Why I started learning Spanish

In 2019, I sat down at a coffee shop and penciled out a two-year plan. My goal? To be able to converse fluently in spanish and travel to Central and South America. The original plan was to visit mexico this year, but with Covid, this was not possible – 2020 is nearly finished and I have hit the halfway point.

I am sharing my thoughts with you today on why i started learning, ways I am practicing and how you can succesfully learn another langauge.

How did i start?

I explored Argentina in 2019 and discovered that it was a wonderful place – a different culture to my home country and i felt handicapped because i could not speak spanish. And hence I could not fully comprehend the culture. It appeared that there was alot of latin america travel going on.

I believe that learning another language helps to create associations in your mind (neural pathways) between similar items. Nowadays I can often think of the spanish words instead of their english equivalents.

Recognised school vs Italki

From the onset my goal was to speak as much as possible. A school class costs ~$400 per term for 10 x 2hr lessons which equates to $20 per hour of contact time. However, please note that this time is shared between a class of say 5, so in reality you will only get 20% of this time with the teacher. Also note that if we take the time to travel to/from class ~say 30 minutes. We have spent 3hrs to get 24 minutes of speaking time with the teacher = 24/180 = 13%

Italki Spanish classes (amateur teachers from Colombia) cost an average of $13per hour. There is no need to travel ~ lessons are from the confort of your room. For a 1hr lesson, you are likely at 55minutes of contact time. This is a 92% return of time used to learn spanish.

The clear winner is taking italki classes – a school class is only beneficial if you are in need of making friends. We do not advocate doing language exchange because, even though it is free, it takes time to find a partner and then you need to do a 1:1 time exchange for english. So we take this as less than 50% return of time.

How to maximise your contact hours

We watched a spanish learning video from a ‘polygot’ and essentially what we want to be doing is communicating in our target language – Spanish. What do we mean by communicating? The other person understand what we are trying to say.

There is no point learning grammar etc because your vocabulary is so small that it handicaps you. Try saying I went to bed early in Spanish. You could use proper vocab or you could say bed (cama) and early (temprano) and then some hand actions. The other person would understand.

We want to be mimicking how a baby learns because that’s where we all get started. So pick up a magazine, look at pictures and start describing what is going on in the scene!

If you liked this post I have started up a website http://5percentaday.com/ . Click on the link to find out more!

10 min yoga flow to improve flexibility

Shoulders hunched over the rectuangular slab, arms and hands in a forward position with the chair stuck to the bums, the hum of the air conditioner in the distance. We have gone far form our roots browsing the African Savanah looking for food. However, our bodies have not.

Sitting for 10 hours per day (8hrs at work and possible 1hr each way on public transport) is not what out ancestors did in the past. It would be 10hrs per day walking with the rest sitting.

What happens when we sit is our hip flexors get tight because they are in a shortened position when sitting. And our abs are no longer used and hence become weak.

Based on this video I have introduced a 10 minute yoga flow to improve flexibility. I am using this video as a start and describing the Asana (body posture)

1. Standing forward fold
2. Long lunge
3. Plank
4. Chaturanga
5. Cobra
6. Child pose
7. Down Dog
8. Long Lunge
9. Standing forward fold
10. Standing Lengthening

If you want to know more about fixing tight muscles – have a read of the excellent book Becoming a Supple Leopard by Dr Kelly Starrett.

3 imagery visualisation techniques i used to supercharge my life

1/ Imagining the finer details. Say you had a thought about chocolate. If you quickly dismiss the idea – it quickly gets forgotten. But say you start imaging the finer details of the cake. It served on a white plate, perfectly cut, with a nice crisp top layer of icing, the waif of choclate in the air. Then you will definitely start to crave Chocolate cake.

This can be used as mental rehearsal focusing on the specific stages and correct technique. A trampolinist may mentally rehearse a backward somersault before performing the move.

2/ Repeating true statements Rather than focusing on what you are good at, repeat statements that you know are true. This is chunking it down and giving you a leg to stand on. For example “I am enough”, “there is something i want to tell her”, etc

3/ Imagining picture the successul situation as a result of your performance. You are imagining the specific details that change your belief and inspire you to perform. Through imagery, the performer may recreate a good past performance or may ‘make up’ a positive new experience, for example before taking a penalty a footballer might picture the ball hitting the back of the net

Building muscle and maintaining high protein on a budget

Comparison of Australian Protein Sources.

Gold Standard

Musashi P45 Bars

Protein GOld Standard

Get ahead of your peers. Where do you stack up?

We see life as a spring race, and wish to catch up to Usain bolt. However it is more like a marathon and those who rush out of the gates quickly and not pace themselves are likely to fall.

Australian Median Wage – May 2020

Median weekly total cash earnings	All employees	1,110	57,700
Avg weeky total cash earnings (private)	Male	1,700	88,400
Avg weekly total cash earnings (Public)	Male	1,900	93,600

Source: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-work-hours/average-weekly-earnings-australia/latest-release

If we follow the Pareto principle 20% of the people own 80% of the wealth or earn the most. We see that it is skewed to the upper (because those that do not earn money or not counted). Therefore if you earn median wage you are likely to be in the top 15% of people.

Australian Median Wage – May 2020

Bracket	No.	Lower Bound	Upper Bound	% of income earners	People above
Top Income bracket	596,531	156	++	3.8%	0%
Second Income bracket	All	104	155	6.2%	3.8%
Third income bracet	All	91	103	4.1%	10%
Fourth income bracket (Average)	All	78	91	5.9%	14.1%

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-21/income-calculator-comparison-australia/9301378?nw=0

Takeaways

We should expect that the percentages of peope higher than this is likely to be higher – this is due to tax concessions and the rich persons owning business. There are also those not working who have high asset prices. This is why likely you observe many peeople who seem to be richer than you.

Also take into account you are not in a global comparison. Those that you associate with are likely to be similar, therefore your comparisons are relative. The doctor compares himself to richer doctor friends, etc and feels like he life has been wasted.

To propel into the upperbound it takes $50,000 per year, and this could be done with a business. And that profit doesn’t seem so high.

Gary Halbert’s 30 Day Copywriting challenge

We do not realise, but alot of our interactions day-day involve selling. I will be doing the copywriting challenge until Christmas (Starting today on the 23rd). I will document how this goes and what i found really useful.

“Scientific Advertising” by Claude Hopkins here

Short Kindle is available above. The book is short and straight to the point. Finished this Day 1 & 2. My biggest takeaway – imagine that the advertistement was a salesman, is he doing his job and could he door knock and sell the item?

“The Robert Collier Letter Book” by Robert collier

Days 3 to 7. This book contains many mail-in letters by Robert Collier. I would like these to unsolicited emails. With only the title of the email being read.

“Tested Advertising Methods” by John Caples

Days 7 to 14. This provides additional details on HOW to right copy. It explains the use of basic language, focus on the reader and provide relevant pictures as a basis to prepare copy that sells.

“How To Write A Good Advertisement” by Vic Schwab

“The Gary Halbert Letter” (all back issues)

“The Boron Letters” by Gary Halbert

“The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches” by Joe Karbo

“Break-Through Advertising” by Eugene M. Schwartz

“7-Steps To Freedom” by Ben Suarez

Expose yourself and get a grasp of copywriting by reading books.

Update 16 December. Completed Tested advertising methods by John Caples

Is Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules of Life really an antidote to chaos?

I will share with you my findings from reading this book and whether you should buy it as well.

1. “Stand up straight with your shoulders back” – Be confident, there no upside for being timid. As always don’t let your ego get in the way, if you don’t know something always ask.
2. “Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping” We tend to dissassociate ourselves when looking out for the best. We can smoke, but god forbid our children do. It is easier on our subconcious to want the best for others because it there is no extra work for you.
3. “Make friends with people who want the best for you” We are the average of the 5 people we hang out with. If you are with people who only drink and put you down your hustle will go down and your confidence.
4. “Compare yourself with who you were yesterday, not with who someone else is today” We all go through different journeys and have compounded different risks. It makes no sense to compare ourselves to others beause they have a lifetime of habit taking – or risk payoffs. Also there are details under the skin which we do not see. The best person to compare with is yourself.
5. “Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them” I have not seen this rule anywhere before and the premise is that you are responsibile for raising your children. So raise them in a manner where you will like them.
6. “Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world” We sit on our computer and our voices can be heard miles away. What we want is listeners – but action. Tidying up your room/house is the frist step in changing your life. .
7. “Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient)” The hardest things are often not the easiest
8. “Tell the truth — or, at least, don’t lie” Do not treat others how you would not like to be treated. i.e. If you don’t like being lied to – don’t lie to others.
9. “Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t” Keep an open mind and that the person talking has a different viewpoint which can add to your own. We can never change anyones mind only – add more information
10. “Be precise in your speech” Broad speaking has a time and place – However, when solving a problem we need to define it. Otherwise we get scope creep, etc.
11. “Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding” The title is a bit misleading but Jordan talks about it here. I like to view this one with two meanings. The first meaning is to let boys be boys. That is let them experiment and try new things. And the second meaning is to be antifragile. If boys don’t try things when they are young, when will they?
12. “Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street”. Life is short, there is much pain and suffering. Enjoy the little thngs throughout the day.

I thought this was an interesting book with applicable knowledge. You can get it from Amazon here.

What is Defi? Put your money to work and earn more interest than at the banks

The blockchain. Every transaction is recorded for all to say and you can track where all the more goes or how much is in it. Only one person has posession of the money at one time. You cannot say you have the money in the suitcase and rely on rep alone (like the gangstas you see in the movies meeting up to exchange goods).

If this system is now secure and we have trust. Then we could start doing things with the money – one way is to loan to another person. This is where decentralised finance comes in. If you have some money/BTC that you do not need to use in the short term future – you could give this money to loan this to somone else at a agreed upon rate.

The trouble historically with peer-peer lending that this is not your main game. If the borrower doesn’t pay – how do you get the money back or how can you take the collateral without penalty? You dont have the muscle to pick up payments or are you bothered to be the bad guy lender. This is where the blockchain solves enforcement.

How is this all enforced? Everything is running according to code. So a protocol (AAVE or uniswap) would get people together and then agree to run the exchange code. A person can be need of AUD and stake their 1BTC in return for some cash. There is no need for the structures of law to take place because it is all code. The downside will be checking for errors in the code. We expect there to be standard trusted protocols in place in the future.

If all goes well. You can receive yield from your assets greater than the bank can give at the moment all around the world. That means loaning from the bank isn’t always needed.

Comparison with traditional home loan – Lending to buy a house you borrow to buy an asset. if you don’t pay the interest that asset gets taken away from you. Inforcement is done through contracts and the rule of law wherever you are. Since you are not 1:1 collateral your credit worthiness is taken into account (job, savings, spending habits )

Future takeaway I like to predict the future by seeing what will be removed rather than added. We see that the traditional role of banks is not necessary in this Defi world. The middleman is taken out and their %cut for being financiers is removed.

WFH and not being productive? 7 benefits I discovered after cleaning my room

Are you feel productivity working from home (WFH) is down? Studies have shown that your environment severly affects your mood. Look at the two contrasting images are below, how does each of these pictures make you feel. I’m going to to provide you 8 reasons why.

1. Start the day off with a clear mind because your room is clear
2. Easier to find things because they are not in some pile
3. Spot problems quicker because you will notice something missing
4. It looks good. no longer embarassed to invite people over – you could even take a photo and upload to the internet
5. Allows you to think of ways to improve. Removal of clutter allows you an unobstructed view of the space. What stylistic items are missing? You would never know from the first picture
6. Visually doesn’t distract Your attention is not drawn on away
7. You feel in control. All the items tossed on the ground gives you a sense that life if taking hold. A clean room means that you have taken control