Gain Wisdom Through Experience

In the 1920's, Dale Carnegie wrote a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. I highly recommend it.

My favorite part of this books is when Dale writes about the angry letters Abraham Lincoln used to write. Letters that Lincoln wrote, but never sent. He knew the damage it would do to the recipient, and he knew the benefit it would have to get off his chest.

I was reminded, upon picking up a National Geographic at the airport, that How to Win Friends and Influence People is not a prerequisite for success, neither are the products hawked from today's productivity gurus.

Confucius, Augustus Caesar, Socrates... They didn't have the book. Emperors, philosophers, inventors, Warriors... They didn't either.

Rather...

Deep wisdom has always seemed to come from a place of experience, as a result of action.

Create Products That Help Others

In 2013, I was wrapping up the final class in a 45 credit hour degree MBA program. The entire class was centered around a business simulation called CAPSIM.

Things were not going so well. I was failing. I had not failed a single college class...ever ... until now. I failed the final class in my graduate program. FRUSTRATING! to say the least.

I matched my frustration with a commitment to help other people not fall into the pitfall that it did. See, I traced my failure back to getting a slow start at learning the "ins and outs" of CAPSIM. The various inputs of human resources, marketing,  research and development, and especially finance were difficult to navigate. Furthermore, it was nearly impossible to learn the simulation from the materials on the CAPSIM web page. I had to learn by failing the class..

As a response, I created some insightful tutorials (on YouTube) on how to use the CAPSIM website, as well as, a blogpost on what were the key objectives of the student role in the program.

I published these products in 2013, and I am still getting views and followers, though I haven't updated or responded to the comments. (side note, it is uncharacteristic of me not to respond, but I no longer have access to the simulation to get the most current info for folks. I'm sure a lot has changed.)

Long story short, my CAPSIM blogpost has had over 5,000 views. The YouTube tutorials have 227 subscribers and nearly 150, 000 views!

I have had a ton of positive feedback, and a few negative comments as well. Here are a few of my favorite comments on my YouTube videos:

"That was incredibly helpful to watch before my group's first meeting"
"You are a GODSEND, these videos are so helpful!! Thanks for taking the time to make these!"
"your voice is as small as your dick"
"useless" (ok, that one hurts a little bit)

Subscribe to a Podcast

Call me old-fashioned but I like the long form of communication. It's the opposite of what we usually see today in interviews on shows like the today show. In those small segments with five minute interviews we usually see the highlights and the punchlines and the marketing techniques come to life. We don't get in-depth. And I like to get deep...

I like to see how people live and how people deal with different things in their lives. What habits, tricks, techniques, did people implement to cope with all the different things that happen in life? How do people become good fathers? How do people become physically fit? Not just in a vacuum, but in the midst of a life that is like a whirl wind most of the time.

I found that podcasts do this relatively well. They go on for an hour/ hour and a half/ two hours sometimes, and they go in depth with the people that are on the podcast. It's like being a fly on the wall, listening to the Giants just talk it out. The Giants are billionaires, athletes, chess prodigies etc.

For podcasting I would recommend the Tim Ferris show as well as the Ted radio hour.

These shows, and others, have really provided a lot of value and insight to me. It has replaced most of my book reading fact. 

These podcasts capture conversations between experts in just about any field you can think of. For example, I came across and listened to a podcast about pens and journals. The guy was an expert on ink pens and paper. He talked for about a half an hour about moleskin notebooks, field notes, and different kinds of notebooks and pens that are best for different situations. Who would've thought?

The availability of knowledge from experts is really quite amazing. And it's very portable as well.  

I hope you can find one that you like! Happy listening.

Exercise Humor Like a Muscle

Steve Carell put it best in the movie The 40-year-old Virgin, when he said "is it true, that if you don't use it you lose it?". (wiener reference)

I love Steve Carell's work, which brings me to the subject of this post. It's important to have comedic geniuses in your entertainment feed. Your sense of humor is like a muscle. If you don't use it you lose it. But you can get it back, it just takes regular exercise. 

Just like exercise, short and intense is sometimes better. May I introduce, key and peel? They have about 100 gazillion skits on YouTube that are free and hilarious and around 5 minutes each. when life gets too serious, I'll turn to them. 

Check out the "competition in the workplace" skit. This is awesomeness!

 

Who you turn to is up to you, just follow the rules of exercise:

1. Do no harm! The idea is to enhance you wit and your character. Choose some humor that is not actually degrading your character. 
2. Consistency. Engage with humor regularly. You have to spend some time with it for it to become a part of you.

Good humor humor not only makes up for where people lack in a lot of different areas, (think ugly guy/hot girl... But he's funny). it also makes a complete person.View building and developing your humor not as a "extra", but as a necessity.

Start Your Own Business

Call me crazy, but I’ve always been interested in business and entrepreneurship (a word I cannot honestly even spell on my own). I’ve always been interested, but never started anything.

I have been frozen by the same question that many people are frozen by, the same people who have also fantasized about starting their own business. What business should I do? Hopefully, I can shed some light on this question.

It wasn’t until recently that learned that this is actually a false question. I know “what” to do. I just needed to learn “why” to do it. Allow me to explain.

You can pretty much agree that you have some value…correct? This value is inherent in you education, skills, personality, and so forth. I mean, if you have a job today, your skills are at least worth a set dollar amount to your employer. (Possibly undervalued dollar amount?)

What person are you? You could be a person who builds things, fixes things, writes things, encourages relationships that otherwise would not have happened. Even if it is just reading your favorite magazine and talking about the articles with friends. In a world that is lacking that social touch, there is a market for that today. It’s called YouTube and podcasting! Yes, people literally watch other people talk about things ….. I know! It’s crazy. (And there are clever ways to monetize)

The general answer to the question “why” is; you are doing this to change people for the better. Let that resonate as the key component. Seth Godin teaches to “be generous enough to do work that changes people for the better”. Keep in mind:

• Don’t quit your day job until people start paying you.
• Don’t wait until people start paying to start putting in the word.
• Don’t start putting in the work, if it’s not something you enjoy. If you want to make money doing stuff you do NOT really enjoy, just do it for a corporation with a matching 401k program.
   

This advice from Mark Cuban on how to fund your business is really refreshing. He is a billionaire, and he literally believes that the best way to fund your business is by doing your own work (aka free).

 

Mark Cuban’s (billionaire, Shark Tank star)-How to raise money for your business via Chase Jarvis Live.

 

 IN ORDER of precedence;

 

1. Sweat equity (costs you NOTHING, but your hard work)
2. Customer equity (Customers buying your product)
3. Crowd funded equity (raising $ via donation from people who want to see your product developed and available to the world)
4. Venture capital $ and Bank $ (money that you owe back, with strings attached)

 

So, with the “why” question out of the way, what would possibly hold you back?

The Value of Your Library ($14,000 per year/infinite value)

After reading the biography of Elion Musk (billionaire cofounder of EBay, Tesla, and Space X), I made one pretty important conclusion. People who love books should have access to as many books as they can get their hands on. It was said of Musk, that after he finished reading every book in the house, he would turn to the dictionaries and the encyclopedias, and just start reading line by line. I felt bad for the young soon-to-be billionaire. Poor billionaire…If only there were a place with hundreds of free books…

Here is a photo from my library.

I have a person in my family who reads like Elion Musk, and it’s definitely not me. My oldest daughter, Natalia, reads everything she can get her hands on. It’s inspiring to see. My middle daughter, who is now beginning to read, reads like most people. She reads with great interest, but only those things which interest her (and throwing in a few pictures never hurt anybody). If only there were a place…

Enter the Public Library

I am always on the search for small actions or habits that translate into big change. So when I started thinking about our weekly trips to the library, I was encouraged. I found that I could enable my daughters to explore and grow their vocabulary at least and every aspect of their lives at most. I even found that I could play a role in educating young women, which has implications beyond what I could possibly image (peacefully defeat the Taliban, anyone?).

If only…

MOST importantly, I found that I could make all these lasting changes for free. Daddy likely..

In fact, our last haul from the library included 12 (at the store, $17 each avg) picture books, 10-20 easy chapter books (at the store, $7 each avg), and an audio book ($20). All of these books will be devoured by next week. On a side note, I have found that reading the picture books to my children is quite fun, especially ones about cavemen and samurai swords. The lessons are timeless and good.

Given a LOW estimate, my family will consume about $14,000 of educational material, per year, for free.

Some times for the library.

·         Capitalize on strengths, make weaknesses irrelevant. If one child loves to read, let the child go nuts and don’t restrict them. If one doesn’t, let them play with computers or toys. No harm done. Don’t force it.

·         Use the library website to request books from across the entire library system for free. The newest version of Fancy Nancy is $7.99 at Barnes and Noble? It’s free at the library. (Side note; I’ve bought many books at this price, only to watch my daughter devour them faster than a happy meal. Waiting a week or two for the library to get it in is a great investment).

·         Visit the library habitually. Once a week is good. Try to make three weeks out of the month, and you are all set. Book check outs are for three weeks, so that’s plenty of time to forget something and still have time to bring it back next week.

·         Don’t spend a whole lot of time in the actually library. It’s full of wierdos. Get the good haul of books in under an hour, and bring them home to enjoy.

Affirmations are not Coocoo for Cocoa Puffs

Affirmations are generally a good idea. I mean, really, it’s not as taboo as you might think. Robert Collier once said, “The subconscious mind believes whatever it hears, when it is told often and convincingly enough.”

There is always some self-talk going on. We are ALWAYS communicating with ourselves. Would it be stretch to ask ourselves to start saying something beneficial?

I mean, especially in a world that is already slipping us often and convincing messages about ….whatever they want us to believe. Let’s take back our unconscious mind, which could arguably be a great percentage of our capacity as humans (maybe more so than we would like to notice).

 Using an affirmation, as I define it, is telling your self-something (or writing it) 15 times in a convincing and believing spirit, every day for a chosen time period.

Here is an example. For the two weeks leading up the start of the school year, I have said, “the new school year will be rich and rewarding for the whole family”. This primes the brain to respond to the many uncertainties of the school year under the framework that richness and reward is the most likely outcome.

I use an affirmation for daily use, such as “life happens FOR us” (opposing the belief that likes to slip in automatic which is “life happens TO us”.

However, my favorite way to use affirmations is leading up to an event.

-a big move

-start of school year

-a promotion

It is even beneficial for a perceivably negative circumstance, like:

-at the beginning of a long work weekend

-after an argument

-at the receipt of “bad” news

Robert Collier, by the way, is the author of the The Secret of the Ages. It is the original “Secret” book that needs NO edits, updates, or flashy new marketing. It’s just fantastic, inspiring, while at the same time, containing some head-shaking doses of philosophy that are quite quacky.

Want to know more for free?

If you are moved to learn more, read the PDF The Secret of the Ages. Downloadable for free.

http://tigerseyedowsing.com/ds/other/Secret.pdf

 Also, get to your library or Barnes and Noble and read the chapter on affirmations in the book by Scott Adams, How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big.