#stevepressfield

[zonoshometsu]

[believehalfofwhatusee]

Book: Gates of Fire Author: Steven Pressfield This is now my favorite book. This line is so strong! I honestly feel every word said by the Spartans in this book and it has made me value and respect their story so much. This paragraph gave me the fucking chills man. #book #gatesoffire #stevepressfield #education #sparta #leonidas

[kellersblog-blog]

Blogging

My blog has been an example of my struggle to write on a daily basis.  This year—after years of struggling to commit to daily writing—I've been able to write every day.  There has only been one day were I wrote less than 750 words.  For about a year, I've been trying to publish a blog post on daily basis, but I've struggled with shipping my work.  Publishing your work creates vulnerability, it exposes you, and causes you to start censoring yourself. You think about what you should or shouldn't write based on what other people might think.  It's what Steve Pressfield calls, "Resistance." My daily goal is to get out of my comfort zone on a daily basis.  Publishing a blog post each day will help me do it.

About a year ago, I tried writing a blog post every day, I was able to do it for about a month but then I got busy and quit.  I think my problems with my old blog was lack of the habit of writing everyday and lack of purpose. My old blog's purpose was only to write every single day.  This year I've created the habit of waking up and writing first thing in the morning.  I also found a purpose for my new blog, which is to publish a daily blog post about an industry I care about.  The industry and theme for this blog will be my journey to become more technical, learn to code, and the industry I want to write about is the idea of turning data into information.  When I say, learn to code, I mean I want to learn how to write programs which work, solve problems, and are relatively error free.  I'm not saying I'll be able to be the lead software engineer at Google.  Some days I'll be posting about how I'm learning to code, the tutorials I'm using, the projects I'm working on, or the classes I'm taking.  The industry I want to write about is the data industry.  I'm mainly interested in the idea of turning large amounts of data into information.  Many people will refer to it as Big Data.  My current job in Performance and Risk Analysis for a Mutual Fund Company, has me dealing with large amounts of data to figure out ways to turn all of the data into information for Senior Management, Operations, and Sales.  This work allows other people in the organization to do a better job.  This goal of turning data to information can be used to solve many problems.  I want to spend my time on how large amounts of data which continue to grow are stored, secured, and used to solve problems.  I'll be writing about current events, articles, things from my research, and other related topics I find interesting.  I'll also will be writing about other aspects of my life.  I'd like to model this blog after Fred Wilson's popular blog called, "avc.com." I'm also thinking about having a Must Love Data Mondays, were I'll write a longer post about a topic I'm researching.

I was listening to Steve Pressfield's audiobook called, "Do the Work," and he said a great quote.  Steve said you need to quit planning and start doing.  Getting stuck in the planning and researching phase is one of my biggest problems.  I'm always planning and feeling like I need to keep planning but then it's been five weeks later and I'm still planning.  It's the current issue I'm having in my new Pick Four program, which I'm in Week Five, but I'm still planning a few of my goals instead of starting them.  I need to take Steve's advice to start my projects because there will always be time to go back and revise.  I'm starting now.