Countdown to Tough Mudder

Job searching swallowed my life for the last couple weeks, but no worries, I will return to my consistent blogging patterns upon finding a way to pay for food! Till such a time, I’ve written you this snack-sized post to hold over the inevitable drought.

Tough Mudder is Saturday!!!!!! Over the past two months, I battled through Insanity, and I’ve never felt more ready for an athletic event. In fact, my training team is already looking into another event before putting ourselves to the test for the first time.

Training for an event does three things:

1. Makes you accountable. My team, consisting of three college buddies and I, constantly procrastinated real work by talking trash through an ever-lengthening email thread. Training for this event forged our bodies into rock hard shape. We haven’t looked like this since high school. In fact, we started out with only three people on our team, but after seeing how awesome we were doing a fourth jumped on the bandwagon. For the next event, at least two more friends will join the pack!
2. Gives your a deadline. No indefinite, I want to lose 10 pounds here. Nope, you know exactly, when you need to perform. An suffocating fear of not finishing and looking like a loser doesn’t hurt either. Even on days I craved 3 Bud Lights and a pizza, I looked ahead at my looming task, and remembered a few glasses of water and a tilapia filet might do me better.
3. You just look great. Reflective surfaces around the world become your best friend. You feel energized, healthy and happy all time! Nothing beats feeling and looking your best.

Look for my coming post-race and Hunger Games posts (yup, that’s gonna happen).

Thanks!

How to be “Likable”! A Review of Dave Kerpen’s “Likable Social Media”.

I currently work as a Social Media Community Intern, so I’m no stranger to self-proclaimed experts of the new social media revolution.  They stalk you from the depths of the blogosphere, attempting to seduce you with their arcane social media knowledge. Well it turns out many of them do little more than regurgitate other people’s blogs and articles with little analysis or insight. Social Media marketing takes more than simply hiring a millennial to make you a Facebook page, but most major companies still struggle to integrate Social Media into their organizations. After reading countless books, ebooks, blogs, and articles from the”experts”. I finally ran across a Social Media book providing real value, not just the latest buzz.

Likeable Social Media in a Nutshell (though not in Dave’s order of presentation)

1. Listen here, Sonny. Media channels of old worked like a one-way street. The marketers and advertisers talked at you. Social Media and the Internet fundamentally changes this interaction. For the first time, customers can communicate directly and publicly (reaching 1,000+ of their closest friends in the blink of an eye) with any organization.  Dave stresses listening to your customers and constituents over all else.  Listen to their thoughts, trends, stories and hopes to enable actual interaction.  Create a formal listening plan (possibly using Twitter Search and the like to expand your efforts) to understand customers and users better. They’re talking, and the internet lets them spread the good AND the bad like lice around a 1st grade classroom.
2. Build relationships or sink in the sea of Social Media! The increased interaction between customers and organizations opens a whole new playing field. You can choose to build your reputation with Social Media or let your competitors do it. Building cyber-relationships with your customer-base remains a major problem for many firms, but Dave delineates a multitude of ways to “keep the conversation going”. For example, he says come up with ways to “delight or surprise” your customers. Well, duh! Apparently people forgot about natural human interaction, when SoMe (Social Media) came along. Nobody wants to keep visiting the FB page of the Modern day Used Car Salesman. If all you ever do is provide links to and hard sell your customers, they’ll likely not return to your page anytime soon. Instead follow the lead of the NYC Department of Health and come up with your own NYC Condom campaign. (Look this up on Google it’s seriously hilarious!) Start conversations about the interests of your target market, and they might just take the reigns from you. He also stresses the sharing of stories and creating an environment, where customers can share theirs.  Stories are the life-blood of interaction; keep them flowing, and you’ll stay alive!
3. What’s in it for me? Reminiscent of a Dale Carnegie principle, Dave reminds us all how selfish we are.  Please “Like” my new FB page! I tried this recently with devastating results. I found myself highly annoyed with those I asked, because I even provided them the LINK! Those lazy bastards, I thought to myself, couldn’t even click a mouse twice for me. After allowing myself to harbor my new-found hatred to man-kind for a while, Dave directed me to the glaring problem in my request. What was in it for them? Well aside from the supreme satisfaction of helping me out, not much. Try saying it in a way that speaks to them though, and you might just get somewhere. Instead of “Like us on Facebook” try “Ask us your [Insert your expertise] questions anytime on Facebook”. Drive people to your page, and the “like” will come organically.Provide value, and they will go beyond just “Liking” you, they may even advertise you on their feed! What can you provide? Special Clubs, Exclusive Content, Discounts, the ideas are endless!

My Final Thoughts on likeable social media

The ideas felt like a breath of morning air compared to much of the garbage littering the web. From utilizing nano-targeting with FB and LinkedIn Ads to real-life examples illustrating his points, Dave hits it dead on.

The book provides the reader with action steps at the end of each chapter that can be immediately implemented into your Social Media initiatives. No more vague buzz words and esoteric advice. Dave provides you with a solid set of instructions to bring the ideas to life.

He keeps a upbeat tone throughout avoiding any textbook feel, and I found his transparency both relieving and helpful. Dave holds himself highly accountable to his work, and responded to a personal tweet of mine within a few hours, which I found hugely refreshing.

My one criticism of the book is that parts of it become slightly repetitious (especially about listening and responding to your customers). However, the shear amount of valuable information packed in this book out-weighs any negative thoughts I could hold.

Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone trying to keep up with today’s fast paced business world. Social Media is not just for marketers anymore. You’ll finding it popping up all over organizations in the next few years, and many would benefit from learning the basics.

Thanks for reading! Does anyone know of any other good Social Media books?!

If you found this post helpful please share it with your Social Media of choice.

The Number 1 Reason You Can’t Do the Impossible

LACK OF FOCUS!

Next time you find yourself texting, tweeting, and watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother, while you’re “working.” Kick yourself. A big rift exists between enslaving yourself to and utilizing technology. No one likes that person, who can’t finish a conversation without checking a text message. Trust me, ensuring a meaningful connection with the person or problem right in front of you remains more important than checking if one exists miles away.  If I’m wrong, why waste the time talking to them in the first place?

The digital age brought us closer together, and somehow drove people farther apart, too. Maybe the world got smaller, but people found a way to remain distanced.  The infectious by-product of our digital addiction is people’s lack of focus.  So many external stimuli bombard our brains that we become numb to information.  Being pulled between so many tasks is like being strapped to a medieval rack and having our mental limbs yanked out of their sockets.

A Short History on Stimulation and Information Sharing

All of mankind’s history passed with very little stimulation or information sharing.  Our ancestors crept through the woods jumping at the light crack of a branch behind them. Causing an intuitive reaction, turn and assess the threat or run like hell. With only a few stimuli ever crossing our paths simultaneously, it makes sense that we never evolved to handle today’s media fury.

Ancient philosophers and leaders would have killed for the truths and knowledge we receive in middle school. Information travels at the speed of light around our planet. Most of us will never attempt to contemplate the inner workings of this seemingly magical phenomenon. However, sending signals across the globe in fractions of a second significantly impacts almost every facet of our lives. Unfortunately people can’t absorb all of this info flying around us, so we need to Focus and prioritize information to understand, assimilate, and utilize it.

Lack Focus & DIE! (Or at least not reach your potential)

Lacking focus greatly affects productivity, stress levels, and progress toward goals.  Why? Cognitive switching costs. Every time you shift attention from one activity to another, you pay a little toll.  Even people practiced in parsing their attention do not perform optimally, when attempting to multi-task (contrary to their prideful claims of multi-tasking mastery). The brain appears ridiculously effective at deceiving itself.  Leo Babautu, prolific blogger of Zen Habits, notes this in his book as the Cognitive Switching Penalty, which is reviewed here on Josh Kaufman’s Personal MBA website.  Here they liken the switching cost to loading information to a computer. Every time you switch your attention, you must wait for your brain to upload the information.  By batching similar tasks, your brain spends less effort loading information to working memory, thereby enabling you to complete more with less effort.  Furthermore, a great deal of research gathered by the American Psychological Association supports this claim.  The research not only notes the inefficiency of cognitive switching, but delves further illustrating increased levels of error, when subjects repeatedly switch between tasks.

Moral of the story: multitasking (aka lacking focus) drives your productivity down and your stress up.

Extreme Example

ADHD Prevelance in America  

In this context, I intend to use ADHD, a chronic impairment of sustained attention among other symptoms according to the Mayo Clinic, to show the detriments related to lack of focus.

NOTE: I do not intend this to be a discussion of the existence, causes, or catalysts of ADHD. I am using this extreme to illustrate a correlation between lack of focus and lowered productivity. No more, no less. I’m not insinuating that people with ADHD cannot succeed, either.

According to the CDC, a study showed an estimated aggregate loss of nearly 150 million work days each year were lost relating to ADHD in a sample of ten countries.  The economic impairment of such a scale could equivocate to the GDP of smaller nations!  If a group of people known for lack of focus struggle with productivity, one doesn’t need to stretch far to see lack of focus hindering their progress.

Focus at its Finest

Let’s think about focus in a physical sense. Ever tried to cut down a tree with a baseball bat? Cut your steak with the rear end of a pen? Rip taping off your most recent UPS package instead of cutting it? Focus remains an elemental part of our everyday world.  Focused pressure allows karate master’s to break boards and concrete blocks with their bare hands, knights to cut down an armored enemy with a swing of a broadsword, dictators to drown under a rallied coup of like-minded citizens, and you to complete that procrastinated project only minutes before the deadline.

On the other side of the spectrum, think about the Buddhist monks lying down on a bed of nails, and standing up unscathed! Why does one false step in a parking lot drive a nail into your heel, but these beings choose to lie down upon hundreds with no ill effect? The pressure of so many nails closed together spreads out the bodyweight evenly, allowing no pressure to Focus and pierce any one part of skin.

Famous Examples of Focus

Hollywood

• Sherlock Holmes – Remember the scenes in the Sherlock Holme’s movies (the ones with Robert Downey Jr.). During fight scenes you see him play out in slow motion a heightened sense of the immediate environment, and a strategy he develops to come out victorious.  Focus brings details and thoughts to your attention that brief indulgences in thought cannot hope to manifest. Focus makes you kick ass.

Inventor

• Thomas Edison – Could you fail 1000 times, and still make the light bulb? An unfair question, so here’s another. Could you fail at anything 10 times, and not become hopelessly discouraged? 5 times? Twice? Most people fail, because they do not devote themselves to the goal at hand. In other words, they lack focus.  Persistence is a derivative of focus. To persist, one must focus on a task, and continually attack it from multiple angles. Leaving it momentarily, only to return to the task at hand with the last activities remnants littered about your mind, makes you highly ineffective.

Business and Innovation

• Steve Jobs – After recently completing Mr. Job’s recent biography by Walter Issacson, I’m utterly fascinated with Job’s psyche. So intense, he could distort reality with focus. He became so utterly enwrapped in his vision that he refused to believe anything to the contrary despite realities protests. Those around him reported completing their work at super-human speeds, solely because Jobs rejected the idea that it wasn’t possible. In a world of open-source and licensing, Steve’s focus on end-to-end production and a few key products ushered Apple to the coveted designation of most valuable company on the planet. By eliminating all distractions (outside firms, suppliers, projects) Steve enabled Apple to supremely focus on developing some of the greatest products of our age. Stay tuned for more posts relating to Steve Jobs and the new book.

Physics and Genius

• Einstein – In a previous post I introduced you to Einstein’s focusing techniques. He once said, “I am not a genius. I only have a superior power of focus.”  If the most famous genius of all time willing attributes his greatness to a habit, emulating it may not be the worst idea to ever inhabit that space between your ears.

Sports World

• Michael Jordan – The best player ever to step foot onto an NBA court, the man you get the ball to in crunch time, the guide to the championship. Do you think he thought about checking his email during the fourth quarter? (Screw all of you, who noted the lack of email prevalence during most of his career. Work with me, will you?) No, every ounce of his being yearned for one result. Nothing outside the court mattered. Hell, when he rose into the air, ball raised up in perfect form, the defense didn’t matter, the crowd didn’t matter, breathing didn’t matter!!! All attention focused on one thing, the middle of the hoop. Reaching “the zone” allows you to enter a zen-like calm amid a torrent of stimuli.  Your focus burns so intensely that you move intuitively, thought no longer necessary. The use of meditation techniques on athletes has been shown to boost performance! Especially, mediation involving visualization. What does all this mean? Better focus, better performance.

Fighting for Your Focus

1.      Meditate regularly. Almost any focus or concentration technique you stumble upon includes mediation. Meditation holds a host of benefits.  The use of meditation techniques on athletes has been shown to boost performance! Especially, mediation involving visualization. What does all this mean? Better focus, better performance.

For information on how to meditate visit here or try a simple search! You’ll be surprised how many resources are available for a variety of meditations.

2.      Make it a habit. Don’t let yourself get distracted. Sounds easy. We know it’s hard, but the results are well worth it. Start with easy tasks. Never start a new task before finishing your current endeavor. Unless, of course, some emergency arises. And no checking your email for the ninth time today in the middle of work does NOT count as an emergency.  If there’s a problem worth your time, it will still be around once you are finished. Instead finish the letter you were writing. Eat your meal without checking your phone. Utilize browser add-ons like Leechblock (for Firefox browsers only), which prevents you from going to URL’s for more than a specific period of time or during certain time you set. Stop yourself from visiting those addicting, time-sucking sites. Over time, the habit will ingrain itself in your everyday life creating super-human on tasks, and then notice how your productivity sky-rockets.

3.      Get comfortable – Awkward positions only inhibit focus and concentration. People often down-play the effects of their environment. If you’re not comfortable, you’ll spend more time concentrating on your straining back than the task at hand. Find an area where you can arrange yourself comfortably with the proper lighting before you set out to work.

4.      Eliminate unnecessary clutter while working – Again environment plays a huge role in success. Less distractions = less stimuli = more focus.  I make sure certain items, such as my cell phone, don’t even win a spot in my peripherals. This way nothing in my visual field pulls me away from the task at hand. I LOVE organization. Whether I file or index information, I always know where to get what I need. This saves an enormous amount of time, I otherwise would spend digging through things.

5.      Go for a Walk – Getting some fresh air, and oxygenating those brain cells of yours will help lift that fog out of your head.  Walking produces a very calming effect in most people.  Struggling to sort out a problem in your head, walk on it. See where it takes you.  In fact one study illustrated improvements in memories and focus in elderly people, who went for walks, compared to their sedentary fellows.

6.      Visualize – Visualizing the result of your goal will dramatically increase your motivation to attain it.  You’ll find hypermotivation does a great deal in terms of focus. You may even find yourself focusing, because you enjoy it! Here’s a personal visualization technique I use frequently to keep myself motivated. We’ll use weight lifting as an example.

• Imagine the desired result in vivid detail. I’m talking Tony Robbins style, dive into the experience with all of your senses. Imagine yourself pressing the weight triumphantly above your head. Feel the sweat dripping down your nose, the burn raging in your shoulders. See the movement of your arms in almost mechanically perfect form.
• Imagine the action or event that must precede the desired result. Here we could use the struggle at the end of the lift, right before its pressed all the way up.
• Continue imagining what would happen in reverse until you reach the present moment.
• Then play the whole event forward in the planned steps you created.
• Repeat this a couple of times if necessary to ingrain it in your head.
• Open your eyes and go do it.

7.      Act – Action is focus’s truest form. So go ahead and start doing the Impossible!

Thanks for reading! Please share your thoughts in the comments section below! If you found this post helpful please share it with your Social Media of choice. Thanks!!

Does anyone else have any good techniques for increasing focus?

 

Photo Thank Yous:

Focus: Lifehack.org

Caveman: Gimmemojo.com

Meditation: Samcameraonline.com

ADHD: CDC.org

Lightbulb: Shutterstock.com

Michael Jordan: Legend Players.com

The Tale of One-Armed Jack

What follows is clearly my weirdest post yet in the saga of the “IMPOSSIBLE EXPERIMENT”, but sometimes a writer’s gotta have some fun.

This weekend a new Impossible Experiment fell into my lap.

What could possibly spark a seemingly trivial challenge in my mind?  See Below.

This beautiful picture shows my elbow.  Nice right?  Despite already regaining almost my entire range of motion, and most of the pain dissipating within two days of my injury, a heightened sense of my limbs developed.  Acute awareness of every right-armed motion led me to the experiment.

For a week, I would perform all dominant hand functions with my left-hand (I’m a rightie).  The only exception allowed, writing with my right hand for school and work purposes.  As much as I love challenging myself, purposefully impeding my work just didn’t seem smart.

How I Happened to Hurt Myself

Whilst, meandering the port after filling our bellies at the local watering hole, my companion and I decided to seek refuge at an inn. As we wound our way through the throngs of people…three pirates ambushed us from the shadows.

Surrounded we drew our weapons to meet our enemies.  Steel met steel sending sparks into the crisp salty air.  Battered backward from the blows of two opponents, my defenses broke down and the searing pain of the blade glided through my right elbow.  Dropping my weapon in the process I spun backwards.

Noticing my companion also failing, a strength grew within me.  I rushed forward, barely diving beneath a scything blade. My sword arm useless, I grasped the hilt left-handed and brought up my blade to meet death descending from above. Reinvigorated I pressed the attack. The shear tenacity of my offensive disguised the clumsiness of my off-handed thrusts.

Finally, my blade rang true slaying one of the pirates with a thrust through the gut.  Seeing their accomplice fall before me, apparently reminded them that easier fish lurked about the 7 Seas, and they exited in quick order.  Left bloodied, yet alive my arm hung useless at my side.  And that’s why I’m using my left hand for everything.

Actual Events

On my way home from lunch with my girlfriend….

I stepped on a crushed can causing my foot to slide out from under me, and I used my elbow to catch myself on the sidewalk.

Though not a glorious epiphany I figured the result still held promise, and like any self-respecting blogger I turned my painful experience into an experiment.

Here’s a list of how I tortured myself with artificial maiming (aka using my left hand):

• Brushing my teeth – Never took so damn long. Seriously you’ll never respect fine motor skills until you try this. Even if you sometimes switch hands, you’ll realize your dominant hand (unless of course you happen to be one of those lucky ambidextrous bastards) not only moves faster but more efficiently.  Using my left hand makes me feel like I’m directing a four year old as they clean my teeth for me.
• Drinking anything – The first day I changed my shirt twice. Now, I know that on any given day, I should be entirely capable of drinking with my left hand.  However, for some inexplicable reason, deliberately forcing myself caused some minor mishaps. It’s like leftie’s the lazy guy, and he’s throwing hissy fits because I’m making him do actual work.
• Eating – This includes using forks/spoons to bring the food to your mouth, and switching hands to use your knife.  The first time I tried eating with a fork I had to switch it to my right hand to ensure correct grip. Now I spend half my meals looking like Tarzan gripping my utensil like a weapon.
• Opening doors – Actually not difficult. Guess I found one good use for leftie.
• Wiping – Do I really need to describe this?
• Pulling clothes over my head — Ever try to dress a younger sibling or cousin? Yeah I had my head stuck in my shirt for a good minute before I found my way out.
• Shaking hands – I admit that throwing people through a loop actually entertains me. I’m such a rebel.  Some people become quite uncomfortable, when you stare them in the eyes and continue to hold out your left hand.
• Played Basketball – I was quickly asked to leave after refusing to shoot or dribble with my right hand.

What I Learned

1. Tie a piece of floss to your pinky.  I found myself cheating in the first few hours; unconsciously using the hand that has spent the last 23 years doing all my dirty work.  This principle relates to a lot of actions you take. The first step to stopping a habit: realize when you’re doing it. Do you have a bad habit or unconscious action you want to be more cognizant of?  Then, find your “floss” for the situation. Utilize sticky notes, trusted friends, and mental cues to help bring your bad habits to the top of your mind. For me, either the sight of the floss dangling around everything I pick up or the pressure of it against my pinky brought my attention to these transgressions allowing me to switch hands. Plus you’ve never looked more stylish than having a flossy bow hanging from your hand.
2. I need to start using my left hand on a more consistent basis.  God forbid I ever seriously injured my right arm.  At this point I might die of starvation, not to mention I’d never be able to defend myself from the pirates. People don’t realize how useful two limbs are until they can’t use one.  My advice: try not using your dominant hand for one day to help you appreciate what you already have.
3. Offer to help someone that can’t use a hand for a while or ever. Whether it’s a friend with a broken hand and or an amputee. I would definitely appreciate someone making my life a little bit easier.
4. Become more aware of your body.  During this experiment, I became hyper-aware of the motions I performed. Utilize your body in a new way.  Change up your work-out, pick up a new sport or hobby, or concentrate on using both hands equally. After you master a movement or skill, you can perform it on autopilot. Think about your morning commute, when you realize you don’t remember driving the last 20 miles.  Consciously utilizing your body in new ways teaches mindfulness and presence of thought. You end up spending more time in the present moment, instead of digging up the past or searching for the future. I’ve found the effects quite calming and centering.

Share your “IMPOSSIBLE EXPERIMENTS” with me in the comments section below.  Anyone else forced to do things one-handed? Please share your thoughts! If you enjoyed my post please share it via you’re favorite form of social media.

Stay with the Impossible, Become Extraordinary, & Rejection Therapy Update

During this post, you’ll receive the updates regarding my Impossible exploits!  I’m pleased to say the results have been both astounding and, in some cases, amusing.

Rejected!

My weeks of rejection-seeking mania left me wanting more. Why you ask? Allow me to explain by enumerating the my most interesting trysts with rejection.  If you have no idea why yours truly hunts for rejection, check out my rejection therapy discussion in this post.

Day 1:

Rejected: My first attempt was to get random men to hug me.  On my way to class, I walked up to a young gentlemen blocking his path. He looked at me quizzically as I asked him for a hug.  After an awkward moment of staring, he shouldered passed me and sauntered down the street.

Accepted: Hug attempt dos: Without losing a step, I continued on my way to class till I found my second victim.  This time though rejection eluded me. My victim, without missing a beat, threw his arms around me and said, “Sometimes I need a hug too.”  Well there you go sir; glad I could be of service.

Day 3:

Accepted: The next stop on my search for rejection happened upon me, when I was hurrying to class a few days later. As I made my way to the coffee shop, I realized I left my wallet at home.  My first thought revolved around how I would die a slow death if I didn’t get my caffeine fix. After a few moments of self-indulging pity, it dawned on me. I could get rejected. I selected my target, a professional looking Asian woman, and asked her to buy me a cup of coffee. To my surprise, she purchased me my hot beverage, and it started a conversation.

Day 4:

Rejected: After a long study session at the Business and Economics Library, I decide to ask a stranger for a ride home. I walk out into the parking lot with my plea.  A nice gentlemen asks me, which way I’m going, but ends up saying he’s going the opposite direction and is in a hurry. I walk home disheveled and alone, yet strangely giddy with myself for once again getting rejected.

Other week one notables:

• Rejected: Asked a random girl for her number
• Accepted: Talked to a $25/hr tutor. Requested free tutoring, and was given it.
• Kinda Rejected: Requested that my roommate do all my laundry. (NOTE: They did part of it)

For the second week, I wanted to start asking for things I really wanted.  I’d been having fun with my little experiment, but now I wanted to put the results to the test. Asking for ridiculous things became easy, because I knew that getting rejected wouldn’t hurt. Now I entered the Big Leagues….

Day 8:

Rejected: During a search for ways to scale my speed reading class, I wanted to reserve a bigger room in our business building. The problem is that they make it ridiculously hard for a student to rent out a room.  Only business students can attend, and no one seems to know who’s in charge (Yay government entities).  I gathered my nerves, and talked with 3 different people about reserving one of the rooms. No one could override a reservation for me (because I’m a third party entity NOT a student organization), or tell me who indeed had that authority.

Day 10:

Accepted: On my quest to develop the Roman Empire of networks, I’ve been looking for people I respect to connect with.  The problem is sometimes I came up with excuses for why contacting them should happen at a different time.  I sent an email to Steve Kamb of Nerd Fitness, about how he developed a loyal following on his site. To my surprise the next day, Steve sent me an insightful response! Thanks Steve.

Day 11:

Accepted: Sent in a cover letter (along with a link to this blog), to Surfmark, Inc, a tech start-up in Silicon Valley.  I told them exactly why I would be great for the job, and the next day DURING the interview I became Surfmark’s new Social Media Community Manager Intern!

Take-aways from Rejection Therapy:

1. You get what you ask for.  Sounds cliche, but living the experimental proof really drives it home for me. Most people are genuinely good people, and they like to help others out.
2. People appear to be as afraid of saying “No” as you are of asking for what you want.  Act confident, look people in the eyes, and smile. People inherently desire the appreciation of others.  Unless your request clearly opposes someone’s self-interest, they will likely fulfill your request.
3. The only reason you haven’t asked yet is you have some ambiguous feeling of discomfort that has little logical base. After seeking rejection, I realized my interpretation of social norms were still there, but instead of mindlessly enslaving myself to them, I spent more time assessing a situation. You realize that the consequences of the action aren’t a permanent state. If you’re told no, you can always asked someone else later.

I highly recommend Rejection Therapy to all you self-experimenting junkies out there.  Getting rejected really changes your perspective on the world around you.  I no longer procrastinate.  My apprehension of trying something out of the box dwindled away during my affair with rejection. Now go out there and try it yourself!

“Impossible” Updates

I have a job at a Silicon Valley start-up (as stated above in Rejection Therapy)!  I plan on performing great, so my job can move from a virtual setting to me living in the heart of the valley! I’m really excited to check some items off my list, and I hope you are too!

Waking up at 7 o’clock everyday increases my daily productivity 10  fold.  Number one, it’s always quiet, when I wake up.  This allows me to wake-up at a comfortable pace, meditate, enjoy breakfast, and write uninterrupted.

Let me hear about your “Impossibles”, and the progress you’ve been making in the Comments section below!

Please share my blog with your favorite form of Social Media, so that others can join the “IMPOSSIBLE EXPERIMENT”!

Photo’s Courtesy of:

joannemattera.blogspot.com

Surfmark, Inc.

7 Lessons to Unleash your Inner Genius

Albert Einstein embodies the word genius more fully than any other man in history.  Ask anyone to name a genius, and he’s sure to be standing proud somewhere near the top of the list. If you’d like to tap into your own inner-Einstein from time-to-time, then try utilizing the tips below derived from some of our genius’s greatest quotes.

1.      You Must THINK the “IMPOSSIBLE” before you can DO it.

“Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible”

Obviously Einstein would steal my thunder and create the mission for my blog a century before I even got started. Throwing aside my ego, studying Einstein’s philosophies can aid us on our quest to do the “IMPOSSIBLE”.

2.      Tap your Intuition

“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

Einstein’s not the only genius crediting intuition for greatness.  Steve Jobs was well known for going with his gut and following Eastern philosophies that placed intuition on a pedestal above knowledge. In a later post, I’ll delve into the methods for developing intuition and benefits thereof.

3.      Focus above All Else

“Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.”

“It’s not that I’m so smart; it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

In a world of texts, tweets, and technology, do not become enslaved to your devices.  Being constantly bombarded by our technology drove the concentration right out of most of my generation.  Focus begets greatness. How much more could you get done if you improved your focus? 

Try this technique coined the Einstein Distraction Index. A Google search should provide a little history on it.  Here’s how you do it:

     a.      Write “I Won’t Be Distracted Anymore” at the top of a sheet of paper.

     b.      Find a piece of distraction rich material to concentrate on such as a blog, website, magazine or newspaper.

     c.       Set a kitchen timer for 5 minutes.

     d.      Record a tally mark for each time you are distracted from the material. You’ll be surprised how bad your concentration is. (That is if your honest to yourself)

     e.       After you can go a full 5 minutes without losing your focus/train of thought, then move it up to 7, 10, 15 minutes and beyond.

Einstein was reported to be able to go 42 minutes without submitting himself to a single distraction. Think of focus like a bicep. If you never lift any weights, you’re going to have weak arms. Employing focusing techniques like this over time will improve your efficiency and ability to produce great work.

4.      Appreciate a Diverse Skill Set in Others

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

When attempting the impossible, I’d rather have a good friend at my side cheering me on, than the smartest person imposing “knowledge” upon me.  Discover the strengths in others and develop a great team.

I don’t care if you’re a businessman, entrepreneur, colleague, teacher, parent, coach, friend, family member or neighbor.  Actively searching for and appreciating skills outside of your tastes and abilities will open your eyes to a world of opportunities.

5.      Be Yourself, and Stick to What You Believe In

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”

With the IMPOSSIBLE breathing down on you, remember: it’s not the number of people that don’t understand you, it’s the number of those that do.  People love to criticize and say why we’re crazy. Next time the world’s screaming you can’t do something; don’t be afraid to gather your friends and scream back.

6.      Don’t be Afraid to Go Against the Grain

“What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.”

It’s your life we’re talking about. Make a stand, Be Decisive, or be swallowed up in the tide of the status quo.

7.      Take Care of your Body

“An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.”

Fuel your body right. In my last post Is Your Diet Making You Dumb, I covered how poor dietary choices lead to a weaker mind.  Additionally, you will not think at optimal levels, when your blood sugar is low.  Check out the Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman for references between will power and blood glucose levels.

Come join me and Do the IMPOSSIBLE!

Check out what the “IMPOSSIBLE EXPERIMENT” is all about.

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