical, even Cold-blooded, or Insane, I call it Excellence X Chutzpah, and it is always based on higher principles. I am always here to make you look good, whatever it takes.

It is not for everybody. While everybody is invited to try, some are here to stay. That is my opinion.

Labels: bible, business, chutzpah, decisions, elite, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, machiavelli, marketing, opinion, personal+branding, rant, success, testosterone, wow-bits

Get Anything You Want by Allowing Mutual Blackmailability

edited by Alexander Becker

What do the concepts of mutual blackmailability, guaranteed mutual destruction or mutually assured destruction, compound interest, and reciprocity have in common?

Mutually Assured Destruction

Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the very same weapons. The strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium, in which both sides are attempting to avoid their worst possible outcome -- nuclear annihilation.

Intriguing, isn't it? Let's see what we can learn from the application -- or the non-application -- of a strategic doctrine.

What at first sounds like a hack from the dark side, turns out to be the way it works on either side, day in, day out.

Compond Self-Interest

Here's the deal: I tell you my dirty secrets and you tell me yours. Then we ask one another for help on both our ways to the top. That's the power of compound self-interest.

Compound interest, on one hand, is about interest which is added to the original principal. New interest is then calculated, not only on the principal, but also on the interest that has been added. Compound self-interest, on the other hand, is generated, the more the ties between the participants are strengthened, that is to say, the more they know and can possibly and potentially reveal about each other.

Mutual Blackmailability

It's a question of chutzpah: How much does it take to practically invite someone to blackmail you?

Get to know your business partners beyond business and corporate structures, boundaries, and limitations. Share your weaknesses and you are going to share and enjoy your mutual sucesses even more. For one part bragging, add another part blackmailability -- potential humiliation. Trade as much of the latter as possible -- the more you invest, the more you receive in return -- and get anywhere you ever dreamed to be. And beyond.

By now, you probably think something along the lines of: Funny, how my personal network, at least the part which bears real fruits, is built on these same, exact principles.... Me too. It's not only a strategic doctrine but it seems to be some kind of unwritten social rule. Everyone protects their investment. By everyone trying to avoid the worst possible outcome, new worlds are built.

Reciprocity

The trick is not to threaten with annihilation but instead to actively ask for help. Since rejection is not an option, favors are almost automatically granted and returned -- reciprocity is implicit and guaranteed.

Here is the golden rule of reciprocity --

... thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Leviticus 19:18

The key ingredient to reciprocity is to make people care about you. How? Have them invest their very reputation. Why would anyone do this? Give them an incentive. Your reputation.

Now, tell me some more about yourself...

Labels: blackmail, business, chutzpah, compound+interest, decisions, doctrine, investment, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, networking, reciprocity, reputation, strategies, success, the+dark+side

The Dilettante Way

edited by Alexander Becker

The dilettante way starts with ignorance is bliss.

Naivete, paired with unfounded optimism and complete ignorance, often helps here.

Remember: sometimes not knowing what you're doing is an advantage.

Do something that no one else, no one in the know would even consider, because it doesn't work. Well, since you don't know that it doesn't work, you can just do it and succeed because your initial ignorance makes room for a positive outcome. The impossible becomes possible when you don't realize, accept, or admit that it's impossible in the first place...

The dilettante is one lacking the required professional skill and ease in a particular pursuit: an amateur, a dabbler, a nonprofessional, a smatterer, an uninitiate.

There are many who'd better stop writing, playing, singing, creating, ... or so it seems. There are many who lack the required skill for their profession, yet, they get better, everyday, better and better, going all the way from dilettante to excellence.

No matter how bad you start, you eventually get better -- as long as you don't stop and don't quit. The key is initial output.

What about talent or the lack thereof --

... to be successful, you must play to your strength. Each of us has different talents/strengths due to differences in character, personalities or inclinations. If your talents don't complement your pursues, then you will have to work doubly hard to achieve the same results that others do; you're handicapped right from the start.

Is talent sufficient then? Dilettante and talent are not mutually exclusive. You can have all the talent in the world and still fail in your particular field because -- you lack the skill. But guess what? That skill, however elusive, will eventually come to you. Through practice and failure. By way of doing vs. not doing. To just do it gives you a head start. Just do it and start to practice and gather invaluable experience instantly.

You will get better. That's inevitable.

Labels: business, decisions, dilettante, excellence, ignorance, just+do+it, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, practice, skill, success, talent

Knowledge is King: How to Spot The Fake

edited by Alexander Becker

Not everybody knows more than you do.

Some don't know, don't even try, yet they pretend to know, while others don't know, do try, eventually succeed -- or even fail -- and finally do know.

Without knowledge, skill cannot be focused. Without skill, strength cannot be brought to bear, and without strength, knowledge may not be applied. -- Alexander the Great's Chief Physican

Real knowledge is king. I know, I know, applied knowledge is king but right now, let's focus on real knowledge vs. semi- or pseudo- or pretending-to-be-knowledge. Fake knowledge makes fake kings.

Exactly because knowledge is king, there are many who want you to believe they are king.

Whenever someone appears or pretends to be in the know, think twice before giving him or her expert credit and credentials. Consider these ways to authenticate the authority of an expert --

Define your own, specific questions and insist on specific answers. A true expert contemplates your question, while the fake often slightly alters your question to match his partial knowledge. The difference is inthe depth and specifity of the answer.
Check for an honest I don't know in response to a question that isn't answerable. Your fraudulent expert wouldn't admit.
Check for ego. If ego and knowledge of the expert in question seem inseparable, be careful, for he defends the limits of his knowledge with his very life.
Challenge them to show instead of tell -- that's the easiest way.

Try to question the expert under four eyes or, if you feel comfortable, do your testing in public or at least among others who will -- most often and surprisingly -- not recognize the fraud.

Finally, it's always interesting to observe how little knowledge is necessary to survive and even thrive. Look around your professional competition. There are many who know much less than you do. Make the most of your true knowledge and claim your particular throne.

One more thing -- you too: Show, don't tell, because this is what makes the difference between real knowledge and fake knowledge. Make sure to apply and thus effortlessly show your knowledge. Also make sure not to show off either.

That kind of knowledge is king.

Labels: business, decisions, fake, fraud, how+to, knowledge, knowledge+is+king, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, stussy, success

Common Sense: Friend or Foe?

edited by Alexander Becker

If there is one enemy to what we're trying to do here it is common sense.

Really? Attacking common sense? Isn't common sense an ideal to strive for, something you attain at some point in life? Isn't common sense even a sign of maturity?

Let's see what we've got --

Common sense is sound judgement not based on specialized knowledge; native good judgement. That which is believed to be knowledge held by people "in common".

Common sense is a good starting point, nothing more and nothing less either.

There really is nothing negative about common sense. It's just that there isn't anything special about it either. Common sense is the lowest common denominator. It is the average. And that's the issue.

On the other hand --

Common sense is judgement without reflection, shared by an entire class, an entire nation, or the entire human race. --Giambattista Vico

Judgement without reflection is a shortcut with judgement ultimately substituting experience. Short-circuiting common sense itself creates actual experiences.

WOW, that is so -- common sense... Ever hear that? No?

Extraordinary and common sense are mutually exclusive. The antonym is insanity, if you get my drift... Don't worry, not that kind of insanity.

So what are we going to do about it? Ignoring the enemy?

Ignoring common sense in the absense of something better? Half-knowledge and intellectual weakness is the result of ignoring common sense. Don't let common sense replace education, instead replace common sense with original experience.

Here is the problem --

Common sense is part of the home-made ideology of those who have been deprived of fundamental learning, of those who have been kept ignorant. This ideology is compounded from different sources: items that have survived from religion, items of empirical knowledge, items of protective skepticism, items culled for comfort from the superficial learning that is supplied. But the point is that common sense can never teach itself, can never advance beyond its own limits, for as soon as the lack of fundamental learning has been made good, all items become questionable and the whole function of common sense is destroyed. Common sense can only exist as a category insofar as it can be distinguished from the spirit of inquiry, from philosophy. --John Berger

You first have to master the rule -- master common sense -- in order to intelligently and successfully break it.

This obviously, does not imply to ignore common sense, quite the opposite is indicated and the way to go. Study common sense, master it and be aware of it, all the time, for it is changing and evolving the same way -- though not necessarily in the same direction -- you are evolving.

There is no substitute for common sense except for the lessons you draw from going against it. Common sense itself is a substitute for experience. Again, the key is to closely follow the common in common sense, only to do the exact opposite and replace common assumptions with real experiences.

Do not abandon common sense but instead become highly aware of it and approach it from the other side, fight it from the inside, if you want to.

Do not rebel unreflectedly and against everything. Look through the common and determine uncommon sense instead.

The trick is to not --

Resist and defy a generally accepted convention.

... but instead to turn the convention upside down, not for the sake of rebelling but for the sake of doing the uncommon in order to create original experiences.

Make use of common sense as a temporary placeholder to be filled with your own experience, it is neither friend, nor foe.

It is the individual against the common. You cannot really collaborate and fight together against common sense. Joining forces means, implies, and requires defining common ground, a mutual understanding, it means determining the lowest common denominator. See above.

Set yourself apart from common and bring out your individual best -- without anything common.

Labels: business, common+sense, decisions, experience, extraordinary, insanity, inspiration, judgement, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, motivation, personal+branding, personal+development, rebel, success

Inside or Out?

edited by Alexander Becker

It is as simple as that.

"In" means dealing with people, real people, real characters and "out" means dealing with situations, seeing problems where there is no real human interaction yet.

Abstract is the natural enemy of "in".

Just as making it personal makes it more successful in the end, it gets you "in", and that's the place to be. Inside. The place where you are you. The only place that really exists.

Come inside. We're among friends here. That's the place to be in any interaction. Come inside and then, only then, show me what you've got. I'm not listening to you from the outside.

The real magic happens inside, only inside. Magic happens between people. Real people. Ultimately, you have to come inside to meet people.

The key is personal interaction. Inside-inside. There is no successful outside-to-inside communication possible. Once you think it is, it has become inside-inside.

Life happens on a personal level.

Labels: business, decisions, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, socializing, success

Spreading vs. Selling Ideas

edited by Alexander Becker

Too many geniuses still wonder why their ideas won't spread.

Obviously, it bears repeating --

Do you want to spread an idea or do you want to establish a business and make money? That's an either/or decision to boot. You will end up doing both but you are not going to skip this first decision.

Spreading ideas and making money are not mutually exclusive, it's just that ideas are more suited to being spread than sold.

So you package that idea, make it into a product and sell it. Try to sell it, that is. The problem? Packaging the idea however beautiful, making it into as many products possible, doesn't actually spread that idea. There is no shortcut.

An amount of money, any amount, is just another barrier to spreading your idea. While this is nothing new, why then, are you still trying to sell your ideas?

Is fear still stronger than desire?

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats.

Howard Aiken

Even more, I'd rather worry about nobody being interested in stealing my idea -- as an artist, my #1 concern would be to get my music, films, &c. on the filesharing networks. Again, nothing new, but why, then, are you nowhere to be found?

Intellectual property is the ownership or origination of an idea and not the possession and fierce defense of every tangible and intangible digital representation or copy of your idea on the internet, on DVD, or even on paper.

Spread your idea, whatever it takes, and make money, no matter how, but do not confuse the two.

Labels: business, copyright, failure, filesharing, ideas, intellectual+property, marketing, motivation, success, wow, wow-bits

Hesitation: Do Anyway or Do Not?

edited by Alexander Becker

When in doubt, don't vs. Do exactly what you hesitate doing.

There are two possible causes for hesitation. The one where you hesitate because you doubt the outcome and on the other hand the kind of hesitation where you are not sure about the way to tackle your job.

The way is, once started, easily adjustable, but only when started. When the destination, the goal, is clear and you truly stand behind it, the actual way to achieve it is nothing to worry about.

The outcome, in contrast, determines the way. If and when you hesitate, once you do hesitate, when the outcome is not desirable, when it feels like "it's not worth the effort," you can just as well leave it altogether. Don't even start.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity. --William Hazlitt

Similarly, if something doesn't work the exact way you expect it -- leave it alone.

This is not blindly subscribing to fate, quite the opposite, the mere notion that something "shouldn't be" is enough to taint your commitment and it practically guarantees sub-optimal results. In which case, you can't do your best and -- just as well do nothing at all.

One more reason to do instead of pondering doing or not --

Live that moment as fast as you can and fill it with as much life as possible. Do not live it as if it was the last one, live it as if it was the only one.

In other words, if it feels like a chore, if effortlessly isn't the best way to describe what you're up to, if procrastination is even an issue, please don't bother and step back, for others might just love doing what you so -- don't.

When you're clear and positive about the outcome, do -- push through hesitation, whatever it takes and the way will pave itself for you. When you don't even know where to go, let alone like where you're going to be, when you ever so silently resist or reject the outcome, don't -- give in to hesitation, stay where you are and find another goal worth the effort.

Determine which kind of hesitation you deal with, then decide about doing anyway or not doing at all.

Labels: business, decisions, doubt, hesitation, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, motivation, personal+branding, procrastination, success

Play It Where It Lies

edited by Alexander Becker

Plan or play?

Do you think he plans it all out or just makes it up as he goes along?

Have an overall, yet general plan and comfortably own any situation.

What may look like outrageous chutzpah is most of the time spontaneous action taken on the spot, at the exact right time. It's like Columbus' egg: Everybody could have done it -- but they didn't. That, by the way is the genesis of conspiracy theories. Was it planned all the way through to the end or is a sequence of events being taken advantage of by someone just doing it?

Playing it where it lies does not necessarily imply to conceal your intentions. You can make it even more elegant, seize an opportunity, lightning-fast, the very moment it emerges. The right timing makes your action appear planned and thought through. Knowing what it is you want, you can act boldly yet spontaneously, as long as the opportunity in question is remotely compatible with your big picture view. Once you're sure about the big picture, you can play almost everything and immediately, seemingly without even thinking. Start playing while everyone else is busy pondering doubts and mistaking hesitation for an elaborate form of planning.

Have a rough plan, if any; play it where it lies, with everything you've got; and have everybody admire your apparently delicate plan as you make up the details when the situations unfold.

Labels: audacity, business, decisions, discipline, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, motivation, opportunities, personal+branding, planning, success

Opportunities in Strict vs. Loose Scheduling

edited by Alexander Becker

Laying out daily schedules in 15-minute increments enables you to run on autopilot; even so much that taking advantage of anything unscheduled is all but impossible.

For those who are overwhelmed by a schedule, and would like to take a more open approach, I suggest minimalist time management.

Me too.

Whether you schedule strict times and tight frames determines your ability to encounter and embrace opportunities emerging along the way.

How many interesting things, creative hooks, and potential successes piled up in order to be forgotten and later purged, ironically handled for a second time only to be discarded since their best before dates had long expired.

[...]

Instead, your missed opportunities are, from now on, conscious decisions to not participate.

Obviously, an understanding of what's exactly important to you is somewhat of a requirement in either strict or loose scheduling of your time.

Sometimes, more often than not, momentum builds up over short periods of time, momentum that, when directed properly, would lead to huge changes, dreams fulfilled, and goals met rather unexpectedly.

Ignoring momentum, any momentum, makes you stumble and trip since the impact is there, whether you intend to make use of it or not.

What do you do with unplanned input, circumstances, surprises, developments? You have to stay on track, right?

The trick is -- of course -- to not only dealing with urgent matter but, spontaneous, ad-hoc, taking care of important ideas which show up now and then, according to your excellence and more or less disguised.

Schedule the big and the really important stuff but make sure to leave room to juggle whatever comes to your mind in between the fixed appointments. Don't even make explicit appointments with yourself, just make enough loose time to enjoy yourself, cherishing the moments as they come.

For example, do not schedule off-days but instead schedule the on-days and take, maybe, one day off for every three days on. It doesn't have to be 3-1 though, you can just as well decide to go 6-2, or 3-2-3, that's loose scheduling, getting your important stuff done plus having a great time.

Think dynamic weekends. You cannot efficiently schedule the exact dates for when you need rest, be it from business or from training. You can however, determine the ratio of work to rest and decide to rest spontaneously, upon exhaustion, ideally, shortly before.

Embrace your opportunities instead of your schedule. Avoid using your schedule as an excuse to yourself. Do not set fixed times and try to fill in the spots with actions. Determine what you want to do, then sort through it and find out when to do it. Keep your day open.

Labels: business, decisions, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, momentum, opportunities, personal+branding, productivity, schedule, success, time-management

Make Time Stand Still

edited by Alexander Becker

When I say I make time stand still for you -- and I will -- it's not intended to be romantic in any way -- not necessarily though -- instead, it's a matter of showing basic respect to you.

Make time stand still in any conversation. It is mere politeness to take some time, enough time.

Let's focus on the bad news as the candidate which will benefit the most from a concept such as slow cheerfulness.

Even and especially a No can be communicated with adequate time and the fact that you're in a hurry is no valid reason to rush that often painful No. Take your time and make mine stand still for as long as it takes.

Make a negative answer just as much a display of your excellence as the action you cannot deliver. Stand behind your No and communicate it cheerfully.

Ever so slow and ever so cheerfully.

Labels: business, cheerfulness, communication, conversation, decisions, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, politeness, success, time, time+management

Now, Seriously

edited by Alexander Becker

What did you really do today, to advance your cause?

Apply each and every shortcut, all the tricks, the mindgames, and the hacks when you need them, not when you're leisurely floating, but when it really matters, that's what it's all about.

Imagine and look forward to the dramatic boost in productivity, for example, that you'll experience once you not merely gather and store all the information but eventually apply everything you know now.

Actually using the most elaborate devices invented to make you even tread water full of passion and purpose makes all the difference.

Think turning things around, tackle the bad stuff; instead of simply improving what's already there and good.

The trick and the art is, to hack your life when the spirits are low and when the stakes are high, not when everything's en rose.

One more thing: All or nothing doesn't apply here. Not here. Not this time. Do anything but move. Now.

Labels: business, decisions, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, success

Polarize Your Peers

edited by Alexander Becker

What if everyone liked your style?

Personal branding, personal marketing, singing your song, is not about striving to seduce everyone. Try to seduce anyone and you're on your way.

Tell them that and how you're the greatest musician, voice, actor, the greatest you that has ever been and some will love you and others will not love you.

Offer them their own emotions.

Some will get it and some won't. The important thing is it. Get it out.

It is not enough that your closest friends think you're crazy. Make sure everybody knows. Those who understand do understand and those who don't wouldn't have understood ever.

Do not show off your crazy mind on each and every inappropriate occasion, reserve your chutzpah and your strange ways of seeing the world and dealing with things for the goal you are really after.

That's the WOW you're after. WOW is a direct result and a function of exposure. Don't think so? Try it without exposure.

As long as everybody likes you and your idea, -- that's impossible, by definition -- you can tell that you're not there yet.

You act merely as a catalysator for the people who look up to you.

Please note that this is not about winning vs. losing friends. It's not about friends at all. This is about You. Your peers and their reflections are mere indicators for your progress.

Now go and tell everyone and see what I mean.

Ultimately, your success is indicated by the number and the ratio of people, not understanding and not loving your idea. It's not about polarizing your self but instead, the essence of your idea which polarizes any audience.

Measure your success by the number of people, even friends, you alienate with your idea.

Labels: business, decisions, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, peer+pressure, personal+branding, polarization, style, success

Be Productive or The Law of Specificity

edited by Alexander Becker

In chemistry, specificity is --

The selective reactivity that occurs between substances, such as between an antigen and its corresponding antibody.

Processes and methods that are more specific have more impact than general tools and strategies. What works in business is not supposed to be applicable in leisure or education, even more specific, what works in my business like a charm isn't necessarily guaranteed to work in your business at all.

An antigen and its corresponding antibody, that's the key here. Some concepts just don't match while others -- sometimes and with some people -- match squarely. You are only as productive as you are and you most likely improve within your own realm. That said, most tips will -- if anything -- only initiate an improvement that you are responsible for yourself.

Over on lifehack.org, Dustin Wax dicusses the five productivity ideas he's not buying (yet?)

The body of work on productivity, life-work balance, and personal achievement sits uncomfortably -- perhaps perilously -- close to the genre of “self-help”.

I agree. I agree wholeheartedly. Here are the five examined points --

Mind mapping.

The 80/20 Rule.

The power of Brand You.

Making productivity a habit.

Visualizing success.

Mind mapping? It works for people who would work this way anyway. If you never draw ideas then there's a good chance that mind mapping isn't for you. It certainly isn't for me either.

The power of Brand You. It works if you're so inclined -- it won't work for everybody but for those in need and with a corresponding personality, it works wonders.

The 80/20 rule. Obviously it's ridiculous to examine projects and calculate percentages -- but the concept is certainly valuable and at least inspires people to think.

A question is whether --

... it [is] possible to increase this small number of high-performing causes while at the same time decreasing the relatively high number of underperformers?

Now, take a look at the opposite --

In order to increase the quality of your work, you have to increase your output in quantity.

It's a matter of reflection and analysis, ever so short of the proverbial paralysis. I don't think that any recipe or laid out how-to hack whatever part of your mind does indeed work as advertised or prescribed. Instead, it's the one spark contained in one article out of hundreds, the one way out of the dozens of X ways to do Y written in almost robot-like staccato all over the place with hardly enough resources to finish yesterday's 25 ways with today's 50 ways already waiting to get socially bookmarked and overwritten by tomorrow's -- hey it's sunday, let's present the 100 ways of non-productivity and hope that nobody notices that ... don't worry, nobody does ever notice the dupes, because of severe how-to overload.

By the way, making productivity a habit is a great example of a concept devoid of any meaning at all. Isn't productivity being productive in the first place? The short form of this truly revolutionary concept is to be productive -- wow. I mean WOW.

This is Zen. I love Zen.

Who's the intended audience of the content-avalanche, anyway? (I use the term content in its most generic form and not for the lack of a better word here.)

The desperate need for serious help is directly anti-proportional to the willingness to accept it and follow even basic recommendations. People become help- and advice resistant when they need it the most.

The rant is over now. Thank you for your patience. Have a great weekend and when it's over, make sure to be productive again.

Labels: business, decisions, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, productivity, rant, success, wow-bits, zen

Are Your Goals Mutually Exclusive?

edited by Alexander Becker

What are your training objectives? The question highlights the problem. The next one is harder: What is your training objective?

You want peak performance, beauty, aesthetic body composition with minimal fat and maximum muscle, superior mental sharpness, raw strength and endurance and speed. Overall health and longevity. Me too.

While those objectives aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, by trying to achieve all these goals simultaneously, you will end up achieving nothing more than average, lowest common demoninator results inspired by too broad objectives and lack of priority.

Peak performance in what activity exactly? Minimal fat and maximum muscle mass, an ideal for looks, may not be the best foundation for raw strength; more overall mass and, yes, bodyfat, will yield more strength.

So at the very high end of the scale -- and we're talking about nothing else here -- it is less fat vs. more strength.

Endurance and speed? Choose one. The two are completely different animals. After establishing a foundation training both endurance and speed you must decide which one to pursue even further.

Aesthetic and healthy? Sure it's possible but it quickly becomes a compromise; there are various tricks involving water and salt for example that will make you look even better yet, from the perspective of best health and longevity you'll want to leave the tricks alone and eat in moderation, light and balanced.

Again, the high end decision, even leaner, -- mind you, this is true perfectionism -- is between extreme beauty vs. optimum health.

Set priorities and determine the pros and cons of the goals in the big picture. You can always have it all today and pay later, the question is: Is it worth it?

What about drugs? What exactly do you want and how bad? Certain drugs will make you look better in the short term. Certain other drugs will increase you concentration and decrease your need for sleep while making you more alert -- for a short time. If it's necessary, make a decision.

The more clear your priorities are, the more mutually exclusive the various objectives become. You're not going to be #1 in every game. On the other hand, you can be #1 in any game.

Choose your game, pay the price, and win.

Labels: beauty, business, decisions, doping, elite, exercises, fitness, goals, health, lifehacks, lifestyle, longevity, marketing, personal+branding, strength, success, training

Be Yourself Without Making it an Excuse

edited by Alexander Becker

Be yourself and be the best you can be.

I was just being myself is supposed to be a declaration of excellence and no excuse or explanation for mediocrity.

You are absolutely beautiful being everything you can be, on the other hand, trying to be beautiful like someone else makes you, by default, less beautiful. In fact, it makes you ugly.

Being yourself does not mean to get lazy or to stop trying. Being yourself is excelling at what you think is that which you are best at. Being yourself is not letting go of everything. Being your worst is not being yourself. By definition, being your best is.

Ultimately, do not be yourself for him or for her, instead and most importantly, be yourself for your self.

Do not insult the people you're with, do not insult yourself with a mediocre performance just because we're among friends here -- we are among friends, but even more so, do not disrespect your friends' realm. Everyone deserves your best. Not just the few you really want to impress. Your excellence is calculated across all your actions, some select peak performances may improve your overall score but in the end, everything counts.

Understatement is a form of speech in which a lesser expression is used than what would be expected.

Understatement is a function of humility and pride, it is not pretending to be average. On the other hand, your understatement could very well be mistaken for arrogance. Make sure to always combine understatement with eventual over-delivery of your performance.

Play with expectations, but never let go of your excellence.

Labels: arrogance, beauty, business, decisions, excellence, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, performance, personal+branding, personal+development, rant, success, understatement

Don't Ask Why: It's Overrated

edited by Alexander Becker

How doesn't help either, try whether instead.

Why instead of what. Why not. Perceiving instead of judging.

You asked before: Why? Because I can, maybe because I have to but it doesn't get any better than that.

As for the why, well, I prefer to not always ask. If ever, it is best answered with "why not" -- describing instead of interpreting, perceiving instead of analyzing, yet please note that, and that's the key, all of this is beyond analysis. We're not stopping short of thorough analysis here, instead, we're transcending the analytical interpretation to make our informed perception on top of that.

Why? Because I can. Isn't that enough?

You don't ask why and I don't ask how... maybe we change that to you don't ask how and I don't ask why. What do you think?

What about how? What's the problem with how anyway?

Conceptionally, how represents doubts. Either you want to achieve your goal or you don't. How is not relevant and will ultimately be solved. Much more pressing is whether you really want it. If the answer is yes, the how doesn't really matter just as the why is long done and is not going to help anymore.

Whether is about the difference it makes. Does it make a difference? To you? Maybe it makes one for me.

Please note that obviously, how does solve specific tangible, practical problems, however, more often than not, decisions are diluted when how is asked. Ignore the details when conceiving.

Don't get me wrong, details are important, it's just a matter of the right timing for the details and the big picture respectively.

Perceiving instead of judging is an elaborate concept and it surely helps effectivity, efficiency and productivity of all sorts. On the other hand, there will be a time where judging does have its legitimate place. Once you know exactly where you stand, you are more than capable, you are competent enough to judge.

When judging becomes knowing, when knowing is judging, then and only then will why matter again: Because I know.

Labels: business, decisions, inspiration, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, perception, personal+branding, success, yoga

Make it Personal

edited by Alexander Becker

Sometimes, things just won't take off. Great ideas, but still --

It's not personal. It's strictly business.

Yeah right. What if that's exactly the problem? Make it personal.

The solution is to inject some -- or some more -- personality. You're still not required to identify yourself with your idea but make it yours, at least.

Whatever it is, it's a product of a very personal idea. Once detached from its original personality it is hard to reattach an idea to its emotions. However, since your idea will die from too clean an abstraction anyway, it will be worth that one last try.

Obviously, continuously maintaining the connection between your personality and your idea is the objective here. By creating personal bonds between your idea and yourself, between yourself, your idea, and your audience, your sparks will eventually ignite the fire.

Expose in detail --

What and how do you feel?
Why is your idea so important?

Share your personality with me. Tell me and I'll buy it. Your idea, that is.

One last thing. Make it deeply and genuinely personal, anything that even remotely spells superficial won't suffice, in fact, superficiality will cost you your very idea.

Labels: business, decisions, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, success, the+godfather, wow-bits

Pay What You Owe

edited by Alexander Becker

Everyone has to pay what they owe.

Whether you pay first and receive later or you receive first and pay later, one thing is for sure: You're going to pay, no matter what.

Please review the suggested protocol, which is obviously not set in stone --

What? Know what you want.
That. Accept that you have to pay a price.
How much? Determine its exact value for you.
Really? Determine whether the price is worth paying.
Close. Pay and receive or vice versa.

You wouldn't walk into a store, ask for something, and just take it with you without paying. You want something, you give something in exchange. You want more, you give more. How much is it worth paying for? How badly do you want it? Of course, the more you want it, the more you're prepared to pay. If it's worth having, isn't it worth paying for?

What about bargaining? Isn't bargaining a sign of less wanting within the pay-for-what-you-want sense?

Bargaining is a type of negotiation in which the buyer and seller of a good or service dispute the price which will be paid and the exact nature of the transaction that will take place, and eventually come to an agreement.

Referring to #3 of the above outlined protocol, you determine the exact value for you. Ultimately, you bargain exclusively with yourself.

Negotiate solely with yourself and know that and what you are going to pay.

You want it all, I know, but don't you want it all, only to avoid making a decision in favor of the definite outcome, the one thing you really want?

Now, pay and receive.

A simple negation, yet, a quality of its own: Do not pay what you do not owe. Very simple indeed but you and only you decide what it is and how much of it you really owe.

Labels: acceptance, bargaining, business, decisions, negotiations, personal+branding, personal+development, rant, reputation, success

Two Ways of Owning a Law

edited by Alexander Becker

The surprising difference between accepting a law and breaking it.

There are laws for almost everything. And I am not talking about jurisdiction here. Not the social and societal restrictions and determinations of governmental authorities.

Yet -- can every rule be bent and every law be broken?

In science, there are a specific number of established scientific laws, or physical laws as they are sometimes called, that are considered absolute and inarguable facts of the physical world. Laws of science may, however, be disproved if new facts or evidence arise to contradict them. A "law" differs from those as hypotheses, theories, postulates, and principles, etc., in that a law is a general statement about nature that is considered proven beyond doubt.

The laws of nature?

The phrase Law of Nature has several meanings:

It can refer to a scientific generalization based upon empirical observation, i.e., a physical law.

It can refer any number of doctrines in moral, political and legal theory, also called natural law.

The second law of thermodynamics --

The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.

The law of excluded middle --

The law of the excluded middle states that every proposition is either true or false.

Newton's first law: law of inertia --

An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external and unbalanced force. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an external and unbalanced force.

Finally, what about laws, named after people in general?

Social and societal restrictions can be bent and broken, laws of nature, laws that by definition do not provide exceptions or exemptions, are best accepted and not directly fought against. Not even resisted.

OK, enough common sense, this is the idea: Two ways to make history --

The one who discovers a law of nature gets his name tied to it;
The one who discovers that -- a physical law in particular -- can be bent or broken, gains immortality.

The former is a mere observer while the latter successfully resisted a law of nature. Obviously, the law in question becomes void and obsolete. Now, choose between the latter and the former's experience.

Change the rules and make them yours. Bend them until they break. Any rule that can be broken is worthless anyway. As a rule at least.

Labels: acceptance, business, chutzpah, common+sense, inspiration, law, resistance, wow-bits

Uniqueness and Branding

edited by Alexander Becker

What applies to blog marketing holds true for personal branding as well. And vice versa; and vice versa...

Chris Garrett -- the friendly marketing geek (see, it works, Chris) -- points out the value of uniqueness. He gives examples and hints on how to discover your own uniqueness for marketing-your-blog purposes which collaterally reinforce your overall personal brand --

People could argue that it is unlikely you will find something absolutely, unquestionably, uniquely you, which is fine! You just need something different enough.

Different enough works, but then, the moment you are eventually different enough, going all the way works even more. I understand the key in making an ever so small difference. Nonetheless, defending and fortifying that difference must become your job and one of your top priorities. Make that difference yours and completely own it and expand it relentlessly.

The important thing is, do you know your uniqueness? Can you tell me in a sentence? If not, better get working!

Until you know that, you are useless. (Which movie is this?)

Finding that uniqueness may sound difficult in theory, yet in practice, it's astonishingly easy, once you follow your excellence --

Do only what you are good at. Even more, of the things you are good at, select those which you are best at. Spend as much time as possible working and applying your set of core skills.

Delegate as much as possible of everything which does not fall into your core competency.

Just make sure to delegate wisely --

Intelligent delegation is not getting your job done by someone lower down in your corporate hierarchy. Instead, intelligent, smart delegation is finding the right person for the right task at the right time.

Please note that the brand is built on top of uniqueness -- and not vice versa.

Labels: branding, business, delegation, excellence, marketing, personal+branding, success, wow, wow-bits

Anti-Hero of the Day: The Constantly Whining Business Man

edited by Alexander Becker

When determining the best isn't worth the effort or the options are few and written about over and over, it's helpful to consider the other end of the spectrum.

In other words: Let's look at the negative to get a glance of the positive.

Three possible reasons explain -- not justify -- why a business man would constantly complain about his particular business and for good measure, about the economy as a whole --

To convince his vendors and suppliers to drop their prices;
To prevent his employees from asking for higher wages;
To express his ignorance and that he really doesn't know what he's doing.

Now, it's possible to get your vendors to offer better deals without whining. That is called negotiating. And while the art of negotiation certainly includes acting and pretending to be whining, it's not required and it doesn't have to become the state of mind of the constantly negotiating negotiator. The art of negotiation is related to the art of war; ask Sun Tzu.

Next, how is it perceived to whine when a No is too hard -- for you? You whine as an excuse? Instead of an excuse? Also, employees who are denied the money they deserve plus having to endure the whining are double likely to eventually leave.

In the end, the always whining business man is probably ignorant and incompetent. It's a matter of honor to stop complaining, otherwise quitting is an option to consider -- for vendors, employees, and ultimately, for the poor man himself.

Labels: art+of+war, business, leadership, motivation, negotiations, personal+branding, rant, success, wow, wow-bits

Develop in Public, Refine Later

edited by Alexander Becker

Do something, do anything. Everything you ever do is always under construction. Everything is work in progress.

Why not publish your new website under its working title on a makeshift domain? Not having decided about the final name and title is not an excuse.

Develop in public, redirect and refine later. It works not only with domain names, website content, or actual product prototypes. To get started, nothing works better than output. Publish, release, deliver, make something real and let the customer, recipient, beneficiary, have at it.

In fact, that's what the scientific method is all about --

The scientific method relies on the hypothesis. What's more intuitive than an initial hypothesis? Everything follows the scientific method, after all.

Determine a goal, make a plan, follow the plan, evaluate, improve the plan, follow, evaluate, ... is there anything which or anyone who doesn't work this way?

Scientific researchers propose specific hypotheses as explanations of natural phenomena, and design experimental studies that test these predictions for accuracy. These steps are repeated in order to make increasingly dependable predictions of future results. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry serve to bind more specific hypotheses together in a coherent structure. This in turn aids in the formation of new hypotheses, as well as in placing groups of specific hypotheses into a broader context of understanding.

Setting up a hypothesis, testing it and replacing it with a better one. If real progress is involved, is there any one thing which works differently in the first place?

What about starting from scratch? Without a hypothesis?

Sometimes -- and only sometimes -- you have to start all new, start all over from scratch and tear everything which already is, down.

Where exactly does the act of creation take place... Is it the letting go? Is it the pristine ground?

It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.

Let's pretend to lose everything and examine the difference it makes -- compared to adhering to structures, conventions, and rules of existing systems.

That, in part, is the beauty of remixing: You start from scratch without holding on to any weights from previous structures yet you make use of the best parts of what's already manifested.

Thus, the act of remixing in public, recombining elements which are already tested and trusted, is a virtually guaranteed way to successfully create something more than the sum of its parts. Every subsequent remix will be better and better than its ancestors, hypothesis is being built on top of hypothesis.

The key is initial output.

Labels: analysis+paralysis, business, decisions, goals, gtd, lifehacks, personal+branding, productivity, remix, scientific+method, wow, wow-bits

Review: The Dip by Seth Godin

edited by Alexander Becker

The best in the world.

Never quit something with great long-term potential just because you can't deal with the stress of the moment. (The Dip)

Seth Godin of Purple Cow and Squidoo and Seth Godin fame once again adds some required reading to your list (and mine). The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick).

A book mentioning its typefaces in the imprint has my full attention, Janson Text with Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk, not just as a designer. A small, perfect bound book with nice paper and Hugh's drawings. That alone makes it the best book in the world -- at this exact time, at this very place, between and among the laser-printed, spiral-bound manuals and ebooks -- one of the few real books of the moment.

Seth says being the best in the world is seriously underrated. Being the best in the world is hip again.

The best in the world. I wonder how many people actually do quit -- recognizing and quitting their personal cul-de-sacs (or culs-de-sac?). I'm sure there are many who follow the recognizing part and even some who consider the quitting itself. Case in point, it's the Dip in action: scarcity and the value created by scarcity.

I wonder how many people actually do quit, the question proves Seth's every point, the best in the world is not exactly about doing what everybody else is doing. Common sense is counterproductive here.

The Dip sets up the best in the world vs. moderation --

... take a look at extreme moderation which seems to be a contradiction in terms. You can exaggerate everything, just apply the concept of excess to the idea of moderation.

I still feel the urge to take moderation to the extreme... (WOW)

Moderation is common sense, where common determines the exact amount of moderation -- average. Everything else is extraordinary -- and therefore worth pursuing.

The best in the world goes against the Pareto principle --

80% of the consequences stem from 20% of the causes. It is usually implied and recommended to focus on the 20% since this is where the return on investment originates. In our eternal quest for optimization, let's take a look at the dark side, the apparently unnecessary, the 80% of causes as determined by the Pareto principle. What about those non-vital many? (WOW)

The Dip is the remaining 20% of consequences. The Pareto principle boosts productivity and works like magic in average settings, but, to conquer the Dip, you have to go all the way. 100%.

Here is the Dip in the context of Zero-based thinking --

Apply reversed zero-based thinking: Knowing what you know now, would you again get out of that situation? What could have changed your decision? (WOW)

Obviously, realizing that the cul-de-sac was actually a Dip should have changed your decision.

To sum it up, the idea of leaning into the Dip and coming out the best in the world is taking us beyond moderation, certainly beyond the 80/20 principle, and in a way beyond zero-based thinking -- dip or dead-end is a rather binary decision. Yet, I can relate to that best in the world thing a lot. It instills a certain hunger, and hunger doesn't know about cul-de-sacs.

The concept of sticking with strategies and abandoning tactics is particularly useful. It takes the guesswork out of motivation issues, shortcomings, and temporary failures.

The one missing ingredient is talent. The problem is that talent doesn't play any role. Maybe it's a lack of talent when quitting is the best you can do. Maybe -- in the end -- talent is what makes you the best in the world and prevents you from quitting when it just starts to hurt a little.

The Dip is a definite recommendation, stuff to read, live and quit through.

Now, get your name on that list already.

Labels: books, business, decisions, lifehacks, marketing, personal+branding, personal+development, quitting, recommendation, review, seth+godin, the+dip, wow, wow-bits

What do People Love About You?

edited by Alexander Becker

This post is part of The Foundations of Your Personal Brand Series.

Burn the business plan and write a book instead, suggests bypassing the production of an always, almost instantly obsolete business plan in favor of a book that you can still sell, even in case the business fails.

The article is an interesting read, especially in the context of the added value of long tail versions of online content and its appearance in ebooks, for example. Yet, the inspiration came with questions making it into books, more specifically, I stumbled across one simple question, What do customers love about your product? My answer is equally simple, yet it defines everything I do: My customers love that I make them look good. Discretely. I work behind the scenes to make them look good.

For now, no book-instead-of-a-plan but a short manifesto to frame the purpose --

Making You Look Good

That's all I've ever done and all I ever will. Not that you don't look good in the first place -- the opposite is true -- I will make you look even better. Who wouldn't want to look better, especially when given an exact plan and the means to do it. Why not? On the other hand -- why? The answer is exceedingly simple... because I can. Well, I have to.

Technically, I make you look good -- conceptually, I make you look even better.

That's my business and my job, whatever I do, be it technical advice, or conceptual consulting, I am here to make you look good, better, the best you can be. As far as I -- and you, for that matter -- are prepared to go. To me, this means whatever it takes -- why not go all the way if it is almost paved -- but ultimately, you decide.

I make you look good and you make yourself be seen. How about that?

Looking good, of course refers to more than visual beauty. Looking good you can on stage to be sure, but you can also do so in marketing, in politics, in a debate, in writing, and in talking, sometimes you can even look good, best that is, in absence. Opportunities to look good are always and all over the place.

Working from scratch? No. That's pure creation, while, on the other hand, making you look even better is refining and uncovering the divine. I'm not adding anything which is not already there, instead, I bring it out. Think marble and the sculpture hidden within. Nothing more and nothing less.

Little work could be done to discover the smallest hint, implying a whole world of change to you, or, on the other hand, immensely hard work could be invested, only to emerge the slightest bit wiser. It is worth the effort in either case.

The beauty of making you look good is that it is an iterative process, it doesn't matter how small the first step -- by definition and comparison, you'll look even better.

Labels: beauty, business, confession, excellence, inspiration, lifehacks, marketing, motivation, personal+branding, pitch, wow

WOWOW: Spring Cleaning, Donations, and a Discount for You

edited by Alexander Becker

So you prepare yourself for summer and take a look at what you've got to keep and at what you've got to loose. STOP. Look again. I've done it myself and while I didn't intend to get rid of any more excess fat, I found something else, the connection between fitness, productivity, and fatloss --

By now, I'm sure you know. Typos. While some points may only be loosely connected, you still lose your change, you plan losing weight so your clothes will be loose. Even if you don't manage to get rid of the winter weight, consider yourself no loser and most definitely no looser. Just make sure to not lose yourself -- then again, why not?

All puns aside, while doing some spring cleaning on the site, I found some instances of loose instead of lose. While I am cured for now, this seems to be a common issue, problems losing weight that is.

After reviewing Brian Kim's take on The Secret to Think and Grow Rich, I have arranged a special deal for you. You get a 20% discount off the book, plus 3 free bonuses -- The orginal Think And Grow Rich in pdf-format, a special report, about The Three Biggest Mistakes People Make With The Hidden Secret, and a workbook you can use to apply the Hidden Secret.

Make sure to check it out and benefit from this great offer as long as it lasts.

When offering free content and providing often free advice, people keep asking about the business model and the means to make money with all that comes for free. This website is an extension of real world consulting -- paid and unpaid -- work. To cover the costs of running this site, I experiment with ads and -- upon request, I am, from now on, accepting donations, your contribution surely helps with producing high-quality content. Any amount is appreciated.

Let me use this opportunity to thank you for your continuous support and your success stories that help me hone the tools to get you to ever higher peaks of achievement.

As for the production of content, please watch this space for some upcoming eBooks.

With spring cleaning done and the holidays behind us, let's get back to excellence in business and beyond.

Labels: business, commentary, consulting, discount, donations, ebook, lifehacks, linking+park, marketing, napoleon+hill, review, spring+cleaning, typos, wow, wowow

Defining Unknown Variables

edited by Alexander Becker

Let's take a look at the unknown and find a way to not only make it known, but even more, make it our very own.

As long as you don't know the content of a variable, you can safely assume the most favorable one to match your expectations. Sure, you can always assume the worst in order to have the eventual outcome exceed you expectations but what for?

What's the point in calculating with minimum positives and maximum negatives other than smaller rewards? Of course, you also minimize frustration, but at the same time, you keep the potential gains in check as well. You can easily maximize your results by fixing the unknowns on the positive side.

Think communication. As long as you cannot be sure about an answer, you can as well assert that it is positive. Pretend the outcome to be good and it will be at least -- better.

You don't know the answer? Even less, the answer is likely to be negative but isn't yet expressed? It is your chutzpah to assume and define the most positive reply possible. Thank your correspondent for their understanding and their help and move on. Build on top of that extorted outcome and everything down the road will be tangible and legitimate in its consequences.

In short, once you inquire, do not waste time waiting for a reply, instead, act as if the answer was already received -- positively.

... expecting more than others think is possible...

Expecting more, ultimately leads to more. This is one of the attributes of excellence. The self-fulfilling prophesy is about stating outcomes and determining variables, thus paving the paths for least resistance. A preconceived outcome is easier to realize than any alternative simply because the alternatives aren't made up yet. The more detailed your assumed variable, the closer to manifestation it is; it's just the easiest way possible, laid out, predigested, and formulated.

When comparing the definite with the indefinite, the definite prevails because it just is. It is closer to being. Shape your dream and make it as definite as you can, for realization is just that.

Labels: action, business, chutzpah, excellence, expectations, inspiration, lifehacks, motivation, negotiations, outcomes, personal+branding, productivity, self-fulfilling+prophesy, success, variables, wow

Assess and Improve Your Trends

edited by Alexander Becker

Now that you measure your data regularly, it's time to analyze and see if we can derive some meaningful information from the amassed figures...

Measure and compare your key data over time. Compare your financial data, weight, health, ... recognize and determine the trends and make sure that each trend goes in a -- meaningfully -- positive direction.

Everything you do or are responsible for is measurable and comparable. To keep things going or to bring things back on the right track, make sure to monitor and -- if desirable -- change trends that are possible to monitor and observe with little effort. You need at least five measurements over time and, sometimes after eliminating the extremes, you can read a general direction of progress. Do not go crazy about spikes and weird, single instances, it is the general trend that we're after.

Getting better, staying the same, and getting worse. There are only three general, observable directions for any given, measurable, progression. By the way, in order to avoid the trap of interpreting stagnating figures as positive inactivity, try to always get on a track of -- ever so slightly -- increasing quality.

Look at your weight, three years ago, last year, six months ago, today: Is it staying the same? Congratulations. Your net worth. This should go up. Is it increasing over the course of the key dates measured? What about inflation? Do not forget to normalize your results.

Determine a number of key indicators and monitor them religiously, set goals to improve each one of them, ad infinitum. There is no need to stop making progress once a certain amount of growth is achieved. Do not settle for a perfect figure. The only perfect figure is the next, better one. Continue and go on and on.

Labels: accounting, business, discipline, fitness, lifehacks, lifestyle, measurement, personal+development, productivity, progress, tracking, trends

Follow Your Excellence

edited by Alexander Becker

Do only what you are good at. Even more, of the things you are good at, select those which you are best at. Spend as much time as possible working and applying your set of core skills.

Persuade the people you work with of the enormous increase in efficiency if everyone was doing what they excel at. We are talking orders of magnitude here, even without exaggeration. The advantages almost present themselves: Incidentally, you work fast and most accurate when challenged at your level of expertise. In fact, the work you dismiss as too easy or as not challenging enough is not lesser work -- for you it is even harder than the most difficult jobs within your area of comfort.

Delegate as much as possible of everything which does not fall into your core competency. It is not that you are too beautiful for any job, instead you are too busy accomplishing what only you can do, and what only you can do best.

Install and ruthlessly defend flexible hierarchies of competence, wherever you are, for he who knows best or most is the boss -- this particular time, in his particular field. The result is dynamic leadership with true, original leaders, the capacities of their respective fields.

Do what you are really good at. Delegate everything else. Outsource even the most basic tasks, actions, and processes as long as it helps you and frees time and resources to explore your excellence.

Identify and analyze your stumbling blocks, the tasks where you always tend to procrastinate. This is not about overcoming procrastination, it is about eliminating the cause of procrastination once and for all. Tasks that make you procrastinate are the primary candidates for delegation and outsourcing. Tasks that feel even remotely annoying are likely to be delegated. Focus on your core skills and automatically get rid of procrastination.

How many hours do you spend each day applying your most valuable talent? Two hours? Three? One? You work in the business of your choice, you create a dream job for yourself. Increase the number of excellence hours only slightly and compare your results after a while.

When you feel like you don't even need sleep anymore, you are following your talent most appropriately.

Labels: business, competency, delegation, excellence, gtd, leadership, lifestyle, marketing, motivation, outsourcing, personal+branding, procrastination, productivity, sleep, talent

The Secret of Building a Strong Reputation

edited by Alexander Becker

This post is part of The Foundations of Your Personal Brand Series.

Your business depends on your integrity while your integrity depends on delivering what you promise.

Consider two scenarios. You sense that the new client brings some great business. The first job needs to be completed as soon as possible and you want it to get the follow-up business.

You estimate how long the job takes, you project a completion time that sounds good and acceptable to the client but you know is probably impossible to achieve.
You do not estimate but instead you convince the client that his job will be treated as a priority and will be taken care of with all the resources you have. You immediately start working on the job and you get back to the client as soon as you know the time frame for definitive completion.

Scenario #1 is based on your belief that the client is off to the competition if the production time seems to conflict with his own projection or deadline. This is fear-based thinking and you end up apologizing (see below).

Scenario #2 is the way to go. It is your job to communicate that you are the best to get the task done without getting into specifics that will eventually turn out suicidal for your business -- having to deliver on your word despite the fact that everything has changed but the client's mind and expectations. Avoid the trap of running after your own word.

Your clients and customers take your vague estimates and treat them as promises. It's the only thing they have, after all. Whatever you state, you give your word. Whatever you say, guess, or estimate, make it as accurate as possible or avoid saying anything at all. Do not give any numbers or time frames before getting acquainted with all the required information.

When stating production or delivery times, it is almost always preferable to generously pad the time needed. Do not over-promise only to prevent the customer from asking the competition for a quote. You will have to apologize to a client you only gained with promising too much only to have him later, unable to leave, wait for your services to complete. You will apologize to a client who won't bring you any more business.

State accurate times and amounts, to the best of your knowledge, not according to your hopes or fears, even when the services rendered are taking longer than the client expected. Educate your customers about production times and requirements and have them base their estimates and expectations on the newly gained knowledge.

Your client's deadline is your client's deadline. If you know you won't be on time, immediately communicate this. Make a plan to get as much done as possible, try to help your client with his deadline but never promise the impossible. A client who knows that you do everything to meet his deadline will be your grateful client.

Compete with vigor, compete fairly, honestly, and trustworthy. Always under-promise and over-deliver.

Labels: accountability, acquisition, business, competition, estimates, excellence, how+to, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, motivation, personal+branding, productivity, reputation, responsibility, wow

Autopilot and the Advantages of Flying by Yourself

edited by Alexander Becker

You can work either creatively or you can work reactively, closely following a fixed plan that doesn't allow too many deviations in order to get fulfilled.

Once a basic system is up and running, working on autopilot, pursuing one laid out path according to preset instructions and requirements, seems to be the way to go. Grinding away at the work that shows up is the perfect application for the autopilot, you could substitute a robot for your labor, and that's exactly the problem.

The required and expended mind power depends on the phase of the project you're in. In the planning and developing stages of any project, you obviously don't want to give up control or flow nor would you want to bypass your own brain.

Pragmatical exceptions are of course settings which are worth the effort in terms of fast results, for example. Mindless, robot-like work is the way to go to get things done effectively, for short, discrete periods of time that is. Don't ever feel -- nor dare to express -- that you are too good for any kind of work.

Working on autopilot robs you of any emerging, synchronous incubation tracks which would offer themselves spontaneously if you were consciously present and fully alert, working as if you'd still be enthusiastically conceiving.

You can use the fact that you feel yourself like working on autopilot as an indicator that you have to change something about your system. You work on quantity instead of quality, on stuff instead of making any real progress. It's like moving laterally on a ladder. You are exploring the width of the field while it would be so much more rewarding to move up, step by step, and leave the lateral field-scanning to the robots.

Your autopilot is not a creator. You are. Using the human mind and its power to run like a, however complex, machine is a tremendous waste of resources, it's overkill.

Setting up, programming, and training the autopilot is an exciting task only to have it up and running on its own without your continual input needed. Just make sure to not program yourself to become the autopilot.

Fly by yourself. You are no robot.

Labels: autopilot, business, discipline, marketing, personal+branding, personal+development, productivity, quality, robots, success, willpower, work, wow

Employ Your Instincts Against Overtraining and Burnout

edited by Alexander Becker

Plato has Phaedrus say: You will soon break the bow if you keep it always stretched.

When the initial motivation is extremely high or the external and internal, personal expectations are too demanding, often physical and mental burnout are observable. What is happening in management can be compared to a similar phenomenon in sports: overtraining, plateaus, physical burnout, and fatigue are the results of the triumph of will over sensibility. The cure against burnout and overtraining is very simple: stop immediately and rest.

Excessive training, trying too hard, or monotonous routines that don't challenge the mind or body lead to overtraining syndrome with symptoms that are hard to recognize and differentiate from mere temporary exhaustion or psychological causes instead of effects.

Overtraining may lead to training plateaus, the body cannot catch up regenerating itself and gets stuck on a mid-level that is achievable without adequate rest. Overtraining is the result of weeks or months of wrong training, you're not going to burnout after a couple of days or some high intensity training.

An effective strategy to avoid and to prevent overtraining is to listen to your body's needs and its instincts. It's all too easy to override pain in order to achieve the next promising and potentially rewarding goal. The body as well as the mind need rest. Growth and improvement take place while not training, while at rest, between workouts and after work. Hard work is definitely necessary but the moment it becomes mindless it is a sure sign of becoming insensible and therefore against nature's requirements.

It is vitally important for eventual success to balance and level the eagerness in the beginning and focus on maintaining the discipline through the initial motivation and the lows and the highs and the plateaus.

Consciously relax and release all the tension from time to time. Make no exercise a dedicated exercise and count the non-reps, e.g. try to statically hold nothing for the intended duration. This special exercise is the only exercise that let's you grow while still working on it...

The same holds true for corporate executives: rest consciously without working at all. Schedule an amount of time where you absolutely do not work. Consciously dedicate this time to not working at all. As a side effect, you will notice how, perhaps unexpectedly, your productivity will go up. Your energies will replenish and you will gain new clarity.

Enjoy every moment of your recovery, as much as you enjoyed, with all your heart, work until crashing.

Labels: business, discipline, fitness, health, instincts, overtraining, personal+development, plateaus, recovery, sports, training, willpower, wow, wow-test

Succeed through Synchronizing Your Behavior

edited by Alexander Becker

Behave, when you are alone, exactly the same way you behave on the big stage. Avoid splitting your personality.

Will it be harder to adapt your stage personality to everyday life or to try and maintain the everyday personality and translate it to the big screen?

Imagine preparing your food the way you present yourself in public... you do that already? Now imagine a public appearance reflecting the way you relax inside the safety of your home...

Synchronize your public and private sets of behavior and you'll notice a more peaceful life, a life that is more centered and with less opportunities for inner conflict expressing itself as anger, accident-proneness, or simply self-propelling, ever perpetuating stress.

You split your behavioral routines, forced to act very disciplined throughout your public day with rules and guidelines for even the simplest of actions. Acting out the opposite side of behavior when finally being alone is a very comfortable form of compensation.

You may find some peculiar manners within your repertoire of expression that are apparently not suitable for the world. You may also find that your public appearance is somewhat inhibited and for certain reasons you feel that some traits of your inner personality are not congruent with your public image.

There are great opportunities in matching public and private expressions. Opportunities for growth, for overcoming inhibitions, and for building higher self-esteem. Do you ever wonder why success in certain areas of your life seems to be so hard to achieve? Release that fear of being recognized, uncovered, and discovered the way you really are, because everybody is able to see the real you right now, regardless of how you behave.

Do you still dance in solitude? Come out of the closet already. The streets are waiting for you, dancing...

Labels: acting, audacity, behavior, business, how+to, inhibition, inspiration, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, motivation, personal+branding, personal+development, reality, showbiz, stage, success, tips, wow

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