Strive

Absorb what is useful, discard what is not, add what is essentially your own...

[jgoodrich-blog]

VSDS3

1. Six signed up, ten presented. We went over time. 2. Registration rarely equals attendance, on average only 30% bother showing up. 3. I was so excited about figuring out attendance and all the rich data that came with that I forgot to use a spreadsheet.

[jgoodrich-blog]

VSDS2

1. The transition from morning to afternoon took longer than time permitted. I followed it with a cross campus trip for coffee. 2. 66 chapters later and the world was dark. 6 trains passed before it was 84 and I had to go outside.

[jgoodrich-blog]

VSDS1

Long conversations about new things breed longer conversations about the same old things. 

[jgoodrich-blog]

Very Short Daily Stories (VSDS) - An Exercise in Production

I think story telling is pretty important. People who are able to craft compelling narratives about themselves and the the work they do often have a substantial advantage over those who can't.

One night I asked a couple friends how I might go about learning how to craft better stories. They suggested I just write more stories. One of the friends lives far away and suggested that I provide the narrative of my daily life through a very short story every day. I texted him the first couple, but they were too long  and I'm rather averse to typing on a phone. He told me to cut them down to a sentence or two, like a caption to my day. I fell off the wagon for a bit after going home for the holidays, but I still think story telling is supremely important and here is my second attempt. 

Everyday on this blog I will publish at least one VSDS like these:

1. Had a weekend to figure out how sick to be. Monday was a sick day too. 2. One can hike up all the way up a mountain and down into canyons, but only if one has a delicious lunch in between. 

That's it. A short and sweet, blurry look into my days. It's an exercise in production. Meaning that it's always in progress and it's about just doing it. 

[jgoodrich-blog]

An affinity for ambulation

I love long walks that have no destination and no time limit. As enjoyable alone as when accompanied by conversation, these lengthy strolls tend to invigorate and loosen the mind. However, not all walks are like this, walking somewhere or to something is quite different than meandering serendipitously to a previously unknown location. During the latter, one tends to think only of the destination and the impending. For better or worse, these are the types of walks generally taken. I prefer those rare occasions when going on a walk is much more discovery than transportation, especially when that walk is somewhere i've been before.

Walks of this kind with of others I liken meals with others. In both cases there is a captive audience, some sort of activity both people are undertaking simultaneously and a likely breeding ground for conversation. However, walks are dynamic, they provide an ever changing context which helps evolve conversation. Meals do not, they are static and limited in the way they can help stimulate new ideas. It's probably for this reason that I enjoy walks so much, they actively help me think, especially when I don't have to worry about where I'm going.

[jgoodrich-blog]

Recharging

As a child I used to pick blackberries with my cousins. We would amble along the various paths leading away from my Grandparents' country house a couple wicker baskets in tow. We would be gone for hours diligently foraging among the briars until we had filled our baskets to brim or had pricked ourselves one too many times.

It had been a long time since I had the opportunity to see even see blackberry bush. Yet, on this incredibly mild Chicago summer day I found myself fondly reliving this warm childhood memory not an hour outside of the city. It was a rare opportunity and one that I sorely needed. However, it dawned on me that this opportunity need not be so rare; that I should make a concerted effort to cultivate experiences outside of the rhythm of daily life, not only those that resonate in memory, but new ones that provide fresh perspectives. 

In my eyes, it's these offbeat experiences that give life a pleasurable cadence. they allow us to admire anew, to freshly gaze and thoughtfully reflect. So much of life is counter intuitive, we often forget that sometimes we just need to do something out of the ordinary to regain our sense of what ordinary is, better yet, what we want it to be. 

[jgoodrich-blog]

Peaks & Valleys

When you stand on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon you cannot see Colorado river below. Similarly, when you reach the river it is impossible to see the top of the towering canyon walls. Like most things in life, motivation and mood are waveform. We all have our listless, miserable days and our energetic productive ones. When life drains and beats us down there seems to be no end in sight and when things are going well we cannot fathom a cloudy day. 

To hike down to the river from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon takes about 6 hours. to hike back up: 12. It takes no effort to fall and every ounce of strength to get back up. The fundamental difference between the Grand Canyon and the Peaks and Valleys of life are that if you stay at the bottom of the Grand Canyon for long enough you will die of starvation, thirst, scorpion or snake. On the other hand, if you somehow tolerate drifting through life like a woebegone turd, you could easily go on living that way. Somehow though, that seems much worse than death.

Some bad days are unavoidable; Life is filled with uncertainty and often times we just don't have enough left in the tank to handle it, but the majority aren't. The majority of our bad days our self-fabricated, self-inflicted bullshit that we can overcome with a bit of effort. The sad truth is many of us would rather have that crappy day than put in the effort not to. To borrow from Paul Graham's  How to Do What You Love,

"Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you're practically there."

The same can be said about being content in general. If you know that you want to be content, and you know the things that make you content all that's left is the effort that goes into using that knowledge to actually doing the things that make you content. Here are some things that have helped me make peaks more abundant and the valleys less noticeable.

1. Build a Circle

Friends and family are the people that matter. We can't choose family, but we can definitely surround ourselves with friends who consistently challenge and motivate us. I look for people who are just as eager to share with me as I am with them. 

2. Interest & Awareness

I pursue my interests unabashedly and share them with anyone who will listen. I cultivate new interests and live my life as a keen observer, intrepid explorer and fastidious scientist. I always try to keep an open mind with an inquisitive and critical lens. 

3. Effort

While it doesn't always happen, I try to put my best effort into everything I do even if you don't necessarily enjoy it. I've realized that whenever I'm able to to do this i'm never discontented because I was lazy. Moreover, whenever I put my best effort into something I'm cultivating a habit of doing things to the best of my ability and I'm hopeful that will pay off in the long run. 

4. Make Motivation Easier

I continually listen, read and watch things that align with my interests and inspire me. I created a youtube playlist of interesting and inspiring videos and watch at least one daily. I make procrastination productive by reading blogs and books that excite me. I always try be aware and surrounded by the things that make me happy. 

5. Embrace Uncertainty

It helps to roll with the punches and not try to control every outcome because we can't control every outcome. Rather I try to be content with the little curveballs that life throws me and have learned to view deviations from my expectations as opportunities rather than hindrances. I try to enjoy the present and not worry so much about the future. 

 ___________________________________________________________

I don't subscribe to any universal, prescriptive methodologies. Everyone is different and thus different things work for different people. The things I've laid out above are how, in my estimation, I've been able to turn my life around. Try them, or don't. If you have questions email me at [email protected]

[jgoodrich-blog]

My Human Portfolio: The things I'm interested in and motivated to pursue

Fitness - Understanding the body and its potential for growth (Mental & Physical). Building up a sweat seems to be a catalyst for a good day, I've always wondered why that is.

 Online X Tangible - Tangible products interacting in a very real way with the online world. Think QS

Healthy, Tasty & Easy - How to eat healthy, make it taste good and, easy to prepare. I guess we are saving money too

Writing - This falls under my fascination with communication in general. how does one best deliver ideas in written form. Practice?

Making Things - As a kid I was constantly inventing. I miss that. Protolab bedroom?

Being There - A lot of times people characterize me as being in my own little world. I'm interested in learning how to enjoy the present more. This also means learning how to waste less time. 

Optimism & Positivity - One of the most powerful images that persists in my head is this: http://zenpencils.com/comic/44-buddha-pay-it-forward/. The power of internal on the external, the contagiousness of a smile. it's all very fascinating.

The Spoken Word - Organizing one's thoughts and being proficient at expressing oneself in the the most common way is an important skill I am interested in honing further and learning more about. 

[jgoodrich-blog]

Daily Measures of Success

There are 5 things that I do every day. 

1) Exercise

2) Meditate

3) Create Something New

4) Eat 3 Meals A Day

5) Take a Cold Shower

If I do these 4 things I have an awesome day, period. However, I had to build up to them. When I first came up with this idea, I tried to implement them all at once. I was successful for about a week before lapsing into my old routine. 

Research shows that incremental changes (baby steps) are what create lasting change, but what's surprising is just how small these increments should be. The following is how I defined success early on. 

1) Put Running Shoes On & Walk Outside.

2) Close eyes and sit still for 5 minutes directly after Waking up

3) write, draw, cook, sculpt, or invent one thing every day. (not related to work)

4) Have a morning shake 

5) Take a moderately cold shower

In some cases even smaller increments might be necessary. I'm never afraid to scale back. Regardless, it's important to stay consistent and remember change only occurs after transition and transition is a slow process. Patience is definitely required.

[jgoodrich-blog]

Why?

Recently I've had difficulty articulating my "why". I started out with something close to "a way to help people simplify the way they realize their own potential", which admittedly, is cumbersome and nebulous. so I set out to articulate this in a more meaningful and clearer phrase. I know that my "why" is motivated 3 insights I've accumulated. 

1) Everyone has a strength and everyone has something to share.

My "why" needs to reflect the universality of human potential. 

2) Lasting positive growth comes from discipline and organization.

My "why" needs to reflect the fact that most successful people have found a routine/personal ritual that works for them.

3) What matter's is not what you do, but who you are

My "why" must reflect the fact that who we decide to be is ultimately what matters. 

  Based on this I thinks my why is something like:

a way to help people choose what's best for their own lives.

a way to help people exercise allegiance to their ideals in everyday life.

[jgoodrich-blog]

The Dollar Auction

When designing for behavior change it is imperative to understand the multitude of cognitive biases that effect our decision making and judgement. The following example illustrates just how deeply cognitive biases can effect us:

How much would you pay for $20? given the right circumstances it could be $100 or even more. If you up the stakes to a $100 dollar bill the final bid could be 80x times greater than the $100 being auctioned. 

Try this:

1) Get a group of at least 5 people together to auction off $20

2) Have them commit to actually using real money for the exercise.

3) Read them the rules:      

- Bids start at $1

- Bids must be in increments of $1

- The second highest bidder must honor his bid amount without getting anything in return 

4) Observe what happens

When the bidding get's down to 2 people. The participants quickly realize that they must keep upping the ante so as not to incur a loss. This bidding war reaches preposterous levels until someone is finally willing to incur a now, huge loss.

This is objectively irrational behavior, yet the dollar auction has been conducted countless times by Max Bazerman at Harvard and many others with the same result. The results have been duplicated across demographics with students and executives alike falling prey to this simple exercise. 

The dollar auction clearly illustrates the bias of irrational escalation. However, we are equally susceptible to a whole host of cognitive biases that have similar if not greater impact on our daily dealings. Of particular interest me, are cognitive biases that effect our ability to successfully create and execute our goals. 

[jgoodrich-blog]

We all end in the ocean We all start in the streams We're all carried along By the river of dreams

Billy Joel

[jgoodrich-blog]

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent... Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb... Education will not; the world is full of educational derelicts... PERSISTENCE & DETERMINATION alone are omnipotent.

Calvin Coolidge

[jgoodrich-blog]

The Golden Decade

HARDWIRING THE BRAIN FOR FUTURE SUCCESS

Some crazy cognitive phenomenon occurs as we mature. When we are born our brain has over 100 billion neurons. The typical adult has about half that number. What happened? At birth, our brain is trying to figure out how best to function. As we get older, it gets better at this through a process called synaptic pruning. First, the brain creates an abundance of neurons, more than it will ever need, and arranges it into neural networks. Then, our brain prunes neural connections called synapses, much like an arborist pruning dead leaves from a tree . The result is a hard-wired and more efficient brain. Typically, this process is brought up in discussions of early childhood development with its impact on the "critical period", a time thought to be optimal for language acquisition. For good reason, data shows that our brains are 95% developed by the time we are 6 years old.  However, recent research has shown that a second round of synaptic pruning occurs during adolescence and plays an important role as late as a person's mid 20's

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/15/health/20080915-brain-development.html

During adolescence, we experience massive growth of our limbic system, which Seth Godin affectionately referred to as the "lizard brain". The limbic system is the oldest part of our brain and is shown to be present in many other vertebrates. It is responsible for our primal impulses and growth in this region during adolescence helps explain some of the rebellious behavior exhibited in the teenage years. We are more passionate, more fearless and more curious about the world. While  these tendencies lead to the questionable decisions that characterize the typical teenager, there are evolutionary advantages to gaining independence from ones parents and harnessing the energies of youth. As Cornell neuroscientist B.J. Casey puts it, the nature of the adolescent brain is, "exactly what you'd need to do, to do the things you have to do then."  However, at some point these impulses must be kept in check or we will never stabilize. 

The prefrontal cortex acts as the regulator of our passionate impulses. Without the prefrontal cortex we are prone to the risky behavior that typically tapers off following its development. The early 20s are when the synaptic pruning of this cortex typically occurs. As opposed to earlier pruning that focused on skills like motor control and language acquisition, synaptic pruning in the early 20's deals with decision making, reasoning, and planning. It is for this reason that the 20's are the Golden Decade.

The 20's provide an incredible opportunity to consciously alter one's own neurobiology. As Meg Jay, author of The Defining Decade explains, "The frontal lobe connections we use are preserved and quickened; those we don't use just waste away through pruning. We become what we hear and see and do everyday. We don't become what we don't hear and see and do every day." The experiences, relationships, and information we expose ourselves to during the 20s determines the course of the  pruning that occurs during this period of life. Therefore, we must be intentional, we must be judicious and we must have foresight to focus on the experiences, relationships, and information that will harness the skills needed to give our future selves the best chance at success. 

The time is now! Synaptic pruning makes the brain more efficient, but what we gain in speed, we lose in flexibility. As our brain becomes hardwired based on things we expose ourselves to during our 20s it becomes increasingly difficult to change. By thirty we are essentially frozen in our own way of doing things and will remain that way for the rest of our lives. That is not to say we can't change certain things about ourselves, but it is exponentially more difficult than if we had made the right decisions in our 20s; so don't waste the golden decade of life. 

  At age 20: Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and cofounded Microsoft, and Sir Isaac Newton began developing a new branch of mathematics.

At age 20: Plato became a disciple of Socrates, This relationship paved the way for Plato to develop new ways of thinking that would eventually become cornerstones of Western thought.

At age 21: Jack London set sail for the Klondike with the first rush of gold-seekers. His adventure in the North would create the fodder for many of his most popular articles and books.

At age 21: Thomas Alva Edison created his first invention, an electric vote recorder, Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Inc., and Alfred Tennyson published his first poetry.

At age 22: Inventor Samuel Colt patented the Colt six-shooter revolver, and Cyrus Hall McCormick invented the McCormick reaper, which allowed one man to do the work of five

At age 23: T. S. Eliot wrote “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” John Keats penned “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” and Truman Capote published his first novel,Other Voices, Other Rooms.

At age 24: Johannes Kepler defended the Copernican theory and described the structure of the solar system.

At age 25: Future mythologist Joseph Campbell rented a shack in Woodstock, NY and engaged in rigorous and intensive independent study, reading the classics for nine hours a day, for five years straight.

At age 25: Orson Welles conscripted, directed, and starred inCitizen Kane, Charles Lindbergh became the first person to fly alone across the Atlantic, New York farmhand Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, John Wesley began planting the seeds for Methodism at Oxford, and Alexander the Great became the King of Persia.

At age 26: “Johnny Appleseed” brought apple seeds to the Ohio Valley. Yes, he was literally planting seeds in his twenties.

At age 26: Albert Einstein published five major research papers in a German physics journal, fundamentally changing man’s view of the universe and leading to such inventions as television and the atomic bomb, Benjamin Franklin published the first edition ofPoor Richard’s Almanac, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, and Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Italy.

At age 27: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. quit his job at General Electric to become a full-time writer and Henry David Thoreau went off for two years to live alone in a cabin at Walden Pond.

Thanks to ArtofManliness.com for the inspiration and list of accomplishments by famous 20somethings.

[jgoodrich-blog]

Personal Trailer

A while ago I was told about something called a personal "trailer". It's crafted to respond to the question "what do you do?" For me, it's more of a "what I want to do" or "what I'm actively working towards". So what's my personal trailer? -- Helping people simplify the way they live a passionate and purposeful life. Ideally, this response elicits one of two things: another question like, "What does that mean?" or  a look  of complete befuddlement. Both are nice. The follow up question, means that someone has actually taken somewhat of an interest me and I can talk more to them about the thing I love. the puzzled look or eye-roll is equally nice as it tells me this person has absolutely no interest in me and I should probably quit talking to them as it's likely not going anywhere. 

The other benefit the personal trailer provides is focus. Summing up what your aspirations are in a single sentence is extremely useful in informing the next step or choice you want to make. Does it align with your trailer? No. Don't do it or perhaps it's time to adjust your trailer.

Tell everyone you can your trailer as it will inevitably lead to conversations about the thing you love, let you know the people who you shouldn't surround yourself with and at the very least repetition will cause you to practice it until it's perfect.

[jgoodrich-blog]

On Potential.

There are 2 basic tenants that one must adhere to, in order to live a passionate and purposeful life.

1) You are doing what you love

2) You are sharing as much as you can with as many people as you can

Doing what you love almost goes without saying, it is the American way. We are all told from a very young age that we have limitless potential, but for whatever reason that dream talk subsides after we become more engrossed in the minutiae of everyday life and responsibilities and perceived necessities take priority. 

Sharing as much as you can, takes a little more thought. For me, the fufillment comes from social interaction. Solitude can indeed be blissful, but it's only fufilling after sharing your experience.

[jgoodrich-blog]

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Albert Einstein