“Researchers have figured out how to stop people from habitually overeating and biting their nails. They can explain why some of us automatically go for a jog every morning and are more productive at work, while others oversleep and procrastinate. There is a calculus, it turns out, for mastering our subconscious urges. For companies like Target, the exhaustive rendering of our conscious and unconscious patterns into data sets and algorithms has revolutionized what they know about us and, therefore, how precisely they can sell.” – How Companies Learn Your Secrets | The New York Times

Habits are important… yada, yada, yada.  How many times before have you heard people talking about changing your habits and all? A million times – and that’s just in January. But when it comes to numbers, how much control does your habits have over you?

Target and other retailers send massive amounts of money on statisticians to help change your shopping habits.  The New York Times article focuses on changing the shopping habits of pregnant women.  Using different statistical methods to alter its customers’ shopping habits, Target grew it’s revenue from $44 billion in 2002 to $67 billion in 2010.

It’s no doubt that habits are powerful but I think we underestimate them.  From what we buy to who we vote for, habits shape our subconscious, which ultimately makes us do things without ever thinking about it because they’re routine.  Do you really think about driving your car down the Interstate?  Or do you set the cruise control, crank up the music, and just drive? Formed over years of doing the same thing over and over, driving becomes automatic.  You get lost in a conversation with a passenger and pay no attention to the buildings your passing.  It’s not a bad thing – it’s just a habit.

Cultivating the right habits is the key.

The best part of that article -

“Habits aren’t destiny — they can be ignored, changed or replaced. But it’s also true that once the loop is established and a habit emerges, your brain stops fully participating in decision-making. So unless you deliberately fight a habit — unless you find new cues and rewards — the old pattern will unfold automatically.”

You are your habits.  If you do something habitually that you don’t like, you have to fight to change it.  Losing weight, eating healthier, writing that book, or whatever, those goals all center around the habits you have right now.  You just need the right habits in place to finish them.

Photo from Heather Clemons Photography

“Secret Cinema is a growing community of all who love cinema, experience and the unknown. Secret audience. Secret locations. Secret worlds. The time is now to change how we watch films. Whisper only amongst yourselves. Tell no-one.”

One of the coolest ideas I’ve seen in a while.  Secret Cinema brings back some of the allure the theater lost for us.  And their website is one of the few times I’ve been okay with Flash.

Click on the image for a larger view.

How is this even a real sentence?  And the real monstrosity here – both the writer and the editor missed this. If you’re going to write, at least do it well no matter how horrible the overall story is.

“Space is something you make in your life, amidst the busyness, so that you can fill it. Emptiness is a spiritual void that cannot be filled, no matter how much you create.

If you find yourself empty, your life is probably lacking space. Space to dream. To think and reflect. To believe. You will have to face some demons and slay a few dragons before you can create. But once you do, you’ll be all the more grateful for it.” – Jeff Goins

I’ve always struggled with the idea of space.  Jeff puts it in a great light here.

“I think this whole topic can be summed up as just being a good human. Listen, share, provide value to others, be open, admit mistakes and know that by building great character, you’re also building great credibility.” – Mike Rohde

Couldn’t agree more.

Finally.  After months of work, I’m able to ship one of my pet projects.  We’re adding a whole new component to the creative community at Save the Artist – a podcast network.  I got hooked on podcasting and soon found that I could coax several of my friends into co-hosting several shows.  Three months ago, I didn’t even own a mic and now I’m recording several shows a week with some of the most creative people I know.

Go check out the new Save the Artist Network.  And forgive me if I relax for the rest of the night now that it’s launched.

A politician finally promised a base on the moon in return for electing them president.

For a moment, let’s put aside all the political pandering points and just look at the idea.  The dream consists of going back to the moon for  the first time since 1972 (Apollo 17).  It’s an audacious dream, probably a bit impractical, but one I think that’s desperately needed again.

We’ve forgotten how to dream big.  As a kid, I dreamt of being an astronaut one day.  From galaxy wallpaper to shuttle Legos, space travel became a minor obsession that filled my thoughts.

And then we grow up.  I lost that spark of imagination for a while.  The creative side of me focused on coloring inside the lines rather than drawing the image myself.  Give a kid a box of crayons and they immediately begin creating something.  Give the same box to an adult and they just look at you funny.

That’s why so many people laughed when they heard the idea for a moon base.  To me, those people are the ones who can’t dream anymore.  I’m sure President Kennedy’s critics tried to kill the dream of an Apollo program.  But he pushed through and convinced the American people it was the right challenge – the right dream for us.

Starting from practically nothing, President Kennedy and NASA took us to the moon.  Not only should we go back, we should use it as a jumping off point for the rest of the universe.  We need an audacious dream like this just to prove we can still dream.

And yeah, John Stewart’s name of Moonlandia is actually pretty cool.

“Through the years, I had learned that if you think about strategy (the “how”) too early, it will actually inhibit your vision (the “what”) and block you from thinking as big as you need to think. What you need is a vision that is so big that it is compelling, not only to others, but to you. If it’s not compelling, you won’t have the motivation to stay the course and you won’t be able to recruit others to help you.” – Michael Hyatt

I have a lot of ideas.  I’m one of those guys with a half-dozen notebooks with ideas, sketches, and notes scattered throughout.  I might go through 7 or 17 different versions of an idea to get it right.  And those are just the ones for our creative community at Save the Artist.

No matter how I decide to act on an idea, to execute that strategy as Michael puts it, I also put the focus on the idea itself first.  Because if I don’t love it, there’s no point.  My dreams and plans are big – they require others on my team to help out.  And if I’m not excited and communicating that right, then the idea gets off to a rocky start.

January’s over but the year’s just getting started.  I need to get the idea solid before anything else.  There’s plenty of time left in the year to pull it off.

“We as artists chose this path because it’s hard.  We pour our passions, our ideals, our dreams into the things we create.  But sometimes that’s not enough.  Passions lose steam and dreams get lost when the work gets too hard.  When that happens, we can get very frustrated – and that can either destroy you….or become the greatest asset you’ve ever had as an artist.  The men and women of the Apollo space program undoubtedly became frustrated at times.  But they chose to use that to push them forward.” – via Save the Artist

I wrote those words a few weeks ago and it’s amazing how many times I keep coming back to them.  Frustration sucks but it’s a good thing in the long run.