The LifeMaven

Your mind is a muscle, not much different from your biceps or your deltoids. The more you use it, the stronger it gets and the easier some tasks become.

Blogging is an excellent example of both the means and the end for your mind. The more you blog and write stuff for your blog, the better you’ll get at it. When your writing improves, your blog improves and hopefully, your loyal readership as well.

The key is making it a habit. Just doing a little bit of writing everyday. Even if you don’t ever intend to post any of it, just write for the sake of writing. The practice will pay off as your mind gets stronger and you develop your creative skills.

At least, that’s how I see it/am trying to do it.
PS: All the credit for this philosophy should go to Sonia Simone. She’s the one I learned it from, not sure where exactly, but she does keep the blog Remarkable Communication and I’m a big fan of her work in general.

A man just walked up to me on the subway claiming to be a monk. He had a milk crate and a hand truck filled with copies of the Bhagavad Gita.

He stopped me and offered me a copy in exchange for a donation.

I coldly responded that I wasn’t interested and said “No, thank you.”

The whole experience reminded me of interruption marketing as told by Seth Godin.

Someone has a product or cause they want money for. So they market.

But I am less likely to give you any money if you are not a) solving a problem for me or b) if you are interrupting me.

This man would have been much better off trying to sell these books to folks looking for enlightenment or having an interest in Hinduism.

Maybe have a free class or ebook on how Hinduism is relevant today, and have a sales/donation page with that?

Find your market and market to them. Marketing to the rest of us masses is just wasteful. To us, a waste of time. To the marketer, a waste of time and resources.

Like many other young males in my generation, I have an expensive addiction.

No, not drugs.

VIDEO GAMES!

This week marked this year’s release of Electronic Arts’ annual college football game. And like any good addict, I reserved and bought a copy.

I know that the value is marginal compared to last year’s game. A few new features, slightly improved graphics and animations, but I still purchased it anyway.

The “pull” was just too strong.

There are two lessons to take from this:

1) Release something in periodic installments and if,

2) the “pull” is strong enough, you can make some serious money.

Many football fans are stuck in a similar boat as me. We know the value of this year’s edition will probably not be worth the $60 investment, but we buy it anyway because we’re so addicted.

What can you do in your business to get people to continually pay in periodic installments?

Memberships? Subscriptions? Or follow EA’s model and just release a new version every so often?

What can you do to create that kind of “pull” that will sustain treating your customers like that?

Marketing? Advertising? Hype?

PS: A monopoly, where you’re the only game in town helps too.

EA has exclusive rights to the college and pro football licenses. There hasn’t been another serious pro football game since NFL 2K5 by Take Two.

Not exactly, but here’s a step in the right direction.

Read the rest of this entry »

What’s new in my world this week? (A collection of random updates, cool stuff I’ve found, and other random awesomeness.)

Rediscovery! I got the Brett Favre itch!

Rediscovered Madden 09 after a break of about two months now. (That’s a long time for me to go without any football.)

I don’t play online that much, mostly solo franchise games, but if anyone is up for a game my Xbox live gamertag is DCH Spartans 2. Just send a message and we’ll set something up!

And speaking of words with Re- in them…

Red vs. Blue Recreation!

Ah yes, where would Summer be without Red vs. Blue.

For those not familiar with the series, it’s basically a comedy made using the Halo series of video games. The term is called Machinima, and you can learn more about it here and the series here. (Don’t you just love Wikipedia?)

Most of the series probably won’t make much sense if you’re not a regular follower, so I would suggest checking out the earlier seasons first to see if it’s something you like. (Although it obviously changed over the years since it began.)

For those who are familiar, what are you waiting for?! Go watch it!

Corporate life can so ridiculous

(Cube Image above taken from www.cubefigures.com)

DISCLAIMER: This story is told entirely from my point of view, so any decisions or meetings that I was not a part of are not included, obviously. I don’t even know the actual final outcome, but just the thought of what might happen is worth a rant.

I know we all have our own horror stories about corporations doing something incredibly stupid or unreasonable.

This week’s gem comes courtesy of my company, so of course all names have been changed to protect the guilty.

I work in desktop support and one of our functions is to disconnect and reconnect and computers that need to be moved as people are moved from one cubicle to another.

Currently, we’re in a big project where three floors worth of people have to be moved because the company wants to lease the space.

The issue is that someone complained about not having their computers reconnected early enough and so management wanted to put a deadline on us to have all computers reconnected by 7AM.

WHAT!?

It’s bad enough that we’re short staffed and we have to do these reconnects in the mornings. (My coworkers do, not me because I work a different shift.)

But to push that time even earlier is downright inhuman.

Some folks don’t get overtime so they would have to leave early after starting early. But that would understaff us for the disconnects that take place in the afternoon.

To me, this is another example of poor communication. Whoever is making these decisions or proposing them is not in touch with us grunts on the ground level.

Suffice to say, it’s very aggravating and yet another reason why I want out of the corporate world real quick.

Update: This post from Escape from Cubicle Nation about an overloaded employee is yet another example of corporate insanity.

Questioning my manliness

Kind of.

I’ve mentioned in some of my other posts that I read The Art of Manliness.

And I was wondering if some of their advice is applicable for other cultures?

I mean, a lot of what they say isn’t culture specific. Things like writing a letter to your dad or setting your values.

But some suggestions for father-son activities seem pretty American to me. Playing catch, going to a ball game, fishing, camping, hunting, etc.

I feel like I have a pretty unique view in that I’m more American than I am Chinese, and my dad is the same, but he has a more unique view on the world, than I.

I mean, I’m pretty Americanized and occasionally find myself vaguely interested in these “traditional” American pastimes. My dad on the other hand, not so much.

My question is this: What do other cultures do to create the same sacred bond between father and son? Let me know in the comments!

And that leads to: Father’s Day is coming up

Have any special plans for that father figure in your life?

So what’s new in all of your worlds’? Anything interesting or awesome happen to you? Let me know below.

What’s new in my world this week? (A collection of random updates, cool stuff I’ve found, and other random awesomeness.)

Showing Gratitude Update

In my Friday update last week, I talked about the importance of showing gratitude and reaching out to people.

Here are some of the responses I got:

Chris Gullibeau:

“Thanks, Andrew! I really appreciate you taking the time to write this. Good luck with your blog and everything else!”

Havi Brooks:

“Hey that’s wonderful – happy to hear. Keep me posted on the biggification front! ”

Brian Armstrong:

“Cool blog!  It looks like a good design and a great start.  It’s never easy figuring out what exactly to do with your life, but at least you’re exploring the question – something most people never do.  Keep in touch!”

Brian even went so far to link me in a post! I was deeply touched as I did not approach him with that intent at all!

As you can see, some folks in the online community are still very personable and approachable despite all of the successes they might enjoy.

Some tips and lessons from this:

1. Don’t expect anything in return. Don’t ask for the link, if people like what they see, they’ll link on their own.
2. Show gratitude! Thank people for the inspiration and impact they’ve had on your life and worldview.
3. Be humble, but don’t grovel. You’re just as great as anyone else in the world, even if you might not have the same laundry list of accomplishments. (Not sure if I passed that one myself) :-/

Seth Godin provides Graduate School for Unemployed College Grads

Well, not exactly.

In this post, Seth lists a number of tasks us college grads could do that could greatly improve our job prospects.

Here are the ones I’m working on:

· Teach yourself HTML

· Start, run and grow an online community. (I hope this blog counts!)

· Write a regular newsletter or blog about an industry you care about.

Seeing as how I’m only working on those three out of a list of 10, I feel strangely inadequate. :-/

But still, I think it’s a fantastic idea for any of my fellow grads who might not be doing anything this summer.

Follow up: Pam Slim over at Escape from Cubicle Nation has a similar post to us fellow grads. Check it out!

Rediscover American McGee’s Alice

Warning: To those who believe that Disney’s Alice in Wonderland is the one true depiction of the story, the images and scenes seen here will be downright sacrilege. Proceed at your own risk and only with an open mind!

I remember a few years back when this game came out, one of the promotions had a very dark and morbid rhyme as told by Alice.

Too bad, I couldn’t find it on Youtube.

I swear, I spent way too much time trying to find that rhyme to show everyone how cool this version of Alice is.

Instead, all I have is this trailer to show for it. Enjoy!

So what’s new in all of your worlds’? Anything interesting or awesome happen to you? Let me know in the comments.

I just finished Pam Slim’s new book and was pretty happy with what I got out of it.

Here’s how it works, the book’s chapters are each self contained sections about a specific topic in entrepreneurship. Things like moving away from a corporate mindset, to breaking the news to your folks that you’re going to be an entrepreneur. (A biggie for me, that I still haven’t quite gotten around to yet.)

Depending on where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, you’ll get a different kind of value from these sections.

For me, I got more out of the choosing a business idea, shopping for health benefits and dealing with friends and family sections.

I had already known deep down that I wasn’t going to be a corporate prisoner for long, so those sections didn’t really have anything ground breaking, but for someone fresh out the cube, (FOC?) they may really learn a lot about themselves and where they’re going.

The book is smart and personable with a hefty dose of action items and check lists to get you working on your escape. Most of it is pretty easy to read, but some of the more detailed sections can get a little hairy.

Learning about health insurance for a entrepreneur is certainly important and useful, but it’s also enough to make me want to be the bubble boy and never get sick. :/

And when I say action items, I mean it. There are fair amount of lists and questions that you’ll want to make copies of those pages so you can have it handy and take notes.

EG: A “Must Do” list of items that you’ll definitely want to take care of when you’re getting your business off the ground to make sure you’ve got a plan when old Murphy comes a knocking.

My Verdict: A valuable addition to any aspiring entrepreneur’s collection. (I don’t have a bookshelf, so it’s just a collection. xP) Check it out and see what goodies you can apply to your own business or escape attempt.

Best of luck fellow prisoners!