Whilst it would be great if you were wildly charasmatic and very funny, it is just as important that you say i few good words and keep up the vibe when you do a groomsman speech
There can be younger people that you perceive have achieved alot more than you in life. Just ask the question would you swap positions? You can only improve on your own situation
Be honest to who you are and let others react to your actions
Push yourself to be bold on action and impatient with learning (try, feedback and repeat)
If there is no uncomfort, there is no growth. Because we must feel uncomfortable to be truly learning
Time flies as you get older. I realse that I am 15% of the year is gone and I feel not that much closer to those lofty ambitions I set for myself in my 5 year plan and my quarterly aim. Here today I will look at my phone (probably x1.2 with the amount I use on my computer) and check out my usage data.
Online Dating (OLD) – I have to admit that with the corona virus opportunities to socialise have been low and I have started relying on these dating apps to meet new people.
Hinge daily usage in minutes is sitting average 12 minutes per day. Plus CMB which sits at an additional 4 minutes per day. so 16/180 minutes per day (nearly 10%) and roughly 2hrs per week trying to source and really what are my results? I should be at least getting 1 per week. But the fact is it is at zero.
The apps only work for you if you are in the top 20% (Pareto’s rule) . The attractive ladies (most popular) are going to be:
Talking to multiple guys and really spoilt for choice – easyness and the need to make an impression
Non – commital because there is always another to take the place
Image is crafted by the photos. which really equates to marketing. Historically I have not been so good at this.
Twitter is sitting at 8 minutes per day. 45 minutes per week. And I do make some decisions based upon this. But I also learn a few new things and keep up with recent developments. It does not affect my investing framework/decision.
MyStocks is sitting about 5 minutes per day which seems a bit low. But again i am holding for the longer term. The important key is to build up the cash flow.
Instagram is sitting at 9 minutes per day. And this is pure entertainment with some messaging.
To conclude I am spending almost 5-6hrs per week in aggregate that I could use to keep on creating that biz. That’s a lot of wasted time where your mind could be thinking about other things. I hope to write this again a few months time with my waste hours down to 1-3hrs.
Today I sat through a talk given by the boss/head poncho/project sponsor about how we were falling behind in our schedules and deliverables. That project managers should live and breathe the project – treat like it was their own money and their own house that they were building. Would you rest on your laurels? No you would go out there and makre sure your contractor shows up.
Whilst the point was clear – it felt more like a parent talking down to their children, teacher talking to their students than anything. Even senior managers kept quiet when the crowd was asked a question – lest the ire of the boss befall on them.
The projects were falling behind and when interrogated – only 3 out of 10 projects had ‘sufficient’ enough excueses. Do you know those times where you come up with an excuse, but then the other person asks why you didn’t do more. What else you think you could have done?
It is easy to criticise the leader, but when you’re in their shoes it is a whole different ballgame. What would I have done differently and how would i portray myself.
I think it is always coming back to first principles;
We hold ourselves accountable and manage the stake holders. If there is a delay on the project, manage it, don’t just throw your hands up in the air. Show me why you did everything in your power to change the course and provide me with options (at least 3) on what can be done
This is a new program of works with new systems and new people. Of course there will be teething problems in beginning but all we have to do it be better 1% everyday. Compounding will provide us results
Think win-win for all. Consider if you were in my shoes (the program director) how you would report to your stakeholders. You cannot possible show a 33% extension of time with small reasons such as delay and industrial action. Show the proactiveness so you can be seen doing something
The audience was mostly male so the above could possibly work. WSB mentions that we should avoid the emotional speeches (for the masses) and concentrate on accountability and bettering yourself from last time. In a project setting it is always about recognising the goals and aiming everyone in the same direction.
PS. If i remember correctly the schedule was 33% extended and the spend was decreasing by 30% planned for the year. Obviously the senior manager would have KPIs related to completing this work (skin in the game). Instead of focusing on his plight – it was the clients/ratepayers.
1. You’re not scaling. You’ve never been a gym person. So why is your first step going to the gym 5 days a week? Start small: → Walk 2x / week → 10 push-ups everyday Then Jog 3x / week Lift 3x / week Lift 5x / week It’s not a one-round fight; start small and get bigger progressively. Scale to your endgame.
2. You’re relying on motivation This means you’re reling on emotion -> rely on habits. Conserve energy & stack your desired behavior. → Hit the gym after class → Read 10 pages after you brush your teeth. Don’t be like me: walking across campus on cold mornings to lift.
3. You don’t have a quality system Your direction =/= Your endgame Your actions. Routine. Lifestyle. Are all lacking. Your average day should point you in the right direction. Not your best day. Create a plan of action. Implement. Adjust. Improve.
a. You don’t have a quality system To create the right ingredients: – Actions – Mindset – Routine Work inverse. “What’s my goal?” → What behaviors could get in my way? → How could my mindset affect my effort? THEN DO THE OPPOSITE.
4. Your environment is holding you back You have goodies in plain sight. All over your house. You have no hope of eating cleaner. Or your Xbox is staring you in the face as you work. Major L; hide your distractions. Test your discipline less; you’ll win more.
5. Your circle is a cage You set a goal. But the people around you will make you fail it. Not reach it. It’s like being in a dingy with 4 other people. If they’re worried about what to watch but you want to go exploring. Hang out with like-minded people WITH A SIMILAR GOAL
6. You’re not handling failure well You go 2 weeks without binge-playing video games. Then one day you cave. That doesn’t make you a failure. You’re not back down to zero. Getting better is a process; don’t treat it as all or nothing.
7. You’re bogged down in outcomes “I don’t see the results. I didn’t hit my PR. ” But how do you feel? “I feel better. I have more energy.” Wala. Do more than an eye test; appreciate small gains.
8. You haven’t found a substitute Your bad habit is a result of a craving. Crushing that craving is hard. Like going cold turkey. Look to re-direct that energy instead. Find a healthy substitute. Replace your destructive behaviors.
Grow. Learn. Adapt. Thrive. That cycle is yours to achieve. Share this post to help others achieve the same.
Do you like to research and read alot of books about a topic?
Do you like to read? Have you read many books?
A Jeff Bezos quotes comes to mind – If you know 70% of what to do jump in. By the time it gets to 100% you are already too late.
Continual research will kill your gains. Instead of trying to be a perfect (100%) on your first go – think about taking a shot, adjusting and then taking another. Guaranteed this will be faster (iterations with feedback) process rather than looking, researching and waiting for the one.
To be 100% perfect is irrational – nothing is perfect. And will make you only take on those sure things. And sure things usually have very small and little upside.
If you want to start a business – start selling items. And then see what works, what needs to be done and then do it again. If it works for machine learning, it shall work for you.
If you want to get a gf – start talking to women. Check your interactions and then come 6sigma it on how to do better.
If you want to be fit – start going to the gym and picking up something heavy. Continual research on the best technique will kill your gains!
Now obviously what you will encounter is those small minor adjustments may be micro plays and not a large contributor to your success. Going to the gym you may wonder whether the chest flys are working for you when you cannot even bench your body weight!
This is a book written in 1997 about the future – and it has been suprisingly accurate. Now, the author may have been lucky with his predictions but it was also useful to have a another vantage point of the future. And the author, James Dale Davidson, brings up many good points that we should take into account in our decision making.
Talks about cycles in human civilisation and the current cycle is started by the invention of the internet. The internet allows the connection and remote production of invdividuals. No longer are they bound by where they are. Therefore, this has a profound effect on governments – because now people have choice.
Systems change slowly over time and only until there is a sharp breaking point (sudden inflexion) do we know that it was heading to disaster. In the case of Rome, how can we pinpoint where it ended. We can see the times when the emperors fell but actually the line of emperors beforehand were paying lip service to the status quo. Only going through the motions – electing civil officials for 1 year, christianity as the state religion, etc.
The book was written in 1997 and 20 years later many of its predictions have come true; cybercurrency (bitcoin), massive printing by governments (2020), the rise of developing economies and the reduction of USA, the effect of the cybereconomy vs china.
Do we look at the current world power – USA and note that there are some details which show the self-serving nature of those in charge and the behind the scene groups driving their own agenda? It certainly looks like things are moving in ONE direction and the trump administration may be seen as either a sign to right the ship or the continual decline.
The book points out that you can never make out what leads to the fall of rome at the time (confirmaiton bias), and it was only after the effect do you attribute reasons for the downfall. The based on the result, if a captain was controlling and pushed the team and won the game – he would be seen as a brilliant leader. However, if the captain lost the game he could be seen as a little-napolean giving those underneath him little room to move.
thinking about the control of government in economic rather than political terms. Three basic alternatives with different set of incentives: propietors, employees and customers. Proprietor – a hereditary leader who for all internets and purposes owns the country. E.g Brunei. Proprieters set the price (tax) and the people have no choice due to monopolization of violence.
Government controlled by its employees would seldom have incentives to either reduce goverment costs or the price charged to their customers. However, where conditions impose strong price resistance, in the form of opposition to higher taxes, the goverments controlled by employees would be more likely to let their revenues fall below their outlays then cut back outlays (spending). the incentive is for inclined toward chronic deficits.
Government controlled by its customers would have incentives to reduce their operating costs as far as possible while delivering the minimum. This is because of competition (from other governments). Examples include medieval merchant republics (like venice) who needed protection provided by the government. They did not seek to profit from their control of government’s monopoly of violence. A goverment controlled by its customers sets tax rates not to opimize the amount the government can collect but rather to optimise the amount that they customers can retain.
Having trouble completing your goals? You may have too many
We all have lofty goals that we wish ourselves to do. However come the end of another year and it looks like these goals are unfulfilled. So what happened? You may be suffering from having too much on your plate!
One trick to do is list all the items that you wish to accompish in a year. And then our of that list pick the four most important. Then get rid of the rest. We do this because it is better to achieve one of our goals at 100% rather than them all at 10%. We devote all our time in achieving this goal.
My current goals are:
Learning spanish to become conversationally fluent
Start a secondary source of income
Build up to 92kg @ 10% bodyfat
Finishing off my diploma
Getting better at BJJ
Learning mandarin to become conversationally fluent
Making money of crypto/shares
Being able to touch my toes
Completing a L-sit
We can see here that is a long list and whilst i chip away on some goals – the others are pushed ot the side.
Goals for June 2020
Finish off diploma
Start secondary source of income
Build up to 92kg @ 10% bf
These are my only goals for the end of the year and until June 2020. All else is DISCARDED…
I think when we move up in the world – we always think of accumulating more to what we already have. Whether it is a bigger house, car, more stuff and a higher paying job. However there is also another technique that you can use to achieve the same thing – and that is subtracting.
Why you need a bigger house
Reduce your possessions and your space will be bigger
One of the reasons for a bigger house is that there is not enough space. That you need rooms for working, a room for each child, music room, etc. Now think back to the first time you enter a new apartment or house. When you have no items, there is alot of space.
Therefore to check whether you need more space – it is often cheaper and easier to look at items that you can discard. The basic principle is put similar items together (to avoid duplication) and ask yourself whether you have used it in the past year (to test the usefullness).
Doing it this way costs nothing, and your house and mind will be more organised as a result.
Why you need to exercise for 1hour everyday
Manage how much food you eat and you won’t have to ‘burn’ off those claories
We always want to have the perfect beach body; a six pack and toned muscles and we work hard (exercise) regularly to try and achieve this. But do you ever notice that progress is slow and your body is the same as last time you promised to lose weight?
The basic building block of losing weight is not to exercise, but to control the amount of calories that your body takes in. You have one empty glass, every food you eat fills that glass bit by bit. when the glass is full is when your average mentabolic calorie requirement is met.
Think about it – you cannot outrun a large supreme pizza from dominoes. That’s a whopping ~1048 cals. It will take 2hours or running just to ‘burn ‘ that off. Which is easier? Run for 2 hours or just to not eat the whole pizza.
Therefore instead of trying to exercise out of eating unhealthy – restrict what you eat and life will be easier
Invert what you are tring to achieve
“Begin with the end in mind” Stephen R Covey
The great German algebraist Carl Jacobi had a maxim on how to approach difficult math problems: “Invert. Always Invert.” Oftentimes the best way to gain clarity about a problem is to address it backwards..
This year, don’t ask yourself “What am I going to do to be a better man?” or “What kind of man do I want to be?” Invert those questions and ask “What am I NOT going to do to be a better man?” and “What kind of man do I NOT want to be?”
Some possible things that you should NOT do: take on extra debt for consumption, be involved in drama from toxic people in life, worry about things that you cannot change, doing lots of things poorly, eating whatever you feel like, escaping life through tv shows/games/ porn ,
Think of downside in decision making
We can always look at the positives for makign a decision – However, to not completely fail we should look at reducing all fat tail risks. That is remove all the risks that the decision could wipe you out. Very smart people can make dumb decisions that completely wipe them out.
If they had done nothing really positive, but had simply avoided the DUIs, the drug arrests, the out-of-wedlock births, the affairs, and the consumer debt, their lives would have been vastly superior to the ones they have now. Think about it; doing nothing would have been better than doing those items.
Following via negativa may seem like a defensive and risk-averse way to live. But we are simply avoiding small probabilities, small gain, with big losses (ones that could wipe you out). We can still take risks – just ones where it is big gains, small losses
I think the choices with minimal gains, big losses that a man can occur which has a big impact on his life
Failed marriage without any agreements beforehand. We see little upside of marraige in the 21st century.
Drinking while under the influence ($20 uber ride) and then having licence suspended or accident without insurance
Smoking and drugs. No further words needed
Spending time with people that do not have the same goals as you. This is a hard one because your friends are your friends. But the older you get the more you realise that friends change and go. What are the chances that the group of random people in your class (high school friends) have the same life trajectory as you. Hint: Very very unlikely. Yet we still hang out with the same people 20+ years on.
We see individual characters but when we take a step back they are of the same type – geeky
I read somehwere (citation needed) and have carried the belief that you are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with. Other authors have also mentioned that as you move on with life (hopefully up) the people that you decide to spend time should change. If you are born in middle class and wish to succeed in life (earn the big bucks), then spending your weekend with people who prefer to drink and smoke is probably not the best idea.
At the core level – friends are people that you get along with and share common interests. I believe the interests of those content in life do not match those wishing to succeed. What do you gain talking about the past glories and drinking yourself into mindless stupor. Nothing – it is best to nod, exchange pleasantries and be on your merry way.
Corollary is that you only hang out with people that provide value to you. But then you are just a leech, you should also provide value to the other person. I’m not exactly sure what – but think of something. Maybe it is always to ask a small favour and continually ask advice – people always want to be heard and be an expert on things.
in WSP spend, he advocates saving money with share accomodation – but if possible to get your own place. This allows you to work on what you want to do. But I have also noticed that as people you have social needs to talk to friends, to hang out. Having roomates that are friendly does help you alleviate the social needs for people. It is wise to come out of your room/bubble everyday. It is a skill that needs to be continualled sharpened.
In the future it will always what you appear to be for other people. So whilst being off social media is good, it is not providing the full marketing that is available to you. This year there was no addition of pictures with friends. Next year will be adding to the gram and showing that my life is fun and cool.
One thing that WSP doesn’t talk about is the time spent with your partner. If this person doesn’t have the same passion as you and is only interested in entertainment this is a drain on your time. For example, this weekend the productivity is gone and I have not accomplished the things set forth during the week. This is the time where you just need to reduce the amount of contact and try to reach the goals that you set forth earlier in the year.
Can you imagine one of these people hanging out with anyone from the big bang theory? These people have different habits and systems
In Summary, you are who you spend time with. If you are trying to move up on life then you should be hanging out with people that are the same. This allows you to exchange ideas and provide new information. Whilst those others that are content and comfy will talk about the good times, are have fun in the moment.
5 Percent a day 