1.
I procrastinated for two weeks getting the final documents ready you're interested
for my visa processing in France. I placed it into my to-do list each in productivity
week, but because I never sat down and drilled out exactly what I doesn't mean you
can't take breaks,
needed to do to take action, I span my wheels until finally moving on relax or just give
it.
up on a day and
2.
Last month, I was spending a large amount of time on
rest.
email/Facebook/etc. I had relaxed my normally tight restrictions on Finding your
internet checking, and now I was wasting a lot of time. So, two weeks natural working
ago I fixed the problem by starting a 30-day trial to check my internet rhythms is more
feeds once per day.
important than
any system.
The problem isn’t making mistakes. It’s in not recognizing those mistakes and coming up with an action plan to fix them.
You’ll always procrastinate, waste time and squander effort. The key is to be able to detect those leaks when they happen and make an effort to correct them (or just enjoy their leakiness!).
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Chapter Five – Social Success
Social Success
Around the time I started the blog, four years ago, I was the last person you’d want to talk to about social success. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t write articles on the subject.
While I had been actively setting goals, changing habits, reading and becoming productive for a few years before starting the blog, social success has been a more recent accomplishment. When I started writing, my social life was a mess. I had almost no close friends and a dead social life.
I certainly wasn’t unhappy with my life, but with such a dramatic weakness, I needed to take efforts to repair it.
So, I spent a good 2-3 years becoming great with my social skills. I joined Toastmasters to work on my public speaking. I went to parties and
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Chapter Five – Social Success
Hope, and a non-
met thousands of people. I practiced every branch of communication I could think of (negotiating, sales, dancing, flirting, etc.) stop hustle-your-ass-off attitude
I don’t do things half-assed.
are the two things
I'd like to
Now, I’ve made considerable improvement. I’ve had a couple of great emphasize most in
relationships, I have extremely close friends I would consider akin to this book.
family, and I’ve had people comment on my overall lack of shyness and apparent confidence.
I say this not to brag, but to try to point out that, no matter how alone and dismal your social life may feel at times, there is always hope. Hope, and a non-stop, hustle-your-ass-off attitude are probably the two things I’d like to emphasize in this book.
How to Become More Social
So what did I learn in 2-3 years of moving my life from a 1-3 on a ten point scale, up to an 8 or 9?
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Chapter Five – Social Success
Your social life
First, social skills are skills. I know, it’s kind of a “duh” point, but it’s all to easy to sit at home reading dating articles or spending time in forums cannot improve
thinking you’re improving your social skills. You aren’t. The only way they without practice,
improve is with practice. Exhilarating and often frustrating practice.
practice, and
practice.
Second, most of social skills break down to two ideas:
Exhilerating and
1.
Empathizing. (Understanding what other people are thinking, and frustrating
why they’re thinking it.)
2.
Communicating yourself.
practice.
Relatively easy to understand, extremely difficult in practice. It takes enormous practice to understand what people are thinking. Not only because the other person often won’t tell you what they’re thinking, but because sometimes they don’t even know the underlying reasons.
Communicating yourself is also very difficult. As a writer, I can definitely say it’s difficult to strike a balance between being motivating, realistic, confident, humble and authentic. As a person it’s even more
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Chapter Five – Social Success
Here's my favorite
difficult, because you need to make sure every element of your behavior article from the
(body language, words, attitude) are projecting who you are.
archives on this
subject:
I think if most people invested their effort onto trying to do these two
things: genuinely empathizing and communicating themselves effectively, they would have a much easier time reaching their goals for social success.
Productivity and Social Success, Can You Be Both?
Productivity and social success ideally work together. Knowing people can help you make connections that can make you more effective in your work. Being more effective in your work can give you more time to spend with friends, or just make you more valuable to other people in your network.
Ninety-five percent of the time, the actions that make you productive can also help your social life. The problem is the other five percent.
Particularly, when you’ve invested in becoming highly productive but the rest of the world hasn’t.
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Chapter Five – Social Success
Early rising was definitely an example of this for me. I loved the habit when I wanted to work, work, work. But add some social goals into the mix, and suddenly waking up at 5:30 put me out of phase with the rest of university life. Now I tend to use early rising intermittently, or only when my work-related goals take a precedence.
I’m not claiming you can’t wake up early and still have a good time at university. I’ve done so myself. I’m simply claiming that some habits are trickier to integrate into society as a whole. I know Steve Pavlina claimed that this was the same reasoning he used when he discontinued his
otherwise successful polyphasic sleep experiment.
Try as much as possible to focus on the 95% overlap between productivity and social success. But, where you notice friction, either decide which area is more important to you at the moment, or aim for a compromise between the two.
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Chapter Six – Fitness
Fitness
Physical fitness is, for me, one of the cornerstones for getting more out of life. If your body is out of shape, unhealthy and fat, it’s going to be a lot harder to achieve success in the other areas. Without fitness:
-Work is harder because you have less energy.
-Social skills are harder because you’re often less attractive (both physically and in attitude) when you’re less healthy.
-Learning is harder. Your brain is an organ too, so the principles of health for the body apply for the brain.
-Even financial success isn’t as satisfying if your body is trashed.
Beyond the external benefits, fitness has an intrinsic goodness to it.
Although, if you don’t exercise regularly, it can be difficult to feel that way.
But I guarantee if you spent a year training to run, being able to easily run 10km would be its own reward.
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Chapter Six – Fitness
The book that
Why I’m a Vegetarian
convinced me to
finally go
vegetarian was
A big part of my healthy lifestyle is a vegetarian diet. Do you have to
be a vegetarian to be healthy? No. Are all vegetarians healthy? Certainly not. Is a vegetarian diet necessarily better than all diets that include meat?
Following one of
the most
Nope.
extensive studies
of human nutrition
Then why give up delicious meat, you may ask?
ever conducted.
The study
First, I believe vegetarianism (along with other dietary constraints) is concluded that
one of the healthiest diets in the world. There is ample scientific high plant based
evidence that shows people who consume a low-meat diet tend to be diets had
significant
healthier than people eating an average diet.
advantages for
heart disease,
Second, when I experimented with veganism initially, I was cancer and overall
impressed with the results. I felt physically better. This, by no means, health.
should be taken as solid evidence of the diet’s efficacy (the placebo effect is strong). But, it is more compelling than if I told you I was sick for two weeks after dropping meat from my diet.
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Chapter Six – Fitness
Third, vegetarianism can force you to eat better. Not always, but when you eliminate meat, you’re also (by necessity) eliminating a lot of fast food and similar junk. This is even more true if you switch completely to a vegan diet. While there is plenty of vegetarian junk food, switching to a minority diet makes it easier to eat less stuff science has tampered with.
There are, of course, ethical and environmental implications to eating meat. If you want to learn more, read my article, Why Vegetarian.
My Exercise Routine
Currently, my formal exercise routine consists of:
3-4x per week of weight training.
3-4x per week of practicing bodyweight skills
(handstand pushups are my current goal)
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Chapter Six – Fitness
However, due to my lifestyle, I’m also biking an average of 30-60
minutes and walking roughly 3-5km per day at the moment, so I’m not as concerned about missing aerobic fitness.
In the past, I’ve also included daily running, or weight/bodyweight training for up to 5-6x per week without injury. I recommend doing some form of exercise on a daily basis when getting started, just to make the habit stick.
Some physical stats on me, for those who are interested, I am 5'11"
and I weight approximately 155lbs. My maximum benchpress is 175lbs.
Maximum squat 205lbs. My maximum continuous push-ups are around 70-80, chin-ups around 13-16 and pull-ups around 10-12. My running fitness isn’t as high, but I can run 10km in roughly 50 minutes without significant difficulty.
My fitness level improved rapidly my first two years of exercising, now after 6 years of consistent exercise, it takes much longer to make significant improvements.
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Chapter Six – Fitness
How I Got Started, and How You Can Too
If I told you I immediately started exercising one day, I’d be lying. The truth is it took me four serious attempts at adding regular exercise and failing before it stuck.
Part of the difficulty in getting started is that exercise hasn’t become a habit. But the main difficulty has nothing to do with habits. It has to do with your self-esteem and experience with exercising. When you start getting in better shape, and see positive results in your fitness and body, you want to exercise.
If you want to get started, set a 30-day trial (like the chapter on habits) and commit to exercising for 30-45 minutes every single day for a month. Going every day can be difficult, but it makes the process of forming a habit way easier.
The second step is to constantly experiment with different forms of exercise to find the type you like best. I’ve tried swimming, running,
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Chapter Six – Fitness
Fitness should
dancing, soccer, karate and weights. Eventually I found weight lifting and bodyweight exercises suited my personality best. There are so many come first.
different ways to stay in shape, it’s stupid to force yourself into a gym if you don’t enjoy it.
You don't need to
be rich, smart or
The final step is to get a partner. Ideally, find someone who already well-connected to
exercises consistently and commit to going with them. I became extremely begin. You just
consistent exercising when I began working out with my friend Justin, who need to show up.
has, for some two-month periods, not missed a single day exercising.
(Whether that in itself is entirely healthy is another matter) Fitness should come first. Unlike business, social skills or even academics (which often require skills in other life areas first) productivity and fitness can be tackled head on. You don’t need money, friends, skills or a fancy education to get started.
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Chapter Seven – Entrepreneurship and Finding Your Passion
There are still a
Entrepreneurship and
few people who
feel getting paid
Finding Your Passion
to do something
you love is selling
One of my major goals in starting this blog was to turn it into a out, or unethical.
business and make an income. I’m guessing there are still a few immature readers who think earning money doing what you love is somehow a bad Often the same
thing, or an ignoble motive. It’s not.
people end up
Which is better for society?
working 9-5 jobs
for questionable
That I earn a healthy income, doing something I love, that thousands corporations.
of people get benefit from, that I can control and make sure stays true to my principles?
Ignore them.
Or that I have only a few hours to pursue my passion in the evenings while I spend my day time getting paid by a corporation that may be pursuing motives of questionable ethics?
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Chapter Seven – Entrepreneurship and Finding Your Passion
Owning a business
Whether you (or I) can make such a business viable is a completely different question. But for now, let’s just say that doing stuff you love and may not be for
getting paid for it is generally a good thing. And provided you set yourself everyone.
to a high standard making sure you earn that income honestly, I would argue it’s a fantastic thing.
But, deep down,
everyone is an
Life’s Too Short to Do Shit You Hate
entrepreneur.
The start-up is
Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. Particularly the online business your life.
style of entrepreneurship I’m engaged in. But that being said, too many people are stuck in jobs and careers not of their choosing because they were told everyone hates work and finding a career that inspires you is the domain of a select few.
For most of the western world, we surpassed our material needs a few decades ago, we just haven’t realized it yet. Most of us aren’t for want of food (obesity is rising). Most of us aren’t for want of shelter, clothes, clean water or any of the other core necessities for human survival.
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Chapter Seven – Entrepreneurship and Finding Your Passion
We've found
But people are want for meaning. So if most of us are fat from food, have houses that are too big and stack up debt buying crap we don’t need, material wealth
why are we chasing careers that provide us with more money instead of (studies show a
what we really want: lives with more meaning?
nation's happiness
decouples from
I’m realistic. People need to work, and not everyone can run off and money at around
start a charity. But that doesn’t mean you can’t set finding a meaningful $10,000/year).
career as a goal. Even if it takes you 5 years to get your business off the ground. Or you spend 10 years studying a subject until you have the skills to get the job you want, you can still get started today.
Now meaning
poverty is the
We have enough money. You might not think you have enough. But struggle for most
if you personally haven’t known wretchedness, hunger, homelessness, westerners.
thirst or disability from lack of medical care, then your pursuit of material possessions isn’t out of necessity but because you feel they are important for a comfortable or successful lifestyle.
My question is: isn’t temporarily sacrificing a little comfort worth adding meaningful work (perhaps the missing human necessity)?
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Chapter Seven – Entrepreneurship and Finding Your Passion
Know Your Poverty Threshold
For career decisions, I think it’s especially important to know your poverty threshold. This is the dollar amount you need to live on. Obviously, I could tell you a number that a human being needs to live on, but depending on your country, city, family and expectations, your threshold will vary.
The threshold is an important number to keep in mind because you can use it for concrete decisions. As long as a career choice won’t put you under your poverty threshold, then it is viable. Particularly if that career choice has potential for growth, lifestyle flexibility or added personal significance.
My threshold is between $1500-$2000 per month. Less than this amount, and I’d find it difficult to live. In a pinch, I may be able to push this number down further, but at the moment, I’d wager that’s the lowest I’d be willing to limbo in terms of personal finances.
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Chapter Seven – Entrepreneurship and Finding Your Passion
Here is the initial
By knowing this threshold I can make planning decisions. I can know article discussing
exactly at what point I’ll need to get a part-time job to support myself, or the idea of a
whether a certain plan isn’t viable based on my living expectations.
If you have a high threshold, that will limit you. But have a high threshold, on its own, isn’t the problem. The problem is not knowing what your minimum standards are.
Why Passion is Overrated
Should you try to
decide what to do
with your life?
The way people talk about passion, you’d think people were having orgasms every time they went to work. I believe passion is more subtle. If As I explain here,
my answer is no.
you don’t know your passion or grand life purpose don’t worry about it.
Passion to me simply means things like: having a lot of ideas about my work, the desire improve at it, enjoying the act of tinkering with my work. It’s not mindblowing, so if you don’t get those vibes, that doesn’t mean you don’t have a passion or can’t find one. Just work on skills you’re interested in.
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Chapter Seven – Entrepreneurship and Finding Your Passion
My Business
I’ve run this blog as a business for the last few years. I’m definitely not at the point where I can sit back, relax and watch the money roll in. But I have been able to make better income than most of my university peers also working part time.
In 2008, this business had a net profit of roughly $18,000. My goal for the next two years is to move that to $40,000.
The interesting thing for any would-be entrepreneurs about my income is not what I earned. Instead, I’d like to focus on how the money was earned. Especially since every gain in income I made came from pursuing outside my current experiences.
I didn’t go from $200 per month to $2000 per month by selling ads 10x as effectively. I got there by giving up ads altogether.
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Chapter Seven – Entrepreneurship and Finding Your Passion
I'm often asked
I know that in order to reach my $40,000 goal, I won’t get there by whether this
using the same methods I’m using to earn $20,000. That may sound business supports
obvious, but I spent a good deal of time trapped in the mindset that I all my financial
needs.
would improve my business just by increasing raw numbers.
The honest
answer is yes and
The Glories (and Pitfalls) of Part-Time Entrepreneurship
no.
I run this business part-time. That means part-time work and, at In the last 2
times, part-time pay. Running this business full-time has long been a years, I've
averaged enough
dream, but I’m also realistic. In order to do that, it also has to support full-income to cover
time pay reliably.
my expenses.
Getting the
Part-time entrepreneurship is heavily underrated. Mostly because the business to do this
money is often initially unglamourous. But people forget that running a reliably, is my
part-time business can have many non-monetary benefits. From running main challenge
this blog I’ve been able to:
going further.
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Chapter Seven – Entrepreneurship and Finding Your Passion
-Chat with best-selling authors, radio hosts and people that a normal 21 year-old university student normally wouldn’t be able to contact with.
-Improve my writing abilities (enough to get decent paying freelance writing gigs)
-Learn about business, which is still important even if you aren’t running your own.
-Interact with thousands of people across the world.
-Get paid for what would otherwise be an enjoyable hobby.
If you evaluate start