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Josh Allan Dykstra
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LifeMay 6, 2009

Incorporate Yourself

I'm working on writing another book. It started as an idea for a project I had to create for my MBA program and has morphed into a giant opus that is consuming my life. OK, that last part isn't really true, but it does feel like a pretty daunting task sometimes. This morning I decided to set aside a couple hours to just write. As a completely freelance independent contractor, I'm trying to have more personal discipline with the things I do, starting by setting aside blocks of time to work on a specific thing: Finance Homework, 9a-noon; Book/Writing, noon-3p, that kind of thing. It doesn't always work (I'm not sure if you're aware but there are a LOT of interesting things on the internet), but I think the self-control of a regimen is really great. I'm all about viewing ourselves as a "brand," as an "enterprise." YOU are the business. Even if you get paid as an employee, think of yourself as a contractor: lending your talents to the project at hand. Incorporate yourself. The benefits to this way of thinking are astronomical. I'll explore this concept more in future posts, but in a nutshell it's simply more empowering. It's one thing to say, "This is what I do, and this how I can bring value to your company if we partner together." It's another thing altogether to be sending out resumes all day, getting, or feeling, rejected one after the other. (If you've ever been unemployed you know exactly what I'm talking about; it's literally inhumane.) It's not easy to think of ourselves in this new way, though. There's a lot of sociological baggage we've got to ditch (our culture focuses primarily on weaknesses over strengths, for example), and good time management is a really tough skill to learn. Also, we're taught that a 60 hour work week is what it takes to be successful. But some very prosperous people don't do that. We're told that we get out of something what we put into it. But due to things like the concept of leverage and the Pareto Principle (or 80/20 rule), we know that's not really true either. We'll talk more on that another day. There's usually a lot of re-training that has to happen before we can learn how to build a better personal leadership brand. For today, I think we start with simply questioning the assumptions. Does your work have to be done the way it's always been done? Do you have to live the way you've been living? There's a cool moment at the end of a film with two brothers sitting on the beach talking about recent frustrating circumstances, and one says to the other: "This is your life. Right now. It doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet." I'll leave you with some thoughts from the principles of Kaizen (Japanese for "improvement"):
  1. Get rid of old assumptions; ask “Why?” five times to get to the root cause.
  2. Don’t look for excuses, look for ways to make things happen.
  3. Say “NO” to the status quo.
  4. Don’t worry about being perfect—even if you only get it half right, start now.
  5. If something is wrong, fix it on the spot.
//
LifeMay 5, 2009

God Is Not Gonna Paint Your Van

Driving home from the office today I got stuck behind one of those huge old Dodge Ram vans -- you know the kind where you can fit an entire living room set in the back. Most of it was beige-ish, although the cream-colored paint was fraying from the edges around the doors and windows like it was running for its life. On the back right rear door, just below the window, it had a bumper sticker that said: RELAX: God is in control. Now, that might be true (I like to think it is), but let's just be honest with ourselves -- God is not going to come down and paint your frickin' van. These things are our responsibility. I got a call today from a good friend of mine who has been hit with a series of really crappy life circumstances lately. Now some of them he created, and he owns that, but the point of the call was to let me know that he's fed up with it, and he's doing some things to change his life. Taking steps. Moving forward. The big picture might very well be taken care of, but that doesn't mean we should just sit there and wait for God to come over with a bucket of beige. What are you doing -- TODAY -- to improve the situations in your life? You don't have to be sick to get better. //
LeadershipMarch 5, 2009

Productivity Stats

I came across an fascinating list of stats provided by Dr. Donald E. Wetmore, the President of the Productivity Institute in Connecticut. Some pretty interesting stuff in here!
  • There will be 2 million marriages in this country this year and 1 million divorces. 95% of divorces are caused by a “lack of communication”
  • The average working person spends less than 2 minutes per day in meaningful communication with their spouse or “significant other”. The average working person spends less than 30 seconds a day in meaningful communication with their children.
  • 80% of employees do not want to go to work on Monday morning. By Friday, the rate only drops to 60%.
  • 31% of working Americans do not use all their vacation time that they have earned. On average, three out of twelve (one quarter!) of all vacation days go unused.
  • The average person gets 1 interruption every 8 minutes, or approximately 7 an hour, or 50-60 per day. The average interruption takes 5 minutes, totaling about 4 hours or 50% of the average workday. 80% of those interruptions are typically rated as “little value” or “no value” creating approximately 3 hours of wasted time per day.
  • On an average day, there are 17 million meetings in America.
  • By taking 1 hour per day for independent study, 7 hours per week, 365 hours in a year, one can learn at the rate of a full-time student. In 3-5 years, the average person can become an expert in the topic of their choice, by spending only one hour per day.
  • 95% of the books in this country are purchased by 5% of the population. 95% of self-improvement books, audio tapes, and video tapes purchased are not used.
  • 97% of workers, if they became financially independent, would not continue with their current employer or in their current occupation.
  • 20% of the average workday is spent on “crucial” and “important” things, while 80% of the average workday is spent on things that have “little value” or “no value”.
  • In the last 20 years, working time has increased by 15% and leisure time has decreased by 33%.
  • A person who works with a “messy” or cluttered desk spends, on average, 1 1/2 hours per day looking for things or being distracted by things or approximately 7 1/2 per workweek. “Out of sight; out of mind.” When it’s in sight, it’s in mind.
  • The average reading speed is approximately 200 words per minute. The average working person reads 2 hours per day. A Speed Reading course that will improve the reading rate to 400 words per minute will save an hour per day.
  • 90% of those who join health and fitness clubs will stop going within the first 90 days.
  • 9 out of 10 people daydream in meetings.
  • 60% of meeting attendees take notes to appear as if they are listening.
  • 40% of working people skip breakfast. 39% skip lunch. Of those who take a lunch break, 50% allow only 15 minutes or less.
  • The average American watches 28 hours of television per week.
  • 78% of workers in America wish they had more time to “smell the roses”.
  • 49% of workers in America complain that they are on a treadmill.
  • Angry people are twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as a person in better control of their emotions.
  • 75% of heart attacks occur between the hours of 5:00 a.m.-8:00 a.m., local time, and more heart attacks occur on Monday than on any other day of the week.
  • 25% of sick days are taken for illness. 75% of sick days are taken for other reasons.
  • 95% of the things we fear will occur, do not occur.
  • Taking 5 minutes per day, 5 days per week to improve one’s job will create 1,200 little improvements to a job over a 5 year period.
  • 1 out of 3 workers changes jobs every year.
  • 1 out of 5 people moves every year.
  • 70% of American workers desire to own their own business.
  • 75% of American workers complain that they are tired.
  • The average worker gets a 6 hours and 57 minutes of sleep per night.
  • The average worker spends 35 minutes per day commuting.
  • When someone is asking for our time for a meeting, 80% of the time, there is an alternate date and time that will be acceptable.
  • Good time managers do not allocate their time to those who “demand” it, but rather, to those who “deserve” it.
  • The most powerful word in our Time Management vocabulary is “no”.
  • 1 hour of planning will save 10 hours of doing.
  • Hiring a college student to do routine tasks (grocery shopping, yard work, household chores, etc.) will create as much as 20 hours per week for the average person to devote to more productive uses.
  • The average person today (1999) receives more information on a daily basis than the average person received in a lifetime in 1900.
  • We retain 10% of what we read. We retain 20% of what we hear. We retain 30% of what we see. We retain 50% of what we hear and see. We retain 70% of what we say. We retain 90% of what we do.
  • Half of what is known today, we did not know 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the last 10 years. And it is said to be doubling again every 18 months.
Now, I admit that I do not know where these stats came from (although Dr. Wetmore seems to be a very credible individual), but even if they're just close, they're pretty darn interesting, don't you think? //
LifeJanuary 27, 2009

What The Heck Is RSS!?

Perhaps you are on the cutting edge of technological innovation, are already harnessing the awesome syndicating power of RSS, and recognize it for what it is: a snapshot of what the web will become in the next few years. But if you're confused about what the heck RSS even IS (much less pondering its future ramifications), this post is for you. Now, I'm pretty nerdy. I get some serious jollies from techno-dorky articles, read blogs like Engadget fairly regularly, and sleep with my iPhone under my pillow so I can feel connected to the world (just kidding on that last one... most nights). But honestly -- can anything with the word SIMPLE in its title (RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication) be MORE confusing than RSS? Even with my techie proclivities, RSS was confusing at first. I've searched all over the web trying to find an article that will clearly explain what it is -- and more importantly, how the heck to use it productively. Trust me: everything out there sucks. (OK, I didn't read them ALL, but whatever.) So I decided it's time for me to give it a shot. Hopefully my explanation will suck less than the others. +++ RSS INFO STARTS HERE At its core, the idea of RSS is somewhat simple. All it IS is a single page called a "feed" that compiles and lists new articles that are posted to a specific site. That's it: one page that will list the new stuff that is put on a site. A blog is the probably the best example. The reason people visit blogs repeatedly is to see new content. Most blogs have RSS feeds because they are updated regularly. Or take a news site like CNN.com for example. They currently offer two different RSS "feeds:" one for Top Stories and one for Recent Stories. Remember: feed is the word typically used to describe that singular page that is continually updated. Each feed page will typically list the 10-20 most recently written articles. With me so far?? The "feed" is crucial because it is the piece that will actually make RSS helpful. +++ SUMMARY SO FAR So... so far we have a page that is updated by whomever is authoring the webpage. That page is called a feed, and is essentially what people are talking about when they say "RSS." But the other piece to this equation, that is sadly much less often discussed, is how the heck we make it USEFUL and/or why we should CARE about it! +++ WHY YOU SHOULD CARE I don't know if you feel this way, but one of my biggest challenges is staying updated with what's happening around the world while at the same time not being utterly overwhelmed by the staggering amount of information that's out there. Frankly, I don't even remotely care about all of the news out there, but there are some things (for me it's things like technology, entertainment, and economics) that I want to make sure I'm current with. This is where RSS actually makes my life easier. What you can do is take one of those RSS feed pages and "subscribe" to it. The benefit of subscribing to an RSS feed is that the news you want comes to you. You don't have to go looking for it, explore a bunch of different sites, or waste a bunch of time. +++ HOW TO SUBSCRIBE In order to subscribe, the first thing you need to know is how to recognize if a website is providing an RSS feed. If the site you're on provides RSS, up in your URL bar (where the website address is) you'll see an icon on the far right side that will probably look like one of these: If it's got one of these (or something similar), you're in business! They're providing an RSS feed and you can subscribe. (As you should be able to see, this blog site provides an RSS feed.) To subscribe, though, you need something that will "read" the feed. It's just like you need an Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox browser to "read" a website. Make sense? You could most likely use that same browser to read an RSS feed, but you're not really gaining much, as you still have to go to each site and you'll just be looking at a more boring version of the articles. (This will probably make more sense if you click on a few of the feed links I provided above.) RSS feeds aren't pretty, and they aren't meant to be a substitute for a webpage; they're actually built to be subscribed to! Remember, the trick is to make the news COME TO YOU. So the question, then, is what should I use to "read" these feeds, right? There are a few "online" readers -- Google and Yahoo both have them built into their account services. These would probably be useful if you have a Gmail or a MyYahoo account. But for the rest of us -- particularly if you use Outlook or Apple Mail -- I would suggest just using your email program as a reader! This is where it gets a bit tricky, as there isn't one way to subscribe to an RSS feed; it varies by browser and by email program. If you're using IE7 and Outlook 2007, this page looks like it would be helpful. If you're using Safari, just click on the RSS button in the right side of URL bar. (If it shows options, pick one and see if it lists the things you want. If it doesn't, try the others.) This opens the feed, and at the bottom of the menu list on the right you'll see an option that says: "Subscribe in Mail." Click it. It's that easy! The major benefit of using your email program as your reader is that not only do you get the benefits of RSS and the latest updated news will come straight to you, but If you're like me, you have your email open ALL THE TIME anyway! This way, if one of your news sources updates a feed, you'll get the new article right away, just like a new email! +++ BLOGS As mentioned, most blogs have an RSS feature built in, as well. For example, you can feel free to subscribe to my blog, if you like. Click here for my feed (or click the RSS icon above). +++ THE FUTURE RSS offers us a glimpse into the future of the internet -- technology like this gives us a way to manage something as vast and completely unmanageable as the internet (which is, of course, growing more gorged with every second that passes as people add more content to its servers). I'm convinced that we will see more and more applications like this as we are forced to find ways to make SENSE of the petabytes of information that will bombard us. We're probably not as far from this as we think: So, enjoy RSS for what is is. Because soon it will be scanning your retina. ;-) //
Legacy, LifeJune 27, 2008

Why 'Unrealistic' Goals Are Easier To Achieve

By Tim Ferriss (excerpt from The 4-Hour Work Week) I had to bribe them. What other choice did I have? My lecture at Princeton had just ended with smiles and enthusiastic questions. At the same time, I knew that most students would go out and promptly do the opposite of what I preached. Most of them would be putting in 80-hour weeks as high-paid coffee fetchers unless I showed that the principles from class could actually be applied. Hence the challenge. I was offering a round-trip ticket anywhere in the world to anyone who could complete an undefined "challenge" in the most impressive fashion possible. Results plus style. I told them to meet me after class if interested, and here they were, nearly 20 out of 60 students. The task was designed to test their comfort zones while forcing them to use some of the tactics I teach. It was simplicity itself: contact three seemingly impossible-to-reach people — J Lo, Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton, J.D. Salinger, I don't care — and get at least one to reply to three questions... Of 20 students, all frothing at the mouth to win a free spin across the globe, how many completed it? Exactly... none. Not a one. // Bigger Goals = Less Competition There were many excuses: "It's not that easy to get someone to...", "I have a big paper due, and...," "I would love to, but there's no way I can..." There was but one real reason, however, repeated over and over again in different words: it was a difficult challenge, perhaps impossible, and the other students would out-do them. Since all of them overestimated the competition, no one even showed up. According to the default-win rules I had set, if someone had sent me no more than an illegible one-paragraph response, I would have been obligated to give them the prize. This result both fascinated and depressed me. The following year, the outcome was quite different. I told this cautionary tale and six out of 17 finished the challenge in less than 48 hours. Was the second class better? No. In fact, there were more capable students in the first class, but they did nothing. Firepower up the wazoo and no trigger finger. The second group just embraced what I told them before they started, which was... // Doing the Unrealistic is Easier Than Doing the Realistic From contacting billionaires [here’s how one reader did it] to rubbing elbows with celebrities—the second group of students did both—it's as easy as believing it can be done. It's lonely at the top. 99% of the world is convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre middle-ground. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming. It is easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s. If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think. Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason. Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel. If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort. I'll run through walls to get a catamaran trip through the Greek islands, but I might not change my brand of cereal for a weekend trip through Columbus, Ohio. If I choose the latter because it is "realistic," I won't have the enthusiasm to jump even the smallest hurdle to accomplish it. With beautiful, crystal-clear Greek waters and delicious wine on the brain, I'm prepared to do battle for a dream that is worth dreaming. Even though their difficulty of achievement on a scale of 1-10 appears to be a 2 and a 10 respectively, Columbus is more likely to fall through. The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit homeruns while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals. (Excerpted from The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss) //