The 10,000th Hour

Survivalism

2016-02-03T23:39:00.000-05:00

It’s all about "survivalism".

We all try to make conscious decisions based on the amount of knowledge that we have on the current world. Whether religious reaction, an atheist reaction, a fear-based reaction, a compassionate reaction, we are all trying to make the best decision to survive or thrive. Generally, it boils down to; how can this decision (or lack of) will hurt us the less in the short term? The cumulative short term decisions that we make every day then equate what we were able to achieve.

Few people amongst us are able to ignore short term pains and simply move along without regard of the complications. They just move forward. These people are either wonderfully accomplished humans or psychopaths. You can easily recognize them. They create new exciting content every day. They have lives stamped with their names only – no one else’s. They see opportunities beyond most and are able to bet on it. In short, they crush it.

My theory is that they depend on those daily actions to move forward.

Here is a question; Can we use "survivalism" to improve our current life?

Situation: For example, an unmotivated person who lives in a comfortable manner without much effort. There is no short-term motivation for him to actually make any considerable effort to advance in life. That person has a lot of potential to achieve great things. He knows that he is not working hard enough and wants to do more but lacks the fire.

Hypothesis: We are capable of motivating someone to do more by psychologically linking his survival with the development of an ambitious project. Through mental conditioning, redirecting short-term thinking to what will happen if no effort is done immediately; we can create a mental environment that would force him to start creating.

The problem that I see here is, is the induced motivation internal or external? This is important since we know that internal motivation is a much more powerful tool than relying on outside forces to achieve something. Does the motivation rely on the fear of nothing happening and losing this secure setting or it is based on self-achievement? Fear is a poor servant. Valuing "the self" is a better yardstick. But it cannot be that bad. I really think that these wonderful people that are "crushing it" need to use "survivalism" to get things done though not at a superficial level but as something completely ingrained from potentially frequent negative reinforcements (i.e. being in a difficult life position, poverty, being told young that you will amount to nothing and contradicting the establishment, etc…)

What about the rest of us? I do not have a clear answer if ever there is one. What I immediately think for a solution to help us use survivalism as a tool, is to frequently reflect (intrinsic) on the idea of failure if no action is done.
"What you see is what you get" so making reminders (external) of those potential painful moments and you will most likely avoid them.

But that is just a theory.

Success Has Patterns

2015-11-30T17:20:00.000-05:00

I love geeks. Geeks or nerds have a special way of viewing the world. They are extremely focused on a particular subject and can run you through the history, motivations and reasoning behind the subject of their interest. I will listen to anyone with a deep passion for anything since true spirit shows when someone is fired up. Within passion, this is where real connections are made.

This links to gaming, which is something I enjoy during down time. Most games you probably ever heard of (called AAA/triple A games) are usually created by a massive team (+1000 employees for Grand Theft Auto V) and a whole lot of budget.

On the flip side, there are creators that are small team of sometime 1 or 2 to create games to are widely popular such as Minecraft.

Today, I'd like to introduce you to one of those "geeks". Edmund McMillen is the game designer and creator of the platform games "Super Meat Boy" (+1,000,000 units sold) and the dark religious themed called the "Binding of Isaac" (+2,000,000 units sold).

Edmund McMillen

In the really interesting interview below (1h36 worth), Edmund takes you through his history, his last 10 years (10K anyone? :), hard work, his failures and many other life lessons. You might have no interest in gaming or game developments, but if you listen to the story, you'll see patterns that are present to all very successful people that had big breakthroughs.

Video Notes :

4:42 - School and education

13:48 - Failing school and taking what he needed from college - beginning his journey and building on what he learned non-stop

17:05 - His first big project and how he met his partner

23:02 - Big challenges and stress in the project

31:50 - Common first project mistakes

33:00 - Money is not an objective

34:18 - Starting too big and the work that you have done that no one will ever see

37:42 - Love what you do

1h04 - Passion project (really interesting segment on his most popular game and culminating his experience and staying true to himself)

1h12 - Postpartum depression after the end of a project

1h19 - Dealing with critics/haters and using them as motivation

1h27 - how is discovered his passion through a mentor

1h28 - 10K !!!!

Cheers!

Week 8-12 : Workload Increases and Windows 8 Cooperation

2015-11-19T08:30:00.000-05:00

The last few weeks have been good. Sorry for the lack of updates - been busy as you'll understand below.

Suddenly, things are lining up and the work starts accumulating, And when I say accumulating, it's piling up. On top of it, my computer decided to stop cooperating. When I say stop cooperating, I mean it just went full on disco strobe on me - see video below.

Life has it's quirky way to throw shit at you when the timing is wrong. It's not like I had photos to retouch and emails to answer with multiple clients and supplier...nooooo, absolutely not.

But I'm not here to complain to say that I'll fight back life! Even if you throw as much crap as you want (please don't if you don't mind) I'll bat it back even harder. Living a life of freedom and fulfilling work is a bliss and I wish it for you.

P.S. : I'm glad to say that I fixed my computer. Thank God for Windows 8....

Took a Chance

2015-11-10T13:23:00.002-05:00

Took a chance and I was rewarded.

I know that it won't actually happen all the time but the negative thinking was clouding my judgement. I took a shot and I got it.

I'll ride off that cloud for a while but as of now I'm all about execution.

Here is a quote I recently heard that hopefully will drive you to action. I'd love to hear about your own projects/10K.

Week 8-10 :Self Check

2015-10-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

I have been more reflective in the last few days.

As I approach almost 12 weeks in this journey, I summed up what I did and was left unsatisfied. I could hustle more, I could make more projects come through, contact more clients and secure more stuff but I didn't. I chose to be quiet and let certain things come to me.

This is a faulty way to do it. How can the world know your existence if you do not tell them you are alive? I took a chance and dived in. I was rewarded by openness and responses. Week 10 has been awesome though I have to admit scary.

Luckily, this is early in my timeline. Things don't move if you don't push them. It's that simple. Action is key to progress. Anything else is up to luck, and luck is built, not given.

Week 7 : Grabbing the Bull By It's Horns

2015-10-01T07:00:00.000-04:00

Impatience is one of my issues. I don't like to wait for things to happen. For one of my businesses, things are moving to a crawl but my strategy requires that I stay patient, lock in one client that I really want to work with, make it into a success story and grow organically. If I do too much at once, I'll fail really hard. Not that I am scared of failure, but I prefer little ones versus major failures. The lesson to take from small mistakes is easily more identifiable than larger one where it seems that everything is systemic versus action driven. Experience for me is really gained from perfect practice and application, not from jumping with my 2 feet at once. I'll put 100% into the effort but smart bets is better than stupid large commitments. Long beats quick all the time. Quick makes you focus on taking 1 step. Long makes you look to the horizon and look for traps.

So I keep busy and work on my other projects. I still keep a very eagle eye on certain things and keep sharpening my fangs for the day that I will have to hustle hard. When this day will come, I'll be ready. Goddamit I will be.

On this, watch this video below from someone I really pay attention too. Warning, may contain cussing. Actually contains tons of it.

Week 6 ; Conferences and getting your feet wet

2015-09-22T14:01:00.001-04:00

The world that I want to play in now knows my face. Trade shows are a great way to see how the industry functions, who are the players and how the investments are made. The people that are exhibitors are usually receptive, want to share information and can give you precise insights on what you don't know. I have no problem acting like I don't know because most times, I don't.

I spent time talking to people and as much as possible, keep an open mind and listen to the cues that people give you. I always ask myself also, how can I integrate this thing that I find cool or how can I improve something I consider weak or defective.

It can be overwhelming though. Seeing a sea of competition can be scary. Scary as hell. They are ready, prepared and know their stuff. They built those businesses and hustled their way in. But you will too. You will hustle and you will reach your objectives. If you don't, the world will never see how great you are.

Cheers to leaning in!

Yvens

Week 5 : Slow but Constant Progress

2015-09-16T13:25:00.001-04:00

When you want to run but everybody is walking, you feel weird.

This week has been slow. Horribly slow. It's as if I am waiting for people to wake up so I can advance. Luckily, I like run 5 projects at the same time so I can keep myself busy.

Not going to write a long post today since my checklist is pretty long. But the picture below pretty much explains how my mind is currently geared.

Talk to you next week and cheers to slow progress!

Wrong surroundings = Wrong results

2015-09-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

I currently have the wrong surrounding to reach my next objective. It's difficult to move forward without the right surroundings. Don't get me wrong, I love all of my friends but not all of them are aiming for the same things that I am.

Example ; You are a creative painter. You really can communicate feelings through your medium. Your paintings gather interest and are recognized as some as promising art work. You are a promising artist and you need to become and established artist. Unfortunately, you work in an accounting firm as a clerk and 97% of your friends simply don't get it though they can say you are talented. What do you do? Can you used your friends network to move forward and become established? Will they expose you to different artists that are advancing rapidly in their careers? Most likely not. If so, it's too rare and few. You need to find other creatives that'll challenge you or inspire you to create more and better.

True, I have been going through the motions of life. Death, marriage, job changes and everything else in between...But....

99% of the effort has to come from me. I can't possibly let someone else be in charge of my success. But you hardly succeed alone. No one does. There are too many influences that teaches us to grow stronger and create new patterns in your brain. Good or bad, other people teaches us how to love, how to be careful, how to be hurt and how to forgive. You owe to those people those "settings" that enable your success. Let's build from that ;

With a better surrounding, you create a better support group. People that have been through those difficult motions that one day you will encounter. People that you can share energy with that will be understand your pride when you hit a major milestone. People that will push your to do more and perform more.

How to get there? I believe networking and investing time in people. You never know what kind of lessons you will learn by simply listening to stories that people went through. You never know who they know. You can learn from it. A book that I read many time says something in the fashion : The typical millionaire doesn't walk around on the weekend in a 1000$ suit. Don't dismiss someone because he doesn't sweat money.

Let's find new friends then.

Week 4 : Giving Back is the New Angel Investing

2015-09-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

What a great week this was.

On top of finishing the first portion a personal project for my photography, I met with an awesome team of entrepreneurs that basically offered precious guidance. Let me explain.

I always lean towards decision that are leap of faiths. Which means, play big to get big. This strategy works at times. Jeff Bezos' Amazon was one of those companies that invested massively in their business without having any customers. Having skin in the game to me, is taking responsibility which equals to having to play hard to alter risks. But....

They suggested another approach which gradual increments of work. They went on for about an hour and a half explaining their beginnings and how they manage to start very small to having a 30,000 SF distribution warehouse. I am beyond pumped.

What I really take from this is mainly the time that they allocated to me. I feel blessed. They didn't disregarded me as "Oh Lord, here's another young kid trying to make a buck", they offered sound advice and challenged some things I believed I knew.

I want to become exactly like this later on. Giving back to a younger generation. There are opportunities that develops from giving back, you never know what the returns will be but when it does, it only costed you an hour of your time.

I am still working on adding more hours of productive work and structuring my life. The chaos can be rewarding as I can respond to anything, anytime but sometimes, the slow advancement is straining. Regardless...

Let's grind my friends!

Week 4 : Giving Back is the New Angel Investing

Week 3 : Finding Balance in chaos

2015-09-02T07:00:00.000-04:00

"I thought the world was moving fast until I decided to outrun it." - Yvens's shamelss self quote

In the last week, I have been applying my checklist technique to my own self. I am conducting an empirical study on productivity on my little cosmos. Things are actually moving in a decent pace. I was able to ;

- Book models, studio and concept for my a personal photo project (shot on the 31st of August)

- Prepare a meeting with an important coach/mentor that is going to help one of my businesses

- Edit about 150 photos for an event that I took photos of

- Wrap my head around another business plan and how I need to structure my deal

- A whole bunch of thinking and follow up

I could have done more if I wasn't burnt from training and all the reading. And there is a small part called laziness which I am fighting hard.

Last week, I spoke about time management and waking up in a decent time. Alarm has been going up! But not so much. I am really a night owl and can read/learn until 3AM. Perhaps it is because I have less interruptions, less emails and less social media alerts.
On another note, food detox are complete BS but social media detox doesn't sound so bad. Social media is a tool. I cannot consume it, it'll consume too much of my time.

Another thing that helped me move forward is "motivational speeches". I used to avoid those methods of motivation since they only brought on pain. Pain in the way that I was not doing what I truly wanted to do, which made me miserable. Having someone yelling at you that you aren't living your life is depressing. Now that I changed my path, I can re-integrate them. Here is a track that I listen to. It make me feel powerful which some experts in the psychological field confirms that is an important factor for your brain. Let Les Brown jolt you up!

I am now looking into supplementing my brain with some products called noontropics. We use all those products to help our energy and our muscles, why not our brain? More to come in the next weeks, you might even be able to buy some here!

Future is bright my friends, buy a cool pair of shades and hustle on!

Week 2 : Waiter, can I get more structure please?

2015-08-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

I am not sure if it is a fallacy of working from home and having absolutely no schedule but I feel disorganized as hell.

My sleeping schedule is basically dictated by the meetings I have and how much reading I do (I go to sleep around 3h30AM), my macro eating is consistent but also messed up. Fortunately, my good habit of fast emails responses and paperwork was achieved. Training volume are also consistent since it the only time I really spend time working on myself, literally.

So here is what I learned this week ;

Schedule everything. Even though it could be as little as a 15 minute article read, structure imposes efficiency thus reducing lagging time.
Set an alarm. Keeps your body in a state of "predictiveness" instead of responding to whatever is happening.
Work on a weekly objectives and daily checklist. It helps you look to the future and anticipate what needs to happen to make the next steps effort-worthy, instead of aimlessly thinking about what needs to be done.

Plan fun time - because life.
Plan learning time - because you still don't know everything.
Plan thinking time. Friday afternoon or when the volume of work decreases, give your brain space to think about an issue.
Be flexible in your approach but consistent over time. If you mess up a day, don't beat yourself up over it, there is also tomorrow and since you are an entrepreneur, your day does not necessarily end at 5h00PM - cheers to being an entrepreneur.
Track your progress and your mood - do you keep a journal? My blog is kind of it, helps me understand what I went through and keeps my readers (read friends) informed of my progress.

Cheers to progress,

10000 hour blog - Week 2 : Waiter, can I get more structure please?

1st week - Target the world, the moon...and Mars

2015-08-13T16:49:00.000-04:00

First week as a solopreneur was bizare to say the least.

I contacted a couple of people in the industry and got slightly discouraged from the feedback I got. 1 person mentioned that my idea was not original and innovative and referred UBER as a better business (meanwhile, they lost tons of money so I guess that person was not up to date). This person is an important player in the industry I am targeting, so the feedback is crucial, but also detrimental to my motivation. Regardless, non-sexy business to me are a great way to obtain the accomplishment I require and the leverage to reach my personal objectives.

The lack of structure is quite challenging. No schedule, no boss, no process....you have to build everything yourself. Any idea you have has to be developed by yourself. Every phone call or email has to be returned by yourself. Multiply this by 100 things to do and you are stuck with a whole lot of things to do. I am looking for new ways to structure my time to 1) develop the business as quickly as possible 2) spend time on things that I like to do (training). Any idea/recommendation here would be appreciated.

Also, I think I may have a "spread-yourself-thin" issue. My biggest fear is to miss an opportunity. Regardless of what it is or small it is, I need to be a part of the opportunity, at the sacrifice of energy and time. Saying no to potential income is exceedingly difficult. Right now, I am working on 4 projects. I am not sure how to focus onto 1 specific project without feeling guilty about giving up on another. My entire life was built on the premise that I always did 2-3 things at the same time. I am calculating how much effort it would require and I am not sure how it is going to happen (photography, business and fitness...) and I am not certain which one I am willing to let go of since I love all 3 of them, and I have to make a living somehow (ain't no free rides son).

Meanwhile, I will be resourcing as much as possible, my next schedule read is "How To Win at the Business of Sports" by Mark Cuban. If you aren't using Mark's Cyberdust app (Add me ; +yvensb) - it's warmly recommended since you get to see what Mark's thinks daily.

Cheers to progress

More Than This

2015-07-22T00:19:00.001-04:00

Change.

Change is effing great. It leads to growth and adaptation. Sometimes change, even partnered with the best effort, leads to failure. But failure in itself is change, so the change here is a lesson.

For a long time in this blog, I wrote about your 10k on how it can change you. That the investment made into that obsession of yours should eventually lead to something, passing the small hill of mediocrity and grinding through the mountain of being decent. That still remains true, but something wasn't.

I wasn't true to myself.

Who was I to preach something that I did not do? Did I really wanted to become a CFO of a company? No. I could have done so, I was skilled enough and was moving rapidly through the ranks, but who was I kidding? At the core of myself, I was unhappy. Completely and utterly unhappy. I wasn't given the chance to be on this planet to become a CFO. That may be the dream of someone else, but to me, that would represent mediocrity. At the end of my life, I wonder how I could have defended that mediocrity. There has to be more than this.

There has to be more than this.

Recent events have given me the opportunity to change. When the decision was made, it was easy. I recently left my comfortable corporate position for a life of uncertainty. Well, not really that uncertain. My effort is certain. My drive is certain. I know I am going to put 100% of my efforts at realising my projects. I am all in, I can't (and do not want) to look back.

I realise now that what I was proposing is not the sexy solution to most people problems. It's not the 2 week solution or the 5 step method to get sh*t done. No. It's that soul crushing work ethic, this laser beam focus on getting things done. Most will probably never get there, and that is fine. I never minded swimming against the tides. My proposal remains the same, grind through the 10K and marking my list as "Done".

More than this means become of your TRUE self. Not what is common expectation but what is truly your source of happiness and how you can work to achieve on the highest level of execution.

If you are already on your own path of the 10k, we may now speak as equals. If not and the desire to change is burning into you, I encourage you to joinus . If you do not believe that you could ever join us, simply watch.

Brother, sister, we will crush it.

Centrifugal Inertia

2014-08-11T10:31:00.001-04:00

This blog has been tranquil for a while. So much has happened and much more will. Here is a summary of the last few months ;

My mother passed away this year. It has been a difficult experience to say the least. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2013 and the cancer swiftly removed her from us in March. In these moments I found out a lot about myself and where my mother came from. She is now at rest with her favorite person, God.

I also turned 30. While this is a milestone in people’s life, I never thought that I would not have my mom for this occasion. But age is nothing but a number, hopefully I still got a lot of years left in me to achieve what I want. Luckily, I have a great set of friends that wants nothing but the best for me and I am forever grateful for it.

I got married. 11 years in the making, it was an emotional and joyous moment that I had a chance to celebrate with people that I love.

With all those life events happening, it forces you to take a deeper look into yourself and what you have done and what you want next. I am still not satisfied but this year has thought me why – I run by the principle of centrifugal inertia. If you do not know this concept, in a nutshell, the faster the body goes, the more stable it is. I need projects and objectives to move forward, I just cannot get by and live life like many others do. Accomplishments mean too much to me.

With this, some changes will happen in the next few weeks along with exciting new projects.

The 10K goes on.

3 Minutes on "The Power of Thoughts" (video)

2014-05-05T15:21:00.003-04:00

We all believe in something...

2014-04-14T20:42:00.002-04:00

"We all believe in something...even if we believe there's nothing to believe. I am not interested in telling you what I believe...and trying to make you believe in something. But I am curious: How do you know what you know? Where did you get your beliefs? What is it in the moment? We could know the truth of everything. What...does the consciousness know? For just one moment...if we could get it all out...if we could just know for one moment, what our consciousness was...is...and where it came from. And get it all out.

What if we could crack through the illusion of linear time, in the same moment? What if we could experience all of history and all of eternity...in a single moment? For this single point in all of eternity...knowing all the know...we choose our next thought. This next thought will be the seed for our new belief...our new perception of a new world. Forgive any resentment. Release any anger. Dissolve any guilt. Refrain my...regrets. Accept anything I may be resisting. Love away any fear. And walk through the doorway."

Unknown Author

Champion Of The Now

2013-08-19T21:49:00.000-04:00

Listen to the man on the treadmill.

I aspire to be a champion not tomorrow, because tomorrow is not certain. Not yesterday, because yesterday is the past. I can only act in the now.

Champion Of The Now

What Happened To Hard Work?

2013-08-07T07:00:00.000-04:00

If you don't know, I trained about 3-4 times a week for the last few years. I enjoy as it releases a lot of stress and brings appreciable (and noticeable) results. Recently, coming back from a workout, I came across an old co-worker who is I believe is a struggling artist. I have not seen him in at least 8 years. His first reaction was to suspect that I took steroids to gain muscle mass - I duly responded that it is simply a matter of carrying yourself to the gym, lifting weights and eating right. Conversation went on for about 5 minutes until he asked about my friend PeeZee who is a successful artist. He asked if he was a drug dealer - since he always is releasing projects and collabos. I again responded that PeeZee actually invest in his career and does not sell drugs to fund it since he is an even more successful music video director - he simply reinvests. I left it at that as I was getting more and more irritated. Wished him good luck.

Because I train and enjoy the fitness world, I often watch videos of body-builders (some more than others) and what kind of life are they living. I admire the dedication and the self-accomplishment of those athletes. Doing what they do requires a great deal of sacrifice that very few can grasp, and even fewer would tolerate. One of the most common comment on those videos contains the following words : "Juice!!!", "Steroids", "Doped", "He cheated!!" and other synonyms. So the question I have is ; Let's give you the biggest amount of steroids humanly tolerable, would you ever be able to achieve those results while doing nothing?

A very inspiring man : Kai Greene (he is nicer than he looks)

I have grown quite tired of those looking for a shortcut to get where they want to. "10 minute abs", "1 pill a day", "3 easy payments", "be a [insert a job] in less than 3 months!"- everything is supposedly moving at a pace that is outrageously fast. Technology has not moved forward that quickly, how can someone expects great results with little efforts? It is time to face the music, if you want great output, you need to have a great input, there are no multipliers, only adders - translated : If you want big results, you need to give great efforts, there are no shortcuts, only small things that can incrementally contribute to your objective. A body takes a certain time to get fat, it will also take time to get fit. A career takes time and efforts to build, those who had overnight success usually disappears - think Milli Vanilli. Wealth takes years to build, lotto winners are for the large majority now broke. If you want something that you never had before, you must do something that you have never done before.

Thinking about this creates 2 reactions within me :

1) I am accountable for my results and if I want to incrementally be successful, I have to work every day at it

2) When someone holds the same tone of conversation like my old co-worker, I tune them out - it's simpler.

What are you doing to create something different. How big is your input and how much do you want to achieve? If you do not ask yourself those questions, no one will answer them for you.

A deep desire

2013-05-15T22:05:00.000-04:00

Why are we going through the things that we are going through? Why are we putting ourselves into such pain and such challenges? Do we do it for the end result and for the gain? Yes, but I believe only partly.

I think we all need validation. We need to feel either validated by ourselves or by others. Ourselves for our self-confidence, see if we are right or surpass ourselves. Others to prove people wrong, show them what we are made of.

Myself, I am doing it for all of the above reasons. See if I can be right, make my mom proud and prove some people wrong. Knowing that now makes everything I do more focus and internalizes my expectations – it’s all on me.

Give it some thought. How does it makes you feel?

It's January 7th

2013-01-07T22:07:00.003-05:00

It’s January 7^th, what have you done differently than last year? You probably have a gazillion friends that are promising to themselves that the new year will bring them luck and many other great things. While we can appreciate the positivism, what kind of concrete decision these people made? Was an objective stated? Would these people be better off setting deadlines instead of wishes?

Don’t fall into the same trap as last year and generate some action. Start whatever you have to start, even if you are not ready. Time flies if you don’t act now.

The Greatest Equalizer

2012-11-26T00:00:00.000-05:00

The world is so beautiful. There are inequalities and things that we would rather avoid, but if you sit down and observe all things around you, you cannot help but admire its beauty. I am not sure there is a creator out there, but the work that is put out here is the greatest. The Greek gods left us with hope as the last item in Pandora ’s Box, there is one thing that rarely gets discussed and it is your greatest gift. Your most valuable possession is one that everyone shares. No matter where you are, no matter what you do, we all share the same resource.

The greatest equalizer is time. No matter what you do, you only have 24 hours in a day. No one can hoard it. No one can save it. But, it can be utilized to your advantage. I stumbled on this idea while watching this:

At this exact moment, what are you doing? Saturday morning, did you oversleep? Thursday night, did you over extended your television watching session? Did your internet browsing session bring you anything worthwhile? These are tough questions, but they must be asked. If your plan is to rule the world: you have to rise earlier than everyone else. If your objective is ambitious, you must put tremendous efforts into it in order to achieve it. Now quit reading and get to work already, we are waiting for you to reach the top.

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Prayers

2012-10-08T06:30:00.000-04:00

Like someone else cannot go to the gym for you to get you fit, no one can turn you into what you truly want. Every day, I see people posting on social media motivational pictures and other types of reinforcement material to justify their current state. How sad. They share their pain. That is the first step towards healing. But what is done after to change this state?

I know a lot of people that pray. I do not have a specific religion in my head, simply the act of hoping and asking. I am not a fervent believer. I don’t believe in prayers. I do not believe asking for God for change. Our world advancement has never been driven forward strictly with prayers. When I see people asking God for money, health and other things, I cringe. Put yourself into His position. You have a child that constantly begs for something that he can get by his own means, would you give it to him? No, you won’t. Why would you? What lesson would he have learned from his experience? None - he does not deserve it.

What worthy goal does not demand sacrifice? How can you expect to be given what you do not yet deserve? That is selfishness and laziness. We have seen many descending into the abyss because it came too suddenly.

If I have to pray, I would pray for other people. I would pray for luck. I would pray for things that I have little to no control over. I would ask for strength while I am walking in my journey and guidance while I am lost. Most importantly, I would thank him for any progress made.

However, I am not a religious person and this blog neither. But I am a believer. I believe in you. I believe in your power to complete your goals. I have seen it and so do you. You are not different from any other successful person. They had similar and different struggles. They are sons and daughters of immigrants. They are sometime uneducated. They are sometime beaten down. But they are constantly moving forward by making the best possible decisions. Not because of their prayers but because of the action behind that prayer. 10,000 hours of hoping ≠ 10,000 hours of actions.

Never leave a prayer without action. It is foolish to think that God will do for you what you can do for yourself.

10000 Hour

If I Can’t, You Can

2012-09-05T00:09:00.001-04:00

The following sentence raises hair on my neck: You can’t do that! Activated by the lizard brain and infused with pure simplicity, this sentence inhibits all progress based on factors that are not attributable to the subject.

Example: Michael wants to jump over a fence. Jim tells him that he can’t do it. Michael asks why and Jim answers: You just can’t!

Let’s give more depth to the example. First we discard everything that is illegal, completely immoral and dangerous. Michael and Jim are neighbours; Michael simply wants to jump over Jim’s fence which is a short solid wall. Michael is in good health and is athletic. Jim on the other hand is a little pudgy and suffers from asthma.

What do we see here? Jim imposes his physical illness onto Michael based on the fact that Jim cannot jump the wall because of his inability. Can Michael jump the wall? Sure, without a problem. But since Jim in incapable, he projects his negative experiences onto others, in this case, Michael. It’s not Jim’s fault though, it’s his lizard brain. This brain is wired to play super safe and never risk too much. Jim’s intentions are fundamentally good. He would not want to see his friend and neighbour injure or hurt himself.

Now let’s put Jim and Michael into a more “business” context. Michael wants to start investing money in the stock market. Jim being the best friend he can be tells him (you guessed): You can’t do that! Why? asks Michael. Jim goes and explains that he lost a few thousand dollars playing in the market and that he should not risk his hard earned cash into it. Little that he knows is that Michael read about 25 books on the subject and has been very careful on his approach to investing. He follows a time proven method that enables his to find safety in investments. Michael is already doing well in the markets.

Morale of this story: we all have our own Jim - either inside of our head or close to us. Jim can be our brother, a friend, an acquaintance. It does not matter. In most cases, Jim will tell you "you can’t do that " because he can’t.

But you can.

7 Billion Dreamers

2012-08-28T18:26:00.002-04:00

There are more than 7 billion people on this earth. Each and one of them have dreams. Each and one of them have goals. Either to find the next meal, find love or find the next big opportunity. We all have been given different qualities and talents. Our past shaped our natural interests and abilities. For a good part of us, we have been given a chance to realise those things. Our present decisions will mark our future.

It’s crazy to realise that most of us will not do anything with it. Some people that I know are simply living by, when they are full of talent. Some people linger on pass experiences and scars. Yes they hurt, they hurt like hell, but what is the human being without it’s ability to bounce back? The kid in a war impoverished country has less chance than us to achieve but yet, he is still putting in the effort.

What is our problem? Is our relatively high level of wealth? Is it the fact that we can “rely” on our governments? Is it the fact that we blame rich people for everything that happened?

We must realise that we are responsible for our future, not our employer and especially not the government. That is going from external to internal. External factors weigh little in our success (in North-American type of countries). Internal factors determine everything.

My question is ; What are you going to do about it?