WOW: Multiply Excellence and Chutzpah

WOWOW: The Illusions Edition [Links of the Week]

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

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

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

What is your default mode? --

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nothing is for real. Nothing.

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

Happy New Year 2008

edited by Alexander Becker

Two insights from 2007 --

Nothing is set in stone. Even the things that are set in stone are not irreversible.
Do not keep anything you don't need. Storing and holding on to things is often more expensive than re-acquiring them.

2008. Excellence × Chutzpah.

Labels: 2008, chutzpah, excellence, lifehacks, success, wow

Spreading vs. Selling Ideas

edited by Alexander Becker

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

Obviously, it bears repeating --

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

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

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

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

Is fear still stronger than desire?

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

Howard Aiken

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

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

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

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

Uniqueness and Branding

edited by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just make sure to delegate wisely --

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

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

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

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

edited by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Develop in Public, Refine Later

edited by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What about starting from scratch? Without a hypothesis?

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

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

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

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

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

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

The key is initial output.

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

Review: The Dip by Seth Godin

edited by Alexander Becker

The best in the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, get your name on that list already.

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

Constrain Yourself, Your Time, and Your Tools

edited by Alexander Becker

Some concepts keep recurring, again and again, less is more, for example.

Of Ririan Project's 33 New Ways To Overclock Your Brain, one is particularly powerful --

Constrain yourself.

You need structure in your life. And by constraining yourself -- say giving yourself deadlines, limiting your time on an idea in some manner, or limiting the tools you are working with -- you can often accomplish more in less time.

Use deadlines and short time frames. What do you do with your time and sharply defined increments?

Let's take a look at relativity -- what do you accomplish within an hour?

Exercises, for example: 100 bodyweight squats: 3 minutes.; 10 intervals of 15 seconds all out sprinting and 45 seconds recovery jogging: 10 minutes.; Four ridiculous minutes of dumbbell thrusting.; Full body workout using free weights: 30 minutes.
Writing: One such article: 20 minutes.
Food preparation: A big omelette with vegetables and some chicken, all freshly chopped: 15 minutes.

Now, what is it, what single activity takes a full hour? Is there anything taking one full hour? Sure, but cramming those activities within the available 30 minutes makes them even more intense, more dense, and more fun to begin with.

On the other hand, try to limit tools and get your ideas out, with whatever's at hand.

Pencil and a notebook instead of the computer anyone? The medium makes the message. Leave the notebook at home and write your million-dollar-idea down, on the next best surface. Do not let the medium or the brand of your beautiful sketchbook dictate your message.

In other words, do you need a certain, specific, tool to get the job done, a piano made out of glass, for example? One of my favorite quotes from Hugh MacLeod's How to be Creative, is about pillar management, and the props used to hide behind --

There's no correlation between creativity and equipment ownership. None. Zilch. Nada.

There you have it, etc.

Labels: creativity, exercises, lifehacks, personal+development, productivity, training, wow, wow-bits

The 4 Minute-Workout: From Running Gag to Ego Buster

edited by Alexander Becker

The X-minute workout, a running gag among fitness professionals, can still be employed effectively, especially as an addition to a well balanced schedule involving resistance training, intervals, and aerobic work.

The Tabata Method is a variation of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and Dan John has build a short, yet effective Fat Loss in Four Minutes out of it --

Tabata is the name of a Japanese researcher who discovered an interesting way to increase both anaerobic and aerobic pathways at the same time. It's one of those strange training programs that seems to fit across disciplines: it's excellent for bicyclists, speed skaters, Olympic lifters, or the person looking to lose fat quickly.

This training method is so simple, yet so incredibly difficult, that athletes tend to try it once, acknowledge its greatness, and then vow to never speak its name again. What is it? It's simple: take one exercise and perform it in the following manner:

For twenty seconds, do as many repetitions as possible.

Rest for ten seconds

Repeat seven more times!

Ok. So much for the method. I really like sprint intervals but in Northern Europe, rain is sometimes used as an excuse not to go out and run. Enter the remedy; Tabata thrusters --

The thruster is one of the greatest lifts no one has ever heard of in the gym. Take two dumbbells and hold them at shoulder height. Squat down, keeping the dumbbells on the shoulders. As you rise up, press the bells to the overhead lockout position. You can either press as you rise or use the momentum to help "kick" the bells overhead. I find that I do a little bit of both in the four minutes.

Thrusters do things to your heart rate and breathing that I honestly can't describe. Go light! A 35 pound dumbbell in each hand is a very difficult thruster workout! Check your ego at the door for the first two minutes.

It did rain and I did try it... The soreness lasted for three days.

For those of you who'd ask, here is the dialogue that founded all the fun, from Something About Mary in 1998 --

Hitchhiker

You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?

Ted

Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the excercise video.

Hitchhiker

Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7... Minute... Abs.

Ted

Right. Yes. OK, all right. I see where you're going.

Hitchhiker

Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin' there, there's 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?

Ted

I would go for the 7.

Hitchhiker

Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.

Ted

You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?

Hitchhiker

If you're not happy with the first 7 minutes, we're gonna send you the extra minute free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from "A" to "B".

Ted

That's right. That's - that's good. That's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with 6-Minute Abs. Then you're in trouble, huh?

[Hitchhiker convulses]

Hitchhiker

No! No, no, not 6! I said 7. Nobody's comin' up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes? You won't even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel.

Ted

That - good point.

Hitchhiker

7's the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that's the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin' on a branch, eatin' lots of sunflowers on my uncle's ranch. You know that old children's tale from the sea. It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.

Ted

Why?

Hitchhiker

'Cause you're f--kin' fired!

The above described four minutes will indeed train your aerobic and your anaerobic pathways, at the same time, the mind will be working just as hard to stay with you and harden together with your body. Try it. It's only four short minutes. Plus three days, that is.

Labels: endurance, fat+loss, fitness, hiit, interval+training, tabata, wow, 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

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

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

edited by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The State of Flow and Becoming Addicted to Action

edited 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

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

Single-Handling vs. Missed Opportunities

edited 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

The Aficionado's Guide to Appreciation

edited by Alexander Becker

Use intentional and controlled deprivation of that which you love most -- be it food or any material good that you don't want to live without, or an abstract, positive addiction that you usually follow -- to vastly enhance your sensation of abundance.

Deprive yourself through deliberately avoiding your object of desire for as long as you like -- or for as long as you want to enjoy the craving, for that matter. Watch yourself developing and executing the most arduous plans to actually get what you now really want.

This makes for an interesting experience in conquering discipline from both sides, you will try to keep up the discipline to continue the experiment while at the same time, you'll want to satisfy your need, often a conditioned habit, a negative discipline.

You will learn a lot about the energies hidden within you, only waiting to emerge and strike at the perfect moment. You are going to expend energies that just weren't there, or so you would have thought.

You will experience real-world adventures and have amazing tales to tell about serving and satisfying nightly cravings, about exploring levels of creativity and ingenuity that give you a glance of your true capabilities. Then, compare your usual levels of productivity to these peak states of potential productivity.

Observe the mixed feelings of satisfaction, when actually depleting the resource, the act of finishing until the last bit, only to replenish and start all over. Particularly noteworthy is the way you treat that last bit of what's left. Do you prepare to appreciate the final bit in a special way? Do you finish the remainder of the abundance like any other piece or do you throw it away, to avoid having to deal with the moment of absolutely nothing?

What can we learn from these traits, the description of nothing less than classic addictive behavior, to make us even more happy and more beautiful?

If you would only appreciate what you have while it lasts, you wouldn't have such a hard time when finally parting with what you never consciously enjoyed. The least you can do is to try to enjoy and celebrate every bit as if it were the last one.

One more thing... this is an experiment designed to stimulate the mind. Please think chocolate or some rewards to use as the trigger for the craving reaction. Do not think oxygen, or any other vital supply.

Labels: addiction, aficionado, appreciation, chocolate, cravings, diet, discipline, energy, experiment, habits, how+to, lifehacks, lifestyle, mind, personal+development, satisfaction, stimulation, wow

The Secret of Building a Strong Reputation

edited by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eat as Much as You Want: Experiences with the Warrior Diet

edited by Alexander Becker

One of the advantages of the Warrior Diet is the clear and simple distinction between what is allowed and when: Undereat for 20 hours and indulge in overeating the remaining four hours -- each and every day. It is easy to adhere to the principles and to defeat potential attempts to cheat -- refined sugars, for example just aren't allowed.

Certain other diets prescribe exact times for exceptions or specific amounts that basically invite you to eat some more or some stuff that would be off, but... seems to be... with some stretching of the rules... and so on.

After eating according to the rules of the Warrior Diet for more than five weeks now, here are some impressions, in no particular order:

Weight: Although I don't follow the Warrior Diet to actually lose weight, it definitely works to get rid of some bodyfat (Hofmekler calls it "stubborn fat" in the book) if you combine the diet with physical training.
Undereating: Absolute undereating; only water, coffee, and fruit juices seem to work best for me in terms of alertness, energy, and overall well-being throughout the day.
Overeating: I eat as much food as I ate during the first half of the year all in one month and I still lost some weight; in excess of four pounds over the first three weeks. Overeating, and especially the included compensation feels very real and converges with my take on moderation.
Coffee: I stopped drinking coffee, the compulsive, repetitive, hourly coffee, half a year ago. Since then, I only drank a cup or so once a week. Now, on the Warrior Diet, I drink coffee again daily, one small cup in the morning and another one in the afternoon. Drinking that black bitter dervish on an empty stomach feels great, in contrast to what you and I expected. It really supports the undereating phase.
Food groups: I am still eating vegan, no meat, no dairy -- all warrior... My eating vegan is an ongoing experiment and I am happy with the results so far. As of now, I experience no deprivations or deficiencies. (Note: The Warrior Diet is not about eating vegan.)
Diet composition: A week on all veggies and almonds feels great. Extraordinarily great. I ate an average of 200g almonds each day and I even lost weight. (I even felt great after eating more than 400g on one single day -- don't try this on any other diet, you probably don't want to try this at all...)
Exercises: An intense workout on an empty stomach, right after work, in the evening just before preparing the big meal feels amazing and leaves me with even more energy than I brought home. I don't even feel hungry after exercising.
Cravings: The body seems to crave exactly what is nutritionally necessary. It's always amazing to see the vegetative functions working so well.
Instincts: Eating vegan, my instincts aren't too bloody... but I am taking care of the almonds and the fat intake and I believe that all instincts respond and react the way they should.

Conclusion: I still and highly recommend the Warrior Diet for everyone, for physically active people as well as for the 24/7-in-front-of-the-screen crowd.

Labels: books, diet, discipline, eating, exercises, experiences, fasting, fatloss, health, instincts, lists, nutrition, ori+hofmekler, recommendation, vegan, warrior+diet, weightloss, wow, wow-diet

Make Exclusive Decisions

edited by Alexander Becker

Divide et impera, divide and rule: separate your thoughts, each from the other, sort through, be painfully selective about your longings and your objects of desire.

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

Separate the goals you must accomplish from the objectives you merely hesitate to discard from your list of wanted achievements. Triage indiscriminately, not only your obligations but also your desires. Focus on one target at a time. Only this way, you will eventually have them all.

Do not set up three top-priority goals in order to triple your happiness and your satisfaction. Is it even possible to be three times as happy, measurably? Resolve to concentrate on that one major project. Choose one and appreciate the satisfaction that comes from having decided and being gratified with just the right one. Trust your choice. Choose the one you really want. The chosen one itself will be happier being the only one and will show you great appreciation for your exclusive choice.

The main objective of your experience is quality, not quantity. Do not give in and participate in the race for more and more at the expense of better and better. Instead, try to cascade towards the best that is achievable with the means you have at any one time. Always trade in the inferior for the superior. Always discard the good in favor of the better. You will end up having the best experience possible. You have to refrain from collecting the stuff that amasses along your way towards material enlightenment and let it cloud your wonderful presence.

It is your indecision that makes you unhappy. Do not change your plans on a daily basis. Decide, stand up, and stand by your intent. Your decisions will bring clarity into your life. You will receive unexpected help from the people around you, they will surprise you with their support, now that they know what you stand for.

Make your decisions and rule your own, personal kingdom.

Buy only one car at a time. How many favorite cars are in your garage? Is it possible to have more than one favorite in any one class?

You decide.

Tags

Labels: anticipation, behavior, decisions, desire, discipline, divide+et+impera, goals, lifehacks, mind, motivation, obligations, personal+development, triage, wow

Positive Peer Pressure

edited by Alexander Becker

Peer pressure is usually associated with negative behavior and the social dynamics of youth and growing up. Adopt and employ the concept of peer pressure to make a positive difference. Get your tribe to follow your positive lead just as they would follow you blindly in decadence. You are highly responsible for your fellow adventurers, the people around you who read your lips and do exactly what you do. Take good care of them.

Live the best way you can under the best circumstances you can create and do not let your tribe in the dark. Strive to be an idol and carefully monitor every step you take in public; you are always watched and adored for what and for how you are. You are a role-model whether this makes you comfortable or not. Accept being cited as an example.

This is by no means an abstract advice. Look around and observe the people you are with on a regular basis. Everyone influences everyone else. Even the most negligible action can have vast effects when, evaluated in hindsight, through your initial cause someone got inspired to do something not so negligible -- be it good or bad.

Your network of influence, how far does it reach? How far do you intend to reach out? As a rule, the most freakish actions are the ones emulated the most and with great passion. How do you move? Do you eat in certain ways? Do you exhibit any weird behavior that supports your public, your stage personality? People will copy exactly that. Use the power of being an example to spread positive and meaningful actions, thoughts, and emotions. Sort through what is expected from you and live up to people's well-meant anticipations. Make sure to only meet positive expectations; everyone will wait for and prey on your negative output -- do not give in to lower instincts.

The goal is not to create a uniform, synchronously-dancing, equal-looking tribe which would resemble an army more than anything else -- the ideal is the exact opposite, open-eyed, loosely connected, independent and free individuals, given their own, true voice, aware of their abilities and their purpose. You act merely as a catalysator for the people who look up to you.

There are many who strive to become like you.

Labels: anticipation, behavior, celebrity, discipline, lifehacks, lifestyle, marketing, mind, motivation, peer+pressure, personal+branding, personal+development, role+model, stage, tribe, willpower, wow

Autopilot and the Advantages of Flying by Yourself

edited by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fly by yourself. You are no robot.

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

Employ Your Instincts Against Overtraining and Burnout

edited by Alexander Becker

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Simple Technique to Experience Amazing Productivity Gains

edited by Alexander Becker

You plan your objectives in written form. You live Getting Things Done and the accompanying struggles.

That is the easy stuff; mindsweeps, making lists of things, organizing and structuring the always up-to-date lists into contexts and working according to the circumstances, the environment, and the available energy. You will most likely end up with lists that grow longer and longer without even the slightest chance to ever satisfactorily complete any one sub-list.

Enter the advanced stuff.

Since you're working with and alongside intentions anyway, let's try to build a somewhat idealistic, but nevertheless fully functioning, productivity model based on only the best intentions.

Start with the ubiquitous mindsweep.
Recognize and accept the Must Do tasks.
Collect your intentions for the desired outcomes of the Must Do and the Want-To-Do Really Badly stuff.
Inject as much positive thinking as possible into your mental process. Sanitize every thought of potential auto-sabotage.
Feel the synchronicities and the manifestations show up in waves depending on your faith in the actual reception of the intended goal or subject of desire.

It is as simple as reaping what you sow, only more elegant.

You act in accordance with your intentions, you set out your intentions and everything flows naturally, almost effortlessly, you take occasional glances at your plans and lists and you select instinctively, without much conscious thinking, the most appropriate and highest value-yielding task to subsequently accomplish in your sequence of events.

Now that is productivity, where the world seems to run in slow-motion while you are, in high-speed mode and fully alert, observing the fulfillment of your laid out plans and the arrival of your results.

The next -- and the last -- project you are going to tackle the old-school way will be the raising of your consciousness to the level where the magic becomes possible in the first place.

Labels: discipline, goals, gtd, how+to, humor, intention+manifestation, law+of+attraction, lifehacks, mind, motivation, personal+development, practice, productivity, subjective+reality, 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

Reality Check: The Implications of Elite Training

edited by Alexander Becker

Is it possible to be in top physical and mental condition while at the same time participating in life with all its seductions, influences, and an environment that is, if not negative by definition, at least neutral, neutral as opposed to the maximum goals and achievements that are so not-average and pursued while training for life?

Coming out of a controlled environment, mind and body, discipline and willpower are finally allowed to show what they are really able to achieve.

Yet it seems that only in a controlled environment, it is possible to train and prepare yourself for heights formerly unknown. This creates a dual environment problem, where you train for the outside world but not within that world. I'd love to promote training for the real world in the real world but it doesn't work this way.

You train with amazing results, you eat perfectly healthy, your thinking is positive and untainted, only to emerge from your laboratory immediately starting to effectively de-train your mind and your body. Life is cyclic.

I'm still striving to attain the heights of the monk, always, and continuously, although I do not recommend living completely ascetic. Life has to be instinctual -- to a certain degree at least -- it encompasses ups and downs, exceptions, successes and failures.

After a certain point, after accomplishing your goals for yourself, to go even further, to reach for the next impossible, the unreasonable, you have to decide whether to drop everything incompatible or accept satisfaction with what you have within easy reach.

This is what is meant when the best is being defined as the enemy of mere good.

WOW! You look like you're not from this world is not an exaggeration but a perfect truth.

We're talking about the training of elite athletes here, with goals hard to attain, training levels hard to maintain, and rewards hard to believe but why not adopt some of the methods and include them in your everyday mindset.

Labels: athletes, conditioning, education, elite, fitness, goals, health, how+to, integrity, lifehacks, motivation, practice, productivity, reality, sports, training, 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

Exceptions Create Variety

edited by Alexander Becker

To make an exception or to deviate from an established discipline, often induces guilt or the feeling of failure.

Yet by deviating from -- not giving up -- self-imposed discipline, the discipline itself is trained in its flexibility, not in its strength.

Exceptions expand situations. Exceptions weaken the impact of resolutions but they also uncover hidden facets of otherwise known circumstances. Exceptions lead to conclusions that would never surface by sticking to all too perfectly executed, robotic routines in any area of life.

It is important to accept that exceptions have to remain exceptions. There is no reason nor sense in declaring any exception the new standard -- that is taking the path of least resistance. It is the continuous tension between discipline and exception that acts as a creative force and reflects what being human is about.

Exceptions are means to creation, they divert attention, and create variety, they are seeds for events yet to unfold. Embrace and live each exception, indulge in it, and honor and appreciate it for what it is: a gift.

One exception... when the goals are clearly set and agreed upon, exceptions are not permitted. Some paths have to be followed without exceptions.

The mind, like any muscle, has to be moved in as many ways and in as many angles possible. Exercises have to take that into account.

Labels: discipline, exceptions, exercises, goals, lifehacks, mind, theory, training, wow

Review: The Warrior Diet by Ori Hofmekler

edited by Alexander Becker

Based on undereating during the day and eating that one big meal at night, the Warrior Diet is appealing in many ways and modeled after the ancient hunter's schedule of hunting and collecting during the day and resting and eating in safety at night.

No calorie counting, no restrictions, the cyclic nature of the program and the sequence of salad, veggies, and carbohydrates at the end over the course of the night time meal is important and makes this diet -- work. Even killing an occasional pizza is allowed.

The starvation vs. compensation cycle is intriguing in that it is obviously triggering something that Ori calls the warrior instinct.

Heightened levels of energy and alertness in reminiscence of the old warriors on the hunt for their meal are a reality in the undereating phase and a means to counterbalance our lazy, civilized habits. The body isn't preoccupied with digestion during the waking hours and even more, almost starving -- you are allowed to eat, as long as you chose low glycemic index fruits and veggies in order to keep the insulin output low to regulate the balance of the most important hormones.

The fascinating opposite is the overeating period. The day is divided into 20 hours of undereating and 4 hours of overeating in which you can basically eat what you want -- sans sugar and refined starch of course, but this should be common sense by now.

Try this diet as a lifestyle and you will be amazed by the newly found energy and vigor and the sheer amount of food that you will eat during the hour-long eating sessions at night without gaining weight. In fact, you will even lose the last pounds of fat that are on top of your chiseled six-pack abs.

Wild and raw, instinctive eating, and living... who doesn't want to feel like a predator in an otherwise sterile, domesticated world?

Conclusion: Highly recommended, both the book and the diet.

Labels: books, detox, exercises, fasting, health, instincts, nutrition, ori+hofmekler, recommendation, review, warrior+diet, weightloss, wow

Matching Levels of Energy to the Tasks at Hand

edited by Alexander Becker

Time management is no rocket science. Do you work in accordance with your energy level at each moment? Anybody does this without even thinking about it but you can do it consciously and thus more effectively when deciding beforehand how energy-intensive the tasks are going to be and then mapping them across the day.

In the morning, you may be calm and able to concentrate deeply, so why not shift your high-concentration tasks to the morning hours and do the easy, not peak-performance requiring jobs to the end of the workday where you can afford to work on autopilot?

High-level planning for example, is often done best early in the morning, within a quiet hour or two.

Levels of alertness are naturally depending on when and what you eat. Mind-taxing tasks that are due before lunch get automatically more high-quality attention than the after-lunch, digestion-influenced and impaired, heavily diverted focus, is able to provide.

Another excellent time to function with maximum abilities is during the late evening, depending on when you go to sleep, the hours before crashing can be very productive when sensibly filled with the proper tasks.

Monitor and lay out your personal energy map over the course of a typical workday and try to exchange the to dos according to your available mental and physical energy schedule.

Labels: energy, personal+development, procrastination, productivity, schedule, time-management, wow

Resolve to Improve

edited by Alexander Becker

As with most human issues, healthy eating is not about being perfect. You won't be able to eat perfectly anyway. Yet most people set the threshold too high and keep eating what there are eating, reasoning that they are not going to be able to keep up their discipline anyway.

So what? Eat one apple as soon as possible and ideally eat it instead of something unhealthy. Too hard? Eat it in addition.

You not only make the first step but you improve your health in a practical way that you can build upon. Every little thing, every decision in favor of good health is great. You don't need to change any habit -- at least not for now -- eat exactly what you always eat but add that apple and you will end up healthier than ever before.

The idea is, of course, to raise your awareness but you don't need an elaborate diet plan or starvation routines or a mean workout program to get that beautiful life started.

Eat an apple today, add a glas of water and a walnut and you are better off than yesterday. That apple will have a hard time counterbalancing the junk food that you may be addicted to, but it won't travel unnoticed through your body either.

Resolve to improve something. Everything accumulates over time.

Labels: apple, diet, discipline, goals, motivation, nutrition, personal+branding, personal+development, wow

The Transition from Eating Mindlessly to Eating Consciously

edited by Alexander Becker

You commonly start with mindlessly eating what's being served to you. We all do. Most people don't think about their food throughout their whole lifetime, they just eat.

At some point you may notice that what's being served is probably not what you'd really like to eat and you shop around and find the convenient stuff that is available at the corner. You end up being seduced by fast food, hamburgers, fries, sweets, and candy. Sounds familiar? I can relate to the satisfaction that comes after the seduction.

You may or may not gain weight but somehow you begin to notice that a certain sense of well-being or lack thereof must be related to the food you eat. You still enjoy hamburgers with french fries but you are aware that it's not the ideal solution for that hunger and your bodies' wants and needs.

Now, being aware that what you are currently eating is probably not the most healthy food available, you start noticing how other people's eating habits are even worse than your own and you feel much more healthy and generally better and more advanced than those mindless junk eaters. They are just not aware of their wrongdoing and you have to tell 'em.

With your newly aquired knowledge -- remember, you're still on fast food -- you just have to point out that what I am eating, -- researched, composed and designed around principles of nutrition, digestion, and added value for the brain -- is possibly not the holy grail. (I appreciate that, I am constantly experimenting and optimizing.)

Also because I feel like saving animals from being killed for my meal, you just have to point out that I may be, at some point in the future, lacking some protein because you maintain that animal protein is the most important thing in the world. You tell me about mineral deficiencies, and lack of iron, ... don't get me even started about milk and butter.

Please, only one thing, ... please refrain from talking about nutrition while holding a hamburger in your hand, with cheese.

P.S.: I'm still sucking up every piece of information I get, even with two hamburgers in your hands do I evaluate your well-meant advice -- it's just that you look so funny.

Labels: diet, eating, fast+food, hamburgers, humor, nutrition, parody, vegan, weightloss, wow

Tracking and Evaluating Progress

edited by Alexander Becker

The habit of regularly recording and comparing specific data -- as much diverse, significant data as possible, is an easy to implement measure and the most efficient tool to use while working on your goals.

You want to lose or gain weight? Start by measuring and recording your weight once a day, at a fixed time. As a note, I always suggest not to count calories but you may want to count your calories and are free to write them down too.
Keep your financial goals in front of you and make sure to update and track the progress and evaluate the development over time regularly and often.
Workout: Make sure to log the number of repetitions for each exercise you do. Try to ignore people making fun of your training journal, success is much harder to achieve without clear, measurable, and visible goals and subgoals. Besides, how would you ever be able to improve your marathons without being able to compare your runs over time?

The mere sight of comparable records and the recognition of often obvious trends -- ups or downs -- is a great motivator. You don't want to write down a higher weight than yesterday, or a lower balance on your account for today. Just make sure to be brutally honest with yourself.

Archive your data! You may motivate yourself with past achievements in different, measurable fields by looking at your goals' and eventually your life's statistics. You can archive your files in basic ways or you can go creative with printing out graphical charts, pies, or whatever technique suitable for visualizing your progress.

The medium you use to keep your records is not important, you can use pen and paper, your computer's text editor, a spreadsheet program, or one of the various online tools like Backpack or the convenient Google Spreadsheets which lets you import and export your data in various formats.

For fitness-related data, I use a pen and paper solution with custom forms printed out and neatly kept in a binder. This way, the records are always accessible without the need for a computer or internet connection. I do transfer some data into a spreadsheet on the computer to have progress automatically calculated but the initial recording is tree-based.

If you can measure it, you can improve it.

Labels: accounting, diet, discipline, evaluating, exercises, google, health, log, measurement, personal+development, progress, tracking, training, wow

A Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body?

edited by Alexander Becker

I am still not convinced that a healthy body is a prerequisite for a healthy mind or even vice versa. There are too many examples of extremely healthy minds in sick bodies; on the other hand, we all know perfect bodies which don't seem to care too much about their minds. The same goes for beauty; we have beauty without health -- some even explicitely sick -- all around us.

Sometimes it's about priorities, in order to overwhelmingly succeed in one field, the mind for example, you'd have to neglect the body somewhat along the way. It's just not the most important thing to pursue while heading for that mind-related goal.

It's not easy nor is it particularly sane to sustain such an imbalance for longer periods of time. On the other hand, it seems to yield more extreme results, neglecting one, mind or body, in favor of the other.

To conclude, a healthy mind could transform its body into a healthy vehicle but it is not required to do so, as much as a healthy body has no apparent reason to do anything to boost its mind -- except for a steady supply of challenging input, that is.

Don't get me wrong, I am a renaissance man. I do think that by alternating and escalating between mental and physical activity, we are destined to reach our personal best for a prolonged time, as opposed to short-term heights in either field at the cost of the respective other.

Mens sana in corpore sano: An ideal to strive for.

Labels: beauty, body, diet, exercises, health, mind, personal+branding, wow

Diets and Exceptions: One Day Off?

edited by Alexander Becker

While I definitely get pleasure and satisfaction from cycling between extremes, I do think that the weekly binge eating excess is a worthwile target to knock down and leave behind for good.

Many people say they need that regular day off and that it would be impossible for them to completely avoid their sweets, candy, and pastries.

Could you tell when you'd arrived at your naturally healthy lifestyle? Would you know when you were really there?

The day you don't crave those sweets anymore will be the first day of that conscious, healthy, beautiful life.

One more thing. Exceptions are just that: exceptions. They are surely permitted, even desired occasionally to maintain that sense of freedom, while regular, weekly, scheduled exceptions are nothing more than excuses.

Let's try to get over excuses.

Labels: binge+eating, diet, discipline, exercises, health, personal+development, wow

The Wall Chair: Mental Toughness vs. Physical Endurance

edited by Alexander Becker

A simple, yet effective exercise: The wall chair.

Stand with your back against a wall and feet shoulder-width apart. Slide down into a crouch with knees bent to about 90 degrees. Hold as long as you can.

On the first day, try to hold the position as long as you think you can endure. On the second day, increase the time by five seconds, on the third day, increase by another five seconds. Do this for about a week.

Now, what do you think do you work on during that week? You surely train your quadriceps, but most of the exercising is improving mental toughness. Would you expect to double your physical endurance in such a short time?

It’s the double benefit of training body and mind through continuously pushing beyond the limits that makes endurance exercises so valuable.

Labels: endurance, exercises, fitness, how+to, mind, strength, training, wow

I want you to be Happy, Healthy, and Beautiful

edited by Alexander Becker

You are beautiful. I want you to be at your best. Because you rock.

People keep coming up to you, exclaiming: WOW! You are beautiful!

The purpose of this site is to help you and inspire you in achieving and maintaining being WOW. It's about your happiness and your health and your beauty. We are talking about fitness and mind and health. About nutrition and about diets. About hard work and about amazing results.

The difference between WOW and other helping hands is that I will never tell you that you don't have to work for your goals. In fact, you have to work as hard as you can -- by definition -- to achieve as much as you want.

I want to bring out the best of you. Nothing more. It is a journey and it will be the best there is.

WOW is a blessing and a gratification, an indicator that you are on the right track.

You rock. That's it.

Labels: fitness, general, health, motivation, personal+branding, personal+development, wow

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