Hacking Your Passions

“The present moment is always small in the sense that it is always simple, but concealed within it lies the greatest power. Like the atom, it is one of the smallest things yet contains enormous power.” – Eckhart Tolle

This is one of the lessons I am particularly desperate in somehow providing a mentee when I’m in a mentoring relationship. People always seem to want opportunity to knock, but it is, all the time, wherever you go! You just have to learn to see the potential in things, to make connections, to question everything… to remember how good we were so many years ago in our childhood at asking “Why?“

Seth Godin had two related posts recently, both on the importance of who you know. The first regarded self promotion versus word of mouth/buzz created by others.

The truism of the web: people talking about you is far more effective than talking about yourself.

The second post took a different tact/approach to the old saw that it’s not what you know but rather who you know.

I wonder if there’s a more useful measure: who trusts you?

I have a little LLC I formed a few years ago to make sure I kept my business separate from everything else, financially and legally speaking.  I was glad that a wise friend walked me through that process, many of the pitfalls that are easily avoided IF you know about them. This article regarding Accounting 101 for Freelancers and the importance of a corporate veil is nice to see out there – hopefully it will help a few folks dodge a few bullets.

From the Endless Innovation blog comes a post about some lessons we can take away from the writings of Leonardo da Vinci on the things we perhaps ought to focus our minds on, in the pursuit of enlightenment and innovation. For example, my favorite:

Connessione: A recognition of, and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all things and phenomena.

Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about storytelling as a dying art form. From the popularity of reality shows to the lack of time we spend with our kids telling them stories (as in making them up out of your head, in an entertaining way, rather than reading them for someone else), this may in fact be the case. Whether or not we are in fact losing the knack for storytelling as a culture, practicing the use of storytelling as a way to learn faster, prepare for exams, and retain information longer might be a good way to push ourselves to enhance our storytelling ability.

Holistic learning is based on the principle that learning works as a whole and not through rote memorization. When all of your ideas are connected together, it becomes far easier to remember them. When you have many different associations to the same idea, you can still retain the information even if you forget one association.

I think it is safe to say that my passion for food is something I am not alone in. I’m also a pretty huge fan of finding ways to save money and/or get the best possible deal going for whatever I’m in the market for. So those of you who know about Costco’s deal of a hot dog or polish sausage and a soda for $1.50, with all the “fixins” for the dog included, know that it is a pretty screamingly good deal. If you’re into that sort of thing. Which I am.

Here’s a way to make the deal one step better, though! What I used to do during a Costco visit is go collect whatever items in the store I came for in the first place, go through the checkout line, pay, then go stand in the food court line and buy my hot dog/soda combo. About two years ago, I complained to my sister-in-law that I have to always get cash back at the checkout for my meal at the food court since they only take cash there. She told me you can buy the food at the same checkout you buy everything else at, and then just show the food court worker the receipt for your food. Brilliant!

Then, a couple of months ago, there was an exceptionally long line at the food court. I’d paid for my food already, and there’s a pick up window, and normally I just saw pizzas go out of there but I thought “what the heck” and went and showed the pickup people my receipt. And it WORKED! I know this probably should have been obvious to me to try long before this, but I’m just happy I finally connected things together.

So now I get a hot dog and a soda for $1.50, and I get to skip the long line everyone else is in for their food. Yet one more reason I love going to shop at Costco.

One of my favorite bloggers out there, Katie Konrath, recently posted an item regarding some of the lessons she learned about innovation in 2007. What jumped out at me from the piece, in particular, is the significance of encouraging rather than discouraging people as they share their ideas for how to make things better.

Obviously, not all ideas will change the world, and some of them could definitely use “a little work”.  But telling someone their idea stinks is no way to get them to improve it.  Then they’re just discouraged.

I’m all for constructive criticism, but what Katie seems to be talking about is destructive criticism, which I too am against. I’m also an optimist and think there’s good in everything, so I like the method often referred to as “sandwich” or “oreo” feedback – tell them something positive about the idea, then the constructive criticism, then another positive on the other side, essentially padding the part that might sting a bit.

Scott Berkun, who wrote the fantastic Myths of Innovation book I’m sure to reference countless times in the coming months (it’s just… wow, so impressive – I’ll be sure to give it a proper review at some point on the blog, one with less gush and more substance/reason), has recently posted at his own blog about the word zen and its overuse, misuse, and abuse.

As I read it, I was suddenly transported back in time to countless arguments I had with my father (the high school English teacher) about different words being corrupted by our ignorant culture and/or miscreant youth. I remember the day it dawned on me that people using language in different ways is how language comes to exist in the first place, how it evolves and new meanings are added to the dictionary so as to keep the good folks at the dictionary-printing factory employed. I remember that day, because despite the seeming infallibility of that argument, my father dismissed it.

Sometimes, despite knowing it is the way of things and there is no stopping it, corruption of words just drives some people nuts – even me! Yes, I’d like to say I’m immune, but I have my own lexicon-based pet peeves (whoever is responsible for turning sherbet into a word most pronounce sherbert should be dragged out into the street and beaten with a hardcover Merriam Webster’s).

In case the first day back in the office in 2008 is a bit slow, here’s two or three or seventy of the best Lifehacks the Lifehack blog had to offer in 2007. Of course, I have my own personal favorites…

The author of this post on finding the perfect weekly planner has some criteria I wouldn’t necessarily have in a search for my own ideal tool. But the post did make me consider what my own needs might be, and how to go about meeting them.

What I use right now has some ups and some downs. I currently organize my life with a Franklin Covey leather-bound organizer, and what I love LOVE about it is it handles all aspects of my life. My friends at work (especially those in their early to mid twenties) think I’m nuts for copying my meetings from Outlook to my organizer via pencil, but work is just one aspect of my reality and any tool I use for avoiding ball-dropping has to handle home, school, work… life! Outlook at work does not.

What I do find somewhat lacking in the current organization setup is its system for prioritizing things. I don’t know what the solution is, but I need to be able to see categories within categories when it comes to my tasks, and I need to know if task A is going to take me an hour longer than task B and plan accordingly. Going on guts/instinct is not sufficient for the left-brain, OCD part of me.

So, I keep visiting the Franklin Covey store looking for magic to happen. What I should do is spend some time thinking about what needs aren’t met by their current product line, hand them that list, and then pester them incessently until they acquiesce to my requests.