Art / Awareness / Blog

You don’t have to accept anyone else’s hierarchy of taste

I posted on another board in a discussion on taste Is classical music better than punk? Museum art better than street art? Haute cuisine better than burritos? Is the op-ed page better than stand-up comedy? Is classical philosophy better than folk wisdom? My life improved when I learned I didn't have to accept anyone else's hierarchy of taste. Most people may consider one better than another, but I've learned to see them as meeting the values of a community better, not being absolutely better. Classical music meets the values of some communities better than punk. But punk meets other communities' values better than classical. I prefer evaluating things by the values of the communities that practice it. Then I appreciate more things and judge less.…

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July 5, 2012

Blog / Freedom / Leadership / NorthKorea / Tips

Spending less improves your life

Preface: I started writing this blog about how cutting personal costs (of any resource, including time, money, energy, attention, etc) improves your personal life. Rereading it I realized it overlapped so much with what leaders can do in business, I'll tag it leadership too. Translating the post into business-speak I'll leave as an exercise to the reader. You can probably do it on the fly. People who know me in person know I work very little at a job -- like a day a week, sometimes more in crunch times, which happen once a year or so. When they hear I work so little, they first ask, usually indirectly, where I make enough money to live on. I view going this direction first as a…

2 Comments

June 30, 2012

Blog / Leadership / Tips

The bigger problems you don’t consider big deals, the more important people consider you

Does the title of this post not explain itself? People who know what they're doing stay calm under pressure. Things that bother some people don't bother them. People who don't know what they're doing freak out at little things. In money terms, if you don't have enough to live on, problems on the scale of a few dollars may bother you. If you have millions, problems of a thousands of dollars may not bother you. In terms of social and leadership skills, if you don't have enough skills to get a job done, small issues will bother you. If your skills aren't enough to live on, you'll have trouble every day. People won't want to interact with you or follow you. If you have great…

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June 29, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Tips

Sharing what you love fills your life with sharing, love, and stuff you love

Sometimes it seems like everyone I talk to hears about burpees. I enjoy them. Doing them fills my life with the emotions they support -- friendship, freedom, and motivation. I talk to people about leadership, nature, science, curiosity, and so on. I tell people how I figure things out after I analyze things. All these things make me feel good. Sharing these things -- by sharing I mean communicating and behaving consistently with -- improves my life. For this post, you could substitute anything you want for the term love. Sharing what you value, find meaningful, makes you happy, brings you joy, rewards you, etc will give the same results for those things. Four results of sharing what you love First, when people know what…

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June 27, 2012

Blog / Leadership / Tips

A tip for high-status behavior

A friend taught me a great lesson in how people with higher status behave compared to people with lower status. Here it is as a piece of advice What you can say in many words, say in few. What you can say in few words, say with a gesture. What you can say with a gesture, say with a subtle gesture. These words give great advice while describing the effectiveness of body language over words and subtlety over rambling. Next time you find yourself talking a lot, realize you're undermining yourself. Next time you're with someone whose status is much higher, notice their behavior. Notice yours when you have the higher status. Notice how people respond to you when you follow the advice. I bet…

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June 26, 2012

Blog / Fitness / Freedom

Burpee overview

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Yesterday I started to consolidate posts on burpees but when I realized it was the day after the six month anniversary of starting doing them daily, I wrote a six-month review, which ended up as a long post on friendship, freedom, and motivation. It reinforces that sharing what you love fills your life with sharing, love, and the stuff you love. As people who have read all my posts on the Model and Method know, a thing's value, meaning, and purpose…

3 Comments

June 25, 2012

Blog / Leadership

Learning social skills helps your life more than almost anything

Two nights ago I walked with a friend past an exclusive resort she told me had a stunning rooftop infinity pool overlooking the city (pictures here). Entrance required getting a minimum $400 room. Instead I talked to a few people, got invited up, and we enjoyed the pool and view as invited guests. (I still had to swim in my boxer shorts because how was I supposed to know I was going to end up there, but that only added to the fun.) Recently I got invited last-minute to a friend-of-a-friend's birthday party at a private club. There was no time to put my name on the list. Besides I'm a single guy, something clubs generally don't like. Then I talked to the door guy,…

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June 20, 2012

Blog

Proof you can change even very important beliefs in an instant

Clients and nearly everyone I talk to about it consider changing beliefs one of the hardest things to do. Changing beliefs voluntarily is fundamental to the Method, so I help people develop the ability a lot. Experience has made me pretty good at it, at least compared to my ability in the past. Based on how much I used to argue, I don't think I started with any particular advantage in this area, so I think whatever I could do anyone else can too. The value of being able to change beliefs I forget if I mentioned it here, but a psychologist who studied intelligence once told me she considered flexibility in beliefs and models one of the most important components of intelligence and many…

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June 18, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Leadership

Living by your values

A client asked about something in his personal life. He does things one way that most parts of society do differently. To be clear, his way harmed no one and was in no way illegal, but he was concerned that people who learned about it might freak out. Sorry I have to keep the details to a minimum, but we all recognize his situation is universal. We all have things we do a certain way that society/family/school/church/government/etc does differently. A great thing about the internet is that we can easily learn that millions of others also do it that way, even if we can't meet them in person. You can't anticipate or change other people's expectations before you meet them. Like everyone, you also have…

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June 12, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Nature

What is progress?

Almost daily I face what I see as the key misunderstanding between how to lead your life to everything you want from it and how to follow what society tells you to. If you're lucky the latter will bring you what you want. You're guaranteed to produce for others, but you may never create what you want for yourself. By contrast, the former -- leading your life based on your values, meaning, and purpose, which are based on your emotional reactions (what motivates you, how you motivate others, etc) -- will always lead to a rewarding life, always great by your standards, no matter how things turn out. People call growth progress and by growth they mean the material outputs of society, which may be…

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June 8, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Tips

Every word you say counts

A couple clients recently thanked me for some advice I had given outside our main conversation, almost as asides, but that worked. Every word counts I told them that every word you say contributes to your identity, even if only to yourself. And that every word influences how everyone, including yourself, perceives you. Context They were talking about some problems they were working through. They said things like "I have anxiety in social situations" "I don't know how to talk to people I don't know." "Changing yourself is hard and takes time." I suggested changing statements like those to "I used to have anxiety in social situations" "I'm getting over anxiety from social situations" "I get less anxiety from social situations than I used to"…

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June 5, 2012

Blog / Freedom / Leadership / Nature

Facebook versus Walden

Walden is one of the great American books on nature and American society. Friends and longtime readers know I like it and much of its message. It criticizes the pick-a-little-talk-a-little-cheep-cheep-cheep-talk-a-lot-pick-a-little-more gossip-about-your-neighbor culture in favor of simplicity and appreciating nature. Facebook is in the news a lot. The opening sentences to Walden made me think about Facebook and the values spending time on it promotes. When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. At present…

2 Comments

June 2, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Leadership

Creating your emotions — my friend’s incredibly successful story

A recent conversation with a friend who also coaches highlighted some important observations of mastering your emotions and improving your life. We were talking about my Model and Method and how you can predictably and consistently create the emotions and motivations you want. He described how he started putting this stuff into practice. He had learned techniques to change emotions -- basically to choose new environments, beliefs, and behaviors. He hadn't put them to use much when he noticed he had felt depressed for a while. As many of us know, when you feel depressed, you often don't want to change how you feel. You just want to wallow in your misery. Feeling other ways feels fake, like happiness means you're ignoring how things really…

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May 31, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Freedom / Tips

If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy, Consider Time

I just read this article, "If Money Doesn't Make You Happy, Consider Time." Before commenting on it, I'll note that I saw it linked to from a tech site, Hacker News. That community tends not to value MBA values and view people with MBAs as not adding the value engineers do. Having been a tech-founder (before my MBA) and a non-tech-founder (after my MBA) of different ventures I understand that perspective on MBAs, but this article -- from Stanford's business school -- represents some of the more valuable perspectives business school and leadership type thinking can bring -- thinking about your values, understanding them, and acting on that understanding. My business school experience taught me a lot in those areas and played a major role…

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May 26, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Leadership / Nature

Leadership-based thoughts on economic and energy growth and limits

My closing paragraphs on yesterday's post, anticipating people's reaction, got me thinking about Marshall Goldsmith, one of today's top business thinkers (and a friend). I wrote the following: By now, many of you are probably thinking "we've solved all the problems so far, we'll solve the ones to come" "since before Malthus scientists project doomsday and they never happen, we can ignore this" or "this won't affect me" If so, do the math. Read his blog. At least understand the situation. If he's wrong, show him how. Show me too. I'd love to find out he's wrong. As a scientist, he (and I) would love someone to show him (and me) wrong. That's how we learn. I hope you're open to the same. Now before…

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April 26, 2012

Blog / Education / Fitness / Leadership

Why don’t they teach emotional intelligence and self awareness in school? (part 1, K-12)

I write a lot about leadership skills and how to improve your life through understanding how emotions work in general, how yours work in particular, and becoming aware of your emotions as well as everyone else's. As a result of focusing on leadership, my community has become full of people with similar interests (you, perhaps?). They all tell me learning and practicing it improves their lives. We prefer having each other in our lives to people who complain all the time or complacently never improve things they could. People complain they don't like their jobs, relationships, identities, hobbies, and so on, but don't know they can change them so they dwell in misery. I haven't found this stuff too hard to learn, though you have…

2 Comments

April 21, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Tips

How to get the body you want

This isn't a diet or fitness blog, but your body is a major part of you. I don't see how you can live the life you want without achieving the body you want. Conversely, if you don't have the body you want, I suggest you aren't living according to your values: your body tells you what to change to create the lifestyle you want. This post is about emotions like joy and emotional reward -- getting the body you want is an inevitable side-effect. Having the body you want is one of the great life-level rewards you can experience. I'll come back to that point in a second. This is also a post on strategy, not tactics. I don't tell you what specific activity and…

2 Comments

April 17, 2012

Awareness / Blog

Conquering anxiety (or any other emotion) and getting the job done

I remember learning a great life lesson in managing intense emotions from a time I felt some of the deepest anxiety of my life. I also finished the project on time and on budget in the process. Two weeks from the deadline on a two-year project, I was coming to realize I didn't see how I could complete it. People I told I could deliver had put themselves out for me. I feared making them look bad for having believed in me. When I told them I could do it, I believed I could, but with two weeks left out of two years, I couldn't solve a core problem. I was going to look bad and, worse, make people who believed in me look bad.…

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April 16, 2012

Blog

Learning the incredibly helpful skill of forgetting

I learned something great from a friend. After fights, she'd forget that we fought. I used to think she was acting. Then I realized she really did forget. I grew up in a house where people held on to positions and grudges. I didn't believe people actually forgave and forgot. Then I observed her. Like Roger Bannister's breaking the four-minute mile helped others see they could do it too, observing her ability to forget enabled me to forget too. I'm amazed at some of the arguments and positions I've been able to forget. I've learned to stop accounting for many favors, loans, and other forms of credit between friends and my relationships have improved for it. More importantly, I'm amazed at how much forgetting stupid…

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April 10, 2012

Blog

Balancing challenge, learning, fun, and reward in personal development

I like to improve my life, but I don't do it non-stop. Personal development usually requires challenging yourself ("going out of your comfort zone," is the cliché), which can be hard. So I alternate between challenging myself and relaxing. When I challenge myself I learn. When I relax I enjoy the fruits of my labor. Here I plot my personal growth over time, schematically. I do it in stages, alternately challenging myself and resting. The growth comes from challenging myself, so while my growth rises, my learning rate goes up. When I'm not growing I don't learn as much from that activity. Alternately, while I'm not challenging myself I relax and enjoy myself, so when I'm not learning, I'm having fun. Here's a plot of…

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March 31, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Leadership

Make your faults and weaknesses strengths

Everybody agrees nobody is perfect. We all have our faults. Yet some emerge as leaders and outstanding successes. I've come to believe leaders lead and successes succeed not in spite of their faults or weaknesses, but because of them. The things themselves don't matter as much as the emotions we attach to them. Attach shame to something inherent about you and people will see a part of you as shameful. Attach honor to the same thing and people will see something honorable, all the more so if you overcame shame to reach the honor. Great leaders incorporate their faults and weaknesses so much into their identities we don't see them as faults and weaknesses anymore. Pick any great leader or success. You probably first think…

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March 24, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Tips

Activating mental chatter

I've written about raising your awareness of your mental chatter (aka self-talk, internal monologue, voice of judgment, etc) and learning to voice it. I call both of those activities passive. You can also work actively with your mental chatter. Passive awareness and voicing of your mental chatter helps. In my experience going from unawareness to passive awareness improved my understanding of how my mind worked as much as anything. The next step is to change your mental chatter actively. Like breathing, if you don't pay attention to it, your mental chatter will continue automatically but if you pay attention you can control it. You always lose focus, so you can only do it for a while, but you can do it. Since your mental chatter…

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March 20, 2012

Awareness / Blog / Fitness

How gyms having big mirrors helps so much

Gyms having big mirrors helps a lot and you should use them if you want to get in better shape. I used to think they had them to help you with your form while exercising. They do help for that, but I realized a better reason. Some background: I've been in shape most of my life, mostly since I started running cross country in high school. My family got me to play soccer and little league baseball before that, but I didn't play much. When I played ultimate I got in very good shape -- playing, practicing, or working out about five days a week in season. My marathon training got me in decent shape too. In all that time I never achieved two important…

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March 18, 2012

Blog / Fitness

Spring sunshine and breezes

Burpees and rowing indoors are great, but nothing beats getting up early and running in the morning sun with 60 degree light breezes. Freedom -- what life is about. Especially for the first time in the spring. (I still did my daily burpees anyway, of course.)

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March 14, 2012

Blog / Leadership

Attempting to succeed means you will fail sometimes

The only way never to fail is never to try. If you try enough times, eventually you will fail. People who try hard enough to improve their lives learn to regard failing first as inevitable, then as desirable, if not in a particular instance, then in general. If they don't fail sometimes they aren't trying hard enough. This inevitability occurred to me recently when watching some sports championship. The best players, no matter how good, don't win every championship. Not only do they lose, but they lose big. They get the biggest spotlight as leading a team to lose. They lose games and seasons, but they don't give up. Muhammad Ali lost by unanimous decision. Michael Jordan lost big games. Everybody lost big games. How…

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March 10, 2012