WOW: Multiply Excellence and Chutzpah

Reload Your (Abandoned) Resolutions

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

Or...

1000 tasks and a gun to your head.

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

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

One Goal

Did you achieve your primary 2007 goal?

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

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

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

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

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

Three To-Dos

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

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

The Trick

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1000 Steps are Enough

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

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

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

A Variant

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

Summary

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

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

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

Common Sense: Friend or Foe?

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

Why Don't You?

by Alexander Becker

The difference between excellence and mediocrity? Action.

Initial output is important. What initial input triggers your action in the first place?

Is there any moderate amount of anything that could get you started? No? I thought so.

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

While it helps to start from scratch, you don't necessarily have to lose everything in order to evolve -- it's the easiest way though.

I could. Complacency. Inertia. Hesitation. Laziness. Insecurity. Being content enough. Mediocrity?

Why does it always have to be a shock, something extreme, something radical, some drastic experience, to get us moving? Why do we look best when we're totally exhausted? Why do we have to run a whole marathon? Why do we literally have to burn the ships? Why can't we just start?

Because maybe -- maybe, it would be too easy. If it would be so easy, everyone could and eventually would do it.

Enough, sufficient, moderate -- that is what is holding back and keeping together the mediocre.

Mediocrity is not the problem nor is it the enemy. Mediocrity is the result of not getting started. Get started and you will eventually evolve and excel. But if you don't -- you won't.

I can. The world is not enough, nothing will ever suffice, and moderation is not a means to achieve anything remarkable.

You know that you could. I know that you can.

Labels: achievement, complacency, decisions, excellence, hesitation, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, mediocrity, moderation, motivation, personal+branding, success

Spreading vs. Selling Ideas

by Alexander Becker

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

Obviously, it bears repeating --

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

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

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

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

Is fear still stronger than desire?

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

Howard Aiken

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

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

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

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

Hesitation: Do Anyway or Do Not?

by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Play It Where It Lies

by Alexander Becker

Plan or play?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do People Love About You?

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

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

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

There Are No Misunderstandings

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

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

The State of Flow and Becoming Addicted to Action

by Alexander Becker

There is much said about the state of flow. If you want to achieve genuine and non-esoteric flow, try action. Cascading action. Action which builds on top of preceding -- action. Action as in progress. Action as in creation as well as in evolution.

Become addicted if you aren't already. More and more. Create. Evolve. Whatever it is but let it move and it keep it ever new. Progress. All the time. There shall be no single day without any -- even the smallest -- step towards the current and the next goal. Action.

What did you do today to achieve immortality?

As with publicity, almost any action, good or bad, is preferable to inaction and static being. Positive progress is obviously favorable -- though when in doubt, have it move in either direction, as long as it moves to begin with. If and since you work -- you do, don't you -- under the premise that each and every time you perform at the very best of your ability, that at that particular time, you can only excel and ask for more and more tasks to crunch.

By following and cultivating this attitude it will be easier to do only one thing, that nobody will ever forget -- every day. Which, by the way, is just the minimal answer to the immortality question. What if you accomplish that one thing early in the morning, even before breakfast? Would you try and get done one more thing towards immortality? What about an entire series of things?

Once you start a series of cascading actions, the addiction part is taking care of itself. This is flow. This is the point where it is commonly said that success is inevitable. It just doesn't work any other way because each event triggers -- almost domino-like -- the next and the following ones with the result becoming inevitable because of cause and effect.

Please note that while some effects certainly do not require specific causes, and some causes produce no effects at all, it is equally certain that inaction -- unless no action is the desired cause -- is not going to cause any significant effect. In other words: No cause doesn't cause anything.

One last thing: The use of the term addiction hints at some negative implications. While the focused, conscious obsession definitely helps with achieving your goal, the addiction has its downsides: Laser-like concentration tends to utilize other system's vital energy and you may destroy on one side as much as you are trying to build on the other side. Get rid of your addiction as soon as the negative issues outweigh the positive ones -- and yes, there are positive aspects with any addiction. Otherwise it wouldn't be such a problem in the first place. Remember that you're after the rewards.

Labels: action, addiction, discipline, excellence, flow, lifehacks, lifestyle, motivation, personal+branding, personal+development, productivity, success, wow

Single-Handling vs. Missed Opportunities

by Alexander Becker

Single-handling is the high-speed, high-performance productivity concept of dealing with tasks, material or immaterial, on first sight, encounter, or touch. Get it out of the way as soon as it comes up, without ever looking back again.

Here is a short exercise: Analyze your missed opportunities for a given timeframe, say last year, and determine how much stuff you wanted to get back to. How many interesting things, creative hooks, and potential successes piled up in order to be forgotten and later purged, ironically handled for a second time only to be discarded since their best before dates had long expired.

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.

Deal with everything immediately, as soon as possible and do not attempt to preserve anything for later. It will be too late. Everything which you do not act upon immediately gets never acted upon at all. Yes, there are exceptions but considering the results of the exercise above -- the list of missed opportunities is long and the ratio of exceptions to misses indicates a negligible count of exceptions -- you have to triage for ultimate productivity.

If you can decide to deal with it later, whatever it is, you can as well take an additional moment and get it done on the spot. Yes, that's similar to the 2-minute rule from David Allen's Getting Things Done. In fact, it's even easier because it focuses on the yes-or-no decision of acting upon or discarding really fast.

If you have to read it anyway, read it now.
If you need to make the decision, why not make it now?
You first want to prepare ... in order to ... Do it now!

The advantage of trashing over burying is that, when the time comes to go through the archives, you are not confronted with missed opportunities anymore. Instead, your missed opportunities are, from now on, conscious decisions to not participate.

Labels: excellence, gtd, lifehacks, lifestyle, motivation, opportunities, personal+branding, personal+development, productivity, triage, wow

Subjective Reality: Create an Atmosphere

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.

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

Follow Your Excellence

by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Secret of Building a Strong Reputation

by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Your Mind Benefits from Cleaning Up Your Physical Workspace

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,

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