WOW: Multiply Excellence and Chutzpah

WOWOW: The Inspiration Edition [Links of the Week]

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

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

Developing Your Style

edited by Alexander Becker

What does style have to do with insanity?

Isn't style doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results? Of course, Einstein meant to define insanity, but doing the same thing over and over again, creating different results indeed leaves you and your biographers with some kind of a long line, a red thread, a bigger picture of you. Style.

Also, what's insanity without style anyway?

So what's the secret of style? Repetition. As long as you fear repeating yourself, you are experiencing one cycle. Maybe it is the first, the initial one. Embrace repetition once a cycle is over. Style, your style, is born when you revisit your cycles.

You wrote a hundred songs? Painted a hundred walls?

Do it again. And again. And again. Repetition changes. Your job is to sharpen your profile which enables others to eventually recognize style.

Bounce everything off of everything else. Galvanize the results. Revisit, reconsider and contextualize until you find a common theme, that red thread, the residue of your idea.

What's left over is your style.

Labels: albert+einstein, context, decisions, ideation, inspiration, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, style, success

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

How Context Creates Meaning

edited by Alexander Becker

The sky is blue.

What a surprise. Is it news? It depends. Great if you know and can see the sky and the blue. What if you never ever caught a glimpse of the sky, color notwithstanding? Then, it becomes news and the most interesting thing in the world.

A claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device.

Being reminded of the self-evident, under appropriate conditions -- in the right context -- is often priceless. The most commonplace information becomes special when applied, or ignored, at its appropriate moment.

Some people are said to be always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being wrong just once is enough.

What about actually being the right one, in the right place, at the right time? What's the point? Isn't it true that --

you're always the right one,
there's is always a right place,
and the time is always right?

It's perfectly true, but to get started, attempt to combine only two of the rights; meeting two conditions at once is hard enough. The right one in the right place, but at the wrong time -- one second too late is sufficient -- isn't any better than no one at all. Miss the right time by as short as one second and don't bother to show up at all. The right one at exactly the right time in the wrong place? You get the idea.

The trick is to meet the three conditions at once. This, you can't fake, by definition. On the other hand, to top it, you have to do it again. And again.

Either it fits together or it doesn't.

Within the right context, even the trivia and the truism become breaking news.

I'm not telling you anything new. I'm not telling you anything you didn't already know. But what I am telling you makes sense, now, at that exact time, in this exact place, for you, for the right one. And only for you.

Within your very context, it makes sense or it doesn't. But just in case it does indeed make sense, just imagine, wouldn't it make perfect sense? Wouldn't it create meaning?

The sky is blue.

Labels: communication, decisions, inspiration, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, personal+branding, repetition, success, truism

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

How to Legally Apply The Rules of Con: Guy Ritchie's Revolver

edited by Alexander Becker

This post is part of The Subjective Reality Series.

You can only get smarter by playing a smarter opponent.

In 2005, Guy Ritchie made an extraordinary movie that's apparently not recognized for what it is. Here is the plot summary from IMDb --

Jake Green is a hotshot gambler, long on audacity and short on common sense. He's rarely allowed to play in any casino because he is a winner. Jake has taken in so much money over the years, he is the only client of his accountant and older brother Billy. One night, Jake, Billy and their other brother Joe are invited to sit in on a private game, where Jake is expected to lose to Dorothy Macha, a crime boss and local casino owner who can't play for squat, but always wins because people are too scared to beat him. Jake isn't afraid of Macha, and not only beats Dorothy in a quick game of chance, but takes every possible opportunity to insult the man. Jake and his brothers leave the game, and Macha puts out the order for a hit on Jake, who ends up working for and being protected by a pair of brothers, Avi and Zach, who are out to take Macha down.

Let's take a look beyond the plot and see what the characters say, who is who, and what is what. You obviously need to see the movie before reading the comments, in fact, they may appear to make even less sense than the film itself but once you've seen the film, everything will be fine. Really.

Spoiler warning

What is so fascinating about the rules of con -- besides the fact that they do apply to all of us? Without exception.

To be clear, this is not about teaching you the rules of confidence tricks in order to con other people. Quite the opposite; take a look at how you (in)advertently con yourself and make it work for you instead of having it work against you.

Prison

Jake Green after leaving prison --

One thing I've learned in the last seven years: in every game and con there's always an opponent, and there's always a victim. The trick is to know when you're the latter, so you can become the former.

The quotes that accompany the chapters of the movie --

The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you would ever look. --Julius Cesar; 75 BC

What about the mind itself, right behind fear?

The only way to get smarter is by playing a smarter opponent. --Fundamentals of Chess; 1885

Who's your ultimate opponent? You.

First rule of business, protect your investment. --Etiquette of the Banker; 1775

Protect your belief?

There is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy. --Niccolo Machiavelli; 1502

To save the ego?

Jake Green, upon deciding against taking the elevator, which he fears --

Why should a man do, what he doesn't like to do?

Dorothy Macha

Dorothy Macha, meeting Jake on the gambling table --

What's in it for me?

Dorothy Macha, trying to evoke fear in Jake.

You're a man who needs a master.

Liberation from Macha?

Jake Green, while winning the game of chance against Macha.

Purple, between blue and white on the color spectrum.

Jake's intuition

On his way out, Jake's got a hunch, he encounters his intuition which has gotten reinforced after Jake's winning the game of chance against Macha. Jake decides to act against intuition, he takes the stairs and breaks down and falls.

Another "hunch" prevents Jake Green from being assassinated by Macha's killers. He's on the right path now. Saved and rescued by -- intuition.

The killer himself -- Sorter -- is getting doubts. The hitman is conscience itself.

Zach and Avi. Loan Sharks. Chess. They force Jake to do everything he doesn't like to do, as the only way to cure his fatal disease under two non-negotiable conditions --

You have to give away all your money.
Do not argue and do answer any question asked.

The confidence trick

If there's a rule, you can bend it.
If there's a law, it can be broken.

Jake Green, after facing choice and fatal disease --

From now on, I am bending all the rules, because desperate men do desperate deeds.

... and not any earlier than that.

Jake's money is his pride -- it even smells proud, says Avi.

People come to Zach and Avi, the loan sharks, only as the last option, the last resort, when they have no choice anymore.

People only get sensible when it's (almost) too late.

The three Eddies

Three Eddies, flash, loud, proud, and stupid, where proud refers to Macha, who happens to stand between loud and stupid. In the next scene, Jake takes the proud spot between the Eddies. The three Eddies, flash, loud, and stupid are dead. Evolution.

Jake Green, citing one of the principles of the con --

I know nothing hurts more than humiliation and a little money loss.

... and slowly starts accepting his reality --

Don't try to make sense out of it, not now, because it doesn't make sense. I just know if you start a job then finish it.

Sam Gold

Macha and Sam Gold. Lilly Walker represents Gold. Eight pawns by her side, the rules of the game Gold/Walker sets the rules and the pawns. Ego. Everyone serves Gold. Gold is religion.

Jake keeps winning in games of chess against Avi. He learned the game and honed his skills in prison, between a chess master and a master con man, after all. The objective is now to --

... create the ultimate con and win the ultimate game.

Jake's already in the ultimate game.

Here are the rules --

You can only get smarter by playing a smarter opponent.
The more sophisticated the game, the more sophisticated the opponent.

Jake finally releases himself and stops resisting --

I pay for my own pain and a part of me dies every time I think about it.

A part of your ego dies -- and that's the whole point. Green learns that everyone has to pay what he owes.

Jake Green vs. Dorothy Macha and vs. Sam Gold. Jake Green vs. Lord John, Macha's competitor. Jake Green plays Lord John against Dorothy Macha and Macha against Gold.

The powder is for Gold, it is food for the ego, pride, vanity, arrogance, addiction.

The awakening

Jake's awakening puts to sleep anybody else.

There is no such thing as problems, only situations. --Avi & Zach

When Avi asks Jake how he keeps winning in chess he replies --

You do the hard work, I just help you along.

... to feed pieces to you and make you believe you took those pieces.

In every game and con there is always an opponent and there is always a victim, the more control the victim thinks he has, the less control he actually has.

The formula is completely consistent.

... inside an environment he can control. The bigger the environment, the easier the control. ... so the opponent simply distracts their victim by getting them consumed with their own consumption.

The bigger the trick and the older the trick, the easier it is to pull, because --

They think it can't be that old,

They think it can't be that big,

... for so many people to have fallen for it.

Eventually, when the opponent is challenged or questioned, it means the victim's investment and thus his intelligence is questioned, no one can accept that. Not even to themselves.

You'll always find a good opponent in the very last place you'd ever look.

In your own mind.

Gold -- the godfather -- doesn't touch Zach and Avi.

Avi & Zach providing some hints to Jake --

You can't see what's right in front of you.

Rachel, Jake Green's niece. Good. Pure. Innocence.

More revelations

Jake Green gains some more insight --

There is something about yourself that you don't know. Something that you will deny even exists, until it's too late to do anything about it. It's the only reason you get up in the morning. The only reason you suffer the shitty puss, the blood, the sweat and the tears. This is because you want people to know how good, attractive, generous, funny, wild and clever you really are. Fear or revere me, but please, think I'm special.

We share an addiction.

We're approval junkies.

Ego gratification. Even the car accident would have been some sort of approval.

Jake Green's conning the three Eddies --

Nobody kills a man who's going to make him money.

Lord John, with a hot girl under his eyes and a beautiful assassin under his command --

Beauty is a destructive angel, how could anything that looks so good be so bad?

Dorothy Macha, after the foiled assassination attempt --

Greed gets them all in the end.

Avi explains the game --

You've heard their voice for so long, you believe it to be you. Mr Gold is pretending to be you. Everyone is in his game and nobody knows it.

He's behind all the pain there ever was. Behind every crime ever committed. Embrace the pain and you will win this game.

If you change the rules on what controls you, you will change the rules on what you can control.

The more power you think you have in Gold's world, the less power you have in the real world.

The end of pride

Jake donates to charity in Macha's name to further illustrate and manifest the difference between the both of them.

Jake apologizes to Macha.

Avi teaches --

Use your perceived enemy to destroy your real enemy.

Controlled vs. free man. Forgiveness is the ultimate act of liberation. No pride.

The end of ego

Jake Green, struggling with ego, pride, and fear --

Wherever you don't want to go is where you will find him.

Meeting the ego in the elevator. Stuck in the voluntarily taken elevator between the 14th and the 12th floor, Jake is struggling with his ego, the ultimate showdown.

The greatest con, that he ever pulled... was making you believe... that he is you. --Avi

You are not your ego.

Liberation. Jake is invincible now. Macha isn't able to shoot nor impress him anymore. No fear.

Macha gets and takes the credit for the donation, thus again feeding his vanity and ego which earns him a strange applause from Mr Gold.

Macha demonstrates his adherence to the system by eventually begging and submitting to Gold. Fear.

Sorter, the hitman, in a twisted scene, hinting at the bigger picture --

None of this is real.

Avi and Zach, the chess master and the master of con ultimately aren't real either.

Liberation

Avi's epilogue --

Nobody knows where the enemy is. They don't even know he exists. He's in every one of their heads. And they trust him because they think they are him.

If you try to destroy him to save them, they'll destroy you to save him.

Jake loses the last game of chess with Avi, he left the game through his own liberation.

Zach and Avi finally reveal it --

We didn't do this because we like you. We did this because we are you.

The ultimate con, the ultimate confidence trick, is absolute -- yet delicate -- confidence in your self. Beyond ego, that is.

The greatest con, that he ever pulled... was making you believe... that he is you.--Avi

Labels: awakening, confidence+trick, enlightenment, guy+ritchie, inspiration, jason+statham, kabbalah, liberation, lifehacks, movie, personal+branding, review, revolver, subjective+reality, thriller, wow

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

The Top 5 Reasons to Get Even Leaner

edited by Alexander Becker

The following article is an entry in the group writing project "Top 5" by Darren Rowse at problogger. The whole known web is currently getting streamlined, partitioned, sliced and diced, by Top-5s only to eventually be reunified in that one, giant, list of all of them. Enjoy.

Let's take a look at why it is beneficial to get even leaner. Not lean instead of fat. Leaner instead of lean. Leaner than lean. This is about and for the already lean. Get more perfect. Here is why --

5. Excellence. The #5 reason to get even leaner is the act of pushing through and going all the way, expecting more than others think is possible.

You leaned your system down until now. Up to this point, you recognize that the leaner you get, the better it gets overall. Why would you settle for mediocrity. You're well on your way to excellence. Why settle for less? It's the goal and the relativity in leaner that propels you forward and makes you accomplish more and more in order to get there. You may not reach perfection but no one ever died from wanting too much either.

4. Efficiency. The #4 reason to get even leaner is to get ever more revenue for the same or even less input.

A leaner organism is a more effective organism. Come with minimal luggage. Don't bring more than you really need. Lean determines the ratio between work and rest, between production and administration, between muscle and fat. The more muscle that is at work against less and less superfluous weight -- as opposed to specific workload -- the more effective is the whole system. Think bureaucracy. Think governments.

3. Hunger. The #3 reason to get even leaner is the hunt, its prerequisites and its conditions. There is no place for complacency on the hunt.

The leaner you get, the more hunger you experience. Hunger keeps you awake and makes you alert. You need all your senses to even mildly satisfy that hunger. It's the hunger for more that guides you on the path to getting leaner in the first place.

2. Discipline. The #2 reason to get even leaner is the reward -- in this particular case, the reward is the reward.

The process of getting leaner is the opposite of instant gratification. It's the noble art of enduring the delay to eventually get it all. As long as the journey appears to be the reward, you're not there yet.

1. Competition. The #1 reason to strive for maximum leanness is doing it because it's possible.

Something that gets infinitely harder, the closer you come to reaching the absolute goal, is the ideal feat to fight for. If it was easy, anybody would do it and succeed. To succeed in getting even more lean -- leaner than any one of your competitors -- is the chance for you to set your name in stone. Competition is the ultimate comparison. There is only one first place.

Please note that while thinspiration employs and works with human role-models, you may also consider lean management, or think lean business administration, for example, if this makes you feel more comfortable.

Getting leaner is ultimately getting rid of more stuff. The ideal of getting leaner is about releasing the unnecessary. Less is more.

Good riddance.

Labels: comparison, competition, diet, discipline, excellence, group+writing, hunger, inspiration, lean, lifehacks, marketing, motivation, personal+branding, productivity, thinspiration, top+5, wow

Free ebook: Celebrate Your Beauty

edited by Alexander Becker

Peer pressure, vanity and behavior, motivation tricks and hacks, success and pain, and how to excel, Celebrate Your Beauty -- whatever it takes.

Whether you work on stage, or walk the runways, whether you make things real on the big screen, behind the scenes, near a microphone, or in the proximity of a camera, this little book is for you.

Also, producers, can you hear me? Make your artists happy with this book. Celebrate Your Beauty provides targeted and clustered content, a well-readable, pre-selected set of articles written to help promote beauty and maintain motivation on and off stage. Share it, mail it, give it away, and make them love you even more.

This book will make you look even better.

Celebrate Your Beauty is a long tail edition, a small, topical ebook, 26 pages, remixed and arranged from articles appearing on WOW. As much as with a delicious dinner, all the ingredients are readily available -- yet, you still let the chef do the work, don't you?.

Celebrate Your Beauty will never go out of print -- it doesn't have to. You print it if you want to do so, I may even print it, but no one is going to stock this one.

With no shelf space to pay for and, in the case of purely digital services like iTunes, no manufacturing costs and hardly any distribution fees, a miss sold is just another sale, with the same margins as a hit. A hit and a miss are on equal economic footing, both just entries in a database called up on demand, both equally worthy of being carried. Suddenly, popularity no longer has a monopoly on profitability.

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

Like I said before: Everything has its moment.

Download the free ebook: Celebrate Your Beauty, written to help promote beauty and maintain motivation in the world of looks.

One last thing -- from now on, comments are open, I invite you to tell me what you think, what you feel, and whether you strive to leap forward and show the world that it is possible.

Labels: beauty, behavior, books, ebook, free, inspiration, lifehacks, marketing, motivation, pdf, peer+pressure, personal+branding, personal+development, print, remix, thelongtail, vanity

Savor Your Moment

edited by Alexander Becker

Replace self-consciousness with self-awareness within one moment.

When you waste a moment, you have killed it in a sense, squandering an irreplaceable opportunity. But when you use the moment properly, filling it with purpose and productivity, it lives on forever.

Menachem Mendel Schneerson

Every valuable thought, each memory, any emotion, is tied to one, ever so short, single moment.

You don't get any more than that moment. Don't miss it, trade it, or give it up for the next one.

Every moment is unique and if you have a perfect one, enjoy it, savor it, and expand it -- for once it is over, it is over, it will be gone for good.

Do not wait through a moment in order to expand it -- instead, do the exact opposite: 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. This moment will be eternal.

Do not merely observe your moments, ... take part in your moments and observe yourself. This is the only way to extend that one situation and make it last forever. Observe yourself within the present moment, experience life most purely and at its best.

Unlike the unpleasant feeling of self-consciousness that occurs when we realize that we are being watched or observed, the feeling that everyone is looking at us, we are after self-awareness. More specifically, becoming aware not of your actions but of your thoughts and emotions, your body and mind, leads to appreciation of the current moment. It's not you, it's now.

Make that moment exclusive, whatever it is to distract you, if you can't change it within this very moment, exclude it and do not let it dilute this precious now.

Everything has its moment.

Labels: acceptance, appreciation, inspiration, lifehacks, now, personal+development, self-awareness, self-consciousness, time, wow

WOWOW: Info-Fasting, Regaining Attention, and the 4-Hour Workweek

edited by Alexander Becker

Apparently, news-fasting is in high-demand these days, broadening the concept to e-mail and general vs. specific information triaging is all the rage when it comes to optimizing your productivity.

Try the low-information diet and extreme e-mail detox: Purge your RSS-readers, your e-mail subscriptions -- review your overall level of communication and pseudo-responsibilities.

Merlin Mann points to Brian Oberkirch on reducing noise and stealing back attention and how to --

Wrest back your attention and start responsibly firewalling your time.

Brian Oberkirch himself is --

Trimming the attention sails: You are what you pay attention to.

Consider these randomly picked but highly effective means to regain your attention --

Reinforcing my habit of making a micro to do list of 3 to 5 things. Index card or sticky note for the day. Setting crazy short deadlines for each activity. Doing only one thing at a time.

Stop trying to accomodate a global work schedule. Again, unless it's really mandatory or unavoidable, I work during my work hours, not those in other parts of the world.

In the meantime, Brian is referring us to Tim Ferriss's 4-hour workweek and experiments in lifestyle design with the book due next week.

Redesigning life is about making you look good. Stay tuned for more redesigning your life through making you look even better right here on WOW.

Now that the plug is over, let's get back to Tim on selective ignorance and single-tasking suggesting how to firewall attention and reclaim time --

The trick to stepping off of the gas pedal is proving to yourself that it can be done.

Here is another gem, a variation of a slow carb diet: How to lose 20 lbs. of fat in 30 days... without doing any exercise

You may want to subscribe to each one of these sites' RSS feeds but then again... you'd end up with three more subs. On the other hand, you're probably following Merlin already so choosing between the remaining two (yay, triage at work), I highly recommend Tim's blog. Or Brian's blog and Tim's book, especially after reading the first review.

To your lean excellence.

Labels: attention, email+detox, fourhourworkweek, info+diet, inspiration, lifehacks, lifestyle, lifestyle+design, linking+park, personal+branding, productivity, time+management, triage, wow

Question: What's the Difference between iTunes and Life?

edited by Alexander Becker

Playlists. To be more specific, the human interface that makes playlists so easily usable. In iTunes. Let's take a look at real life's playlists.

There is this software -- iTunes -- that let's us create playlists, our own mix du jour, we listen to what we want and when we want, we schedule our music.

Enter the shuffle mode. Random playlists and random sequences. There is no such thing as random, there are no misunderstandings either.

We have the option to control every second of our listening experience, yet we, you, most of us, consciously opt for the delivery of a surprise.

You could, but you prefer the random playlist. You could control everything but you don't. Why?

Now, how does this relate to life? Is iTunes somehow related to real life? Isn't iTunes even modeled after real life? Is it not possible to create your own playlists and plans and set up everything in great detail?

You say it is not? What if it was?

Say it is possible to not live at random. Would you choose the party-jukebox anyway? Would you consciously choose the random mode just because it's possible?

What if life is too easy and you need the excitement of the unknown?

Is true mastery the balancing of preset playlists and the jukebox?

(...)

And then you find yourself on shuffle, only to be crazily hitting next, next, next, to get the one you want, the one you hope to recognize by the time it is presented to you. You're asking for more options when in reality, even in your reality, the same options, presented in ever changing contexts are more than sufficient.

How would the shuffle function know what you want, when you yourself do not know it in the first place?

Labels: apple, inspiration, itunes, life, lifehacks, moderation, music, personal+development, playlists, questions, random, shuffle, wow

There Are No Misunderstandings

edited by Alexander Becker

This essay is part of The Subjective Reality Series.

A misunderstanding is a failure to understand or interpret correctly. The theory is that there is no failure involved and each and every subjective interpretation is inherently correct.

A misunderstanding is a disagreement. Then again, if both you and I were talking about the exact same thing, there would be no disagreement. But we're not. Instead, we are talking about your interpretation of what's going on and mine.

We are describing different sides of the same coin with different, conflicting terms and the mutual assumption that both sides look alike. The ultimate argument deals with the surprising fact that the sides are not equal -- despite our best efforts to match our communication. Please note that we never argue about different things, we always argue about -- apparently -- one and the same thing. Once it becomes clear that both sides of the coin do in fact differ from another -- the fight is over.

Don't get me wrong because you can't -- there are no misunderstandings. Only asynchronous thoughts. Consider the déjà vu situation from the matrix.

[Neo sees a black cat walk by them, and then a similar black cat walk by them just like the first one]

Neo

Whoa. Déjà vu.

[Everyone freezes right in their tracks]

Trinity

What did you see?

Neo

A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it.

Trinity

A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.

Something has changed. That's the point. Something has changed and isn't -- yet -- communicated to everybody involved. Misunderstandings are indicators of unfinished, incomplete communication. Misunderstandings are the expectation of linear development based on prior, obsolete knowledge while current knowledge has already advanced. You misunderstand because you're not up-to-date, you're not in the present.

It's not that you know less than I do nor do I know less than you do. You and I know different.

But I thought you meant, ...

Apparent misunderstandings are born when one and the same situation, scene, or outcome is perceived and eventually analyzed and compared from different perspectives, through different lenses. Prior knowledge and experiences result in unique expectations which in turn lead to unique conclusions. Misunderstandings are the exchange and forced comparison of different levels of progress, quality, and contextual truth. Yes. It's exactly the way you think it is.

On a sidenote, if there are no misunderstandings, is there any chance that there is no paranoia either?

The paranoid person blames and/or fears intelligent beings for their supposedly intentional actions. The question is whether the supposedly intentional actions are in fact intentional and this again is a matter of perspective. Suppose I, myself am not aware of my intentions but instead you are. You make my actions intentional. Whose paranoia is this in the first place?

Featured Link

Secrets of "The Secret".

Ebooks that reveal the spiritual Law-of-Attraction Secrets behind the movie The Secret.

Labels: communication, deja+vu, disagreement, expectations, inspiration, law+of+attraction, lifehacks, misunderstanding, motivation, paranoia, personal+development, subjective+reality, wow

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

WOWOW: Starred Sodium Lightbulbs

edited by Alexander Becker

What have salt and lightbulbs in common and why should you care?

Both have issues. While I think that Eat To Live is potentially superior to many, if not most, dietary recommendations, the salt question is an interesting and apparently emotional one, culminating spectacularly in the Salt Wars: The Phantom Menace --

Salt also pulls out calcium and other trace minerals in the urine when the excess is excreted, which is a contributory cause of osteoporosis. If that is not enough, high sodium intake is predictive of increased death from heart attacks. In a large prospective trial, recently published in the respected medical journal The Lancet, there was a frighteningly high correlation between sodium intake and all cause mortality in overweight men. The researchers concluded, High sodium intake predicted mortality and risk of coronary heart disease, independent of other cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure. These results provide direct evidence of the harmful effects of high salt intake in the adult population.

Without implying an actual call for prohibition, ... there is a great line in the movie Demolition Man which is the vehicle to deliver today's point --

Stallone:

Do you have the salt?

Bullock:

Salt is not good for you, hence, it is illegal.

... hence, it is illegal. Does anyone see a problem with this kind of reasoning?

Let's take a look at the call to ban inefficient lightbulbs in EU --

Germany's environment minister Sigmar Gabriel has written to the European Commission proposing that inefficient light bulbs be banned in the EU.

It gets even better with House Inspectors checking your light bulbs --

They will go into every room to calculate the number of low-energy light bulbs and while in the kitchen they will even examine the cooker to see if has automatic ignition or a permanent pilot light.

It is the verboten approach which rings bells -- at least it should do so -- all over the world.

While we're there, this is what you'll do --

Stallone:

You'll get a little dirty...

... you, a lot clean.

And somewhere in the middle...

You'll figure it out.

Just take action and change things for --

... each event triggers -- almost domino-like -- the next and the following ones with the result becoming inevitable because of cause and effect.

Moderation is important to break up black-and-white thinking since nothing is perfectly black nor white. Moderation is the complete scale from black to white and so is life which is -- to stay with colors -- taking continuously and simultaneously from the whole spectrum, including the extremes, incorporating every color that is imaginable, all side by side.

Or is the old concept of moderation all of a sudden broken? I don't think so.

Note: The weekly Linking Park editions will become less weekly and more themed, for there is no day and night on the internet, nor are there timezones and certainly no weeks to adhere to. In the meantime, please check out the starred items provided in the sidebar.

To your excellence.

Labels: commentary, demolition+man, diet, google, inspiration, lifehacks, lightbulbs, linking+park, moderation, movies, rant, reference, review, society, sodium, sylvester+stallone, trends, wow

Linking Park: 2007-W07, The More Suggestions Edition

edited by Alexander Becker

More networking, productivity, health and exercise suggestions, the whole enchilada.

We've had this before, but here is a great follow up on LinkedIn in particular and on making your business network pay dividends --

LinkedIn is just a tool, albeit a powerful one if you have a use for it and know how to make it work. If you are good at what you do, it amplifies it. If you suck, it amplifies that too. We'll assume the former and give some pointers on how you can make it work more effectively for you. If you find yourself wondering how to better use, derive benefit or get value from this tool, the following suggestions might prove useful. Don't forget the basic rule of being of service to others.

Basic rules? Priorities? See the pattern here? What we talk about when we talk about "priority" --

Since the Bronze Age of personal productivity, conventional wisdom has taught us the importance of priority in deciding how to plan and use our time. And, in the abstract, anyhow, that notion of putting your time and attention into those things that are the most valuable to you seems so "obvious" as to be a tautology, where "productivity = acting on priorities." (Of course, whether people's execution of the things they claim are important always maps to their stated intentions is another matter for another post a really big book.)

[...]

But, in practice, what the hell does "priority" really mean?

Almost everybody wants effortless success, the question remains whether it is possible to emulate effortlessness in the first place --

I believe our lives, world, and reality is actually created by the desires, thoughts, intentions, and images we give our attention to. Action is simply a way for us to enjoy what we've created.

... except for the fact that the effortless stuff is the stuff you really really want, everything else is not effortlessly achievable because you can trick yourself into true desire only so far.

Let's keep this issue open for later discussion and in the meantime, admire your results since you've decided to get in shape..... again, suggesting to --

Get in shape for life, not an event.

On a different level but nevertheless related, check out Yoga and rock climbing and the art of falling down --

I've been telling my students lately that when you fall out of a pose in yoga, that's a sign that you're getting stronger and that you're testing -- and pushing -- your edge. Conversely, if you find that you're never falling down in yoga class, or that you're never falling out of any poses, chances are that you're probably staying in your comfort zone a little too much. A similar set of principles can be applied to rock climbing, providing yet another example of how yoga and climbing fit together so nicely.

Body tightness is the secret of many amazing gymnastic feats. Study these gymnastics tension exercises --

One of the most important elements in gymnastics conditioning is body tension or "body tightness". Gymnasts can control the action of their body more easily (in static strength positions as well as in movement) when their body is held tight than when it is a loose collection of individual parts. A person's weight is much more difficult to handle when their body is relaxed than it is if it were held tight.

Here is another suggestion, namely to eat fewer calories and live longer --

Eating more calories than the body needs to maintain a thin, muscular weight ages us.

Sounds sensible, on the other hand, what about some food for thought -- Want to lose fat? Eat more and get lean --

Taking in too few of the required nutrients is equal to constant starvation. Consequently, your body expects nothing less than famine and starts to store the fat. Yes, every bit of anything you eat is treated as a scarce resource and is therefore stored away for times even worse.

Since we already talk about clogging, ... Pipes is a hosted service that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. When I stopped by first, I got this though --

Our Pipes are clogged! We've called the plumbers!

Nevermind.

One of the worst productivity killers is the bad habit of going back and forth between one and the same task, hence the suggestion to get things done on the spot in order to minimize missed opportunities --

Single-handling is the high-speed, high-performance productivity concept of dealing with tasks, material or immaterial, on first sight, encounter, or touch.

Therefore, ... the book of the week is -- once again -- David Allen's Getting Things Done.

To your excellent life.

Labels: gtd, how+to, inspiration, lifehacks, linking+park, networking, productivity, reference, review, wow

Linking Park: 2007-W06, The V-Day and Adventure Planning Edition

edited by Alexander Becker

Intelligence, metaexperiences and life according to its lists, Ho'oponopono, Valentines and chocolate.

Cognition is knowing something, like the answer in a test, while metacognition is knowing whether you know the answer or not. To cognate or metacognate -- Which is smarter? Learn to understand your own intelligence --

Unless you're taking a test or playing Jeopardy, metacognition is more important to success than cognition. In real life, when you're faced with a question the first decision is whether you know the answer or not. With strong metacognitive ability this is easy. If you know the answer, but can't come up with it, you can always do a bit of research. If you know for sure that you don't know, then you can start educating yourself. Because you're aware of your ignorance, you don't act with foolish confidence. The person who thinks they know something that they really don't makes the worst decisions.

In the battle of experience vs. metaexperience, experience definitely wins. Take a look at this truly inspirational life list (... and no, I wouldn't publish my son's life list) --

To what degree do you think a young person increases his chances of a fulfilling life by seizing the freedom to dream big, imagining what he wants to achieve, and writing it down?

John Goddard started this life list thing and he lives by and off of it ever since --

One rainy afternoon an inspired 15-year old boy named John Goddard sat down at his kitchen table in Los Angeles and wrote three words at the top of a yellow pad, "My Life List." Under that heading he wrote down 127 goals.

These were not simple or easy goals. They included climbing the world's major mountains, exploring from source to mouth the longest rivers of the world, piloting the world's fastest aircraft, running a mile in five minutes and reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

Now, a generation later, he has accomplished 109 of these quests, and has logged an impressive list of records in achieving them.

Whichever way you choose, however your list looks like, never forget to just do something, do anything and never stop --

Once you participate in life, it really works.

On the other hand, you may simply need a way to solve all of your problems --

In Ho'oponopono, problems are viewed as replayed subconscious thoughts and memories from the past that are presenting themselves now to be released by us. These thoughts and memories within us cause all physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, relationship, and financial problems in our lives. After we take 100% responsibility for these thoughts and memories (and their resulting effects and problems), we can then release them using Ho'oponopono and be free to act on the inspiration that follows.

In related news, here is how to achieve blog nirvana --

Once you write enough blog posts, and read far too many blog posts, you acquire an instinctive sense for the principle ingredients of an audience-pleasing offering. However, rather than itemize those ingredients, it's far easier to discuss this magical formula in terms of the instinctive emotional responses you hope to conjure in readers. The broadest of those responses are indignation, titillation, stimulation, and affirmation. Hitting any of the buttons is good. Ideally, you pack as many of those responses as possible into your content, even (and sometimes especially) if they're contradictory. Hitting the sweet spot in the center of all four virtually guarantees bloggy nirvana.

Since V-day is near, what could come in more handy than a bittersweet guide to the best chocolate --

White, milk, dark, fudge, with cherry, cherry bombs, truffles, more fudge, cherry fudge, chocolate from Java, coffee-infused beans -— even chocolate massage oil and chocolate lip gloss, with a dark, bitter flavor.

Happy Valentines.

Every thing eventually will pass, ... another good reason to NOT have a Blogroll --

Make it easy on yourself. Don't have a Blogroll. If you like a blog, link to their posts when they write something interesting. Saves us all a world of pain and hand-wringing.

To your excellent life.

Tags

Labels: inspiration, lifehacks, links

Just Do Something, Do Anything

edited by Alexander Becker

Once you participate in life, it really works.

Each and every time you do something, you excel. Life stands still, at least for you, until you move. Initiate, trigger, force events that let you show that you can. Every time you move, you excel. It is the fear of doing, the fear of change that's holding you back. You freeze in order to not change anything. What are you trying to conserve? Evolve. Move. Do.

Recall your last actions. Each and every time you were forced to act, things changed. Each and every thing that changed because of your acting and reacting changed for the better. Do you see a pattern here? You excel when you do.

Your excellence is action. You are no perfect statue. You are imperfect. You do not lose your perfection when you eventually express yourself. Quite the opposite is true. You perfect yourself with every act you commit. You are action.

Make things happen. Make things happen the easiest of ways: Participate in life. Do not avoid life, do not avoid progress and do not fear change. There is nothing to preserve. Trust your abilities, your faith in your virtues and skills is all you ever need. Those skills apply themselves, don't worry about that. You just need to provide the circumstances, at least, do not avoid the circumstances.

Your inertia is fear. Your fear is preventing you from accomplishing, from changing anything. Even more complicated, fear of fear, you fear the fear of change. You resist yourself.

Embrace the fear, embrace yourself, participate honestly and with vigor, participate in life, give all you have, all the time. You will be surprised by how many things will change in the shortest of time. Or did you expect that you too can assume the role of the observer and watch your creation fulfill itself?

Tags

Labels: action, inspiration, lifehacks, wow-inspiration

Debriefing as a Tool for Mental Recovery

edited by Alexander Becker

Reset your mind and recover faster.

Reset your cognitive functions and restart the stream of information input, at least once in a while. Close open ends and un- or finished business. Whatever it is you're struggling with, get it off your mind.

Use the model of debriefing, the repetitive and exhaustive recall of every ever so tiny fact possible. Go over and over your issues, spell everything out, write it down or talk it away -- up to the point where nothing is left within your realm of potential -- and potentially dangerous -- interpretation.

Store your information outside your mind to get rid of it in order to avoid possible harmful memories or conscious flashbacks. Interrogate yourself, remember every detail, eliminate and preclude it from haunting your thoughts once and for all.

Fully recover, make your mind return to its original state and let it gradually heal through rest in order to regain or save its otherwise easily lost sanity.

Debriefing is to question to obtain knowledge or intelligence gathered especially on a military mission or to instruct (a government agent, for example) not to reveal classified or secret information after employment has ceased.

Instruct your mind not to reveal nor to apply any information of which usefulness has ceased. Clear your mind and reflect or deflect your residues off of your peers or eventually cleared personal, at least. Please note that we're not striving to force any kind of amnesia, rather, what we're after is intelligent processing of information, ridding ourselves of superfluous details and galvanizing and retaining the quintessential wisdom.

It is crucial that the information you release is actively received in a proper way. You need a listener, alternatively write it down, express yourself in decipherable form, provide anything which convinces your mind that the information is not lost. Talking against the wall doesn't work -- while you strive for ideally complete deletion, your mind would attempt to keep a back-up -- just in case.

After a really thorough debriefing, after repeating your experience all over and again and again, you will recover naturally -- which is made easy, in fact, debriefing uses simple exhaustion to trigger the clearing of the memories and the reset of the cognitive functions.

Tags

Labels: inspiration, lifehacks

Linking Park: 2007-W04, The Remarkable Minimalist Edition

edited by Alexander Becker

Remarkable because of what's up this week and minimalist because of the sheer number of links presented. It's more like a featured article. Think quantity vs. quality.

It is definitely possible to bury quality in quantity but to the same extent, it is worth the effort to dig out and separate and recognize the true gems that exist within quantity. Without quantity there is no recognizable quality. The more quantity though, the higher the value of determined quality, which compares to each and every instance produced. Being better than twenty is more valuable than being better than two.

Now, take a look at what it really takes to be remarkable --

Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won't do. The only way to grow is to abandon your strategy of doing what you did yesterday, but better. Commit.

Remarkable doesn't mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it? If not, then you're average, and average is for losers.

Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won't accomplish much. It's easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.

Extremism in the pursuit of remarkability is no sin. In fact, it's practically a requirement. People in first place, those considered the best in the world, these are the folks that get what they want. Rock stars have groupies because they're stars, not because they're good looking.

Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn't always matter which edge, more that you're at (or beyond) the edge.

Not everyone appreciates your efforts to be remarkable. In fact, most people don't. So what? Most people are ostriches, heads in the sand, unable to help you anyway. Your goal isn't to please everyone. Your goal is to please those that actually speak up, spread the word, buy new things or hire the talented.

For # 7 through 10, read the full article in the Guardian. By Seth Godin, who adds --

The alternative sounds scary, but I don't think it is. The alternative is to just be remarkable. Go all the way to the edge. Not in a big thing, perhaps, but in a little one. Find some area where you have a tiny bit of authority and run with it. After you succeed, you'll discover you've got more leeway for next time. And if you fail? Don't worry. Your organisation secretly wants employees willing to push hard even if it means failing every so often.

And when? When should you start being remarkable? How's this: if you don't start tomorrow, you're not really serious. Tomorrow night by midnight or don't bother. You're too talented to sit around waiting for the perfect moment. Go start.

Seth Godin is also responsible for the book of the week: Permission Marketing.

To your excellent life.

Tags

Labels: inspiration, links

The Secret to Think and Grow Rich

edited by Alexander Becker

The original bestseller Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, first published in 1937, was the outcome of interviewing and researching more than 500 successful men and women in an effort to discover the exact method they applied in order to achieve their respective goals. Included among them were Thomas Edison, Charles Schwab, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Alexander Graham Bell, and John D. Rockefeller, alongside many others.

The purpose of the studies was to be able to consciously reproduce the natural ways that led to the success of the aforementioned people. Please note that none of them ever consciously applied any secret method to accomplish their goals.

Only in hindsight -- after the fact -- is it possible to recognize the patterns that were most successful. It doesn't even take a Rockefeller -- you could as well study young children's behavior and derive the exact same blueprint.

In the introduction to Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill, indirectly describes a -- somewhat hidden -- how-to methodology of thinking and achieving any goal you desire, not limited to achieving financial success.

Throughout this philosophy will be found the suggestion that thought, backed by strong desire, has a tendency to transmute itself into its physical equivalent. --Napoleon Hill

The latest take on Think and Grow Rich, is the "manual" The Hidden Secret in Think and Grow Rich by Brian Kim. It is published in electronic form and is actually a workbook, a step-by-step walk-through, dealing with the virtues and their sequence required to think and grow rich.

Brian Kim has found the secret, he cites the natural process of goal achievement as a main outcome of the application of the secret as well as a major ingredient of the recipe itself.

The main point is: The secret is the secret. It takes the understanding of the secret to spot it. And the reverse is also true: The steps towards discovering the secret are exactly what you're after, as in the journey is the reward, only better. Stated in only slightly different words, the secret is -- while being somewhat elusive -- that there is no secret.

While Napoleon Hill states that specialized knowledge is an important part of the method, in the Hidden Secret, Brian Kim recognizes that it's a mere by-product which is almost taking care of itself. The aquisition of specialized knowledge is another instance of a natural outcome, if and only if, you follow the steps and the sequence to the letter.

It is said that the secret jumps from the page once you're ready.

Somewhere as you read, the secret to which I refer will jump from the page and stand boldly before you, if you are ready for it! When it appears, you will recognize it.

The best thing about the secret is that it can be spelled out and yet you're only able to grasp it, if and when, you are ready for it.

On the other hand, although the secret, the recipe, is a natural process, it is not quite sure that this natural process is in fact learnable by anybody who even gets the book and the manual read aloud. The theory is that even with the most thoroughly annotated and delicately explained step-by-step instructions to discover the secret, it is not universally reproducible for an arbitrary reader.

It's like teaching an art: The techniques can be acquired by almost anybody yet only a few wanna-be painters have the talent -- the other half. Without talent, you teach technicians, not artists.

Back to Napoleon Hill --

If you are ready for the secret, you already possess one half of it.

Want proof? Here is the secret: Apply burning desire, absolute faith, and a definite plan to your major purpose using this exact sequence, without ever giving up while staying religiously consistent all the time, whatever it takes.

So what you say? There you go, as a prerequisite to think and grow rich you already need to possess half of it...

Conclusion: Get all the info you can and -- if you really want it -- you will find the secret. I recommend the annotated edition by Ross Cornwell even though the original book is in the public domain. Get the Hidden Secret by and from Brian Kim. The step-by-step instructions are particularly helpful and interesting and will give you some valuable insight both into the methodology and your own thinking. Brian Kim teaches you the secret -- guaranteed --, it's up to you whether you end up as a technician or a true artist.

Of note is the revised edition, Think and Grow Rich!: The Original Version, Restored and Revised, an edited and annotated homage by Ross Cornwell who --

restore[d] Dr. Hill's book to its original manuscript content (it was first published in 1937, but was abridged in 1960), annotate[d] it with more than 50 pages of endnotes (most of the persons and events he discusses are generally unknown to readers today), index[ed] it thoroughly, add[ed] an appendix with a wealth of additional information about Dr. Hill and his work, and revise[d] the book in ways to help remove certain "impediments" to reading the book today...

Featured Link

Secrets of "The Secret".

Ebooks that reveal the spiritual Law-of-Attraction Secrets behind the movie The Secret.

Tags

Labels: inspiration, law-of-attraction, review

Subjective Reality: Create an Atmosphere

edited by Alexander Becker

This essay is part of The Subjective Reality Series.

Do you ever wonder what your vast, unused mental potential is busy doing at any given moment? An obviously significant part of it is creating atmospheres out of your sensory input, it combines previously stored patterns and expectations and judgements into your very own subjective perception of intangible and often indescribable qualities.

Atmospheres are objective environments which are subjectively created by your thoughts and emotions. An atmosphere is the pervading tone of a place or situation. The very same place, when perceived at different times under different or even similar circumstances may be experienced as if it was a completely different location.

Note how time and circumstances are shaped and suddenly change at your fingertips when lived through a slightly changed context.

Take your current environment as an example. Look around and consciously scan the setting which surrounds you right now. How does it feel? And back. What is there to evoke that particular feeling? If it is hard to describe it is because there is obviously some more to a situation than the sum of quantifiable and thus tangible parts.

Develop and create an environment, your environment and make it your personal, your branded space. Take your environment and make it yours. You will be amazed by the unlimited options you encounter when it comes to configuring and fine-tuning your setting.

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1:28 (King James Version)

Create your atmosphere to your own and complete satisfaction. Recreate yourself in and through your environment and shape the resulting atmosphere until it is yours. Take special care of the more subtle elements, an air, think appearances and manners of objects and circumstances.

Ultimately, the sequence is your mind creating an environment; you, perceiving that environment, perceiving it consciously; and finally shaping it through active and creative perception. If, for any reason, you are not absolutely, positively content with the atmosphere you created in the first place, go no further than your very own mind and -- if not working on the manifestation itself, at least improve your perception -- the rest, reality that is, will take care of itself.

Your creations develop a life of their own. Try to always make sure that your intention perfectly matches the atmosphere that comes along with the manifestation. And vice versa.

Featured Link

Secrets of "The Secret". Ebooks that reveal the spiritual Law-of-Attraction Secrets behind the movie The Secret.

Labels: discipline, inspiration, intention+manifestation, law+of+attraction, lifehacks, mindset, motivation, perception, personal+branding, reality, subjective+reality, success, wow-subjective-reality

How Your Mind Benefits from Cleaning Up Your Physical Workspace

edited by Alexander Becker

After you resolve to clean up that mess, you are forced to make yes-or-no decisions and, as a result, you will enjoy an unexpected, long forgotten peace of mind, in return for your physical efforts.

Get rid of the clutter, take a look at your files in the drawers, at your clothes in their closets, at the too many items on your homepages, ... finally look at the stuff that piles up in your brains, occupying valuable working memory.

No, you won't use any of it at some later time. You will, and neither will no other human being, never ever look again at the so called reference material, the results of your organization efforts to get things done.

Organizing your physical world is an important step on the path leading to clarity, purpose, and success. The sorting through files and paperwork will reload the essence of all these things into your mind. Use this special occasion to handle everything only one single time and immediately make your decisions to either keep or drop. When in doubt, choose the latter.

The intention of building an archive containing reference material, material dedicated for later, unspecified, potential use, will leave you with constructive insights -- you will find things you long thought lost, only to notice that you manage to live without them, leading to the eventual, logical consequence to finally throw them away.

A positive side-effect is, that once you free your physical space from the clutter, you also free your mind. You do not even have to touch your cluttered thoughts to benefit from the cleaning, the newly won space in the physical world will simultaneously widen and expand your mental world. You will even notice the relief from stress, unrecognized stress resulting from long built-up heaps of stuff that is increasingly clogging up your productive system.

Resolve today to get rid of something, everyday.

An extension of this method is to continually and consciously make room for something new. In the same manner you stop old habits or activities in order to find time to start new habits and activities, make physical space for things you wish to acquire. Think of every acquisition as a replacement of something old with something new. Everything you buy, every item or abstract concept or idea you adopt, is in fact a renovation of all that you have -- once you stick to the giving away of something in exchange for anything which you receive. Live life, light.

Peter Drucker would say: Before acquiring something new, give away something old.

Labels: archiving, cleaning, clutter, discipline, gtd, inspiration, lifehacks, mind+sweep, motivation, passion, personal+development, potential, productivity, responsibility, workspace, wow

Quick Motivation: You Live in Paradise

edited by Alexander Becker

The first moment you spent on earth was the beginning of a new world, the world at your fingertips. You grew up and you noticed the nature of the nature of every living thing.

You have the most beautiful life imaginable. You have it all. Everything is coming to you. Everybody adores you. You have, at your disposal, some unique, natural gifts that are waiting to get explored.

You indulge in whatever passion you want. You have the capabilities and the potential to achieve it all.

Your mind is more than able to handle even the most demanding questions and to produce answers comprehensible to anybody who would ask.

Your presence is shining brightly and your glow illuminates the ground you walk on. In whatever guise you appear, your light is impossible to dim.

Your talents are unique in their realm. You walk on paths that nobody else has ever touched.

You can have it all. Reach out and grab what is rightfully yours. You deserve it and you won't take it away from anyone else because there is enough for everyone.

You are special. You have the means to have everything you ever dreamt of.

Deal with it. Accept your responsibility.

Labels: bliss, consciousness, emotions, inspiration, lifehacks, mind, motivation, paradise, passion, personal+development, potential, responsibility, subjective+reality, talents, wow

Despair: A Shortcut to Bliss?

edited by Alexander Becker

You want to improve your well-tuned productivity? You look for ways to lose the last two pounds of body fat? You want to squeeze even more energy out of your already fine-chiseled, self-designed body? Most of the advice and tips and useful how-to guides are usually targeted at the eager and the curious and at the ones who are willing to improve their own situation and lives.

Now, what about the people who are lost, often at the lowest end of consciousness. The people who are without hope and far from curious about optimizing their average productivity level from 80% to 85% efficiency?

We're talking about the very first step to get someone out of absolute misery into conscious misery with a possible exit. What's the first step necessary in order to get you up and running again? What has to happen to make you want to come back?

Analysis of your self results in what you already know, you are down, at the bottom of your experience. How to proceed from there? Sure, the second and every subsequent step are comparably easy once you get going. Where is the first step? How is it made? Is it even possible to make that first step alone, on your very own?

What about the possibility of bliss being found even below the level of despair, the level from where you don't want to evolve. What if you refuse to come back because you have found bliss -- beyond all that external misery? What about absolute despair as a shortcut to enlightenment?

Why would you want to traverse all the painful levels of consciousness when there is a perfect way, you take the opposite direction, you dive deep and deeper, through the dark, only to finally emerge as a new, enlightened being.

The beauty of this approach is that even the well-tuned, the fine-chiseled, and the self-designed may benefit from such kind of thinking. See what you can find at the very bottom of your spirit, explore it, and make it your personal shortcut to bliss.

Labels: bliss, consciousness, despair, emotions, experiences, help, inspiration, lifehacks, motivation, passion, personal+development, shortcut, wow

Learn to Trust Your Inner Voice

edited by Alexander Becker

How old are you? Aren't you old enough to finally trust yourself?

You feel like not exercising today? You feel like really overeating? Maybe there is a big project that is labeled important and thus would have to be treated first, with top priorities... but you feel like not touching it today?

You are old enough. Listen to your instincts and do not always assume that your inner voice is a lazy one. Your inner voice, your instincts are guiding you. Why would you accuse yourself of attempting to cheat? Do you really think you are that bad?

On the other hand, you may fear your inner voice could tell you to double your efforts -- how would you react to that?

How many times did you give in to your feelings of not doing something at that particular time and on how many of these occasions did you beat yourself up, drowning in guilt, only to later realize that it was just right to not pursue that project on that day. Funny how the day after came along the last bit of input that I would have ignored if it hadn't been for my day off... and I thought I was lazy...

The amazing thing about instincts is their effectiveness, they work... instinctively. It's like an additional sense -- but only when carefully observed and trusted.

Take advantage of your inner voice and test it with minor issues at first. Act according to your instincts, preferably on difficult decisions where your conscious mind would suggest doing the exact opposite. Go with your instincts and evaluate what turned out to be different compared to the conscious-mind-only method. You will notice how your instincts contribute to your sensory input and -- once trusted -- are an important way to achieve clarity and stable decisions where the mind-only way would be still guessing.

Respect your instincts and learn to trust your inner voice. Why would you assume that your inner voice is wrong? Why assume that your inner voice is bad in the first place?

It is easy to ignore the inner voice, sometimes it is even easier to keep up the discipline than to break it. You have to constantly evaluate your actions. Do not let your habits run you and prevent you from optimizing your environment and your decisions. Do not stick to a habit because of the guilt that is associated with taking a day off. Stick to your habits because your mind and your instincts tell you to do so.

Listen to your inner voice. Trust your inner voice. Rely on your inner voice.

Labels: discipline, experiences, inner+voice, inspiration, instincts, laziness, lifehacks, motivation, personal+development, productivity, respect, trust, wow

Moderation in All Things?

edited by Alexander Becker

One of Benjamin Franklin's virtues was to: Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

I am always a proponent of pursuing extremes, if not for the outcome then at least for the value of the experience. Yet recently, I discover moderation as a concept. There are many events in life that benefit greatly from a moderate approach. Selective moderation leaves time and energy for the really important, for the high-priority issues to be tackled in extreme ways, excessive in single-mindedness and with overwhelming determination.

With the overall concept and pace being moderate, as moderate as possible, resources are shifted towards the high-leverage objectives that are treated with all the power available, with utmost persistance and through exaggeration and escalation of circumstances whenever possible, even beyond the likelyhood of success.

Moderation adds variety and promotes diversity since active moderation is capable of breaking repetitive habits -- the prevention of having too much of the same too often, for example -- allowing fresh input into your life.

It may seem to conflict with the issue of discipline and exceptions, but you can benefit from moderating discipline itself for too much restriction -- and that's what a good part of discipine is about -- is detrimental to your success and your well-being.

Moderation is important to break up black-and-white thinking since nothing is perfectly black nor white. Moderation is the complete scale from black to white and so is life which is -- to stay with colors -- taking continuously and simultaneously from the whole spectrum, including the extremes, incorporating every color that is imaginable, all side by side.

Moderation precludes -- by definition -- the effects of excess.

For good measure, 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.

Contemplating the reasoning behind moderation does in fact temper the extremes by itself through showing the nature and the evident advantages of moderation vs. excess; variety vs. uniformity; diversity vs. similarity; &c.

I still feel the urge to take moderation to the extreme...

Labels: benjamin+franklin, discipline, excess, extreme, goals, inspiration, lifestyle, mind, moderation, motivation, personal+development, productivity, willpower, wow

Why You Should Seek Inspiration Instead of Motivation

edited by Alexander Becker

Motivation makes you want to do while inspiration tells you what to do.

Motivation is unspecific. You are motivated or you become motivated through external stimuli and you get ready to do something. Once you are motivated, i.e. stimulated to a sufficient extent, you can and do start whatever task is offered or would offer itself to you.

To sustain motivation, it has to be kindled and rekindled and carefully guarded while, on the other end of the scale, the overwhelming force which inspiration creates, is hard to disturb and even harder to resist.

Inspiration starts with an idea or the seed of an idea, call it a hunch or an intuition, with only the slightest hint of motivation. Once picked up, the idea will immediately start to unfold and pull motivation towards itself until completion, until its full manifestation.

Inspiration-invoked motivation is invincible and divine, it is not comparable to the externally aroused, raw, almost crude, give-me-something-to-do kind of motivation.

The trick is thus, in order to achieve maximum and real motivation, to work on and take care of inspiration. Inspiration is the shortcut to motivation and it is much harder to induce since the reception seems to be a very delicate and subjective process without the physical means that trigger motivation.

Inspiration takes place in the mind, via emotions and evaluation of the effects of sensory input. Motivation, on the other hand, is a matter of tangible cause-and-effect events that function via direct sensory input. You can become motivated through physical activity -- inspired you won't become, not necessarily though.

I may motivate you with passion and with the influence of physical power but without actual inspiration and you will ask me for a task to complete... any task, you will be eager to use your instilled energy no matter how. I may do the opposite and give you inspiration; you will instantly and effortlessly motivate yourself and find and complete, all by yourself, the exact task for that very moment.

Always look for inspiration and motivation will take care of itself.

Labels: creativity, discipline, goals, inspiration, mind, motivation, productivity, willpower, wow

Willpower: Let Go of Everything

edited by Alexander Becker

You have a strong will. People fear your willpower, you even celebrate it. Yet, against popular belief, you cannot change other people's will with your own will, no matter how strong or terrible it is.

You may use seduction or force to get what you want, but you cannot put up willpower against willpower. Try to recall such a situation -- did it work? What were the consequences?

Get rid of the belief that you can control everything, because you can't. In fact, you are not even able to control anything, what you can and do control is your perception of things and events. You control and set up your expectations and your evaluations of events and their particular circumstances -- this is the mechanism to influence reality itself. Your subjective perceptions do objectively change your realities. You change your point of view, you walk around the object of contempt or desire and start to see it from different perspectives.

Putting up your will against an undesirable situation causes frustration and resent, your own frustration and the situations' resent. You may use or leverage some hierarchical power to change the situation but this is not your will. The moment you're trying to control your environment through your will, you do in fact force that very will upon your own mind. Your ability to create suffers as a consequence.

Change the situation using your will for good, not going against any other person's will and you are going to employ willpower for the first time in an economical and successful manner. Use that powerful will of yours to enhance and enforce your discipline, for example.

Let go. As an exercise, let go of everything. How does that feel? Let go of everything and consciously select the few things that you actually desire to productively take care of. Let go of everything else.

Now you are free. Free to create and free to succeed.

Labels: acceptance, discipline, goals, how+to, inspiration, lifehacks, mind, motivation, personal+development, productivity, society, tips, willpower, wow

11 Ways to Improve Clarity and Start Getting Results

edited by Alexander Becker

Once you have found your purpose in life, you will have more than enough to do in never enough time. Here are some ways to make your experience even more joyous:

List the top three objectives of your current endeavour. To do this, weigh the most important goals and assign them relative importances. You obviously have to decide which ones are not in the top three. Can you see where this is going? No two things are equally important.
Be sure and confident about what you are doing and why and pursue exactly one project, single-mindedly to the end, until completion. This means you have to make decisions. Do not stand in your own way. Concentrate all your efforts and energy on one target at a time.
Be able to present a written list, at any time, with your top priorities. Practice and pretend to be pitching your services and your goals every day.
Define your #1 goal, its #1 project and its respective #1 task and start working on it, once you understand that this is the only thing there is, right now.
Do not worry about the future. Stop worrying altogether. Apply your rage to the present moment. Transform rage into vigor. Do not fight the future and do not fight in the future. Be clear about the present, about this very moment.
Your rewards are nothing to worry about either, they will come to you when their time has arrived -- worrying will only delay them and prevent you from receiving what you deserve.
Realize that you do not have to suffer to achieve what you want. You decide whether suffering is part of your experience or not.
Drop any goal that isn't worth pursuing anymore; do not let your countless started, semi-finished, and never followed-up upon projects divert your focus. They are worth nothing and only add to your sense of failure. Get rid of the clutter.
Set up a hierachy of time and desire. You cannot have everything you dream of immediately. Even if you skip sleep and eating, you are not going to accelerate the pace with which your dreams are made real.
Set yourself up for success by accepting what you have, as the ground in which to plant the seeds. Do not resist the situation you're in for you set up your future failure as long as you fail to accept the present.
Do not break down and destroy your previous achievements in order to follow a new idea. Recognize the foundations that are laid out for you and your creation. Build on top of what you have -- whatever that may be.

There is another way that runs parallel: see and set your goals as plans to improve your current experience of the present, whatever their outcome may be, regardless of the time it takes to successfully complete them, if they are ever going to be completed, that is.

Labels: clarity, discipline, education, goals, gtd, how+to, inspiration, lifehacks, lists, mind, motivation, personal+development, practice, productivity, tips, willpower, wow

Understand Pain to Train More Efficiently

edited by Alexander Becker

It doesn't have to hurt in order to work, especially not on an everyday basis, but an always and infinitely comfortable workout is no guarantee for success either. There is no reason to run away from the slightest air of pain, as much as you don't need to run away from hunger. Enjoy your pain as long as it lasts.

Have you ever trained to accomplish full splits? This hurts and it has to.

You can choose from three different kinds of pain.

First, there is the pain of muscles that are brought to their maximum in a controlled training situation. Your workout is breaking up the muscle fibers which subsequently heal and grow bigger and stronger as a result. You want that pain.

Then there is the pain of injury: it hurts and at the same moment you know that you should stop your workout immediately. You certainly don't want it but you need that pain in order to prevent further serious damage to muscles, joints, or ligaments.

Another form of pain, the most stressful and the most desirable one, while at the same time the hardest, is the pain of endurance, where the mind offers to shut down the muscles long before they are technically due. Your body would thankfully give in. It is an art in itself to signal the mind that you understand that there is still a long way to go -- sometimes literally, think marathon -- and that the body is physically capable of working the load. You convince the mind that its efforts in telling you to stop will be ignored.

The pain stays the same, whether you run the double or the quadruple distance, the trick is to surrender to the continuous pain and to proceed anyway. The reward is a solemn state, which is achieved when this royal pain is conquered with marathons for example, with wall chairs, with willpower plus discipline. Nothing more.

It is this pain that you don't really want nor need, in fact it is -- to a certain extent -- a game that your mind is playing with you. The more you resist and endure, the more your mind will respect you and finally cooperate with you in your effort to excel.

You need willpower to successfully finish heavy, painful workouts, you are even able to overcome the pain of injury with sheer willpower -- take care though -- but in order to conquer the pain of endurance you have to combine willpower and discipline. This is where real training with massive results begins.

Pain is weakness leaving the body. Mental weakness, that is.

Labels: discipline, education, endurance, exercises, fitness, health, how+to, inspiration, lifehacks, marathon, mind, motivation, pain, personal+development, sports, theory, tips, training, willpower, wow

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

Question Everything You Believe In

edited by Alexander Becker

After questioning everything you do, you may want to start from scratch with your beliefs as well.

Question everything you believe to be true. Everything you believe in. Question the effect that each of your beliefs has on you. Is it good for you? For the success of your actions, for your mind, for your soul, for your emotions. Finally, what do your beliefs do to mankind? Do your beliefs help or hinder humanity?

Why would you hold on to a belief that you know isn't perfectly beneficial to its believers? Why in fact, do you call it a belief? If you are convinced and know it for sure it is knowledge and there is no reason for any doubt. Make that belief knowledge or drop it. Knowledge as in you are absolutely, positively convinced -- not necessarily as in scientifically proven.

What about beliefs whose primary purpose is to explain shortcomings? Beliefs that cover a lack of courage, beliefs decorating fears with colorful legends.

A good way to start is to rid yourself from any belief whatsoever... Why believe at all? Please note that this is an exercise in using your own mind, not a contest in offending anybody else's emotions nor thoughts. There are subtle differences to pay attention to.

So, do you merely believe in God or are you absolutely, positively convinced about the existence of God? Can you see the difference?

Let's take a look at the inevitable objections to the questioning of belief itself: Isn't any objection somehow rooted in fear? Isn't the fact that you are not convinced based on a fear, that possibly, maybe, the belief could be wrong? Not so with knowledge. Either you do know or you don't.

There is a very particular audacity in knowing vs. believing. That's the difference.

Labels: audacity, belief, inspiration, knowledge, lifehacks, lifestyle, motivation, personal+development, questions, reality, wow

How to Motivate Yourself with One Word

edited by Alexander Becker

Your own word: give your word. If you are a person of honor and integrity, you know what it means to give your word.

One method is emotional motivation, pumped up at seminars or at group meetings where the participants leave with that smile on their face, only to have their motivation literally fade away over time, another method is Steve Pavlina's "sans chest-pounding motivation for smart people," intellectual motivation with the main idea to always set unreasonably big and thus intellectually challenging goals.

There are ends to achieve that are important and may be emotionally lit brightly and furthermore intellectually founded and held up by logical reasons and even some scientific evidence... Some goals, the really big ones, can't get enough motivational support to be pursued and focused on, no matter what.

Give your word to someone in order to complete and deliver on the promise whatever it takes. There are not many events that would make an acceptable excuse for yourself showing up with empty hands.

This goes beyond intellectual or emotional motivation. If it is promised, it has to be done. Motivation through honor.

Now, if you develop a similar sense of integrity in dealing with yourself, you may give your word to yourself in order to accomplish any given task even after emotional or logical motivational means are not available for some reason. The emotional momentum may be long gone and logic is hard to employ under certain circumstances.

It doesn't matter why exactly you have to do it, you gave your word and that is more than sufficient to change the world around the issue at hand.

Develop that sense of integrity and give your word to guarantee that things get done. Just make sure to be absolutely convinced that you are not going to give up before the defined and promised goal is achieved. Do not give your word if you are not willing or able to invest whatever you have in order to succeed.

The beauty of this approach is that you do not have to continuously invoke the whole array of "whys" and "what ifs" and "what if nots" in order to stay focused. Your word is a shortcut that let's you switch to autopilot and enables you to work without any doubts or any further questions on the current obsession.

The phrase because I said so now takes on a completely new meaning.

Labels: goals, honor, how+to, inspiration, integrity, lifehacks, motivation, personal+development, procrastination, productivity, promise, tips, tricks, wow, wow-diet

Always Question Everything You Do

edited by Alexander Becker

You get up early. Question that. You start your day with a light workout. Before you leave the house you eat a light breakfast. You work during the day to the best of your abilities. In the evening, you workout heavily. You prepare your meal and you enjoy it before getting back to work at night, to the best of your abilities. You go to sleep after planning the next day. Question all that.

There is no chance to improve anything without questioning everything.

The time you get up -- is it possible to get up earlier or is it favorable to sleep a little longer in order to squeeze some more out of the evening hours?

That light workout -- is it optimal or would you be better off with doing the hard workout before breakfast? The breakfast itself, what can you alter in order to stay more alert until your next meal?

Are you really working to the best of your abilities? Question that.

How is the quality of your evening workout? How do you feel afterwards? If the workout doesn't leave you feel like a million dollars, change it or shift it around on your schedule until that million is yours.

What do you eat, how is it prepared, and when exactly is the absolute best time to peacefully eat and digest?

Do you really plan your next day or do you simply copy the day you've planned once, years ago?

Question your sleep. Do you sleep well? Always? Why not?

Never accept anything simply because it repeats the same way over and over. Even the most basic tasks and functions should be subject to thorough questioning.

You breathe. Well... let's take a look at the way you breathe, do you breathe deeply or rather shallow?

Question it all.

Labels: acceptance, goals, inspiration, life, motivation, personal+development, questions, reward, wow, zeitgeist

Remember Today

edited by Alexander Becker

The most beautiful day in your life. When was it? How was it? What made it so special and different from any other day you can think of? How did that day feel and what was the reason for that feeling? Is it likely and realistic to induce that feeling again, to repeat, if not the day, then at least the feeling?

Although that one day is long gone and it won't come back anymore, the memories and the accompanying emotions will never fade away. Take a look at all your beautiful days in your life so far. What do these special, outstanding days have in common? They are perfect, they are unplanned, unexpected things happen, yet everything feels easy and like planned and executed by a divine hand.

What do you expect to experience today? Do you expect an ordinary day or do you want a special one? You work today and you have a packed schedule and there is no time for any special moment? You plan on spending a perfect day on the weekend, your schedule will be free of stress and obligations, there will be plenty of time and everything is setup to accomodate future memories... How come that -- that day, the supposedly perfect, prepared, and predetermined day, turns out to be not special at all? No memories to take into the future to remember another beautiful day. Why is that?

Let's go back to that day full of work. Full of decisions. Now, decide to make every moment special. Have a meeting? Make it special by chosing a different location, the most perfect location you can think of. Going to introduce yourself to an audience? Make it perfect by presenting yourself in the most special way possible.

Since every moment you are going to encounter will be there for you exactly once -- decide and resolve to invest everything you have into every moment. Accept time and the present instead of resisting it, waiting for a better future. You'll end up waiting forever. Make the most out of every second you have because it will pass no matter how you spend it. Time passes anyway so why not enjoy it in its present, while it lasts?

The most beautiful day? Today.

Labels: acceptance, future, inspiration, life, motivation, now, personal+development, present, reward, today, wow

Maintain Your Beauty

edited by Alexander Becker

How do you think are you going to be able to maintain your beauty during the years to come? Your beauty is shining and legendary. What do you think are you doing right now? Why do you think you can do without sleep? You don't eat regularly, you don't eat enough, and what you eat is not worth the mention. Then there is your mood, please watch it, for that you attract exactly what you radiate.

You play with your life like I used to play with mine...

You declare your starved look a beauty ideal and others will follow you because you are their idol, you are a role-model. Take responsibility. You work without rest while you postpone your health and your beauty... You expect to get it back after being rewarded. What do you think will be your reward? What do you expect from your reward? What do you plan on doing with your reward?

What you still mistake for your reward will not satisfy your longing. But you know that. You will receive a thousandfold, yet you will be waiting for happiness. In vain. You will crave even more and try even harder when the only right thing to do is to step back and enjoy the show.

Don't trade your beauty or your health for something you're not even vaguely able to describe. What you want lies in front of you, within easy reach, day in, day out.

Let go of everything for the shortest moment of your precious time and feel what is there for you and only for you. Feel what you are missing and what you are neglecting in favor of that fear. Let go and be beautiful. Your reward comes from within.

Surprised?

Labels: beauty, health, inspiration, life, lifehacks, motivation, personal+branding, responsibility, reward, sleep, wealth, wow

For Example

Recommended Sites

Most Popular

Starred Items

Handpicked Quote (more)

WOW Search

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Spoiler warning

Prison

Dorothy Macha

Jake's intuition

The confidence trick

The three Eddies

Sam Gold

The awakening

More revelations

The end of pride

The end of ego

Liberation

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Featured Link

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Featured Link

Related Items

Featured Link

Related Items

Related Items

Related Items

Previous Posts

Free Download