"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." — Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet) Today someone told me that your brain does not make up the faces in your dreams, and that all the faces of the people in your dreams are the faces of all the people you have ever met in your life.
That someone you may have just randomly passed on the street may now populate your dreams as a character in a play. That makes me realize that my face may live in other people's dreams. It makes me wonder how much I walk in other people's minds, how many minds I walk in other people's sleep, as they too walk in mine. It makes you realize that you have an effect on others, and that we are all connected both in the physical world and the mental landscapes. In Japanese folk tales, often people who have bad thoughts or are possessed, or who use magic in their sleep, awake to find their hair smells of smoke. We should all awake, our hair smelling of smoke. We are all using magic. We live many lives in many minds, and we are all many people. We exist in different ways, as different things, as different people. As technology expands, our words, our gestures, and our thoughts become more transparent, more meme, more viral, until in both the digital and and physical worlds, our selves become intertwined and connected with others, as we are all us. Dreams are as real a part of us as our hands or eyes. We are built of thought, it is a lamp that shines on us all. D We often become too focused, too single minded, and we concentrate too much on one thng, which we try to do to improve our discipline, but at the same time, we do it with a seriousness that isn't real. What we do is not earth shattering, and is pretty insignificant on a universal scale. I beleive everything we do is important and everything matters, snd that belief is one of those butterfly wings in China causing a storm in Peru thosands of miles away kind of things, so what we do matters, but we often forget there are other options and that we are never stuck. Each day we open our front door, we literally can walk in any direction, any, as there are truly an infinite number of directions to go, an infinte number of things to be, and we just need to accept that we have that power to decide and chaange our direction at any moment. Any. We often want change, we think we need change, but we also seem to have an internal built in machine in our heads that wants to not change, that seeks to find consistency. We fight a constant battle between being cinstantly changing beings who are trying to remain the same, which is not possible, and we also battle to actively chnge everything else around us to our way of uniquely seeing the world, which is selfish, short sighted, and also not possible. The world is constant change, we are constant change, and you can either spend your life angry and confused trying to prevent that change or you can accept it, become change itself and be an agent of change. Know that the future is a spiderweb of interdependence and that there are infinite possibilities, and you should nimbly jump from strand to strand, choosing your own way. You want to be a person of pure expression, of pure commitment, of pue being. We need to accept that what we are today is not what we have to be tomorrow. We will change, and we can either guide that change or let others define who we will be. D "To think bad thoughts is really the easiest thing in the world. If you leave your mind to itself it will spiral down into ever increasing unhappiness. To think good thoughts, however, requires effort. This is one of the things that discipline and training is all about." — James Clavell "Creativity is an act of defiance."
— Twyla Tharp "Creativity is more about taking the facts, fictions, and feelings we store away and finding new ways to connect them. What we're talking about here is metaphor. Metaphor is the lifeblood of all art, if it is not art itself. Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we are experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It's not only how we express what we remember , it's how we interpret it - for ourselves and others." — Twyla Tharp I am credited with being one of the hardest workers and perhaps I am, if thought is the equivalent of labour, for I have devoted to it almost all of my waking hours. But if work is interpreted to be a definite performance in a specified time according to a rigid rule, then I may be the worst of idlers.
“It was the artist, too, who awakened that broad philanthropic spirit which, even in old ages, shone in the teachings of noble reformers and philosophers, that spirit which makes men in all departments and positions work not as much for any material benefit or compensation -- though reason may command this also -- but chiefly for the sake of success, for the pleasure there is in achieving it and for the good they might be able to do thereby to their fellow-men. Through his influence types of men are now pressing forward, impelled by a deep love for their study, men who are doing wonders in their respective branches, whose chief aim and enjoyment is the acquisition and spread of knowledge, men who look far above earthly things, whose banner is Excelsior! Gentlemen, let us honor the artist; let us thank him, let us drink his health!” ~ Nikola Tesla One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world was better for this. With these words and phrases the poor gentleman lost his mind, and he spent sleepless nights trying to understand them and extract their meaning, which Aristotle himself, if he came back to life for only that purpose, would not have been able to decipher or understand. In short, our gentleman became so caught up in reading that he spent his nights reading from dusk till dawn and his days reading from sunrise to sunset, and so with too little sleep and too much reading his brains dried up, causing him to lose his mind. His fantasy filled with everything he had read in his books, enchantments as well as combats, battles, challenges, wounds, courtings, loves, torments, and other impossible foolishness, and he became so convinced in his imagination of the truth of all the countless grandiloquent and false inventions he read that for him no history in the world was truer. -Don Quixote The idea tells you everything. Lots of times I get ideas, I fall in love with them. - david lynch11/24/2010
"The idea tells you everything. Lots of times I get ideas, I fall in love with them. Those ones you fall in love with are really special ideas. And, in some ways, I always say, when something's abstract, the abstractions are hard to put into words unless you're a poet. These ideas you somehow know. And cinema is a language that can say abstractions. I love stories, but I love stories that hold abstractions--that can hold abstractions. And cinema can say these difficult-to-say-in-words things. A lot of times, I don't know the meaning of the idea, and it drives me crazy. I think we should know the meaning of the idea. I think about them, and I tell this story about my first feature Eraserhead. I did not know what these things meant to me--really meant. And on that particular film, I started reading the Bible. And I'm reading the Bible, going along, and suddenly--there was a sentence. And I said, forget it! That's it. That's this thing. And so, I should know the meaning for me, but when things get abstract, it does me no good to say what it is. All viewers on the surface are all different. And we see something, and that's another place where intuition kicks in: an inner-knowingness. And so, you see a thing, you think about it, and you feel it, and you go and you sort of know something inside. And you can rely on that. Another thing I say is, if you go--after a film, withholding abstractions--to a coffee place--having coffee with your friends, someone will say something, and immediately you'll say “No, no, no, no, that's not what that was about.” You know? “This is what it was about.” And so many things come out, it's surprising. So you do know. For yourself. And what you know is valid."
— David Lynch I am often asked what is the purpose or goal of what I post to this site, and the answer always surprises people, this is a travel blog.
Not a travel to other places, although that is part of it, but a travel through ideas, thoughts, and people. Traveling through what people not only were, or are, but what people could be, it lets us see all the possibilities of being. Books are amazing in that you travel into other people’s lives, sometimes their ideas, and often with biographies, the life of the subject and the life of the author, as every book is written by someone for a personal reason. I read three to four books at a time, and I believe that allows me to learn faster, as I pick similar books, but often one will be fiction, one book of nonfiction, and then a biography, so that when I read one book and it starts to get stale or I stop absorbing, I can change the book and reset my mind. Sometimes one sentence in a book seems to leap out at the reader, and this one caught my attention as I finished this book. “Yes, Phil thought with a sigh, I have bypassed my life.” This is a sentence from the biography of Philip K Dick called I Am Alive and You are Dead by Emmanuel Carrere. That is a big fear we all have, that we have bypassed our life. It is a sad sentence, but powerful, as it always reminds the reader of lost moments, and we all have those times, but most of us forget them quickly, and it is not until something comes along, a sentence, a picture, or a song that we remember them. I have learned quickly by not just learning from my mistakes, but also others errors, and too often, I think we let life slide past as we get preoccupied with everything but what is happening around us today, at this moment. I find the world has a way of linking together ideas, as the sentence above was about the same time as I read the quote by Annie Dillard, “ How you spend your day is how you spend your life.” And these work together to create an understanding of how we lose track and control of our lives, and how something as simple as paying attention to that moment can make our lives better. “How you spend your day is how you spend your life” is perfectly said. Making money and living large - Income autopilot Notes - Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss9/19/2010
Income autopilot Notes - Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
Some people ask why this blog, and also why this format and the short answer is actually pretty simple, this is where I put notes on processes and interesting people that I find so that I can refer to them where ever I may be via the internet. I decided to leave as a open blog so that may be someone else might be interested, and my notes, which are sometimes cryptic, may help someone out. I find Tim Ferriss interesting in that his book, although a mix of several ideas from other books, does show his way of thinking, and he has a knack of looking at things in a slightly new way. His website is good and worth reading. http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ Notes; Finding a product ( ignore service businesses for now, products will require less upkeep and get you to your monetary goal much quicker.) the man who grasps principles can successfully select his methods. the man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. - Emerson The plan is to do smart testing, smart positioning, and equally smart distribution. MRI before selling their product created a book on the subject and sold through an ad in a men's health magazine to see demand, and once understood through the book orders, the priced high and sold through only one channel to insure there was no competition from other distributors to drive the prices down. 1. The more competing resellers, the faster you lose pricing. 2. If you offer a manufacturer or distributor exclusive rights, you can negotiate better margins. 3. The more middlemen, the higher the margins must be to maintain profitability for all the links in the supply chain. Don't create a product and then find out if there is a market or a demand - Find a market - define your customers - and then find or develop a product for them. Look for niche markets, small but not too small that will have lower media costs and less competition. Pick two markets that you know and review the magazines for that group, and insure there are more than 15,000 readers. The main benefit should be explainable in one sentence or phrase. The product should cost the customer $50 to $200 - look for a 8 to 10 x markup. The product should take no more than 3 to 4 weeks to manufacture, and ideal time line is one to two weeks Look at costs, talk to contract manufacturers to see costing to see if markup is feasible and then work up production cost per unit for 100, 1000, and 5000 units. You could resell a product, it is the easiest and fastest way to start but also by far the least profitable unless you have exclusive rights. You can license a product but it is difficult and intensive to work up deals. The ideal route is to create a product, which is not complicated. If you can find a generic stock product from a contract manufacturer that can be repurposed for a new market, that is a easy route. Keep setup costs, per unit costs, and order minimums in mind. Best kind of product to create is a Information Product, which is a low cost, fast to manufacture, and hard for others to duplicate. Create content yourself by paraphrasing several books on a subject Repurpose content that is in the public domain and is not subject to copyright law License content or compensate an expert Aim for a combination of formats that will lend itself to $50 to $200 pricing, such as two CD's, a 40 page transcript, and a quick start guide. To find out whether people will buy your product, don't ask them if the would, ask them to buy. Do micro testing by using small and inexpensive ads to see response before manufacture. ( Google adwords) Look at competition and try and improve on their web site and marketing Test offer with Google adwords campaigns Run with the winners and cut losses Create a 1 page ( 300 to 600 words) website with testimonials and pictures Look for specific terms that have higher conversion rates and lower cost per click Use Google analytical to check responses. You can use ads to check guarantees, product names, and domain names Start with automation as your goal and start with an end in mind, and make sure the architecture is scalable Do most the of the work yourself initially to document so that you can create a FAQ The more options you offer customers, the more indecision you cause, and the fewer orders you get. Offer one or two purchase options Do not offer multiple shipping options, choose one No expedited shipping Eliminate phone orders and have them all do online ordering No International shipments Offer a lose- win guarantees instead of trials |
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Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” |