This is a really interesting video on how social networks have changed the social fabric. Social networks are a great way to stay connected and manage multiple relationships, but they are no substitute to talking to people face to face. That is where the real magic happens and why things like conferences are so important.
My friend Michael Clyne of Pathpacific.com just posted up the recording of the Dublin Web Summit where they had some truly amazing speakers.
The line up included Chad Hurley – Founder of YouTube, Jack Dorsey – Twitter Founder and Niklas Zennstrom – Skype Founder to name a few.
Michael runs a video production studio in Dublin so check him out if you’re in that part of the world.
There were a few other great speakers including Brent Hoberman – LastMinute.com, Sloane Berrent – AnswerwithAction.com and Soraya Darabi – FoodSpotting.com. Check out all the speeches here.
The Game of Life is an awesome game. I’ve been playing it for a couple of years now but have slowed down since I started travelling. I managed a few decent sessions in Budapest but you really need to know people (usually) for longer than a few hours to get them to join in on the fun.
So what is the Game of Life?
The game of life is a game, where in once you join the game, you have to play it for the rest of your life. Hence the name…
The game rules are as follow:
If someone who is also playing the game of life asks you a question, any question at all, at any point in time, for any reason, and within your response to the question you use the word ‘mine’ you have to drop and do 10 push ups. Right then and there.
Here are some examples:
Simple foolery:
Hey, who’s beer is that?
Mine
Haha get down!
Ego rubber:
Wow, this place is awesome. I love that xyz thing. Who’s idea was it to come here?
Mine
Haha get down!
Advanced trickery:
What is the name of that bomb thing between that blows up when you step on it? They have them between North and South Korea…
Land mine?
Haha get down!
As you can see, it’s pretty straight forward.
The game can get very deceptive and seeing how it is played 24/7 you can really catch people at inappropriate times.
The game is the secret to eternal youth because its a constant reminder to always have fun. To be juvenile. To not take things so seriously. Failed attempts, triumphant successes and harsh defeats will all bring a smile to your face.
Maybe not while you’re doing push ups in a fancy bar wearing a suit, maybe not while you’re half way through a conversation with a cute girl and you get done, maybe not after you’ve been woken in the middle of the night, asked a question then forced to do push ups. But you will eventually smile.
And with that smile, you will remember the good times. With that smile you will realise there are still more to come.
I’m very young, but I hope I never stop playing The Game of Life.
You shouldn’t take life to seriously. You’ll never get out alive. Van Wilder
My latest and faviouritest book is Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. I have the audio version and am on my third listen. Which is no small feat as it’s a monstrous book.
The book is crazy famous and has been used by countless athletes, actors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, coaches etc…
For those who don’t know, Psycho Cybernetics is the father of self help books. Its topics include self image, emotional state, action quota, decision making, success mechanisms, happiness, visualisation and I don’t even know what else. It is literally like 5 books in one. Each time I have listened to it, it has been like whole book of new information.
It is one of those books that will resonate with you differently depending on where in life you are. This is why I think so many people go through it multiple times. It’s like reading a different book the next time around.
One of the topics that stuck with me this time around was the topic of decision making. I wrote here how important decisions are and how much of a dramatic impact they can have on your life.
Maxwell Maltz goes into decision making in great detail. Here are some of the takeaways:
Making a decision is incredibly important. While you should use the information you have to assess the pros and cons of a decision you should not dwell on it too long. Decisiveness is one of the strongest traits of any leader and is a key hiring characteristic for management in the corporate world. Being able to quickly come to a decision, act on it and have others follow you creates motion instead of stagnation. Motion is the breeding ground for innovation, creativeness, success and happiness. Stagnation is the breading ground of doubt, lethargy, boredom and depression.
If you are thinking about doing something, decide if you are going to do it or not, then act on your decision.
This brings me to the next point. Locking away a decision. Once you have made a decision, you need to lock it away in the ‘lock box’ as so famously quoted by US Vice President Al Gore. There is no use worrying or stressing over whether or not you made a correct decision after you have made that decision. Once the decision is made, you should completely detach yourself from the outcome of the decision and just work on taking action. All analysis and concern should be done before the decision is made, not after.
If you spend time thinking about whether or not the decision was the correct one is that going to help you achieve your goal?
No.
Worrying and stressing about the ‘correctness’ of your decision is a stupid waste of time, energy and emotional state.
In his lectures to business leaders, Maltz quotes a few cogent remarks from his attendees:
“Dr. Maltz, the truth is that there are few inherently right decisions or wrong decisions. Instead, we make decisions, then make them right. That’s what leadership is all about.”
“You can always correct a poor decision, but if you do nothing, you can never get the time back.”
As stated above, worrying about whether your decision was the right one or not is not only stupid, but it increases the chances that the decision will end up as the wrong one.
If you decide to start a project, but spend all your days worrying if it will be successful or not instead of working hard to create the output necessary to complete the project, you are creating the result of a poor decision.
Whereas if you had decided you are going to start a project and work five hours a day for the next two weeks on it and not worry whether or not it will be successful, you are creating the results of a completed project which has a higher chance of being the correct decision.
You can significantly alter the outcome of your decision helping to determine its success factor.
If you’re thinking about doing something, decide and move on. If it turns out you made the wrong decision, make a new decision and move on. Don’t stay in a state of limbo and don’t worry about if you are making the correct decision. Worst case scenario you fail. Who gives a fuck! NEXT.
This site is truly amazing and could turn out to be one of the most important websites in the world. Abstract living at its finest. I urge everyone to share it with everyone they know.
Its a site with videos teaching educational concepts. It starts with simple concepts like 1+1 and goes all the way into college level and calculus.
The Khan Academy is helping people all around the world, giving them access to a free, first grade education.
One of the more interesting events that happened during the day at Blogworld was a keynote by Mark Burnett and his following publicity stunt.
If you don’t know, who Mark Burnett is, here is a Wikipedia excerpt:
Mark Burnett (born 17 July 1960) is a British television producer, known for creating and/or producing competition-based reality television shows such as the American edition of Survivor, The Apprentice and Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
Mark Burnett’s international productions include: Amne$ia Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader?, which has been produced in over 55 foreign countries, The Contender-Asia (a Thai kick-boxing version of the American Boxing-Competition show), and The Apprentice which has been produced in over 21 foreign countries.
Mark Burnett is pacting with casino and resorts giant Genting Intl. to launch a $20 million joint production venture. Mark Burnett Prods. Asia will produce original content for Asian broadcasters and license those formats in markets around the world, including the U.S. The TV venture, the first for Genting, marks the latest overseas expansion for Burnett.
For a guy who use to be in the military and worked as a nanny, his talk sounded awfully familiar to a Tony Robins presentation. Which is not a bad thing in any way as Tony Robins is a gangster (the cool kind) and I’m a self help junkie.
The interesting portion of the talk was at the end when he launched his new TV show: Sarah Palin’s Alaska.
While I am no fan of Sarah Palin, I am a fan of Mark Burnett. For his TV shows, his marketing skillz and most recently his gangster Tony Robins like jargon.
During his keynote at Blogworld, he announced this TV show for the first time by having stevegarfield whom I don’t who, but seems to have a decent sized Youtube channel, upload the first copy of the TV Trailer to his Youtube channel, tweet it out then asked everyone in the room to also tweet it out.
This is the video that was uploaded to Youtube.
At the time of writing this video is currently on ~82,000 views. Not bad for 10 days.
Who knows if this tactic will work or not but I like his innovation and guts for giving it a shot. Plus its Sarah Palin so no one really gives a sh!t if it works anyway…
I got a chance to work with the guys from PathPacific.com in Dublin a while back. We were shooting a video for a product launching in Asia (weird I know). Path Pacific had recently recorded the Dublin Web Summit where Bobby Chang was among one of the many impressive speakers attending. I had never heard of Bobby before, but he is one of the founders of Incase, the company that makes the official cases for Apple products.
He did a great speech on the background of his business, collaboration and building socially responsible businesses. Check it out:
“Each indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting over lost days…what you can do or think you can do, begin it. For boldness has magic, power, and genius in it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Firstly, apologies for the latent posts… Too busy having fun! A bit of an update, I’ve just landed back in Vancouver where I will be staying for the foreseeable future. I’ve had an amazing time (the best time of my life…) travelling through South East Asia, North America and Europe but I was moving very quickly and found it difficult to find my zone. When travelling, there are so many new and exciting things to see and people to meet, I didn’t want to be spending my time working, or writing about what I was doing. Heck, I even felt that planning my next destination and accommodation was a waste of the valuable time I had in a place. So I’ve decided to settle down in Vancouver and get some work done.
It is interesting the journey that has brought me here. It all started with one key decision: Quitting my day job. I had a very comfortable life – six figure job, nice apartment all that good stuff. But looking back over the last 9 months, and the opportunities I’ve discovered, the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been, I’m very happy I made the decision.
Since setting off on my journey, I’ve built a network of online businesses that are netting me a small profit; I’ve become a partner in another business and am at the initial stages of setting up a third business. There is lots of work cut out for me in the future, but I’m excited and think know it’s all going to pay off.
What’s interesting about all of this is that none of it was planned before I made the decision to quit my job. And if these opportunities had arisen before I made the decision (which they wouldn’t have), I may have looked at them negatively or not even given them thought. The initial decision is what sparked the momentum.
So if there is something you’ve been thinking about doing, whether it be starting a new project, asking your girlfriend to marry you or completely changing your life, make a decision and stick to it. Because
“In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” -Theodore Roosevelt
Great speech from Dan Pink on what drives people.
Click here if you cant see the video.
– Money is a great driver for repetitive quantifiable activities
– Money is not the best driver for creativity
– People are more inclined to do things because of purpose, mastery and a sense of contribution
It’s interesting to see how many of the successful companies like Google have integrated this work philosophy into their cultures.
J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine.