Tag: Lifestyle 2013

  • Down to the Essentials

    If you want to increase the efficacy of your business or other projects, focus on the essentials. It is amazing how many times we get carried away spending our time, energy and precious resources on things that do not really help us develop a more profitable endeavor. And, yet, if we focused more on the things that were essential, we would have more to show for our efforts. Frankly, it is easy to understand why we deviate from focusing on the essentials. Basics can get boring. Yet unnecessary variety is not a prescription for business success. A quote from legendary martial artist Bruce Lee comes to mind, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

  • Tech Rant Number Nine, a Poem

    Garnished, flourished and essentially nourished. A walk in the park till long after dark, while the sun shines bright in the long lasting night. Scandinavia, or maybe virtual reality crafted by an untraveled game creator. Could be for me, or a dream of an unseen scene, from which I must wean myself and reenter reality and that is the goal, while I am not too old. Reality, something to see, from the mountain tops to the deep blue sea, you see? Or you don’t or you won’t or you couldn’t or you can’t; the answers not scant when you make excuses for others or yourself. Are you daft? Because I am! And that is not a scam or a sham or some type of flimflam. Reason being, I am seeing things others do not see. So they say I have lost my marbles, as if I had any when the game started.

  • Design versus Default

    Proper planning prevents poor performance. Performance in business, school and life is enhanced when we plan our work and work our plan. How many of us actually do this, however? Something tells me that most of the time, many of us fly by the seat of our pants. We have a vague notion of what we want to accomplish and we go about accomplishing it in some vague way. The results? Less than stellar. There are two ways we can make our way through life. One is by default. The other is by design. The default approach has it that we are largely at the mercy of external circumstances and, consequently, life will take us where it takes us and there is not much we can do about it. This notion sees us as nothing more than leaves, being blown about the garden of life for the duration of our existence.

  • Books, Media, Chris Yandek

    The Age of Perpetual Learning

    The rise of the Internet, and its widespread use, has led the times we are living in to be called the information age. Certainly, with people glued to their smartphones, this seems like a decent label for this era. Lamentably, it seems the information we tend to focus on via our ubiquitous mobile devices is often trivial. Such is life, I suppose. Yet, while we often spend our time focused on things like friends and acquaintances announcing their latest meals on Facebook and Twitter, we are in a profoundly new age – the age of perpetual learning or, perhaps better stated, the age of lifetime education.

  • Dread, Fright and the Soul’s Might; a Poem

    Comes a time that’s filled with dread, rising from my slumbering bed, cast out in a world of buying, my soul’s on fire and I’m wondering why and – first came a basic motorcar – to go real close, to travel far, and then it changed into a symbol, a calling card, a golden thimble – to sew our way out in the world, to show what’s sown and get the girl… I lay awake throughout the night, I shrug off existential fright, I would prefer that I’m not dying, of that fact there’s certainly no denying.

  • Be Certain During Times of Uncertainty

    During times of uncertainty, and I am focused on economic uncertainty here, be certain. This might best be summed up by the dictum, “This too shall pass.” The United States of America is suffering from massive divisiveness in Washington. The U.S. must make some tough decisions going forward, about how to deal with its fiscal house. Intractable politics have prevented Washington from effectively dealing with the dynamics of overspending, debt and the national debt ceiling. What we see are stopgap measures, not long term solutions.

  • For Me to Be; a Poem

    Keenly gazing, stars a blazing, into the deep we go. Fraught with peril, while we wonder why it’s an endless show. Our brief encounter with our soul’s light, could brighten the path we tread. Yet as we live, we act as if dead and change is what we dread. Life is squandered, when we stagnate, and turn from the appointed cause. We shuffle and stop, and are ready to drop, when we focus on the internal source. We’d like to shift blame, it is the same game, the thing that we frequently do. To shirk from accepting the responsibility, for refusing our own ability, to impel our own daring do.

  • Have Fun

    Do you remember how to have fun? I hope so. It seems too many of us reach adulthood forgetting how to laugh and have a good time. Oh, certainly, some of us think we are having a grand ole time after a couple of drinks. I am not talking about that. What I refer to is the ability to have a good time naturally. Life is too short to be somber. It is also too short not to be sober. We should not rely on downing some booze in order to laugh. As kids, most of us probably did quite a bit of laughing. Too many times we were told to stop it. Adults admonished us for laughing too much, as if walking around looking like a professional constipate was a better way to go. Yeah, right. I mean, is maturity some kind of calculus of who looks like they are in the greatest discomfort? Hmmm, Jay looks real gassy, he must be a serious, self-evolved individual. I think not. Jay, work on your digestion friend.

  • An Achievement Mindset

    We often end up being our own impediment to success. People may tell us how good we are. If we do not believe it what end does it serve? Praise for our abilities falls on deaf ears unless we are ready, willing and able to accept it, believe it and act on it. We are our own worse critics. Many of us struggle with having faith in ourselves. We believe that somehow, we lack a key ingredient enabling us to succeed. Of course, this is false, but if we believe it we will act as if it is true. Hence, our efforts will rarely lead to anything meaningful. Instead, we will be trapped in a purgatory of self-fulfilling negative prophecies.

  • Relax Into Success

    The notion that relaxing can lead to success probably seems unusual to some people. After all, we are taught that success comes as a result of hard work. Perhaps, we are taught to not just work hard but also to work smart. Certainly, we are taught to focus on what we are doing. We are taught to be goal oriented. How many times are we taught to relax, when it comes to learning how to succeed? Not many I suspect. Unfortunately, we tend to become myopic about what it is we are trying to accomplish. We forget what we might accomplish if we modified, albeit slightly, our approach to whatever it is we are attempting to achieve.