Author: Senia

Doing Can Be Easier Than Not Doing

Posted on by Senia

I’m sitting on my couch reading a fiction book a friend of mine gave me when I look over at my plant and realize… it’s time to water it. I figure, well, ok, when I get up for a glass of water, or maybe just after I finish this chapter, or just later, or maybe tomorrow. After I read a little longer, I look back up – again, I remember the plant, and that it needs water right about now – today or tomorrow. So I tell myself I’ll water it for sure if not tonight then tomorrow. Then I get up to get something from the kitchen, and when I come back, I realize the plant is right there.

Finally, and only after reminding myself that “doing something can be easier than not doing!,” do I go into the kitchen, get some water and water the plant, and the one in the next room too.

When you recognize that something needs to be done, and then you put off doing it, you start to occupy the brain with an extra thought. Yes, you can write it down, and then you occupy the brain less. (You’ll only occupy the brain when you return to the list and see “water the plant” on it and then schedule that activity into your day.) But think about it! How long does it take to water the plant? How long does it take to write down “water the plant” and then schedule the time when you’ll do it? EXACTLY!!! :)

This is one of David Allen‘s biggest points: you want to get organized so that your brain has more free time! Less stress on the brain, less minute things to remember and to juggle.

This is like Dave Seah says in describing his father visiting him: “If you clean up after yourself constantly, you will have a clean house! When he walks around the house, he automatically sees things that need to be arranged better or cleaned.”

Maybe it’s starting to sound pretty appealing to just do something at the moment you think of doing it? Maybe it’s starting to sound like an easier way to live? …But what if you start an action (like going through your mail for example) and it turns into too big a project, and then you get behind on your other obligations? That’s a valid concern. David Allen suggests that if something is going to take two minutes – that’s right, two minutes – then do it now. If more, then write it down and plan it.

And the biggest reason to do things rather than putting them off? You can reduce stress on yourself. Trying to remember is occupying your brain. Trying to remember too much may be stressing your brain. In the latest Forbes issue is the article Stress Can Shrink Your Brain. There’s been research on rats that stress physically shrinks parts of the brain. So give your brain a break – don’t burden it with unnecessary stress! Do something rather than remember another ‘todo’ item.

“Giant Undercover”

Posted on by Senia

“But, Mama, what if I need to get away from a bad person? How can I hide? I’m so big,” asked the Giant in a hesitant tone. He was very sad. The Giant was scared that he wouldn’t be able to hide if he needed to.

“Well,” answered Mama Giant, “there are three solutions,” and at this the Giant moved his ears closer. “You can pretend to be a tree, you can learn to run really fast, or you can look up.”

“What do you mean?” he asked for he was just a young Giant, and couldn’t follow his mother’s logic so fast.

“We are so large, my son, that we are easily the height of sycamore trees and the width of the centuries-old redwoods. The only thing you need to learn is tree posture. Tree posture is a little wiggly at the top where the thin branches are and strong and sturdy on the bottom, you think you can do that?”

“I can do that Mama.”

“Ok, then the second way to get away from a bad person is to learn to run really fast because each of your steps is twenty times the length of the bad person’s steps… so you can get away fast!”

“Ok, and what else, Mama?” “Well, look up,” and the Giant did. “What do you see?”

“The sky and some branches, and that hill over there.”

“That’s right, little one,” Mama said to the Giant. “That hill is your savior – you can walk to that hill in three steps while it would take regular people sixty steps, and then you can pull yourself up to that ledge in an instant, and roll on that hill and disappear from view!”

“Wow, thank you Mama!” and the Giant hugged his Mama, “I will work on my tree posture, and on running fast, and on lifting myself – yea! I’ll be saved from any bad people!” …and with that he closed his eyes, and took his afternoon quiet-time under the trees.

Links about the Brain

Posted on by Senia

Hi, today’s post is a few links to research about the brain.

Sharpbrains.com – I’m a big fan of this site, especially the resources section, and within the resources section, scroll down past the “books” section to the “articles,” and click on:
* “Change or Die” – Which of these three is the greatest contributor to health – lifestyle, genetics, or environment? The answer may surprise you.
* “Juggling Juggles the Brain” – The brain can physically change.

Emotion vs. logic in investing. A couple of articles:
* Lizards, rats & the investor’s primitive brain – Some examples of emotions winning out over logic.
* Emotion rules the brain’s decisions – What does the brain reveal about your motivation when you think about investing? As shown through brain imaging.

What questions do you want me to ask?

Posted on by Senia

I was talking to a friend recently, and asking what other questions I should ask on the site, and he said, “Hey, why not ask what questions people want to answer?” I thought, “Hey!” So here we are. :)

Q: What questions would be most fun for Friday questions?! What questions would you have most fun answering?

My answers:
* What’s the coolest experience you’ve ever had?
* What’s the thing you’re most proud of having done in elementary school?
* Describe your best friend from when you were growing up.
* What are some of the most beautiful things or places you’ve ever seen?
* What’s the most unusual feeling you’ve ever had?

Thanks! Really looking forward to reading your thoughts about questions that you want to be asked!

———-
Each Friday, I post a question. I would love it if you feel like answering the question! Thanks. (I’m a big fan of privacy also, so if you don’t want to use your name, just use an initial or just write “anonymous,” and if you don’t want to put your email address for privacy reasons, just put mine – it’s at the link ‘email me’ above.)

Fri (Aug 11) Josh Ritter on Conan

Posted on by Senia

Speaking of self-assurance in a musician…

One of my favorite musicians, the young and experienced way beyond his years Josh Ritter, is appearing on the Conan O’Brien show on Friday. This is Josh’s first national TV appearance. About 2.5 million people will see him. Here’s Josh’s bio. I highly recommend his CDs.

Time and Place: NBC. Just past midnight on Friday night, Aug 11 (as it becomes Saturday). 12:35am.

Self-Assurance

Posted on by Senia

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
~ Benjamin Franklin

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.
~ Golda Meir

Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy…. Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture … Do not build obstacles in your imagination … Do not be awestruck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as you can.
~ Norman Vincent Peale

Proverbs:
* Self-confidence is the memory of success.
* Self-assurance is two-thirds of success.

Your chances of success in any undertaking can always be measured by your belief in yourself.
~ Robert Collier

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
~ Samuel Johnson

Self-trust is the first secret of success.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.
~ Arthur Ashe

I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.
~ Billie Jean King

Self-assurance. Being aligned with yourself. Some people describe this as authenticity. You see this when you see a performer on stage who appears casual, who appears to have a very easy rapport with the audience – whether a pop performer or a folk musician or a comedian. It’s a lightness. And I so believe in life being light and being easy.

Consistency

Posted on by Senia

Two Ways
There are two ways to live life:
1) like a fast lottery ticket – by having one-time-payoff goals and going after them, and
2) like a squirrel gathering for the winter – by surely and consistently going after your plans.

Here are some arguments for the benefits of consistency. Sure, the lottery ticket is a draw – it is exciting, it is potential, and it can be huge! The squirrel, however, will always make her nest for the winter.

The Lottery Ticket. A friend of mine is a film reviewer. (I love dance movies: you name me a dance movie, and I’ve probably seen it!) My film-reviewer friend and I were talking about dance movies recently, and he said, “Senia, doesn’t it seem that most dance movies give the performer one chance or one performance or one try-out, and that that is the one that counts? And that things better be right for that one dance because it’s the one big chance?” And I thought about it, and he’s right – typically, dance movies are structured towards one dance or one night or one show or one try-out. It’s the lottery ticket – it’s the one chance to get things right. It’s what everything in your past training as a dancer has been moving you towards.
So you give it your all. And that’s the right thing to do. But it’s so hard to live life that way, anticipating one big hit every several years, and other than that, barely eeking by. It’s possible, but so hard. As Hugh MacLeod says (via Dave Seah’s post), “If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.” Living the lottery ticket is looking for big breaks all the time – looking for the job in which in a couple of years you can make enough money to retire, looking for the business contact that will bring in the company’s annual revenue for the entire year in January, looking for the book publisher who’ll love your idea for a novel and want to make it into a major motion picture.

The Squirrel. On the other hand, “slightly, lightly, and politely,” as I once heard a guy say at a dance club, the squirrel gets things done. She knows that she doesn’t have all summer to play, and so she builds and gathers for the winter. And the squirrel may be able to get even more things done while she rushes with the winter preparations. Yes, the lottery ticket is exciting. At the same time, a lottery ticket may not pay the bills. And if it does take 10 years to become successful at something, or if it takes 10,000 hours, then YES, start now, and consistently work at it. Just like after college, in your first job, some folks show you the benefits of investing early into a retirement account – that it is the amounts you put in earlier that reap the greatest gains later – just like that, the consistent attention to your chosen activity reaps the greatest gain from consistency. Just ask anyone who plays an instrument. Putting it down for a year definitely moves you back a bit.

There are two brief stories that illustrate the squirrel’s deliberate life of consistency:

The Fisherman
The story goes that a business school student was on his spring break in a small fishing village, and saw one fisherman who seemed to be more efficient than all the other fishermen. He watched him day after day, and just before returning to school, he approached the fisherman and said, “I’ve been watching you, and your catch is larger than all the other fishermen. I think if I help you out, we could get a few more boats out here, and you could train me and my friends, and we could make a lot of money very fast, and then, just think, you could retire very soon.” The fisherman just looked at him. And the business school student continued, “Just think, if you could retire, what would you do?” And the fisherman replied, “I would fish.”

“Sew a Little at Night”
There was a man who was the main tailor to the king, but one day a genie came to him and told the man that he would now be rich beyond all his beliefs, and the king would let him go as his servant because the king would have a tailor who could do things magically for the king, and that the man was free to go and enjoy his life. The man thought that was fine. Then the genie asked him, “What will you do all the day long now that you don’t have any cares and now that you have all the money that you want?” The man answered that he would live a relaxed life during the day, including walking, reading, eating, and then, he added, “I would sew a little at night.”

It’s what he does well – he would “sew a little.” Plus, even at that point, a little more money wouldn’t hurt. Of course, both these tales are exaggerated tales that show two things: the benefit of doing what you like to do and the benefit of consistency. I bet you would argue with me, “Well, Senia, why wouldn’t I want to do both? Shoot for the lottery and keep consistently improving at what I’m doing?” Actually, YOU WOULD! That would be the ideal!

DO BOTH – Shoot for the Moon and Keep the Day Job

Dana Gioia One of my heroes in this sense is Dana Gioia (pronounced “JOY-a”). Dana Gioia has a Stanford MBA and worked for General Foods for 15 years, becoming a Vice President. Currently, he heads the National Endowment for the Arts, and here is his bio on the NEA site.

For years, Dana Gioia did both – published poetry books and worked a corporate job. I find that wonderful and incredible and inspiring. That’s the whole point. That’s what Hugh MacLeod means by “Keep your day job” and “Put the hours in.”

Dana Gioia has been masterful on two levels – at work with a corporate managerial role and in his spare time with poetry. That’s incredible! That’s like a story I heard from my friend that you are what you do in your spare time. If you consistently work at a hobby (or work more at your job like most entrepreneurs) in your spare time, you will be good at it. You will be good – whether it’s guitar-playing or rock-climbing or golf or running or writing. Whatever you consistently do, you will be good at. There are other ways to push yourself to improve at your chosen activity (through incremental challenges, asking raw questions, etc.), but you are already good at it if you do it consistently.

I heard once that John Grisham wrote his first few legal thrillers by getting to his law firm at 5am and writing from 5 to 8am. That is consistency. That is perseverance.

“Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.”
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

You are sure to wake up somebody. Like the little squirrel who finishes all her preparations for the winter, and then goes to the store to buy a lottery ticket … just in case. Although her affairs are in order, she thinks, “Why not?”

“Are Elephants Like Dinosaurs?”

Posted on by Senia

“Mommy, are elephants like dinosaurs?” asked the little boy.
“Well…what do you mean?” questioned his Mommy.

“If the dinosaurs went extinct, then aren’t there some animals that came from what the dinosaurs used to be like?”
“You mean, ‘Are there some animals that are descended from dinosaurs?’ ”
“Yes, I think. What does “descended” mean?”
“It means animals that were born from animals that were born from animals that were originally dinosaurs.”

Theropod “Yes, are elephants descended from dinosaurs, Mommy?”

“Well, people don’t say that elephants are descended from dinosaurs, but there are creatures that you know that people say are descended from dinosaurs. Want a clue?” asked his Mommy.

“Yes, tell me.”

“Well, this is an animal that you might think is fast and can sometimes look like a small dinosaur or like a small dragon. Usually this animal has an interesting skin. The skin could be a puffy material or even more rarely scaly like an alligator. And the animal walks on short legs. This animal also comes in many, many colors.”

He thought for a moment, and said, “Alligators?” Then immediately, “Lizards?!”
“Well, people say that lizards and dinosaurs were not related even though they looked very similar to each other,” said his Mommy.
“Well, but how about an elephant? Elephants are big, they walk with very loud footsteps, and they have that interesting skin you talk about, right? Are elephants like dinosaurs?” he asked again.

“‘They’re not exactly like dinosaurs. How about something smaller?” asked his Mommy.
“But how could something smaller be descendable from dinosaurs?”
“Descended from dinosaurs,” said his Mommy.
“Descended from dinosaurs,” he repeated.
“Well, what dinosaurs do you know?”
“I know the bronotsaurus who is huge and eats only plants, and I know the TRex, who eats animals.”

“What about those theropods that look like the TRex?” asked his Mommy.
“The ones that are big and eat animals?” asked the boy.
“Yes.”
“Ok,” said the boy.
“Imagine those smaller,” said his Mommy.
“Ok,” said the boy.		 Theropod

“What do they look like?” asked his Mommy.
“Like small dinosaurs,” said the boy.
“And how would they have moved?”
“Fast, like they didn’t like running, but still like they could run,” said the boy.
“Ok, what else moves fast on the ground?”

Pelican “Well, that’s funny! Dogs can move fast, and birds that aren’t flying can move fast.”
“Ok, so let’s think about birds,” said his Mommy.
“Ok.”
“They’re fast?”
“Yes.”
“They are shaped like small dinosaurs when they stand on the ground?” asked his Mommy.
“Yes.”
“Could birds be descended from dinosaurs?”

“Maybe…” the boy thought for a moment, “but that’s weird.”
“Ok, it’s weird, but could it have happened?” asked his Mommy.
“Yes… a bird is a small dinosaur?”
“I’m not sure that it’s actually a small dinosaur, but it may be descended from a dinosaur!”

“So not elephants… but yes birds?… That’s good: when I see a bird, I can think of a dinosaur,” decided the boy happily.

Chess – IMing with a Bot

Posted on by Senia

Because I recently wrote about expertise being trainable with a major component of the article I referenced being about chess, I want to show you this: David Cowan writes a hilarious post about playing chess online and the im-bots that attempt to simulate a teenage girl on the online chess site. Here’s a segment from his blog:

Unlike other AI engines, the Yahoo! bots do not even incorporate the human being’s questions into their responses. Rather, they exploit the disjointed nature and shallow personae of adolescent chat to spoof a teenage girl, as demonstrated by these pearls of wisdom recently quoted–typos and all–from A_busty_babe_cc_32 (interjected with comments from armandolinares001, a naive suitor):

can any guys beat me?
you play good
19/f bored with pics in profile
can i see?
Hi… 19/f :-) Pics in my profile
do you have a profile?
oOOooOooo
yeah, in my profile
ohh
armandolinares001: hi
tee hee
armandolinares001: wat?
are you married?
armandolinares001: no u?
I love cheesy poofs
you play good
19?F/Cali web cam and pics in my profile!
I’m feelin gfrisky
lolol
thats hot

See David’s full post here.