Music Video Love

I'm loving this music video this morning ('Circles' by Mammals, an Aussie band).  I think it resonates with my longing for (even more) freedom

Making Your Own Path

I'm a sucker for graduation speeches (see here), so of course, I liked this one by Daniel Pink at Northwestern University this year.

His statement below resonated with me:

"The smartest, most interesting, most dynamic, most impactful people... lived to figure it out [...]  This might sound risky -- and, you know what?  It is.  It's really risky.  But the greater risk is to choose false certainty over genuine ambiguity.  The greater risk is to fear failure more than mediocrity.  The greater risk is to pursue a path only because it's the first path you decided to pursue."  

Ambiguity can be really uncomfortable.  Not to dwell into too many personal details, but I've been feeling ungrounded lately.  Not sure of what direction to head next.

Society general believes this state is bad.  We need to have a plan.  Be going "somewhere."  Have something to show for our hard work and "heads down" pursuit of a goal.

That's why listening to Daniel Pink was a breath of fresh air.  I might not have a plan, but as long as I'm not still on my first path, solely because it came first, then maybe I'm doing something right.  At the end of the day, I want to be an interesting person.  That's all. 

Therefore, maybe the right plan to achieve that is to really live.  to do.  to play.  to see.  to try.  to love.  (and all that other good stuff). 

Just got Press

Just got my first bit of press for my new app, TimeAway, from the major tech blog of Asia, appropriately named, "Tech in Asia."

You can check it out here.

I must say, getting press feels very good :)

Words of Wisdom from Debbie Millman

I'm loving this excerpt from Debbie Millman's book, Look Both Ways.  

No need for me to elaborate.  Just read it.

The Personal Project

Over the weekend, I listened to the *excellent* podcast, Design Matters, with guest, Brian Singer.  While in art school, Brian became obsessed with bathroom stalls (that sound weird).  Okay, he became obsessed with the things written on bathroom stalls -- the public discourse that took place via sharpie markers.

After graduating, he wanted to make his own mobile "bathroom stall," so in 2000, he used his own money to launch 1000 journals into the orbit.  They've now been to 40 countries and every US state and have taken on a life of their own, which fortunately, has been captured in the documentary accurately named "1000 Journals".

From what I've gathered, a lot of creative people, like Brian, do personal projects, ranging from blogs like the Jealous Curator to calligraphy like the Daily Drop Cap to photography like A Collection a Day.  It's a way to build constraints and routine around a creative exercise.

I love how all these projects started without money in mind.  Instead, they wanted to release their talents in the wild -- into the unknown -- standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and setting free your creations into the vast beyond.

Don't we all want to experience something like that?

Why get off Facebook

I've been off of Facebook for 3 years, but recently (and sadly) had to rejoin for business reasons.  Despite that, I'm managing to steer clear of reading the newsfeed and standby getting off of Facebook.

DO IT.

Putting ourselves in boxes

Source: Photopin

This week, I came across this PDF version of the book, "How I found freedom in an unfree world" by Harry Browne via the blog of another freedom seeker.  According to William Glasser, I'm a freedom nut; therefore, Browne's book piqued by interest.  

It reads a bit like a hippie manifesto (except he's actually a staunch libertarian) with a strong overarching theme of self-reliance.  Note: There's also several dated sections about women, which shows how quickly our role in society has changed over the last 50 years.

Browne begins by recognizing that each individual is different and has his or her own unique emotional nature.  This rings true to David Foster Wallace's belief that:

"Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else."

We live in a paradox where we all have our own individual emotional natures, yet we are all taught to want the same things to meet those needs.  Brown states that:

"To find happiness, you must know how your unique emotional nature responds to things.  You must observe and take seriously you own emotional reactions.  For it you attempt to fit your emotions to a preconceived standard, you lose touch with yourself and blind yourself to the most important part of yourself -- to what would make you happy."

Essentially, there is a cause (i.e., something external that happens) and an effect (i.e., how you emotionally react to that cause).  It's crazy to repeatedly try to change the effect because our emotional nature is somewhat innate.  It's more logical to change the cause -- or, more likely, the environment  -- that's causing you misery.

Browne wisely states that:

"Your positive emotions are seeds of a tastier life.  They're trying to tell you how you can be happy.  If you ignore them, suppress them, or deny them, you lose the vital guideposts that could lead you toward happiness."

Personally, I try to think about the people I admire -- those people I really wish I was.  For the most part, they are artists, entrepreneurs, free thinkers, authors, inventors, humanitarians and creators; they are not powerful corporate business men (or women).  This exercise creates guideposts that steer me to who I want to be.

Even if you have a strong sense of identity (I'm working on that, but am not quite there), you still find yourself in traps and boxes.

Browne believes that:

"You're in the trap when you continue to do something long after you've stopped enjoying it, or it's something you never enjoyed much to begin with, of if you're bored by most everything you do. [...] If you deny your feelings, all the intelligent thinking and planning in the world won't lead to happiness."

We put our own boxes around ourselves and a our possibilities.

"Most social restrictions are self-inflicted.  Your life is yours to choose. 

[...] You don't have to work at a 'normal' job.  You can try your luck at anything.  Do you want to be an artist?  Tour guide?  Gigolo?   

[...]  You don't have to spend your money on a new car and a respectable home to impress your neighbors, business associates, and friends.  Why should you.  Let them eat TV dinners in their new cars while you use your money to take the vacation you've always wanted. 

Do you want to grow a beard or have longer hair?  Do it.  If your employer objects, look for a job where it's not a problem.  Don't expect your employer to forsake his self-interest for you; but neither is there any reason for you to foresake yours for him."

How many times have we put limits on yourselves?

• I use to say, "I can't do that.  I'm not creative."  Now, I've taken up a LOT of creative hobbies, from painting to photography to app building.  People now identify me as a "creative" person
• I use to say, "I can't to that.  I didn't go to the right school."  Now I work at Google, which is a place I never thought I'd work a decade ago.
• I use to say, "I can't have a boyfriend.  I'm not that type."  Now, I live with my boyfriend of 3 years
• I use to say, "I'll never get out of Texas."  Now, I've traveled to 55 countries and lived in London, Boston, San Francisco and Singapore.

I'm not unique.  It just takes some perseverance.  These are often traps that we laid ourselves through limited thinking.  

The opposite of "traps" & "boxes" is "freedom"

"Freedom is living your life as you want to live it.  And you can do that by choosing to do so.  You can be free.  No one can stop you. 

[...] You don't have to reject your own interests and live by someone else's code.  You don't have to forsake you own happiness for the benefit of anyone.  You don't have to obey the laws that the 'majority' has decided are 'right.'  You don't have to follow the leadership of politicians, prophets or philosophers.

You don't have to distort your emotions, tastes, and values to confirm to the 'norms' other things are best for you.  You are free to live your life as you want.  You could get into your car right now and drive to anywhere you choose.  There's nothing stopping you.  The only reason not to do that is if there is something better for you where you are now.  The demands and wishes of others don't control your life.  You do.  You make the decisions.  And the only standard should be to make the decisions that will bring you greatest happiness"

Man, isn't that refreshing?  

You can do whatever the f*** you like, as long as it's true to you and doesn't intentionally hurt someone else.  Forget the "I can do XYZ because I'm not [insert adjective]."  At least give it a try.  Plus, you'll likely find along the way that some of the things are true to you are also good for society / the greater good.

In fact, the best way for you to create the world you wish to exist is to live that out.

"The best method of advertising is simply to live the way you want to live."

As Ralph Waldo Emerson wisely said:

"Whoso would be a man must a nonconformist"

Go out and wave your crazy flag around.  Be who you are without regrets.  Nonconformists are the only ones really living anyways.

[Motivation] Walk to your own beat.

Why we care so much about promotions

Source: Photopin

I work at Google, which as a general rule, has a lot of "over-achievers" from their previous lives at fancy schools and with past employers.  We just had performance reviews last week, and it's fascinating to watch the anxiety leading up to these numbers (now boxes), which determine a person's status within the organization.

Google pays pretty well; therefore, no one necessarily needs to be promoted after hitting $75,000 per year (yes, I realize this # is above the median household income).  At that salary milestone, incremental dollars do not make a person any happier.  Regardless of this fact, I've seen people (including myself) cry, breakdown and compulsively fret over these rankings, which can range from incredibly accurate OR incredibly arbitrary of a person's actual performance.  I mean, it's all based on perception anyways, right?  

It makes wonder what happened along the way.  

As a child, we often found something we were good at -- whether it's school or sports, drama or drawing.  Although grades were an important ranking system, it wasn't necessarily the only one.  In fact, the academic ranking usually was in conflict with the social ranking system in high school (i.e., being a nerd wasn't cool).  But, as an adult, I've seen the ways you can "succeed" shrink.  This may seem narrow-minded, but it seems like you can either be: rich, success or attractive, and in an ideal world, you'd be all three.  We leave less room for being "really good" at other things.

So, why is this?

I think it all goes back to Status Anxiety.  One of my favorite modern day philosophers, Alain de Botton, wrote a book by that exact name.

He says that:

"We cannot, it seems, appreciate what we have for its own merit, or even against what our medieval forebears had.  We cannot be impressed by how prosperous we are in historical terms.  We see ourselves fortunate only when we have as much, or more, than those we have grown up with, work alongside, have as a friend or identify with in public realm."

The problem with this human response is that we'll *always* struggle with comparison because as we rise up the social or work ladder, we are faced with other (more successful) people to compare ourselves to.  Therefore, it's not really enough that I work at Google, a company that accepts 0.3% of applicants; I need to perform as well as or better than my peers.

Alain addresses this point eloquently:

"We envy only those whom we feel ourselves to be like.  We envy only members of our reference group.  There are few successes more unendurable than those of our ostensible equals."

And, although we often think of the move from aristocracy to meritocracy a good thing, it's actually heighten this problem of Status Anxiety:

"In a stroke, it transformed American Society from a hereditary, aristocratic hierarchy -- a sphere in which upward mobility was restricted and a person's status depended exclusively on the lineage and distinction of his or her family -- into a dynamic economy in which status was awarded in direct proportion to the (largely financial) achievements of each new generation."

One solution to this anxiety problem is to remove yourself from the situation, i.e., "ceasing to care."  William James, a professor of psychology at Harvard, believed:

"We are not always humiliated by failing at things, he suggested; we are humiliated only if we invest our pride and sense of worth in a given aspiration or achievement and then are disappointed in our pursuit of it.""

"With no attempt there can be no failure; with no failure, no humiliation."

As the adage goes, self esteem is equal to success divided by pretension. 

Therefore, you can either:

1. Over-achieve
2. Change what you want to achieve
3. Have very low aspirations

"To give up pretensions is as blessed a relief as to get them gratified.  There is a strange lightness in the heart when one's nothingness in a particular area is accepted in good faith.  How pleasant is the day when we give up striving to be young and slender.  'Thank God!' we say, 'those illusions are gone.'  Everything added to the self is a burden as well as pride."

Unfortunately, it can be pretty challenging to go against the grain and change the denominator.  There's so much propaganda around us at work that reinforces the somewhat arbitrary performance system or goals that we might not really care about (i.e., Do I need to be a thought leader?  I mean, how about just getting my work done accurately and quickly).

Regardless of the difficulty, I think the key to ultimate happiness is to have a goal that you're fully bought into, so at least you're chasing the right thing.  When you care, you tend to do better anyways and end up with a result that means something, not just another rung on the symbolic ladder.

[Tip] Use PowToon for a Low Cost Animated Video

As previously mentioned, I have an app, www.time-away.com, launching soon!

It's what I call "training wheels for the internet", i.e., how to give a kids a phone without them becoming addicted.  During this process, I've learned a TON about free / low cost tools on the internet in order to make an idea a real product.

This week, I cam across PowToon, which let's you make a free cartoon video to advertise a product or give a presentation.  Above, please check out the video I made for my app, TimeAway.

What's Happening in China

I think by now we all know that China is a place we should care about -- lots of people, lots of money & lots of things being produced.  But, let's be honest, it can be pretty hard to grasp what's really going on.  It's a HUGE place with oddly only one timezone.

Over the weekend, I read "The One Hour China Book", and per it's namesake, it actually does an excellent job describing the current situation in China in about 60 to 90 minutes.  It's written by a consultant and a banker, but they actually do a good job of using simple (not business jargon) language. 

Essentially, there are 6 mega trends behind what's driving the Chinese economy:

1. Urbanization
2. Manufacturing at Scale
3. Rising Chinese Consumers
4. Money, Money, Money
5. The Brainpower Behemoth
6. The Chinese Internet

If you can understand those 6 points, you'll know a hell of a lot more about China than you did before.  

Here's a few points I found especially interesting in the book:

• There will soon be 1 BILLION city dwellers in China (in 1980, only 20% of the population lived in cities).  That means that Chinese cities will have more people than North and South America combined.
• There's a lot of big cities that we've never heard of.  In fact, right now, there are 160 cities in China with over 1M people; this is expected to grow to 220 by 2025.  China contains 40% of all the world's cities with over 5M people.
• China is the world's largest manufacturer valued at $2.2 trillion per year (40% of the Chinese GDP).  It's moved from toys and clothes to high tech manufacturing.  If you remember correctly, this is how America came to economic power in the 1900s by manufacturing goods, especially after WWII.  Or, more recently, it's the same move that South Korea made over the last two decades.
• China has 73 companies on the Fortune 500 list, which makes it the #2 country after the United States.  What's more interesting is that very few of these companies are "household" names in the West.
• Asia Pacific represents 18% of the world's middle class today, but is predicted to represent 66% by 2030.  I guess it's a good thing that I live in Asia ;)

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you my nerdiness.  The book is $3.99 on the Kindle, which is the same prices as a latte.  I say skip the Starbucks for a day and pick this up instead.

Don't call me pretty

At brunch yesterday, we somehow got on the topic of gender roles (yes, yes, it's one of my favorite topics), which then turned into a discussion of how little girls and boys are addressed.  

Our friend Emily, a trained child psychologist, mentioned that adults usually immediately tell little girls they are pretty while they use more qualities to address little boys, ranging from strong to smart.  This discussion reminded me of this article by Lisa Bloom which reminds the audience to avoid the immediate reaction to call a girl pretty and focus on other things, like "what' are you reading" or "what do you like to do."  Note: I'm bookmarking this for my future niece coming this July.

Since I've already gone pretty rogue with this blog posting bits and pieces of things I've made, I decided to post a poem I wrote this morning (see the photo above).  I don't think I've written a poem since I was 10 during a haiku assignment, but oh well, here you go.

In conclusion, don't call her pretty.  (well, sometimes it's great to hear... just not all the time)

[Posters] WikiWedding

I'm in the midst of creating the website Wikiwedding.org.  

It's a pretty simple concept -- Wikivoyage / Wikipedia for wedding information.  Personally, I like getting all my information in list format and crowdsourced, so I thought this would be a useful product to have on the market for a complicated and time-consuming event like a wedding (albeit, I've never had a wedding myself).

Below are some posters / fliers I created today for the site.  

The website should be fully functioning in a few weeks!

And for something different than the rest...

A Lesson in Cash Flow

Source

What's your pipe dream?  That dream that you go back to after a bad day or feeling a little trapped in your cubicle on Monday morning.

 Mine is easy.  I want to live in a different country every few months and work on personal projects -- ranging from 30 day challenges to art projects to reading big books to creating apps to learning new skills.  I have all these things I want to do and learn, but feel like I never have quite enough time to really "get good" at my hobbies.

So, what's my current solution?  I've been trying to devote a LOT of time and effort to doing interesting things outside of work.  It's working, but I want more.

That's why I have a long-term vision of extreme early retirement.  No, I don't want to be a housewife.  I also don't want to act like a retiree (no Carnival cruises in my future).  Instead, I want the freedom to choose what I devote my time to without worrying about my very basic needs being met.  I'd still work, but it'd be on my own things, and at some point, hopefully I'd figure out how to make some money off my projects.

How do you do this?  Well, the blog, Early Retirement Extreme (yes, that's the real name), tells the story of a young man who previously made a modest salary of $40K was able to partially retire by age 30 and fully retire by age 33.  No, he wasn't a trust fund kid.  He just learned the basic principles of investment and cash flow.  I've used his diagrams below to explain further.

Most people do something like this.  They have a job and use that money to buy stuff, or in some cases, they use debt to buy more than they make and then pay interest fees. 

More financially savvy people know it's important to save and invest.  They know it's important to use their wages to buy things like property or equities, which can eventually make a profit in order to buy stuff.  This is where I am today.

But, the ultimate place to be is this.  You want to feed all of your wages into your assets, and then use the profit from your assets to buy stuff.  At some point, your assets should be able to generate enough profit to cover all of your purchases (or, at least your basic ones and then you can find other ways to make money for "fun stuff").  

Getting to this place is MUCH easier if you move to a less expensive area (re: not Singapore); hence, why my "vision" includes living in different locations, ranging from a cabin in the woods to a beach in Thailand to a small town in Latin America.  

Last month, I got a financial advisor onboard, and I think I could get to this place in 2-3 years.  Maybe I'll never actually go through with this pipe dream (there's a lot of perks that come with working a normal job), but there's something very freeing about the idea that *I could*.

[Quotes] David Foster Wallace

As previously mentioned, I'm a pretty big David Foster Wallace fan, especially after finishing Infinite Jest earlier this year.  Above are two quotes that I really like (I'm practicing my Adobe Illustrator skills ;)

125 hours later...

Source

Did you know that the famed "10,000" rule that made Bill Gates and Tiger Woods stars is apparently a myth?

Yep.  

Sheer determination and a lot of free time can't make you awesome (thanks for the info, Brain Picker).  Blame it on Malcolm Gladwell for this urban legend (and check out this for a good laugh).

According to Daniel Goleman, best-known from the book Emotional Intelligence: 

The “10,000-hour rule” — that this level of practice holds the secret to great success in any field — has become sacrosanct gospel, echoed on websites and recited as litany in high-performance workshops. The problem: it’s only half true. If you are a duffer at golf, say, and make the same mistakes every time you try a certain swing or putt, 10,000 hours of practicing that error will not improve your game. You’ll still be a duffer, albeit an older one. 

No less an expert than Anders Ericsson, the Florida State University psychologist whose research on expertise spawned the 10,000-hour rule of thumb, told me, “You don’t get benefits from mechanical repetition, but by adjusting your execution over and over to get closer to your goal.” 

“You have to tweak the system by pushing,” he adds, “allowing for more errors at first as you increase your limits.”

Essentially, you need to spend those 10,000 hours focused on improving your weaknesses, rather than repeating the same motor skill over and over again to actually become "great."

You know what's even crazier about this rule...

You Are What You Do

I've been a fan of Jonathan Harris ever since watching his first Ted Talk a few years ago (and blogged about him last year before heading to Bhutan)

He's a true left brain / right brain -- a modern day Da Vinci-type character -- that mixes technology and art together in order to tell beautiful stories.

Today, I listened to his interview with Debbie Millman on Design Matters and discovered his personal essay on "Navigating Stuckness."  In the essay, he documents several transition points along his life journey.

[Collage] An American Dream

As I've posted before, I have some strong opinions on gun laws in the US (here & here).

In summary, WTF.  China *has* the one child rule.  We have the one gun rule (literally, there are 300M civilian guns in the US).

Decided to harness that thought and put it into a collage today.  End rant :)

William Glasser's Choice Theory

Aimee Bee Brooks

I read Infinite Jest earlier this year on a 6 day train ride across Russia, Mongolia and China.  On day two, I reached a passage filled with truisms on life, ranging from humorous to profound:

"That trying to dance sober is a whole different kettle of fish... That 'acceptance' is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else... That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene...That, perversely, it is often more fun to want something to have it.... That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward."

 He then states:

"That everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.  That this isn't necessarily perverse."

Isn't that the truth?  Maybe it's something engrained in our psyche after learning that we're "all unique snowflakes' in kindergarten.

In reality, we are all a lot more similar than that unspoken, deep down belief.

[A Fun Gift] Foldable.Me

Looking for a quick, silly gift for a friend?  Alan got me a "foldable me" for Christmas, which sits at my desk.  When Alan's gone, I still got little Alan hanging out with me.  An uncanny resemblance if I do say so myself.