First off, I just made beef bourguignon made from Julia Child's recipe. It took a while, but came out well. Actually it was awesomely good. I just updated my other site, http://www.lifestylebusinessbookclub.com/ , with my notes on Tim Ferriss' book The 4-Hour Workweek. Also, take a look at http://www.indestructiblemuscle.com/. I recently have been reading through the blog, and it is rare I go back and read the old material, but I am glad I did. Looking at one post is nothing, but looking at them all, I learned a lot about myself and I now have some ideas on how to improve the blog. Let me know how I can improve it, and what you would like to see more of. The 8 things I think I need to do (so far); 1. I obviously need to get tested for ADD. I get fascinated by way too many things. Focus would help. I will call Dr. Kim this week. 2. It wouldn't hurt to show my sense of humor, I have read through this, and damn I come off as a stiff and some articles are way too dry aka boring, and trust me, I have been accused of many things, but being a stiff not one of them. 3. Kind of similar, but after reading through all the entries, I realize that I have been very vague, and do not ever get personal. Tha needs to change. (Example: no real picture of me) 4. Every time I start to get into something, I drift off and then create a new domain, and then don't link them together. Time to just put it all here, and if there is something on one of my other sites I will connect it. 5.Write more, quote less. I love quotes but damn. (There will still be some, but hopefully they will be accompanied by some text from me. Think Montaigne.) 6. Make the format a little easier to follow. Look at my categories / (says it all.) 7. I should link in and out to my other sites. ( See links above.) 8. I need less abstract and more concrete examples. Do. Test. Correct. Do Again. If you have any ideas or thoughts, feel free to email me, or leave your thoughts below. D
It amazes me how much people will ignore things that do not work. They will just tune the problem out, and then pretend that is has to be that way, or that is how the people in charge want it to be. They never seem to get the idea that they can change things, even though if asked or nudged, they will agree they could, maybe.
Everything changes, and since it does, you can influence that change, you can make anything change direction.
It may take time, I know it will take work, and it will take disagreeing with the current process, and arguing with those afraid to change, but you can change the world around you.
People seem to wait around, looking at a big problem, and hoping that somehow it either will go away, or someone else will fix it. More often than not, no one comes, the miracle doesn't happen, and you limp along never making it better. People will often act like sheep, staring at the future with blank eyes.
I can't do that.
I simply can't, and that means is sometimes hard to be around me, but I cannot wait for someone to fix a problem, I just have to make it happen. I am the guy who pokes a stick at the snake to see what it does.
You make a decision, and if it doesn't work, then you figure out why, and do it again.
You have to look for opportunities for action.
How do you fix a big problem?
First off it isn't a big problem. That is in your head.
What is bothering you is that there are several small problems around you and you are not looking close enough, so you think there are one big one.
Look closer, everything can be broken down, and then it becomes clear and simple.
if you break problems down into steps and then start solving them one at a time, the problem becomes less massive, and more manageable, and things change.
As things start to change, you can momentum, and suddenly everything starts to change.
Everything.
D
What I learned this week.
By the way, above is a picture of all the notes I made of things I learned or needed to research during the week. My pocket gets kinda full by Friday.
“I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.”
― Louis CK
1. I became convinced that creating and documenting processes for anything you will do more than once is essential to your sanity. To quote Rob walling from Start Small, Stay Small "It’s true; you can fly by the seat of your pants and get by, but it makes you a hostage to your work. If you’ve ever been a manager you probably like process and understand its benefits. If you’re a developer you probably dislike process or see it as a necessary evil. Startups, being lean and mean, seem like the perfect place to eliminate documents, have no systems, and no processes…but that’s far from the truth. Without process it’s impossible to delegate, difficult to bring on a business partner, and easy to make mistakes. With processes in place it’s much easier to sell your product if/when you want to make an exit. The fact is, creating processes will bring you freedom through the ability to easily automate and outsource tasks. "
2. That Direct Marketing is incredibly interesting. I have become obsessed with the Classic Old School Direct Marketers and I ordered
a rare book about Chase Revel. I am learning niche marketing.
3. That Bridging is hard, and it is going to take me a long, but it will make it all worth it. My goal to use body weight training is going well, and I can now do the full squat and I am ready for start the process for the one legged, I can do the full pushup and I am ready to start the process for the one arm, and that I have a long, long way to go for the one armed pull up and the full bridge. Best workout I have ever had and it requires literally nothing.
4. I am reading the book Willpower, and it is interesting that the minute McDonald's put salads on their menus the sales of Big Macs jumped. Apparently just looking at the possibility of a healthy meal is enough to short circuit willpower and for you to reward yourself. I learned your brain is far my auto-responsive than I thought, and you always have to remember why you are disciplined, not just that you are.
5. I am reading a book about Bruce Lee, and every time I think he cannot get cooler, he does. For example:" Lee did not believe in learning by accumulation, but instead believed that the highest form of mastery was one of simplicity, of "stripping away the inessentials", much like Lao Tzu believed in the need to disband all schools of formal learning."
D
We live in a world of circles.
Every person we know expects us to be a certain person. They assign expectations for us and to our actions. They see us in a certain way, and they see us as a certain person. These people in our life have a concept of who they expect us to be, and of who we are allowed to be, and exactly what they expect us to do and say and believe. Each person defines a circle of behavior for us based on who they think we are.
These expectations are circles that limit our world. We cannot do anything, if we have to adhere to certain expectations. When we walk out a door, any door, we then can go in any direction, there are no real rules, but we often go the way we do, based on expectations.
Every person assigns us a list of acceptable and expected actions that we can do, and we cannot break that circle without causing disruption in to other people's lives. People love consistency, and do not like us to act inconsistent or different than their perception.
It makes people very nervous to truly know the world is not consistent.
As the number of people we know expands, and the number of circles we are given and bound grows, the number of circles we become locked in grows also. Sometimes the beliefs and circles overlap, but sometimes they do not, and there is conflict.
If we try and please everyone, and meet all the expectations of all the circles, we find ourselves unable to move, or to be ourselves, and we are then locked in a myriad of rings of expectations of others.
They now define you more than you define you.
Be open about what you do, who you are, your inconsistencies, as it makes the expectations of others match what you want to do.
Be aware of the circles, and do not lock yourself in them if they do not match who you are.
I read somewhere that the more you let people know about you, then the more they can control you. This is true in some ways, but actually it is the unreal expectations that try and pin you down. Pick carefully which circles matter to you, and be transparent in your actions.
The fewer circles you are locked in, the better. Freedom of action is critical to living.
The goal is to remember you have your own set of expectations, and your own personal circle of choice.
You want to pick those other circles that matter to you, that match your circle of belief or actions, that complement your actions, add to them, and that will make them better.
D
Every day I read (Voltaire still amazes me, as does the book on body weight conditioning,), I listen to podcasts (Lifestyle Business Podcast, Bulletproof executive) and radio shows, and use RSS feeds (Mark Cuban) to collect information to access when I am driving, or forcibly idle, and I collect thoughts, ideas, and things to research on pieces of paper I keep near. At the end of the day, or week, I will take the pile of notes which are filling up my pockets, and then write them down, and look into the ideas I might have. It could be books to look for or read, (right now I am still looking for James Altucher’s book on hedge funds), ideas to improve my sites (I want to take my bambozzle books further), I find possible topics for the blog (this one for example.) An enormous amount of information flows around us, and our brains are wired to see patterns, so we need to be aware of ideas or concepts that we can grab and use to make ourselves, our lives, and our business better. D
People have commented on some of my posts, and they asking me about whether I really do what I write about (I do). I thought I would write down what I did today as an example, and this is a pretty normal day, nothing special;
Woke up and made some Bulletproof Coffee which is coffee with grass fed butter and MCT Coconut oil. (more on that later, but check out The Bulletproof Exec.) I have been studying various health supplements, and this popped up on my radar a couple of months ago. I am a believer.
I then sat in the sun and read a couple of chapters of the biography on William Sherman, then one chapter on Lean Supply Chain, and then a couple of chapters on using bodyweight for physical conditioning. I am becoming obsessed with being able to do a one arm push up and one arm chin up. Seriously obsessed.
Made my group some Cinnamon Pecan Pancakes, which were pretty good.
Made a plan for what I will cook this week, six meals, including carnitas, Korean Chicken, and Homemade Pizzas, made a quick grocery list, and then went out and got the goods.
Made sure I got my Brazilian nuts and almonds. My favorite snack food.
While I was out, I stopped by a bookstore, because I am looking for a book by James Altucher on Hedge Fund trading (still haven't ound a copy), and then got a Taro Boba, which breaks the meal plan, but I love. I always believe on having a heavy hand with the good things in life. I get obsessed with ideas, and I am now diving deep into stock trading concepts. (I think when everyone gets out is exactly when you should get in.)
Bought the new Wired magazine, so I could read the article on Startup Weekend, and also read the article on the pharmacology of a memory pill. I am interested in smart supplements.
Got back and wrote a four page report for work outside and then emailed it out. I then set up my plan for the week on what I want to get done. I am digging into Microsoft AX, and I am reading some white papers, particularly on the sales and production side. I am working on what measurements, and how to get them that I will need to execute what I think needs to happen.
I worked on my online bookstore, I have decided to ramp it up, and then take it in a new direction. Need to get it running better first. Sold a couple of books through it today. Listed some items.
Came up with an idea for my website network. Discovered someone already had the URL Ramenprofitable.com.
Watched Amazing Race, because I love Amazing Race.
Worked out. Still on the perfect push up. (No where near.) Set up my chin up bar.
Wrote this post.
Will write some other items later, I have many in motion, and then I will work on the web site. I have some ideas I need to get down.
That about sums it up, tht is my day, and does not count the time I spent with the family, for example, watching them play Arkham City, or the talks (trying to convince my nephew to do the Amazing Race with me), but it shows the time I spent trying to make all the parts of my life better, a little bit each day.
I will have some coconut ice cream. I have to. Its good.
I always try to make sure that each time I leave a room, I leave it better than it was when I came in. I treat my days the same way. Make them better for you walking through it.
What did you do today?
D
The thing you do need to do is learn. Learn accounting. Learn finance. Learn statistics. Learn as much as you can about business. Read biographies about businesspeople. You don’t have to focus on one thing, but you have to create a base of knowledge so you are ready when it’s time. - Mark Cuban
This is what life is all about,Superfly, it is about making the choices in your life, and doing the work, and learning the way. I have absolutely no patience with people who aren't learning, who are not changing who they are daily. They are asleep while others are busy creating themselves and the world they walk through.
Education is not a place, it is a way of being, and anyone not interested in learning is going to learn the hard way that Darwin was right, and they will find themselves culled from the herd. Ignorance is not a viable survival skill.
When I say Universities are on their way out, that doesn't mean education is out, because education has never been more critical to your life and to your success than it is today. Learning has never been more possible, it has never been easier, and you can have access to almost any data, any information, from anywhere, in the world, and it has never been easier to be better tomorrow than your are today.
You have the tools of giants. Your IPhone has more computing power than the computers used to get to the moon. You have access today to tools giant companies and countries couldn't get twenty years ago. You got the stuff, now use it.
Listen.
Any time your life settles into a routine, you are stagnating.
Any animal doing the same thing every day, take the same path to the water hole, is in the end, a dead animal.
Look around you, the world changes constantly, and anyone not changing and adapting is simply done and not worth know. I want people in my network who seriously know their stuff.
What did you learn today? Seriously. What?
Today I learned how to cook Banana Pancakes from scratch.
I studied SEO for about an hour trying to understand how internet businesses function.
I read some Hemingway, two short stories, trying to learn how he manages to make the entire story about what isn't said. the empty spaces in the dialogue.
I started to learn how to use body weight as a workout process (fascinating).
That isn't all I did today, but it shows the point.
In my humble opinion, once you have learned how to learn, then you can try as many different things as you can, recognizing that you don’t have to find your destiny at any given age—you just have to be prepared to run with it when you do. - Mark Cuban
Hey You. Get away from the TV, get off the couch, and go create something.
Make Yourself.
D
Being sick for the last couple of weeks, I was fascinated to find how much being sick changes how you are. The way you view things. It gave me a kind of distance to the things around me. Objectivity.
It is also amazing how being sick makes you more aware of what energy you have, you triage quickly, to do what matters.
Energy is key.
Almost back............... almost.
Reading right now;
A biography of Civil War General William T. Sherman,it is an old style biography,and the prose is kind of stilted, but the subject is fascinating.
137 - the story of the friendship between Jung and Pauli. This is an amazing book about the relationship between Jung the psychoanalyst and Wolfgang Pauli, and their fascination with the unusual in the world.
The Nick Adams Stories by Hemingway - it isn't about his style, Hemingway is the master of what isn't said, but implied.
Convict Conditioning - a book on using your body weight to get stronger. I like the idea of using all your muscles to insure ypu stay strong and healthy.
D
Imagine a giant college campus filled with dodo birds and woolly mammoths. All carrying backpacks, textbooks, and a cup of Starbucks. And all extinct. It is inevitable that Colleges and Universities will collapse under their own weight. Entities like that have a tendency to resist technological change, and to resist changes in technology is always fatal. Efficiency always wins. Inefficiency always loses. Always. And that is good. Learning isn't going away, it is growing, and what is slowing it down is the old educational system. The old system needs to get out of the way, because if the world needs anything, it needs more knowledgeable people walking its surface.
I go to the University of kin
Look at book stores, book publishers, record labels, record stores, and music publishers, all of which have resisted change and all have fallen, been damaged, or they have had to downsize and change because of the changes in the world. They tried to stop change and got run over while standing still.
What doesn't change, dies.
What does a university have in common with a music label and Borders bookstore?
All were initially designed and built to distribute information. Colleges and Universities are built for exactly the same thing. It is what they do. It is their thing.
Two hundred years ago it was possible to read every book in the world, books were hard to produce, and they were expensive. Over time means of production came into play, and huge distribution networks were built to funnel books to the world. I can read a copy of Basho's haiku on my kindle for free, anywhere I want to read it.
Music is the same. Think about it, it used to be the only way to hear music was to go hear the artist, and then records, radio, and huge businesses were built to get you the 45, the cassette tape, and the compact disc. I used to have boxes of music, and now I have the entire collection of The Black Keys in my pocket while I type this.
The internet allows instant distribution with no real carrying costs to carry infinite amounts of inventory. Anyone can play in the sandbox.
Between a musician and their fans, there used to be an army of people and companies. The same is true of authors. Today the connection is direct, fast, efficient, and more profitable.
Back to Universities, they are giant and expensive knowledge machines, useful only if you can go to them to learn. They are designed to be distribution hubs of knowledge. They are the funnels, the gatekeepers, or at least they used to be.
Just like music labels, record stores, and book stores, they are no longer needed for us to access what we want to learn, to read, or to listen to, .
The internet has made access to information location independent and almost free. Today you can learn anything from anywhere. Anything.
The University and College system is an expensive dinosaur. Like the giant reptiles before them, their days are numbered.
And that is not a bad thing.
Today an author can interact with, talk to and sell directly to their audience.
A musician can do the same, selling their music direct, with no middle man to slow own the process or increase the cost.
The artist makes more money, and the audience pays less to get what they want. Like a good feedback loop, both sides improve as the process gets more efficient.
Imagine a world where professors and experts can go direct to students, and teach those that want what they know. From anywhere to anywhere.
That is the new knowledge distribution model. Chinese professor teaching a student in the Balkans while traveling in South America.
The expert is now able to talk to, work with, sell to, and also learn from their audience with nothing between them. The expert is the business.
Everyone wins.
The expert, the professor, like the author and musician, now control their own fate.
D
It is going to be a new year and it is time to shake off the dust and debrisThe new year is here and I have decided to focus in on six things in 2012.
I call them a plan, as I think it gives a more definite feel to them than resolutions, and I plan on tracking as I go.
The six are;
1. Learn to type fast. I can type, but it isn't pretty, and it is one of the three things everyone should know. ( The three things are typing, at least two languages, and entrepreneur/ accounting.) I really need to improve. I have much to do with little time and typing like a caveman is nether very skilled or helpful.
2. Learn a language. I have dabbled, but this year I go and do it. I want to read some authors in their native language, I just have a feeling I am missing a lot in the translation. The two languages I want to learn is Japanese (Haruki Murakami) and French (Albert Camus). French is the one in 2012. I want to read Camus' essays in French this year.
3. Fitness - fell out of shape in the last 6 months with the chaos around me. Need to get the discipline back. I will start training and watching what I eat. Thinking of learning Krav Maga.
4.I want to learn a new cooking skill. I can do Italian, Mexican, and a little Asian, but need to widen it out.
5. Write 50,000 words. I want a book. It is in me, I know what it is, and needs to get out.
6. Start a business on the side that will teach me some more online techniques and make at least a $1,000 in 2012. No more studying, now you do.
Each of these will make me better at what I do, and we all want to be better.
I feel you need to put it down, make yourself accountable.
D
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