The Power Of Intensity

I recently finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. It’s a well-written book and I enjoyed reading it. I learned many interesting things from the book, but here I’d like to focus on just one trait of Steve Jobs that pretty much describes his life: intensity.

Time and again, the book describes how intense Jobs was in whatever he did. When he thought that something was worth doing, he would throw his entire being into it. He would take it further than what other people would. In the words of one person who knew him, he would “carry it to the extreme”.

One example was his approach to food. He decided early on that he would be a vegetarian. And he did become a strict vegetarian. Only when he was ill did he relent a bit and incorporate eggs into his diet. He was so strict that it became an issue when he was ill because he wouldn’t consume the meal that’s necessary for his health.

Another example was his approach to product development. In this case, his intensity took the form of perfectionism. He simply didn’t tolerate any flaw. He would insist that everything must be done perfectly. For instance, when developing the first Mac he asked the button to be redesigned again and again. The designers protested, but Jobs said that it’s important to do things right.

Intensity is good; it can help you achieve things that are impossible otherwise. But you must keep it under control. Here are a few things I learn about intensity:

1. Find something you believe in

You can’t be intense on something you don’t believe in. The problem is, many people do things they don’t believe in because they are pursuing something else (for instance, money). Jobs focused on building great products above everything else. With a few exceptions, he always worked on something he believed in. That’s why he was able to do it intensely.

So find something you believe in. Don’t be satisfied with doing something just for the money, fame, or other external rewards. Doing what you believe in is the prerequisite to doing something great.

2. Throw your heart and soul into it

Once you find something you believe in, throw your heart and soul into it. Put your entire being into it. Aim to make it as good as you can. I know this is easier said than done, but it’s something that we all can learn.

3. Avoid distractions

Your energy is limited. So, if you want to be intense, you can’t do too many things. You should focus your energy on just a few things. Don’t spread yourself too thin.

Jobs repeatedly talked about the importance of focus. When he became the interim CEO of Apple in 1997, he dropped many projects that he thought were distracting. Instead, he focused the company’s energy on just a handful of key products. That turned out to be the right decision.

You should learn to say no even to seemingly good opportunities. Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do.

4. Be realistic

Though it’s good to be intense and aim for excellence, you should also be realistic. As Jobs once said, real artists ship. So make sure that you actually get things done.

5. Keep it balanced

Being intense is good, but being too intense is bad. Jobs tended to fall on the extreme side of it and as a result he hurt some people. I don’t think that’s good. While you need to be intense, you should also keep it balanced. Don’t be too intense on something that you sacrifice the other areas of your life (for example, your relationships).

by Donald Latumahina
http://www.lifeoptimizer.org

If I Had a Hammer

This short story by Bob Vander Lugt won our “America Is…” Show Off Contest. Bob writes short fic­tion and lives in Michigan. Enjoy!

Photo by Chang Liu

Every Sunday Ray watches the cars parade into East Presbyterian’s park­ing lot.  Usually he sits on the small, screened porch, cof­fee propped on his knee.  On hot morn­ings, like this one, Ray wears a thread­bare t-shirt and grey box­ers.  He assures Grace no one can see him through the screen.  She smiles and shakes her head.

He knows the cars, their order of arrival. The old folks come first, park­ing near the doors and grip­ping the iron rail­ing as they nav­i­gate the steps.  The young fam­i­lies pull in next, assem­bling car seats and dia­per bags, herd­ing tod­dlers through the door.  Then Grace walks out on the porch and stops beside him.  Often she brings him breakfast—toast topped with a shiny egg.  Sometimes she just stands qui­etly until he turns.  “I’m going now.” She says.  She holds her small black purse tight against her trim waist.  She still looks so good, Ray thinks.  “Wish you’d come,” she says.  Ray nods and smiles.  She leans to kiss him.

“Maybe next week.” Ray receives her kiss.  He runs his big hand lightly around her back.  “I’ll make din­ner.”  He watches her push the screen door open, descend the steps, and cross the street.  She stops out­side the heavy arched doors of the church and turns.  He knows she can’t see him, but she waves any­way.  Then she swings the big door open and disappears.

When they first moved here, thirty-four years ago, Ray went too, slip­ping into the back pew, stand­ing and singing and always fol­low­ing Grace’s lead.  He shook hands and endured intro­duc­tions, wait­ing while she made con­ver­sa­tion, learn­ing those strange peo­ple with their flat vow­els and stern faces.  Back then, it was a church of car­pen­ters and trades­men.  New in town and out of work, Ray hedged about his past, unsure of their view of the long and now ended war.  Most lis­tened with­out judg­ment.  Some offered sug­ges­tions about who might be hiring.

A few days later, the black rotary phone on the wall of their tiny kitchen rang.  Grace handed the receiver to Ray and rested her hand soft on his shoul­der.  Ray lis­tened, said yes two or three times, stood, and hung the phone back in place. “One of the old men from the church.” he said. “Asked me to help fix up a house for some Vietnamese refugees.”  Grace nod­ded.  “No pay, mind you.  All vol­un­teer.”  Grace smiled and left the room.  “Now don’t go get­ting your hopes all up,” he called after her.  After a few min­utes, he went to the garage.  He shuf­fled through stacks of unpacked boxes, until he found his car­pen­ter belt.  Saw dust sifted from the empty nail pouches.  The ham­mer still nested in its loop.

Ray worked along­side the men for two weeks.  A big, bald­ing car­pen­ter with a fad­ing Semper Fi tat­too on his fore­arm ran things, hand­ing out assign­ments, check­ing work, scowl­ing often.  Ray watched the church folks, skilled and oth­er­wise, patch walls and hang doors, scrub sinks and update wiring.  Each night the house crowded with vol­un­teers, so many that the hall­ways clogged like stopped drain pipes.  Eager par­ents equipped their chil­dren with scrub brushes and brooms.  Once Ray watched a mother slap her teenage son’s face so hard, Ray winced.  Just before, Ray heard the boy mut­ter some­thing about clean­ing a house for a bunch of gooks.

One evening the father of the refugee fam­ily toured the house.  He was led around by the big car­pen­ter and a trans­la­tor, smil­ing and bow­ing, some­how stand­ing proud among all those tow­er­ing Dutch folk.  Ray retreated to the back­yard.  Shaking, he lit a cig­a­rette and squat­ted, squint­ing at the house.  His right hand formed a fist.  He forced it open and pressed it flat against his leg.

Over the next six years, three fam­i­lies occu­pied the house, found jobs, learned halt­ing but suf­fi­cient English, and moved on.  They politely attended ser­vices with their spon­sors and then slowly returned to their own reli­gious affil­i­a­tions.  They were Catholics and Buddhists and unbe­liev­ers.  Ray found per­ma­nent work with the big car­pen­ter.  A refugee him­self, Ray hung at the edges of the church.  Then, like the smil­ing peo­ple with their strange cus­toms, he qui­etly drifted away.

Ray waits until he hears music carry from the church.  He lis­tens, then rises and car­ries his cup to the kitchen.  He tugs on a pair of bat­tered jeans and strolls through the porch and down the steps.  The Sunday paper lays rolled in its plas­tic skin.  He peels it free and sits. The front page is clut­tered with war and rumors of more.  Promises of troop with­drawal. Warnings of new con­flict.  He snorts, shak­ing his head at the U.N.’s strongly worded warn­ing to Syria.  Locally, the city police declare war on street gangs.  Ray ignores the rest, then tosses it through the screen door. The music from the church stops and Ray imag­ines the preacher read­ing the scrip­ture before the ser­mon.  Above, the sun nears its peak in the steel blue sky.  He begins to walk.

Two blocks from their house, a two-story build­ing stands sur­rounded by scaf­fold­ing.  Ray stops to watch a crew of vol­un­teers, dark-haired men, some bearded, scrab­bling up lad­ders, mix mor­tar, pass con­crete blocks from gloved hand to gloved hand.  Cars crowd the dusty lot.  There is not a pick up truck in sight.
Ray had marked their progress for months.  The build­ing sat quiet for weeks at a time, then burst upward in spasms A painted ply­wood sign dis­plays the fin­ished build­ing. Its strange char­ac­ters are prob­a­bly Arabic, but to Ray they may as well be Vietnamese.  Grace has often men­tioned the church’s puz­zle­ment over this new neigh­bor.  They’ve held prayer meet­ings and invited experts on Islam to speak.  Finally, Grace and few oth­ers formed a wel­com­ing del­e­ga­tion.  “Well?”  Ray asked when she returned, “Did you build any bridges?”  Grace shrugged. “Build?”  She said, “No, but maybe we chipped away at some walls.”

A group of men assem­bles around a bunk of two-by-fours.  They begin car­ry­ing stacks of lum­ber through the arched open­ing that will be the front door.  Ray lis­tens as a saw whines, the famil­iar clat­ter of cut offs hit­ting the floor.  Then the com­pe­tent rhythm of ham­mer blows.  They’re doing all right, Ray thinks.  He stands in the shade of a big maple and watches, pat­ting his pock­ets for a phan­tom pack of cig­a­rettes.  He quit years ago, but the mem­ory lingers.

Ray crosses the street and wan­ders back.  When the first tower came down, he was at work, argu­ing with a plumber about the clumsy holes he’d just drilled through a joist.  The news from New York trick­led from the painter’s radio, but they were too busy to under­stand.  Who could make sense of planes crash­ing into sky­scrap­ers any­way?  But as the enor­mity descended, they all gath­ered around the paint-splattered radio and lis­tened, curs­ing softly, glanc­ing at the sky.  Some broke the cir­cle, sat in their trucks and called their wives.  Finally, Ray sent every­one home.

Ray stops just short of the church.  The last time he went inside, except to com­plete some repair Grace vol­un­teered him for, was the night of September 11.  People arrived through­out the after­noon, bewil­dered, in need of each other.  The pas­tor opened the doors, and by 7:00 p.m. a packed church gath­ered for prayer.  Ray walked beside Grace through those big, sun-grayed doors and stood with head bowed.  Grace wept.  The pas­tor prayed mercy on an unknown enemy and com­fort for all.  Grace reminded him of that later, when the nation roiled for vengeance and the machines of war clattered.

The music begins again, a tri­umphant hymn send­ing them out.  Ray crosses the street, angling toward the house.  Inside, he fixes a light lunch, eats his por­tion and leaves Grace’s in the fridge. Then he laces his work boots.

When Grace steps out­side, she sees Ray—carpenter’s bag slung from his shoul­der, ham­mer swinging—walking toward the mosque.

by Joe Bunting |

The Best Stories

In our cul­ture, we value pro­duc­tiv­ity, mak­ing money, and buy­ing cool things, but at the heart of every great story is relationship.

So why do we tell these bor­ing sto­ries about mind­less pro­duc­tiv­ity with our lives? Yes, mak­ing money is impor­tant. You have to eat and it would be nice to send your kids to col­lege. I have seen poverty and it’s an ugly thing. But that’s just fundrais­ing. It’s not life. And if it is your life, you’re not liv­ing a very inter­est­ing one.

The best sto­ries, like the best lives, revolve around rela­tion­ships, rela­tion­ships that are begin­ning and rela­tion­ships that are end­ing, rela­tion­ships that are destroyed by death and res­ur­rected by for­give­ness. Life is about relationship.

So go live a good one today.

Turn off your com­puter. Stop writ­ing. Stop doing email.

Your work can wait. But your life won’t.

Photo by Vinoth Chandler

From : http://thewritepractice.com

Negative Thinking - Your Worst Enemy

First – a sweeping statement. Everyone wants success and happiness. We might not agree about what this means – each of us defines ‘success’ and ‘happiness’ in a different way – but everyone aspires to these things. Yet for so many people, happiness and success are elusive, and we can spend a great deal of time looking for the answers.

For many years I was an avid collector of ‘self improvement’ books – I have several hundred in my collection – and yet, however many I read and enjoyed, I never seemed to get closer to finding what I was looking for. I was looking in the wrong place, of course. I was looking outside when the key was within me all along.

There is nothing wrong with self-help books: they can be entertaining, inspiring and challenging. But they cannot change you. What changes you is the realization that you are in control.

What you control is your mind. What we focus our attention on grows and becomes a more important part of our experience. Many – perhaps most – people tend to focus a lot on negative things. We fret about the past, about missed opportunities, mistakes and failures, we fear the future with all its uncertainty; we worry about our relationships, our investments, and our security. We compare ourselves to others in an unfavorable light, and we fear that we are inadequate. These negative thoughts continually arise and, with attention, they grow and persist.

This kind of thinking is poison: it is corrosive, toxic, destructive, and we need to purge ourselves of it. To attract more positive experiences into our life – to become truly happy and successful – we need to eliminate the negative thinking which, for many of us, has become such an integral part of our life. It’s not so much that we need to ‘think positively’ so much as that we need to drop the habitual, negative thoughts that swirl around our head and make up so much of the background noise in our lives. I am convinced that our natural, ‘default’ state is peace and happiness, and that success comes easily if we have nothing blocking the way.

Dropping negative thinking is, in a sense, very simple. Just don’t do it any more. Take your hand off the stove. And yet we are so used to inflicting this kind of pain on ourselves that just ‘letting go’ can be extraordinarily difficult.

One of the most important and useful things to remember is that your mind is a tool. You are its master, not its servant, so you should take control. Remember that thoughts are not reality. Although we often seem to think that our thoughts are reflections of the way things are out there in the world, the reality is that our thoughts shape the way we experience things. We could say that the world we experience is an echo of our thoughts, our inner reality.

Be vigilant and be diligent in being aware of your thoughts. When you spot a negative thought, just drop it. Just stop thinking about it. Switch your attention to something else if you have to. At first, it might be difficult but, as with everything else in life, gentle persistence will bring results. With practice, you will be able to uproot the old, harmful thought patterns and catch negative thinking before it takes hold.

One of the most wonderful books I have ever read is Awareness by Anthony de Mello. The message is simply that being aware of our negative thinking will change it. Instead of identifying with the negative thoughts in our head, we can be the silent observer, watching the thoughts and deciding, consciously, what to do with them. The only sensible option is to drop them. Why let them dictate how we feel? Why let them determine our happiness?

It is possible to be at peace, to be relaxed and happy and to enjoy every situation in life. It is possible to be successful easily and naturally. It’s all about maintaining the right mental attitude and knowing how to deal with the thoughts that come into our mind. So why waste another moment on negative thinking?

by - Donald Latumahina |

The Power of Curiosity and How to Develop it

Writer:Donald Latumahina

The more I observe brilliant people, the more I notice that one distinguishing characteristic they have is immense curiosity. I’m reminded of this quality when I read two articles by Bill Gates where he listed his favorite Teaching Company courses. There are two things I notice:

1. He watches a lot of courses in addition to reading a lot of books.
2. He watches courses on diverse topics, ranging from economy to chemistry to linguistics to medicine.

Another good example is Nathan Myhrvold (whom I wrote about in my post about polymaths). Just watch his talk at TED and you will see that his interests range from cooking to photography to nuclear technology to archeology and more. I can give you other examples but I think the point is clear:immense curiosity is a distinguishing characteristic of brilliant people.

Why Curiosity Is Important

How does curiosity contribute to someone’s brilliance? Why is it important? There are two reasons I can think of:

1. It gives you a fresh perspective. Most people have just one or two lenses to see a problem through, but curious people have many different lenses. As a result, they can see something that many other people can’t. That’s what happened in Nathan Myhrvold’s company when someone found something that had eluded experts in the field:

Wood was a physicist, not a doctor, but that wasn’t necessarily a liability, at this stage. “People in biology and medicine don’t do arithmetic,” he said. He wasn’t being critical of biologists and physicians: this was, after all, a man who read medical journals for fun. He meant that the traditions of medicine encouraged qualitative observation and interpretation. But what physicists do—out of sheer force of habit and training—is measure things and compare measurements, and do the math to put measurements in context. At that moment, while reading The New England Journal, Wood had the advantages of someone looking at a familiar fact with a fresh perspective.

A physicist who “read medical journals for fun” is definitely a curious person. And he had the advantage of a fresh perspective.

2. It gives you fresh ideas. Using the term from The Medici Effect, curiosity gives you Intersection experience where concepts from different fields collide with one another and produce fresh ideas. Since curious people get more Intersection experience, they consequently get more fresh ideas.

Seven Ways to Develop Your Curiosity

Now that we’ve seen how important curiosity is, how can we develop it? Here are several things you can do:

1. Don’t label something as boring. This is the first thing you should do. Whenever you’re about to label something as boring, stop yourself. Why? Because doing that will close one more door of opportunities. What might seem boring at the surface may actually be interesting if you just dig a little bit deeper.

2. Expect things to be fun. Rather than expecting things to be boring, expect them to be fun. This small change in your mindset can make a big difference. Once you do it, it will be much easier for you to find the fun side of practically anything.

3. Absorb other people’s enthusiasm. Often something seems boring because it’s delivered poorly. That’s perhaps one thing that makes great teachers great: they can connect their students to the fun side of what they’re teaching. So one way to develop your curiosity is to watch the talks of those who are enthusiastic about their fields. Don’t just absorb their knowledge; absorb their energy too. One good place to start is TED.

4. Question relentlessly. Whenever you deal with a topic, have questions in your mind. Find their answers and raise new questions. Questions keep your mind engaged. They can change your learning process from something dull to a treasure hunt.

5. Create a challenge. By creating a challenge, you will want to prove to yourself (and perhaps to others) that you can make it. One good way to do that is by creating a project: build something real out of what you learn. Another way is to create a contest with your friends to find out who can do something faster or better.

6. Connect to what you already know. Things will be more exciting if you can connect what you’re learning to what you already know. Why? Because that improves your understanding of the world and allows you to see new possibilities you’ve never realized before.

7. Diversify. Avoid boredom and find new possibilities by exploring new topics. Read books in new genres. Meet people with different professions. Add variety to your life.

The core is simple, actually. All the advice above can be summarized to just one: make things fun.

How to Learn About Life

If you wanted to learn a subject in the university, there is a structured way to do that. For example, to learn economics you might start with Economics 101 in which you have to read book A, do assignment B, and so on. If you followed the path, you are more or less guaranteed to have a good understanding of the subject.

But how can we learn about life? How can we learn about the best ways to live our lives?

This may be the most important subject to learn, yet there is no curriculum on it (even if there is one, I doubt it’s good enough).

So what should we do?

I believe that one of the best ways to learn about life is to study the lives of exceptional people. Find those who live great lives and learn how they do it. And the way to do that? Read their biographies. That’s why I have increasing interest in reading biographies. For me, biographies are among the best books to read.

Why You Should Read Biographies

There are many benefits you will get from reading biographies. Here are four:

1. It teaches you about the pitfalls to avoid

There are pitfalls on the way success. Instead of learning about them the hard way, why don’t you learn from those before you? Biographies can teach you about what make people fail in the past so that you can avoid them in the first place. Of course, it’s impossible to avoid failure altogether (I’ll talk about it in the next point), but at least you can save yourself a lot of time.

2. It teaches you about how to respond to failure

No matter how good you try, you will still fail. It’s simply inevitable (if you have never failed, maybe you aim too low). So, even more important than learning about the pitfalls is learning about how to respond to failure.

Great people can teach you a lot about it. Why? Because one important reason for their greatness is the way they respond to failure. It’s not that they never fail; it’s that they have the right response to failure. Reading their biographies will help you form the right mindset about failure so that you, too, can respond correctly.

3. It opens your mind about what is possible

This is one of the most important things about reading biographies. Often we limit ourselves and think too small. We might think that we will never do anything big in our lives.

But the truth is, every big thing in this world has a small beginning.  Wal-Mart, for example, started as a single shop in a small town. Who would have guessed that years later they will become one of the biggest businesses in the world? Reading the story of how something with a humble beginning grows big and changes the world is really inspiring.

You might be doing something that looks small today. Perhaps you have never dreamed that it will become big someday. But reading the biographies of these people will open your mind about what is possible. It will inspire you to dream big.

4. It teaches you about the great principles to live by

Behind extraordinary people are extraordinary principles. They live by them and that’s why they become extraordinary. The principles set them apart and make them stand out in the crowd.

Reading their biographies can teach you about these extraordinary principles. Sometimes they are not explicitly stated, but by studying their lives you can discover the unstated principles that drive them.

True, lasting success comes from the inside out, not the other way around. That’s why these principles are treasures. Make finding them your focus when reading biographies and strive to apply them in your life. Then your life, too, will become extraordinary, starting from the inside.


From Great Writer : Mr. Donald Latumahina
Website                : www.lifeoptimizer.org

Risk, fear and worry

Risk, fear and worry

They're not the same.

Risk is all around us. When we encounter potential points of failure, we're face to face with risk. And nothing courts risk more than art, the desire to do something for the first time--to make a difference.

Fear is a natural reaction to risk. While risk is real and external, fear exists only in our imagination. Fear is the workout we give ourselves imagining what will happen if things don't work out.

And worry? Worry is the hard work of actively (and mentally) working against the fear. Worry is our effort to imagine every possible way to avoid the outcome that is causing us fear, and failing that, to survive the thing that we fear if it comes to fruition.

If you've persuaded yourself that risk is sufficient cause for fear, and that fear is sufficient cause for worry, you're in for some long nights and soon you'll abandon your art out of exhaustion. On the other hand, you can choose to see the three as completely separate phenomena, and realize that it's possible to have risk (a good thing) without debilitating fear or its best friend, obsessive worry.

Separate first, eliminate false causation, then go ahead and do your best work.

Introduced from : Seth's Blog

Engaging with criticism

If you need to find out how your audience is receiving your work, it's worth considering how you've structured the interactions around criticism. Sometimes a customer has a one-off problem, a situation that is unique and a concern that has to be extinguished on the spot. More often, though, that feedback you're getting represents the way a hundred or a thousand other customers are also judging you.

Some random ideas:

• If you defend yourself to the customer, quickly explaining precisely why the policy is the way it is, why the product is the way it is, you are pushing the criticizer away because you're telling them they're wrong about their opinion. And they might indeed be wrong, but it's certainly not going to encourage more feedback.
• If your front line people restate the criticism in their own words and are grateful to the customer for sharing it, everyone will benefit. You can always choose to ignore the input later.
• If there's no way for your staff to easily send the criticism up the hierarchy, it dies before it reaches someone who can do something about it.
• If senior people follow up with the customer with specific acknowledgment and thanks, you multiply the benefits.

Not every company needs to do this right to succeed (Apple succeeds and does not do any of these things--and as far as I know, Bob Dylan is in the same camp), but if you believe you can benefit from a cycle of feedback, it's worth a try.

Introduced from :Seth's Blog

An Essential Way to Be a Wise Person

By Donald Latumahina

Do you want to be a wise person? I certainly do, and I believe you do too. Being wise is different from just being smart though. Here is a definition of wise from Dictionary.com:

having the power of discerning and judging properly as to what is true or right; possessing discernment, judgment, or discretion.

And, to complement that, here is Wikipedia’s definition of wisdom:

Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgments and actions in keeping with this understanding.

As a comparison, here is a definition of smart from Dictionary.com:

having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capability.

So, as you can see, being wise is more than just being smart. Being wise is about the ability to make the right assessment of a situation and, from there, to know what to do. It’s about making the right decision given the situation you are in.

From this understanding, it’s obvious that being wise is essential to live a full life. The wiser you are, the more likely you are to live a full life. Why? Because it helps you make the right decisions in life.

So the question is: how can we be wise?

Well, there could be other ways, but there is one that I believe is essential:

If you want to be wise, you must learn to see the big picture.

Yes, the big picture. It’s essential. Let me explain why.

Making the right decision depends on making the right assessment of a situation. But to make the right assessment, you need to understand the big picture. You need to understand the context of the situation and how everything fits in. Only then will you be able to assess the situation correctly and, from that, to make the right decision.

This, unfortunately, is not how many people live. Instead, they are so busy with the details of their lives that they can no longer see the big picture. As a result, they tend to just follow the crowd and do what everyone else is doing. Or they just follow their natural inclinations. Obviously, this is not a good way to live.

I’m not going to go into details in this post, but here are a few things you can do to see the big picture:

1. Learn how the world worksTo see the big picture, you need to understand how the world works. This way you can see how your situation fits in the present world. Among others, it means learning about globalization, technologies, new trends, and the global economy.
2. Learn history
   While the point above deals only with the present world, you also need to see how the present world fits within the larger context of history. This will give you a deeper insight of your situation. Moreover, there are many events in history that you can learn something from.
3. Read biographiesAs I wrote in How to Learn About Life, a good way to learn about life is to learn from the lives of exceptional people. Through their biographies, you can see the big picture of their lives, along with their good and bad decisions. This will enrich your life and help you see your life in a new way.
4. Check your life map and patterns
   Talking about the big picture, you should also see the big picture of your own life. One way to do this is to create a life map. It helps you see how your life has been throughout the years. This, in turn, will help you make strategic decision for your life. You should also find patterns in your life such as your passions and things you care about. It will help you figure out the right direction to go to.
5. Have a regular “think time”
   While all the points above can help you see the big picture, it’s easy to lose sight of it because of one thing: busyness. Once you get busy with the details of your life, it’s easy to forget the big picture. So it’s important that you take time away from your busyness to connect again with the big picture. It can be in the form of reflection time, prayer, or whatever it is that works for you.

Do you have other ideas on being a wise person? Feel free to share them in the comments.

Why Growing Slowly is a Best way to grow

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.
Moliere

If there are two ways to success, the first one is instant and the second one takes a long time, which one would you choose? I think most people will take the first one. After all, who doesn’t want to get a quick reward?

But there is a difference between achieving a quick success and a lasting success. If you just want a quick success, then sure, the first way the best way to go. However, if you want a lasting success, I believe you should choose the second way. It’s a slow way, but it’s the best way to grow. Here are two reasons why:

1. It prepares you for the responsibility

Being successful is nice, but it comes with a big responsibility. If you don’t have what it takes, you might seem successful on the outside, but you might not be ready on the inside.

Success could easily ruin your life if you are not ready for it. There are many people who are successful in one area of their lives, but messed up in the other areas. Perhaps they have family problems. Or they become arrogant. Or they feel empty inside.

Real success means being successful in all areas of your life, not just in one or two. There has to be a balance between all of them.

Growing slowly is good because it prepares you for the big responsibility that comes with success. You will be able to handle it and keep your life balanced.That’s how you can have a lasting success.

2. It prepares you for moments of crisis

Those who want a quick success often do more than what they can afford. They take excessive risks that will eventually hurt themselves and others. These people might seem successful in the beginning, but when the storm comes they won’t be able to withstand it.

Warren Buffett is a good example here. He grows his portfolio slowly over the years. He doesn’t do the “exotic” things many others do in the financial world. As a result, when the crisis struck, he was able to recover quickly. In fact, he used the opportunity to buy stocks on the cheap.

What makes the difference here? Those who grow slowly take the time to build their foundation. They don’t hurry to build a big house. They are patient and use the time to build a strong foundation first. That’s why they can withstand the storm better than those who just want to quickly build the house.

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So it’s up to you. What kind of success do you want? Do you want a quick success or a lasting success?

Top 10 Fascinating Facts About Sex

[Warning: some images on this list are not work safe] Sex is one of life’s pleasures and it is practiced by most people at least once in their lifetime. This list takes a look at some more unusual facts about sex and sex related topics. Feel free to add your own interesting facts to the comments.

10

Weightloss

Fascinating Fact: Sexual acts lead to weight loss

The average human loses 26 calories when kissing for a minute. Furthermore, vigorous sex for half an hour burns 150 calories (you can lose three pounds in a year – if you have sex 7 to 8 times a month). Kissing is also very good for your teeth: the extra saliva released during the act helps to keep the mouth clean – reducing the risk of decay.

9

Pubic Wigs

Fascinating Fact: In Victorian times, whores wore pubic wigs

The pubic wig (merkin) has been around since the 1400s when it was originally worn by women who had shaved their pubic hair off to prevent lice. In the Victorian times it was frequently worn by prostitutes who wanted to conceal the fact that they had diseases like syphilis (Honest – we aren’t merkin’ this up). They are also used in the film industry to conceal actors genitals in nude scenes.

8

Condoms

Fascinating Fact: Condoms were originally made of animal intestines or linen

In Asia before the fifteenth century, some use of glans condoms (devices covering only the head of the penis) is recorded. In China, glans condoms may have been made of oiled silk paper, or of lamb intestines. In Japan, they were made of tortoise shell or animal horn (ouch). In the 16th century, condoms were often made with linen sheaths soaked in a chemical solution and allowed to dry before use. The cloths were sized to cover the glans of the penis, and were held on with a ribbon. Pictured above is an animal intestine condom from the early 1900s.

7

Not Tonight Josephine

Fascinating Fact: Sex cures headaches

Next time your significant other refuses your advances by claiming to have a headache, remember this fact: the sex act can help to cure a headache. Sex causes the body to release endorphins which naturally reduce the pain of a headache.

6

Skin Care

Fascinating Fact: Sperm is good for the skin

The proteins in sperm have a tightening effect on the skin. When sperm is left to dry, the evaporation of the water in it leaves behind protein which can help to reduce wrinkles. While this may be an excellent anti-aging treatment, the obvious downside is that you have to walk around with sperm on your face.

5

Pubic Hair

Fascinating Fact: Pubic hair is programmed to grow a certain amount

All hair on the body is controlled by a “growth program” which determines the growth duration (and consequently the length) of hair. Pubic hair has a shorter growth duration (on average just a few months) compared to hair on the head. This is what stops pubic hair growing to unmanageable lengths.

4

Blowsy Gal

Fascinating Fact: The term “blow job” comes from the Victorian times

In Victorian times, a slang term for a prostitute was “blowsy”. At the same time, “blow” was slang for ejaculation. Consequently, by the 1930s, the act of fellatio came to be known as a blow job. It was also used to describe jet planes in World War Two. In Ancient Greece, the common slang for a blow job was “playing the flute”.

3

Male Porn

Fascinating Fact: Men looking at male porn produce more sperm

Studies have shown that men who looked at porn of two men and one woman produced more sperm than those who looked at just women. Scientists speculate that seeing competition makes men step up their baby-making capacities.

2

Sex For Fun

Fascinating Fact: Humans aren’t the only creatures to have sex for fun.

Humans aren’t the only members of the animal kingdom that have sex just for fun. Dolphins and Bonobo chimps have also been observed engaging in sexual activity, when they are not in their natural reproductive cycles. With the exception of a pair of Cohan gorillas observed doing so, bonobos are the only non-human animal to have been observed engaging in all of the following sexual activities: face-to-face genital sex, tongue kissing, and oral sex. When Bonobos come upon a new food source or feeding ground, the increased excitement will usually lead to communal sexual activity, presumably decreasing tension and allowing for peaceful feeding. Interestingly, Bonobo chimps also play and experience joy like humans.

1

Animal Prostitution

Fascinating Fact: Some female penguins engage in prostitution

Believe it or not, in the wild, certain female penguins (even when in a committed relationship) will exchange sexual favors with strange males for the pebbles they need to build their nests. According to Dr Fiona Hunter (a zoologist): “It tends to be females targeting single males, otherwise the partner female would beat the intruder up.” On some occasions the prostitute penguins trick the males. They carry out the elaborate courtship ritual, which usually leads to mating. Having bagged their stone, they would then run off.