Curious Jordy?

Uranus and Gaea (Taken with instagram)

Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:29:56 -0800

Uranus and Gaea (Taken with instagram)

The Secret of the Gifted

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:32:15 -0700

Excerpt from The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell:

After all that fancy talk, you might be wondering whether game design is really for you. You might have noticed that skilled game designers seem to have a special gift for this work. It comes easily and naturally to them, and though you love games, you wonder if you are gifted enough to succeed as a designer. Well, here is a little secret about gifts. There are two kinds. First, there is the innate gift of a given skill. This is the minor gift. If you have this gift, a skill such as game design, mathematics, or playing the piano comes naturally to you. You can do it easily, almost without thinking. But you don’t necessarily enjoy doing it. There are millions of people with minor gifts of all kinds, who, though skilled, never do anything great with their gifted skill, and this is because they lack the major gift.

The major gift is love of the work. This might seem backward. How can love of using a skill be more important than the skill itself? It is for this simple reason: if you have the major gift, the love of designing games, you will design games using whatever limited skills you have. And you will keep doing it. And your love for the work will shine through, infusing your work with an indescribable glow that only comes from the love of doing it. And through practice, your game design skills, like muscles, will grow and become more powerful, until eventually your skills will be as great, or greater than, those of someone who only has the minor gift. And people will say, “Wow. That one is a truly gifted game designer.” They will think you have the minor gift, of course, but only you will know the secret source of your skill, which is the major gift: love of the work.

But maybe you aren’t sure if you have the major gift. You aren’t sure if you truly love game design…

There is only one way to find out if you have the major gift. Start down the path, and see if it makes your heart sing.

"There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others."

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 16:43:03 -0700

““There is no such thing as a self-made man. You will reach your goals only with the help of others.””

- George Shinn

My goal for this week

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:48:00 -0800

My goal for this week is to add two features to ~~http://www.habit-changer.net~~ http://www.goalmafia.com, the motivational website I’m working on.

1. Be able to set a goal of your choosing (right now you’re limited to just exercise goals)

2. Integrate with Facebook Connect to start using social motivation. i.e. publish your progress and whether you met your goal to your Facebook News Feed so your friends can hold you accountable/cheer you on/heckle you.

The ultimate goal is to be able to see if I can use the site + Facebook to help motivate me to work more on the site itself. aka “uber boot-strapping”

I’ll post an update with the results by 11:59pm (hopefully earlier) on Friday.

Get a grip!

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:45:05 -0800

Traction is key.

I came to this realization on my jog through Golden Gate Park this morning, when I crossed a wet log and promptly slipped. Running in dry weather, it’s easy to take traction for granted and assume that all you need to get from Point A to Point B is power. WRONG. You need power + traction.

Power without traction can lead to movement, but it is often not in the direction you intend. If you’ve ever had the unfortunate experience of spinning out in a car, you know that sometimes you end up going sideways. Other times, like my log experience this morning, the winning direction is down, as in “falling on your ass”. The bottom line is, all the power and good intentions in the world won’t get you to where you want to go if you don’t have traction.

How people tend to fall on their ass (metaphorically)

It turns out, this lesson can apply to other situations in life where people tend to fall on their ass, metaphorically speaking. Take giving advice, for example. This is one area where I personally have slipped up more than my fair share of times. Here’s a typical scenario:

I’m talking to my friend John, and I hear him complaining about a certain problem in his life
I give John some advice: “Hey John, you should just do X”. (Like most guys, I am unable to hear about a problem without feeling the need to fix it immediately.)
John doesn’t seem to appreciate my well-meaning advice, and starts to get somewhat defensive.
I hear his resistance, so I decide I just need to give my advice more clearly and forcefully.
John becomes visibly resentful and leaves the conversation in a huff. I, in turn, resent John for being so defensive all the time when I’m just trying to help. FAIL.

What happened here? Let’s revisit the key steps in this interaction, imagining that our conversation is a vehicle where I’m behind the wheel. My goal was to steer the conversation vehicle to a certain location, but I failed and we spun out. (The only reason I place myself in the driver’s seat here is because in this scenario I was the one trying to achieve a particular agenda.)

John complains about a problem in his life ==> There’s a curve in the road up ahead.
I give John some advice ==> I turn the steering wheel into the curve.
John doesn’t seem to appreciate my advice, and starts to get defensive ==> The car starts to skid.
I re-state my advice more forcefully ==> I turn even harder into the curve.
John gets resentful and leaves the conversation. FAIL. ==> The car spins out and skids into a snowbank. FAIL.

The “Get A Grip” Method

So, how to avoid skidding into a snowbank? First, as they advise drivers, it’s a lot easier to avoid a skid in the first place than to recover from one. Avoiding a skid with someone in the first place would involves a few things.

1. KNOW THE ROAD CONDITIONS: this is how much traction you have with the other person to begin with. How long have you known each other? Have you given each other advice on this subject before? Is the other person a guy or a girl? Guys tend to be a lot more defensive if another guy tries to give them advice without them explicitly asking for it.

2. INITIATE GRACEFULLY: instead of yanking the wheel hard to initiate the turn (“Hey John, I figured out what you should do with your life…”), start the turn gracefully. ASK. “Hey John, I’d like to offer you more than just help and support. Would now be a good time to talk about some ways to move forward?” It’s amazing what you can get away with in life if you just ask for permission first.

Despite your best intentions, you might still find yourself skidding in a conversation with someone you care about. If this happens:

1. DETECT that you are skidding as soon as possible. This should be very easy to do, in theory. All you have to do is become aware that the conversation isn’t going where you want it to and that one or both parties are starting to act upset. In practice, however, this is a lot harder to do. You’re so involved in the conversation itself and getting your point across that it may not occur to you to take a step back until it’s too late.

2. COUNTER-STEER to correct the skid. In driving terms, counter-steer is when you turn INTO the direction of a skid temporarily, in order to allow the tires to regain traction. Once the tires have traction again, you can get back to steering through the turn. Similarly, if your conversation is skidding, you need to temporarily turn towards the skid, away from the desired goal, even though that feels like the last thing you want to do. Going back to the John example, counter-steering could take the form of me saying something like, “Hey John, let’s take a step back for a minute. I can see that I’m coming across like I have all the answers and I’m trying to tell you what to do with you life. I’m sorry about that. Ultimately I only want the best for you.” This kind of language - spoken sincerely - can immediately transform an interaction. Sincerity is clutch here. People are generally good at recognizing when you speak from the heart, and if you are just going through the motions with these words you’ll only make the tailspin even worse.

3. PROCEED CAUTIOUSLY, and only once you have regained traction. It’s usually blatantly obvious when traction has been regained in a conversation. You feel a sense of closeness and empathy with the other person. The ice between you two, just like the ice on the road, will have melted away, and they will be much more receptive to your gently-worded advice.

There you have it - the “get a grip” method, in a nutshell. Incidentally, this method isn’t restricted to just giving advice but could be useful in a wide variety of interpersonal situations: negotiating for a raise, talking to a coworker about a performance problem, or confronting a loved one about a violated expectation. In a future post I’ll describe how to apply this method in some of these examples.

Curious Jordy Goes To Get PRK Laser Eye Surgery

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:03:00 -0800

(the pic is an Optomed photo of my left eye, before surgery)

Big news in Curious Jordy land, folks!

Your humble correspondent has just gone in for PRK Laser Eye Surgery so that you, my esteemed readers, get a chance to know what this procedure is all about.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ll admit, the main reason I went in to get PRK was to get my eyes fixed because I’m sick and tired of dealing with contacts and glasses all the time. But rest assured, the joy of sharing the experience with my legions of blog fans was not far behind on my list of motivators.

First, the facts…

What/Where/How/When

I went in for a type of laser eye surgery known as PRK (more on the difference between that and Lasik below). My eye doctor (Dr. Ratinoff, in Palo Alto) referred me to Dr. Furlong of Furlong Vision Correction based in San Jose.

I was near-sighted with a prescription of -3.5 and -4 in left and right eye, respectively.

Dr. Furlong came highly recommended - according to the latest U.S. News rankings, he is “miles ahead” of his competition. To be precise, Furlong is reportedly exactly 1/8 of a mile ahead of his competition. (Get it? Furlong… 220 yards… 1/8 of a mile. Ha! And if you think that joke was painful, try getting laser eye surgery! Haha!)

In all seriousness, though, I chose Dr. Furlong for my surgery because 1) he was recommended by my eye doctor, 2) his operation seemed well-run and professional, and 3) he seemed personable and I felt that I could trust him on a gut level. I made this gut level assessment in the few minutes we chatted pre-surgery. In the initial interview, I mentioned that I was considering other doctors and asked him there were any other surgeons he would recommend. If he had gotten defensive or angry, he would have lost credibility in my eyes (no pun intended, this time). But he graciously suggested another doctor at Stanford Hospital. +5 points for Dr. Furlong.

The surgery took place 5 days ago, on December 18. 18 is a lucky number in the Jewish tradition, so I thought I might as well schedule surgery for that day. (Yes, for those who are wondering, I am Jewish. Half-Jewish, technically. What, you couldn’t tell by my nose?)

Laser eye surgery isn’t cheap. At Dr. Furlong’s the cost for my PRK procedure was $5200, although I was able to get it reduced to $4600 because I got some kind of VSP plan deal through my optometrist. That’s definitely a chunk of change upfront. But if I think about paying hundreds of dollars every year or two for glasses and contacts, it makes a bit more financial sense.

PRK versus LASIK

There are two main kinds of laser eye surgery these days: PRK and LASIK. PRK stands for “Photo Refractive Keratectomy” and LASIK stands for “Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis.” I have no idea what those terms mean, either.

The basic difference as I understand it is that in LASIK, the surgeon will make a small incision in the cornea, creating a “corneal flap”, this flap will be pulled away and then the laser will go to town on the corneal tissue underneath. Whereas in PRK, no corneal flap is made - instead, the surgeon just scrapes away some cells from the top of the cornea and then the laser blasts away. LASIK heals faster than PRK and was my preferred option. The only catch is that because LASIK involves messing with the cornea, you need to have corneas that are thick enough such that there will still be enough left after surgery. Apparently my cornea thickness did not measure up, so I was strongly encouraged/forced to go the PRK route. More info here.

What it feels like to get PRK laser eye surgery

My friend Liz graciously volunteered to drive me to surgery and back. (Thanks, Liz!) She’s in med school, and her only condition for schlepping me down to San Jose and back was that she wanted to see the surgery. I checked with Dr. Furlong’s office and sure enough, they have a waiting room where friends and family can watch the surgery take place. They even have a big screen TV showing my eyeball in hi-def the whole time. Freaky!

On the day of surgery, I showed up, filled out the various forms signing my life away, and was offered to take a mild sedative, which I promptly accepted. Being offered a mind-altering substance in the name of science was just too good an opportunity for Curious Jordy to pass up. Then, I slowly munched on the chocolate which they had offered and waited. And waited. After waiting around for what felt like an hour (and actually probably was an hour), it was my turn to go under the excimer laser knife.

I walked in to the surgery room, waved to Liz, saw Dr. Furlong and two or three assistants, and then laid down on the surgery chair/bed chair. While Dr. Furlong was still friendly, I sensed a very brisk and clinical atmosphere in the room, like him and his assistants were working together as a highly practiced team. There was a hint of warmth when he addressed me and gave me instructions or information (“Now I’m putting in some eye drops”) but overall the attitude was all professional, all the time. Which actually suited me just fine. I’m all for the human touch and for joking around, but if you’re about to zap my eyes with frikkin laser beams, I can do with a little cold professionalism.

My memory as to the exact order of events is a little hazy, but basically what happened is the doctors put in a little device to force my eyes open. Then they subjected me to some kind of psychedelic light show, whose purpose was either to induce an acid flashback or to take some measurements. Then, they gave me a bunch of eye drops of various kinds. The main one being numbing drops, which were important because the next step involved the surgeon literally scraping off the top bits of my eyeball with a glorified spatula. This sounds like it would be a rather horrifying experience, but I actually didn’t feel a thing. I remember seeing him make brushing or scraping motions on my eye, but that’s it. At the time, I didn’t actually realize that’s what was happening, and that’s probably a good thing.

After scraping off the top of my eyeball, it was time for the main event. FRIKKIN LASER BEAMS, PEOPLE! I was pretty excited for this part of the surgery, to be honest. And it didn’t disappoint. I was instructed to keep my gaze focused on the red dot above me at all times. I’m not sure what would happen if I looked away, but I had a vision of my eyeball erupting in a giant laser fireball. So I did my best to stay focused.

Then the laser started doing its thing, and it felt like my eyeball was being pummeled by very tiny little punches or gusts of wind. Pockmarks. The doctor counted up “10… 20 seconds… 30 seconds…” As he counted, I noticed that I was getting less and less able to focus on the red dot above me. I’m not sure what was actually going on with that, but I had the impression that this was due to my eye being reshaped - my point of focus was literally changing in front of my eyes.

Then, the surgery for that eye was over. But, i wasn’t off the hook yet. They then had to wash out my eye with some kind of liquid, maybe just distilled water. The first pass was quite cold, and I could feel my body instinctively try to brace itself as this cold water splashed into my eye. Of course I couldn’t not close my eyelids because the clamp was still in place. Then, they put in some MORE water, and the second time it was even colder. It was cold enough to be a mild shock to my system. I took a couple deep breaths, which seemed to help. Apparently this cold water shock technique is useful for reducing swelling.

Afer that, they covered up the eye with an eye patch and tt was time to rinse and repeat the whole routine for my other eye.

10 minutes later, start to finish, I was done! They took off the bandages and I opened my eyes. I could see! Not perfectly, but already far better than I was able to see before without glasses. I walked out of the surgery room, excited to have survived the scariest part.

After surgery

An assistant gave me a goodie bag with eye drops and instructions. Basically, you get some antibiotic eye drops, some to reduce inflammation, and some all-important lubricating drops. The lubricating drops are critical because apparently the eye’s tear ducts are not working properly while the eye heals, so you need to keep a steady flow of lubrication coming in or the healing won’t happen as well.

It has now been 5 days since the surgery, and my eyes have been getting better slowly. My vision is still far from perfect, and it fluctuates. At times I see quite well, typically right after I put in some lubricating drops, but most of the time my distance vision is not so great still. Apparently this is normal for PRK surgery - it can take several weeks for vision to mostly stabilize, and up to two or three months for it to settle down completely.

The most frustrating part has been my inability to focus on a book or a computer screen until today. I’ve been reduced to sleeping, meditating, listening to audiobooks, and gossiping with friends. It’s been great, but I’m really looking forward to getting back in the swing of things.

I’m happy that today I’ve been able to use a computer again for the first time, although it is still somewhat difficult and my eyes are a little tired from this blog post. On that note, it’s time for me to put in some more of those lubricating eye drops. Stay tuned for a follow-up post when my eyes are rocking again.

What I Learned At The Psychotherapy Conference (Part 1)

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:44:00 -0800

Q: How many therapists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

——

This is the first in a series of posts where I describe some of my experiences, impressions, and takeaways from the Evolution of Psychotherapy conference.

Psychotherapy is a huge and diverse field
This was a MASSIVE conference. 5 days, dozens of speakers, over 150 lectures. I had a chance to hear many smart and passionate people, including Martin Seligman, Ernest Rossi, Marsha Linehan, Dan Siegel, Philip Zimbardo, Jean Houston, Don Meichenbaum, David Burns, and Albert Bandura. There were thousands of conference attendees: therapists, researchers, social workers, students, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and about 3 or 4 technologists like myself. :)

Is psychotherapy an art or a science?
It seems there are two major schools of thought in psychology and therapy:
- It’s a science: typically American perspective, focus on behavior, analytics, “Evidence-Based Practice”, e.g. cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
- It’s an art: more European/Eastern perspective, more experiential, e.g. psychoanalysis, hypnosis, energy work

To me, this question inevitably leads to others: do humans have a soul? What do we mean by a soul, anyway? Is there a god, or some kind of source of cosmic energy and unity? Is it possible to ask these kinds of questions without sounding like a hippie? Can science and the scientific method play a role in answering these questions?

I found it fascinating to attend a conference where these kinds of questions are raised in an academic setting. That being said, I was disappointed that there was only seminar (to my knowledge) explicitly bringing the two different sides together for a discussion. More debates between the scientists and the artists next time, please!

What I believe, based on my life experience so far, is that both sides contain truth. Focusing on behavior can lead to insights and breakthroughs; so can focusing on the unconscious or the concept of “soul”. Both perspectives are lenses through which you can see reality, and like any lens they can make certain things visible and obscure others. If you want to experience reality in all of its fullness, it helps to have different lenses at your disposal.

A year ago, I would have had a very different answer to this question - leaning much more heavily on the scientific side of things. I’m a programmer and a chess player, and I’ve always seen things in a very rational way. But over the last year, I’ve become convinced that being able to see things rationally, while certainly helpful, doesn’t let me see the whole picture. In particular, in the areas of negotiating and relationships, being rational and right just doesn’t get you very far. So I’ve made conscious efforts to develop or “work out” my emotional/unconscious/intuitive side. Several months into this work, I’ve noticed that at times I am able to understand certain things that used to be totally incomprehensible. (For example, women.) I realize I’m being vague here, and in a future post I’ll elaborate on the specific benefits I have felt from going through this “emotional boot camp”. For now, I’ll leave it by saying that I have become more open-minded in terms of what I feel are viable lenses with which to examine reality.

I love mixing it up
I once ordered a strawberry/vanilla/chocolate milkshake. What can I say? I am naturally drawn to hybrids, to people or examples that draw on different disciplines and bridge the gap: art and science, eastern and western psychologies, psychology and technology.

Some very brief examples, all of which merit posts of their own:

Marsha Linehan and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT)Emotional Awareness, a book by the Dalai Lama and Paul Ekman, one of the most well-respected psychologists specializing in emotions
BJ Fogg and the entire field of persuasive technology
Jean Houston and her theory of polyphrenia: how we all have different personas we can activate at various times to suit the situation. For example, I have various personas: chess player, mountain biker, programmer, cat lover, DJ. I could choose to channel my persona as a chess player in order to help me get through my writer’s block. In theory.

Albert Bandura really knows what he’s talking about
The great thing about going to a huge psychotherapy conference is that you realize that EVERYONE has their own theory for human behavior. There’s a lot of models out there, and it can be daunting. I’m curious how professionals in the field figure out which model to make their own. Maybe there’s a scientific way to do it. Or maybe certain models just FEEL right on a gut level.

That’s how I feel about Albert Bandura and his self-efficacy theory. It just makes sense. I was first introduced to Bandura by my mentor BJ Fogg, who recommended that I read his book “Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control.” It’s more of a tome than a book, really. 600 incredibly dense pages, all packed with insight.

At the core, Bandura’s theory advocates that the biggest predictor of someone’s ability to do something is none other than their BELIEF about their ability to do that thing. It’s not how good they actually are at it, how hard it is, or anything else. It’s their belief about their abilities. In Bandura-speak, it’s their “self-efficacy beliefs”.

For example, Bandura conducted a study where people were tested on their ability to handle pain. Two groups of people were given the same painful stimulus, the only difference was that one group was told, “According to our charts, we can tell that can handle pain 50% more easily than the average person” and the other group was told that they handled pain less easily than average. This judgment was completely made up - there were no differences between the two groups. However, when they did the pain test, the group that had been persuaded that they handled pain better in fact DID handle pain better!

At a gut level, this feels right to me. But the good news is, Bandura has done lots of research investigating how to turn this gut feeling into measurable science. Again, it’s hard to do justice to a massive theory in just a few sentences, but for now I will highlight two things in particular.

Guided mastery experiences
First, Bandura proposes that the way to improve one’s self-efficacy is what he calls “guided mastery experiences”. This makes sense intuitively. You can’t just get good at ping pong by reading books about it - at some point you actually have to pick up a paddle and play. The same applies to phobias. Bandura did some fascinating studies where was able to cure people of their extreme snake phobias in just three one-hour sessions. The trick is to have somebody MODEL the desired behavior. In this case, the phobic person can start out by seeing a video of a demonstrator successfully handling a snake. Then, she can be in the same room with the person. Then, she can try moving closer… then simply touching the snake once… then holding it… and so on.

Having a role model is essential because it helps the person change their self-efficacy beliefs. At the beginning, she has a very strong belief that she could never be in the same room with a snake, let alone hold a snake. But when she sees another person handling a snake, she can start to imagine herself doing the same thing. “I couldn’t even imagine doing that” turns into “I can imagine doing that”, which then turns into “I could give that a try myself.”

How to effect change on a societal level
At this conference, Bandura spoke about how he is using his concept of self-efficacy and guided mastery experiences in order to change not just a single person, but an entire society.

Along with a team, he created long-running serial dramas for television and radio which have been broadcast on a mass scale in Tanzania and India. In many parts of India, for example, the treatment of women and girls is a major issue. Girls don’t go to to school, are not encouraged to speak up or stand up for themselves. His approach was to design a television drama centered around a girl, Taru, who shows courage and achieves success dealing with the same real-life situations that Indian girls find themselves in on a daily basis. Taru becomes the role model for not just one but thousands of girls. The drama essentially broadcasts guided mastery experiences to an entire society using mass media. I think it’s truly inspiring stuff.

——-

That’s all for this first episode in my psychotherapy conference recap. As always, I’d love to hear what you think. So don’t be shy - leave a comment!

Some highlights from the Evolution of Psychotherapy conference

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:24:00 -0800

http://www.evolutionofpsychotherapy.com/

Check out more pics here.

Albert Bandura:

help people succeed despite themselves
most of our successes come from learning from mistakes
Motivation gurus teach you how to achieve success, but not how to manage failure, which is you get to success
Change at a societal level: we need to scale up interventions so we can reach vast numbers of people.
Using long-running serial dramas in India and Tanzania to change societal attitudes towards women - fantastic stuff

Martin Seligman

Straight out of Men Who Stare At Works… he is working with the US Army. “We will create an army that is just as psychologically fit as much as physically fit.”

Donald Weichenbaum:

“My concern for the field of psychotherapy is that there’s so much bullshit!”
“We need as a field to move past gurus.”
“If you want to improve your outcomes, you have to start keeping score!”
Joking about how cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) works: “CBT works by preventing depression in therapists.”

Ernest Rossi:

“Where are you on the sparkly scale right now? 7?”

Marsha Linehan:

“The most compassionate thing a psychotherapist can do is effectively assist a client in achieving his or her own treatment goals.”
“Compassion (i.e. suffering together and intense desire to help) is NOT sufficient… compassion is effectiveness.
“You have to be able to go in to the pool of despair with the client, without falling in also.”
“I don’t pay attention to any kind of therapy without data.”

David Burns:

“most therapists fail with empathy”
“I’m for tools, not schools… Therapy schools compete like religious cults.”
The power of being able to say “I’m a human being with defects.” versus “I’m a defective human being.”
“Failure to set the agenda is the most common reason why therapy fails.”
“Just because the patient is there, doesn’t mean they’re asking for help. Invite the patient to ask you for help.”
Paradox: sometimes in order to help the patient, you have to be willing to let go of your need to help the patient.
“Something profound in the therapist has to change, BEFORE something profound in the patient can change.”

What Is Best In Life? Hooters Edition

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:02:56 -0800

What Is Best In Life? Hooters Edition

The Secret To Being A Real Man

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:32:00 -0800

The Secret To Being A Real Man

5 Books That Changed My Life (Recently)

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:07:45 -0800

I’ve been reading a LOT over the last few months. Here are 5 of the most enjoyable and positively life-changing books I have come across. Enjoy!

1. Getting to Yes

A hugely influential and useful book for me. No joke, this has helped me improve ALL the relationships in my life.

“Like it or not, you are a negotiator… Standard negotiating strategies involve an attempted trade-off between getting what you want and getting along with people. The method of principled negotiation shows you how to obtain what you are entitled to and still be decent. It enables you to be fair while protecting you against those who would take advantage of your fairness.”

2. Don’t Shoot the Dog

A quick, fun, thought-provoking read that is also so useful it’s silly. Another one that has positively impacted my relationships. And who doesn’t want to know how to train pets?

“This book is about how to train anyone — human or animal, young or old, oneself or others — to do anything that can and should be done.”

3. The Importance of Living

The perfect antidote to the other “useful” books - this one teaches the noble art of being utterly useless. A perfect companion to a voyage of 7 days or 70 years. Also great to leaf through before going to sleep.

“I am such a materialist that at any time I would prefer pork to poetry, and would waive a piece of philosophy for a piece of filet, brown and crisp and garnished with good sauce.”

(thanks to Maria for introducing me to this life-changing book)

4. The Happiness Hypothesis

Synthesizes the best of ancient philosophy and modern science in order to answer some very interesting questions: What is happiness? How to find meaning? How are meditation, Prozac, and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy similar?

“By drawing on wisdom that is balanced — ancient and new, Eastern and Western, even liberal and conservative — we can choose directions in life that will lead to satisfaction, happiness, and a sense of meaning. We can’t simply select a destination and then walk there directly — the rider [rational, controlled self] does not have that much authority. But by drawing on humanity’s greatest ideas and best science, we can train the elephant [emotional, automatic self], know our possibilities as well as our limits, and live wisely.”

5. A Whole New Mind

A must-read for the programmer in your life. Presents a very compelling argument for exercising one’s emotional, intuitive right brain. And provides a wealth of resources to do so.

“Today we’re all in the art business.”

Vanessa, 23 years old, Paris: What is best in life?

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 06:41:00 -0700

Vanessa, 23 years old, Paris: What is best in life?

Three steps you can use to help anyone grow (yes, even yourself)

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:59:00 -0700

So there’s this general theory about life, and how it’s balanced…

There is balance everywhere. Yin, yang; life, death; man, woman; light; dark; blah, blah.
Everything has its opposite.

Let’s apply this to the concept of personal growth.

Everyone has some characteristic strength(s) and weakness(es).
In fact, in someone’s greatest strength, you will find the root of their greatest weakness.
Do you believe me? Not yet? Let’s investigate.

How about we use me as an example?

Why me? It’s not (just) that I’m egotistical — I’m available, and I can guarantee I’m not going to hurt my own feelings.
Specifically, let’s talk about this concept of being right - of having “the right answer.”
My friends know that I like being right, and most of the time I’m pretty good at it.
- This ability has carried me pretty far in life…
- especially in domains where there is a right and a wrong, and hence being right is beneficial.
- (for example: chess, programming)
There is a flip side to this, however (remember that balance thing?)…
…and that is, the fact that I like to be right also reflects the fact that I NEED to be right.
Which can definitely hold me back…
- especially in domains where there is no right and wrong, and hence being right is NOT beneficial.
- (for example: relationships, negotiating)
(You can substitute “being right” with “being in control” and the same truth applies to me. I like being in control, I’m good at it, and this serves me really well… until it becomes a *need* to be in control, and then it can hold me back.)

How all of this applies to personal growth.

(FYI: when I say “personal growth”, I basically mean “realizing one’s full potential” or something along those lines.)
Now: seeing our weaknesses on display (especially our greatest weakness) is scary.
I know, big surprise, right?
And yet, in order to progress, we MUST see our weakness as it is. We must know it in order to grow.
If you can’t even see your weakness, how can you possibly improve?
- It’s like a twelve-step program: the first step is to admit you have a problem.

Therefore, growth is painful.

That being said, there is such a thing as “good” pain versus “bad” pain.
- More precisely, this threshold separates “constructive” pain from “destructive” pain.
- For example, stretching: there’s a healthy pain sensation, that increases flexibility; and if you overdo it, there’s a destructive pain, and you’ll injure yourself.
- This pain threshold is very different for different people (Joan of Arc vs a toddler)
- It can also be different for the same person at different times (you when you’re stuck in traffic vs right after a massage)
- It can ALSO be different for the same person at the same time, in a different domain (dealing with a technology problem vs dealing with a people problem)
For any given person/moment/domain, there is an optimal rate of growth
- When this pain threshold is high, people can take a lot and enjoy growing quickly.
- When it’s low, it’s best to keep pain level moderate.
- It’s all good.
The best teachers know all this stuff cold.
- They know where their students are, and they give them what they need.

Everyone you know can teach you something.

Each of our relationships gives us opportunities to use our strengths, and opportunities to identify and learn from our weaknesses.
- (Actually, if you want to get nit-picky, every single thing in our life gives us these opportunities.)
You might say that the people you feel most COMFORTABLE with (usually, your friends) are the ones who give you the most opportunities to use your STRENGTHS.
And, the people we are most UNCOMFORTABLE with are typically the ones who show us our WEAKNESSES.
You could write these people off as assholes, but that’s not really the point
- The point, is, they have an ability to make us flip out.
- And in that sense, they are valuable!
- Because if you know what makes you flip out, you have a chance to fix it.
That’s why, if you want to grow, make sure to stay close with people who push you, not just those who make you feel comfortable.

Now that you’ve learned something, what next?

For people to grow, they need three things: KNOWLEDGE about where they need to make progress, BELIEF in their ability to be successful, and TOOLS to make it happen.
Scientific research (Bandura’s Self-Efficacy, 1997) consistently show simply exposing someone’s biggest weakness is not actually the most effective way to help them.
- Chances are they already KNOW what their weakness is, and they don’t need it to be rubbed in their face.
According to this research, it is far more effective is to give someone tools to grow, and increase their belief they can use these tools effectively.

IN SUMMARY: How To Help Anyone Grow

Give her KNOWLEDGE about her strengths and weaknesses. Be aware that her greatest strength may contain the seed of her greatest weakness, and her greatest weakness may contain the seed of her greatest growth opportunity.
Instill in her a strong BELIEF in her own ability to successfully tackle these growth opportunities…
…using specifically targeted TOOLS that you make available.

(The best part is, you can apply these exact same steps to yourself.)

Oh, for those that are curious - when I applied these steps to myself, I realized that I need to work on all that whole fuzzy emotional universe where trying to be right is not just useless but counterproductive. Negotiation and relationships were the first two areas I tackled, and while I still have a LONG way to go in each, I’m happy to report some initial progress. Getting to Yes and Crucial Conversations have both been invaluable to me, as have my friends and family for putting up with my stumblings.

Dedication

This post is dedicated to all the people who have given me opportunities to grow over the years. You know who you are. Thank you.

In particular, the themes in this post draw heavily on psychologist Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory, which was introduced to me by BJ Fogg.

————-

Can you help me grow - right now?

If you liked this post…

Could you share a link on Facebook or Twitter? (click the Share/Save button just below)
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(And even if you didn’t…)

Leave me a comment! I promise I won’t be offended.
What do you want to hear more about on this blog? Less about?
How’s the format? I’m playing around with a bunch of things right now…

How to win friends and influence people (by copying your cat)

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:07:00 -0700

Intro: why I love pets

I was playing with a friend’s cats this weekend when I figured out why I love pets.

I love pets because they want my love. They *need* my love.

Giving my cat Josephine things that *she* needs (food, water, cuddling) makes *me* feel good. Essentially, I have a certain need, personally, which is the need to feel needed, to love something which appreciates my love, and that’s why I got Josephine in the first place. I’ve put in considerable time, energy, and money setting up a situation where I am needed by this cat, just so I can take of her and scratch my own itch.

We think our pets need us… but in a certain sense, because they’re so good at scratching that itch of ours, we need them more.

Pets are way better at reinforcement than (most) humans

One thing that I’ve noticed over the years is that there seem to be a lot of people who have a hard time showing affection to their loved ones: family, friends, and (to a lesser extent) lovers.

And yet these same people have no problem showing affection to their pets. Why is this?

My theory is simple: people love showing affection to their pets because their pets make it easy and enjoyable for them to do so.

Pets are really good at expressing gratitude and happiness (purring, tail wagging). When I do Behavior X (pet the cat) and something good happens (cat starts purring), I am motivated to keep doing Behavior X. Borrowing some terms from BJ Fogg’s behavior model, the “pet the cat” behavior happens because three things are present simultaneously:

I have the ability to pet the cat (my hands are free)
I have the motivation to pet the cat (she’s cute, I get rewarded when she starts to purr)
I’m triggered to pet the cat (she rubs against my leg and meows)

You might say that pets are very good at training humans to satisfy their needs using this behavior model. They can’t affect our ability much, but they can certainly motivate and trigger us to do desired behavior.

In contrast, we humans on the whole have a really hard time using reinforcement in productive ways.

When someone gives us a compliment, more often than not, we dismiss it or we get embarrassed. Or in a classic example, a mother will complain “We never see you!” when her child comes home to visit. The desired behavior was punished (complaining), instead of being positively reinforced (“It’s so good to see you! Here, I cooked you your favorite meal.”) And they wonder why their child never comes to visit!

We must realize that we are ALWAYS giving people feedback about their actions towards us, whether we mean to or not. And, even if they’re not consciously aware of it, the way people behave towards us in the future is strongly influenced by this feedback.

The good news is, you CAN increase the amount of love/affection/good vibes in your life by setting up the right feedback loops and reinforcing the right behaviors.

For example, the next time somebody gives you a genuine compliment, try genuinely thanking them. It can be very hard to do, in our society of false modesty, but it really is worth it, and it does get easier the more you practice.

Thanking someone for a compliment is an example of expressing gratitude, which is one of the simplest and most powerful reinforcement techniques. (Think of my cat, and how effective she is training me by expressing gratitude by purring.)

Your turn

Are there things you could do to make it easier or more enjoyable for people to love you, to show affection to you? Have you tried expressing gratitude, showing appreciation, or using other techniques? Please leave me a comment, I’d love to hear about it.

—————-

Want to further explore the concepts in this post? I recommend:

BJ Fogg’s behavior model: http://www.behaviormodel.org
Wikipedia article on reinforcement
Don’t Shoot the Dog by Karen Pryor

"The concern with reality - with “how I really am” and “who I really am” -..."

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:06:00 -0700

“

The concern with reality - with “how I really am” and “who I really am” - begins with the emergence of the introspective self in adolescence. In the first decades of adulthood, most of us find out who we are by learning what we can do, what roles we can play at work and in relationship. But as the identity project matures, a new set of concerns about authenticity begins to emerge, concerns about the self as being rather than doing, concerns about the intrinsic worth, meaning, beauty, and value of the self. The emergence of these concerns signals the capacity for a new kind of relationship with reality.

Thus the identity project finally gives way to a completely new organizing principle of the self, a developmental event that I calll the reality project. As the reality project emerges, we being to relinquish our attempts to make life the way we think it should be, and we turn our attention instead to a minute and thorough inspection of the way life really is.

At the heart of the shift to to the reality project is the eagerness to investigate exactly how things are right now. The preoccupying question is no longer, “What is wrong with this moment?” or “How do I change this reality so that it conforms to my ideals?” but, rather, “What is the nature of this moment - precisely? How can I examine it more deeply?” …

With the emergence of the reality project, the “why” questions begin to become less important, like “Why is this moment the way it is?” Why questions take us into abstractions or concepts. They retrigger the delusions of the false self. With the reality project, the “what” questions become more compelling. “What is the texture, the feel, the feel, the experience of this moment?” As Rajneesh pointed out, “One is interested only in that which *is*, because only the Real can free you, only Reality can become liberation.” This is the developmental need that makes yogic practice and philosophy useful.

”

- Stephen Cope, Yoga and the Quest for the True Self.

How To Be A Failure In this video I will teach you a proven...

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:44:00 -0700

How To Be A Failure

In this video I will teach you a proven technique that I personally guarantee will enable you to be a failure.

My credentials in the field of failure speak for themselves. I was a child chess whiz who literally lost THOUSANDS of games of chess before I hit ten years of age. In fact, as a child my mother used to joke around and say that I was the world’s youngest failure. (Very funny, Mom.)

More recently, the startup I was working for got acquired, and I immediately went into a deep depression. FAIL.

If you want to learn how to be a failure, you’ve come to the right place.

Recap from tonight's Mobile Monday on monetization

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:43:00 -0700

I attended tonight’s Mobile Monday at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco. It was totally packed and a seriously classy affair this time around. (Not to say that it’s not always classy, but this time the sponsors Quattro and GetJar chipped in for an open bar. ) Huge props to the organizer Kate for hosting such a smoothly-run event! It was great seeing MoMo founder Mike Rowehl and the rest of the mobile contingent.

I posted a short video clip of the panel here.

A lot of discussion about iPhone and other client platforms. When I asked the panelists what their thoughts were on SMS, seeing as it’s, you know, the biggest thing in mobile, and Ali Diab from AdMob said “SMS is like the fax… it’ll be dead in 5 years!”. That got quite a reaction from the audience members (90% of whom raised their hand to indicate they had an iPhone). I think SMS as a platform will die out eventually, but to quote my buddy Mark Slee (PM and original mobile guy at Facebook):

“The UI and the underlying technology might change — we might even stop referring to it as SMS — but will people continue sending and receiving short, asynchronous communications on mobile devices? Uh, yeah.”

Exactly.

I’m pasting my raw notes from the event below, hopefully they’ll be of value to anyone who was unable to attend.

Mobile Monetization

Panelists

Lars Albright - Quattro

Patrick Mork - GetJar

David Katz - Yahoo! Mobile

Ali Diab - AdMob

Andrew Lacy - Tapulous

Who’s making money and how?

Andrew

Production values going up —> plays to strengths of bigger developers
iPhone ad market embryonic
Freemium model most successful on iPhone
Conversion from free to premium higher than web world (up to 10%, vs 3% web)

Patrick

All GetJar apps are free
Demo conversions as high as 10%
Highest conversion ever from preloaded apps: 15-25%
Emergence of virtual currency
Flirtomatic
Allow customers to send virtual ice cubes to friends for 20p on a hot London day
Free to customer is the way to go, but that doesn’t mean nobody is getting paid

David

Nascent iPhone market: what are models that get weeded out as platform matures?
If people won’t pay for it on the web, need to convince them to pay for it on mobile

Patrick

iPhone developers need to go cross-platform to go big - necessary for viral marketing
Need to widen the market

Ali

New mobile-specific brands are being created (Tapulous, Urbanspoon) that may start to supplant web brands

David

Average web consumer, no matter how many sites they visit, come back to a small number of sites month after month

Why not start with iPhone? How to prioritize platforms?

40M iPhones
and, iPhone users are 10x as active

Andrew

“iPhone” is two platforms (iPhone + iPod touch) and two customer bases
They are profitable, there are several profitable companies
Other companies that have played in “old school” mobile say iPhone platform is phenomenal
Ability to monetize through advertising should double
Apple reducing friction to allow in-app sales, virtual goods
iPhone won’t necessarily win, but 2-3 platforms will win out over next three years
“Easier to acquire 1M users on iPhone than 100k on other platforms”

David

Yahoo is as platform-agnostic as possible, be where users are
iPhone and Blackberry have huge penetration, so they think a lot about it
What type of developer are you? The richer the app, the more you have to decide.

If you were going to fund someone, ask them to build apps for brands or build their own?

Lars

Both are challenging

Andrew

Mobile studios would now rather do integrated campaigns inside existing apps than build their own apps
To sell tickets, go where the eyeballs are

Volume or targeting?

Ali

Just like web: both

Andrew

These are ads served inside native apps
Cost to developer is higher than in web
Mobile requires more trust and track record - not as easy to switch out ad networks as on web
Something needs to change - more ad networks, more SDKs, taking up more space than your app

Lars

Trying to get more efficient

Patrick

Don’t lock yourself into one revenue stream

How to decide how much to charge?

Andrew

Experience (trial and error)
Surveys

David

Easy decision to be free, because loyalty to web product has huge value

Freemium vs ads. Any other opportunities?

Andrew

1000s of apps, avg app suffers 50% churn —> can’t calculate ARPU
Gotta keep users coming back - fresh content
Putting out app is 10% of effort - 90% is delighting people on daily basis

How to promote apps given saturated markets?

David

Distribution of traffic will change: some apps getting ton of traffic and then long tail (see web)
Ad networks will play huge role selling distribution through advertising

Patrick

200k apps out now across all mobile platforms
Better search, CRM needed
Lifecycle of individual apps shortening
Avg lifecycle on GetJar = 3-4 weeks

Ali

Recommend blowing ad budget (say $5k) upfront quickly in hopes of getting some momentum early

Why not SMS?
Ali

SMS will be gone in 5 years!
Boo…

Is life a zero-sum game?

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:38:00 -0700

I was thinking about the concept of predictability yesterday. Sometimes it is beneficial to be predictable, sometimes not.

First, here’s how I’m defining predictability.

Being predictable means:

planning to do something
communicating what you plan to do honestly, clearly and with plenty of notice
doing it

Being unpredictable means:

planning to do something (or not)
not communicating what you plan to do honestly, clearly, or with plenty of notice
doing it (or not)

I came to the conclusion that for a given activity X, being predictable is beneficial if X is a zero-sum activity. That is to say, if I am involved in activity X with another person (or multiple people) B, and I win, then B must lose.

Here are some examples that I believe are or should be zero-sum:

Chess
Poker
Business
War
Settlers of Catan, Monopoly, etc.
Matters of the head

Here are some examples that I think are or should be non-zero-sum:

Friendships
Romantic relationships
Negotiation
War
Matters of the heart

The pattern seems to hold for these examples, i.e.:

in chess, poker, and business where only one side can win, it is advantageous to obfuscate, to trick, to surprise
in friendships, relationships, and negotiation where both sides can win, it is advantageous to be clear and consistent

You’ll notice that war is in both categories. This is deliberate, as I think that war (as outlined by Sun Tzu’s The Art of War) contains both elements. War seems to be zero-sum in that one side must win and one side must lose, but there is the concept of “taking whole” which is seeing the greater reality that everything is interconnected, and winning a greater victory that both sides can share. This is the same spirit as negotiation. There’s essentially two phases to war, then. The first phase involves winning the zero-sum part, using trickery/unpredictability/surprise, and the second phase involving taking whole, reconciliation, and a win that is shared by all parties.

In conclusion, how you view a certain activity can dictate how predictable you should try to be. For example, if you view dating as a zero-sum game (you versus all the single guys or gals) out there, then you should be hard to read, unpredictable, show up fashionably late or not at all, and keep them guessing. And vice versa.

What kind of game are you playing with life? Does winning at life require others (friends, organizations, the planet) to lose? Or are you looking for the greater win and “taking whole”? Does the way you live reflect how you view the game of life?

My notes on Steve Blank's "Customer Development Fireside Chat" with Ravi Belani

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:51:00 -0700

Steve Blank posted a link to a great video recently, where he outlines his customer development principles to entrepreneurs at Draper Fisher Jurvetson. For those who haven’t yet heard of Steve, he’s the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, which has been recommended by people I trust as a must-buy book for anyone starting a company. I bought a copy, and now I’m going to read it. :)

The video was produced and originally blogged by Ravi Belani of DFJ, whom I had the pleasure of meeting myself at the fbRev Lean Startups event a few weeks ago. Small world here, in the valley!

I was furiously scribbling down notes while watching the video, and thought I might as well post them on the internets for all to see.

Disclaimer: these are completely raw and unedited notes, so no guarantees that it all makes perfect sense. If you’re at all confused (and even if you’re not), I highly recommend taking a few minutes to watch at least part of the video. You won’t be bored - Steve is quite an engaging speaker.

*** My Notes ***

Every entrepreneur should at least read the Cliffs Notes version of Crossing the Chasm.

Biggest flaw for an entrepreneur: everything you have in your head is a hypothesis.

Unless you are a domain expert, there is very little fact in your plan on day one.Your plan is nothing more than a set of untested guesses.

You’re not building the product for you, but for your customers.
You have set of hypotheses about what problem you’re solving, for a set of people who are typically not part of your founding team.
None of these things are answerable inside the building. Get out of the building!

Listen to customers from day one.

Don’t ignore customer feedback while working on vision!!

If someone comes up and tells you “your product sucks”, you respond “you just don’t get it”.

Customer development can’t be done by anyone other than the founder. When you hear it directly, you can’t dismiss it.

==> How to strike balance between internal vision/conviction and market reality: Need to be a domain expert. Founder of company MUST become the customer.

Draw me 3 pictures, updated at every board meeting:

draw me the business model
draw me the distribution model
draw me the demand creation model

Companies don’t go out of business scaling too late. They go out scaling too early.
If your company is lucky enough to go viral like Facebook, Skype, etc. throw away copy of customer development book.

Customer development is a risk reduction process while you’re finding that hockey stick

Three types of startup

Technology risk: i.e. biotech startup
Customer risk: i.e. most web 2.0 companies, tech risk is relatively low. Majority of risk is customer and market adoption.
Technology + Customer risk: i.e. new tele-communications architecture

Sit down with board and lay out key hypotheses that need to be answered regarding Discovery + Validation.

What kind of market are you attacking?

Existing market, create better product: Palm in 1995 vs Handspring in 2000 “get 10% of the smartphone market”
Existing market, niche product (re-segmented market)
New market: you need to create the market

If you have to spend 20 minutes describing the market, you’re in a new market!

You could be in the flat part of the hockey stick that might stay flat for the entire duration of your company.

Proper definition of “Launch” = get out of the building, not do massive PR

35:00 Cuil launch: classic example of “Silicon Valley launch”

Founders were so convinced that they had nailed the market, and the product was so far from that. Vision was great but initial product couldn’t satisfy that vision.

Do you eat to live, or live to eat?

Fri, 08 May 2009 15:31:55 -0700

Hey, you: do you eat to live, or live to eat?

Seems obvious. Almost insulting. *Of course* you eat to live. Right?

Now imagine this exchange with a high school student who is working hard to get into a good college.

- Why are you working hard?

- To go to college.

- Why go to college?

- To get a job.

- Why get a job?

- To get money.

- Why get money?

- To get food.

- Why get food?

- To be alive!

- Why be alive?

- …

I think a lot of people get caught up in the game of life, doing all kinds of things, without ever thinking about why they want to be alive. I know I do.

You say you eat to live. So what do you live to do?

Once you have an answer to that, you can let it guide your actions. You can feel fulfilled about getting that job, making that money, doing whatever it is you need to do. You can play the game.

******

This post was inspired by a podcast series I listened to this morning at the gym, called 48 Ways to Wisdom by Rabbi Noah Weinberg. Nothing like hitting the gym with a good self-help podcast to give your biceps and your soul a solid workout at the same time. :)