WOW: Multiply Excellence and Chutzpah

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

• WOWOW: Motivation Redux

  edited by Alexander Becker

  Motivation? Shortcuts?. Enter George Carlin --

  Why do all these people need help? Life is not that complicated. You get up, you go to work, you eat three meals, you take one good [vulgar term for bowel movement], you go back to bed. What's the ***** mystery? ... Why would anyone need to be motivated by someone else? If you lack motivation, a seminar isn't going to help you. What you really need is to get smashed in the head thirty or forty times with a golf club. That will ***** motivate you. Or else it will at least get you moving around the room, locate your socks, get the day rolling.

  There is not much more to it. The rest and the remainder is crutches and rationalizations.

  • Intensity and Excess, Forever?
    A series of nows instead of a extended then.

  • Why Chutzpah?
    Because it makes you think different.

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

  • The Best In The World: What's the Point?
    Immortality is a collateral of best-in-the-world. You are not going to care, though.

  • Reload Your (Abandoned) Resolutions
    By now, most resolutions have been abandoned and life goes on. Let's see if we can reanimate one of them. One goal, three to-dos, and a trick, each day. Or... 1000 tasks and a gun to your head.

  • Happy New Year 2008
    Two insights from 2007.

  • Tales of Virtuosity: Excellence at its Best
    It is obvious then that what may look like audacity to some is just the way it works. That, in fact, is humility.

  • Opinionated? Hell Yeah!
    It is not for everybody. While everybody is invited to try, some are here to stay. That is my opinion.

  • Get Anything You Want by Allowing Mutual Blackmailability
    Get to know your business partners beyond business and corporate structures, boundaries, and limitations. Share your weaknesses and you are going to share and enjoy your mutual sucesses even more.

  • The Dilettante Way
    Just do it and start to practice and gather invaluable experience instantly.

  • Knowledge is King: How to Spot The Fake
    Whenever someone appears or pretends to be in the know, think twice before giving him or her expert credit and credentials.

  • Common Sense: Friend or Foe?
    Don't let common sense replace education, instead replace common sense with original experience.

  • Why Don't You?
    The difference between excellence and mediocrity.

  • Inside or Out?
    The real magic happens inside, only inside.

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

  • Hesitation: Do Anyway or Do Not?
    There are two possible causes for hesitation.

  • Play It Where It Lies
    Do you think he plans it all out or just makes it up as he goes along?

  • Now, Seriously
    Hack your life when the spirits are low and when the stakes are high.

  • Developing Your Style
    What does style have to do with insanity?

  • Are Your Goals Mutually Exclusive?
    By trying to achieve all goals simultaneously, you will end up achieving nothing more than average, lowest common demoninator results.

  • There Are No Misunderstandings
    Something has changed and isn't -- yet -- communicated to everybody involved.

  • Why Rituals Equal Success
    As a social outcast you're not going to be successful in business either.

  • The Consulting Principle
    It is the consulting principle which makes outside brains so effective and part-time lovers so irresistible.

  • Need Help? The Case Against Unsolicited Advice
    The one rule to respect in order to successfully offer free help.

  • Compulsories vs. Freestyle
    At least acknowledge the rules...

  • Subversion through Over-Compliance
    Comply when complying is not an option.

  • Perception without Judgement
    Judgement evokes judgement and builds a reality on top of reality.

  • Focus Your Focus
    Focus without persistence is useless.

  • Subjective Reality: Create an Atmosphere
    Your creations develop a life of their own.

  • In Hindsight: The Perfect Time to Quit
    When quitting is not just an option.

  • Benefit from the Magic of the Beautiful Morning
    There is no time like dawn.

  • The Pareto Principle vs. the Necessity of the Unnecessary
    Comparison determines quality.

  • Overcoming the Fear of Irregular Habits
    Exceed your own demands.

  • Your Success is Guaranteed
    With determination, discipline, and persistance.

  • Divide and Rule: Make Compound Interest Work For You
    Creating wealth.

  • How to Avoid Misunderstandings
    Decrease the level of detail.

  • How to Double Your Productivity with the Escalation Principle
    Work in increments and never stop.

  • Deliberate Change: Whatever it Takes
    The turmoil which precedes creation.

  • The Secret Connection between Losing Fat and Eating Healthily
    Resolve to become more healthy and drop the fat automatically.

  • Subjective Reality: The Difference between Experience and Adventure
    There is only one experience. Yours.

  • Leap Forward and Benefit from Nonlinear Growth
    Always expect more than others think is possible.

  • Why Do You Hide?
    Choose your universe and tell everybody about it.

  • Acceptance vs. Resistance?
    What are you really fighting against?

  • Look Good and Fulfill the Expectations: It's What's Upfront that Counts
    Are your looks congruent with your performance?

  • Instant Exercise: Reinvigorate Yourself
    Design your personal stress-busting technique.

  • Mentors and Modeling: Learn Everything from Anyone
    Use negative idols and avoid their mistakes.

  • Zero-Based Thinking: Reconsider Negative Decisions
    Apply zero-based thinking to the quitting itself.

  • They Call You Crazy? You're on the Right Track
    Remove yourself from everything average.

  • Free Your Mind: Improvisation and Method Acting
    Act and react spontaneously. You are no robot.

  • How to Deal with Principles vs. Results
    Stick to principles or focus on results?

  • Excellence Beyond Competition
    Being the best vs. being your best.

  • Why You Should Assume Complete Responsibility for Your Goals
    True fulfillment is your original vision manifested without alteration.

  • Do You Fight Substitute Wars?
    You procrastinate on your primary goal because the secondary one promises pleasure?

  • Quick Motivation: You Live in Paradise
    How many paradises do you think exist?

  • Learn to Trust Your Inner Voice
    Do not suppress your instincts even when they suggest taking a day off.

  • Make Exclusive Decisions
    To decide means to choose one in favor of the other.

  • Positive Peer Pressure
    Everybody is a role-model for everyone else.

  • Why You Should Seek Inspiration Instead of Motivation
    Inspiration is self-sustaining and specific while motivation is not.

  • Willpower: Let Go of Everything
    Control freaks, take note... you do not control anything.

  • Succeed through Synchronizing Your Behavior
    Optimize your performance in any area of life through simply being yourself, always.

  • How to Motivate Yourself with One Word
    Give your word to yourself and let your integrity take over the motivating part.

  • Resolve to Improve
    Absolutely everything accumulates over time: why not focus on the positive stuff and start with the most simple thing.

  ... or else it will at least get you moving around the room, locate your socks, get the day rolling.

  Related Items

  • Alexander Becker Shares
  • Play It Where It Lies

  Labels: accountability, chutzpah, excellence, george+carlin, insanity, lifehacks, motivation, personal+development, potential, productivity, responsibility, success, time+management, willpower

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• Make Time Stand Still

  edited by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

  Ever so slow and ever so cheerfully.

  Related Items

  • Need Help? The Case Against Unsolicited Advice
  • Constrain Yourself, Your Time, and Your Tools
  • The Secret of Building a Strong Reputation

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

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• 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

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• The News Diet: Less News = More Productivity

  edited by Alexander Becker

  News Fasting. The deliberate avoidance of all forms of news media, particularly to relieve stress and relax the mind. Also: newsfasting.

  The concept is tried and trusted. Achieve moderation through deprivation. Go on a controlled fast and recognize the difference it makes.

  If you want results and you want them fast enough, you have to go extreme ways. Don't expect a balanced approach, we're going all out here. This is no moderate diet, no zone, this is the no-carb, guaranteed fat-loss, whatever-it-takes solution.

  Try and temporarily avoid the news and see the difference it makes. Do not ignore but screen out the news altogether -- without even attempting to keep track of what's going on through blogs -- for a specific time.

  Think fasting, in the dietary sense. Go on a controlled news fast for four weeks, no local news, no global issues, no foreign politics allowed. Schedule one cheat day each week and indulge in the weather channel. Make sure to stay with your local weather and avoid the world weather binge fest.

  Potential benefits include less TV time, less newspaper expenses and therefore less waste, a better mood and a greater sense of control since you cut out the things you can't influence anyway. The double effect on productivity is a relative increase in actionable information and an absolute increase in time to take action.

  Focus exclusively on your business (supposed you're not in the news business, in which case this diet isn't for you) and monitor the time you save and the decisions you make -- unbiased from and not influenced by daily news events.

  After completing this special diet, start to participate in news-inspired discussions -- freshly resetted and devoid of all too current facts, you'll find yourself perceiving -- ideally without judging -- the assumptions and influences of world news on your peers.

  No, there is nothing wrong with it, news are no evil, nor are they bad per se, just as carbohydrates aren't bad as part of your diet. The reason for going on a total fast is the occurring break and the experience of the difference. Just as with carbs, we slowly and moderately and consciously reintroduce news into our information diet. Start by gradually adding section by section of your newspaper or news aggregator of choice to your reading schedule. Deliberately include them in your diet, choose one, two, or three sections, and deliberately exclude the rest. What can you do without?

  Please note that the four-week duration is capable of breaking the habitual news consumption once and for all. Appreciate and enjoy your extra time.

  Related Items

  • Moderation in All Things?
  • Fasting: Restraint Instead of Deprivation
  • Perception without Judgement

  Labels: bias, communication, discipline, email+detox, fasting, info+diet, lifehacks, lifestyle+design, moderation, news, news+fasting, personal+development, productivity, time+management, wow

  If you liked this post, please take the time to bookmark it or subscribe to get updates.

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Previous Posts

• WOWOW: Motivation Redux
• WOWOW: The State of Diet and Nutrition
• WOWOW: Embrace Novelty and Resubscribe
• Fair Division: Game Theory and The Batman
• WOWOW: Intellectual Work and Calorie Intake
• WOWOW: Anamorphosis
• WOWOW: Freefall
• WOWOW: Then
• WOWOW: This!
• WOWOW: There!

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