I CERTAINLY do have a thing with “pleasures”. I only herald sophisticated pleasures but I don’t even call them nor think of them as pleasures, because they aren’t; they’re evolutions. Strands of evolutions. Photo-reading great books is an evolution. Playing, appreciating, and listening to classical music is an evolution. Gaming is an evolution. Coding in python is an evolution. Dancing with really quality mates is an evolution. Those are distinct from pleasures. Pleasures are the victims of and the essence of making you a victim via marketing. Advertisements exploit primitive [...]
identity & inspiration
The categories of identity and inspiration (and all sub-categories of identity, inspiration, and inspiration expansion) were prominent categories from 2004-2008. They are now retired and the new categorical structure of Productivity and Minimalism, Coaching, NLP Sherlock, Science, and Tech are the main ones, but these original categories are still listed here for your convenience. Many of these posts are categorized in the identity and expansion old categories and simultaneously in (usually) one of the new Coaching 2.0 categories.
Sleeping Two Hours A Day
Introduction I have experimented with polyphaisc, and modified sleep patterns for years. Am interested in structuring that. The longest I’ve stayed up consistently was 85 hours in October 2009. I was doing something quasi-dangerous so that necessitated focus which kept me alert, which kept me up. But I usually just stay up and then crash without much structure. The uber or everyman sleep cycles sound very appealing. Thus, the blogging of the sleep cycles…. How I Got Started I first got my preliminary spark of interest in altering sleep patterns [...]
Trust Defined
Recipe for Trust: Take consistency. Then stir in love and mix in value. Add zeal for flavor. (Note: Kittens help with this recipe!) – John Thomas “Kooz” Trust and consistency are inter-related. They both imply reliable re-occurrence or repetition of behavior, qualities, characteristics, or events. A street sight displays consistency, but not trust. When, after enough gentle and playful interactions, a kitten allows you to rub his belly, this is trust. Consistency can be thought of as trust minus the love and value. Consistency is kind of the raw skeleton [...]
Cognizance of Physiology-BrainSensory Input
The sympathetic, autonomic, peripheral nervous system is the bodily system in charge of generating the flight/fight response. It will activate if something arises that is not in your immediate survival. If you believe strongly enough in something, say learning how to ride a bike. And the only thing you do is think about that activity of riding a bicycle, you’re brain will eventually become convinced that “NOT” riding a bicycle will be “hazardous to your health”! Furthermore, it will treat those non-bike activities in the same way it treats an [...]
Want to Achieve Consisitent Success? "Trust" vs. "Hope" (Trust FTW, No Contest)!
In 2002, I wrote a novella called Hope-Rising (will add the link to pdf in a jiffy). Since then I’ve realized I don’t like hope. I like trust. Hope triggers all kinds of uncertainties. It places you out of control. If you trust something will happen, it’s more likely to occur. This is far deper and more complex than a personal preference. The effect of changing your cognitive vocabulary from “hope” to “trust” reclassifies how your brain operates, it rewires cerebral circuits so that your have this overall scope of [...]
The Joys of Life (according to myself a dozen years ago)!
I just found this rummaging through an old drawer of room in which I spend some of my fondest childhood summers in Michigan. It was a valentine’s card from my dad to me. I must’ve been about 11? (12? 13? Hopefully not 14 or older!) judging by my writing. What’s funny is This list was for me! I was the recipient of the card and then kind of in the margin I guess I simply just jotted down my little checklist “Joys of Life” List Joys of Life 1. Eating Butter [...]
How Charlie Sheen Got His Name (Name Change Story)
I don’t really like focusing on celebrity hype but with the Charlie Sheen thing blowing up I thought I’d share a story of a name-change. And unlike celebrity gossip, name-change stories actually do interest me (although exceedingly not as much as neuroscience, NLP, and other scientific topics). To be clear, the core of this post is about name changes (I find it, at times, an interesting aspect of identity), and not Charlie Sheen. Name changes have fascinated for a long time. Do people become successful and then change their name? [...]
Great French, Aussie, & British Proverbs
As the aussies say: “Good on ya, mate!” or proverbially ”The more you know, the less you need.” – Aboriginal Aussie Proverb. As the French say: “Bonsoir, tres bon, monsieur.” or proverbially “On ne change pas un équipe qui gagne.” (One does not change a winning team) and”Vaut mieux prévenir que guérir” (It is better to prevent than to heal) Trés trés bon! Other fantastic French proverbs. And as the Brits say: “This page is like taking a butcher at my loaf, my good china!” (Well…some brits might say that, at least XD) or proverbially ”The [...]
Code is Freedom
Computers are freedom for me. I love computers. More specifically, I love programming languages. Even more specifically, I love python. I love how each little symbol is so precise and communicates precisely and that precision is vital for properly-working code. Those symbols of the coding language get instantly interpreted and, you write and communicate to this interpretor and get instantaneous feedback that’s always correct. I also love how if an error was spotted it’s always simply because you made the error and the error is correctable and correcting the errors [...]
Age and Birthdays
Okay 27 seems freakishly older than 26. Not sure why. 3 cubed, half-way between 25 and 30? But it does. Strange how, say, for example, 10 and 20 are years where you want age to accelerate. Finally, 10! Finally 16! and the like, but for 30 and up it seems to have the reverse effect. Shoot, already 30?!! Slow down time! I cant’ think of what else is like that. A good movie or book you would want to slow down but then you wouldnt’ want it to speed up [...]
The Awesomeness of Endocrine Physiological Centers
I just experienced a bit of the old “spiritual chakra” asault of beliefs. I just look at those as NOTHING spiritual but different visualization techniques to effect balance, sense of control, and movement of body and physiological alignment. I feel a lot of my life and focus went to being distracted with chakra junk for a few years so needless to say, hearing someone do “chakra exercises” was challenging and uncomfortable (and no, this is NOT because I “haven’t got in touch with my inner spiritual self” or some equivalent [...]
Contradictions in Coaching
I love logic. I won’t ramble on about how much I love logic (there will likely be future posts on this), but I love logic. In logic, mathematicians love contradictions because when a contradiction arises it means something doesn’t work, something must be tweaked and made “correct” and thus contradiction produces a stronger more cohesive chunk of logic once the contradiction is resolved. Much of coaching seems like there’s very little room for contradiction and indeed if you get to far immersed in the cheesy spiritutall “ooh ahh”mumbo-jumbo non-technical coaching [...]
Trigger Words: Dissecting the Subjective Meaning of Diction
I just had a coaching session as part of my certification. I didn’t mind the client; he was really upbeat and had a decent structure. Strangely, the few times where there were telecommunicatio ndiffucltes and he couldnt’ understand a word I was saying or I couldn’t understand a few words he was saying THAT telecommunicaiton difficulty turned out to be a fantastic anecdote! I was talking about Britain. I mentioned how I had had the tendency of looking at “places” (different geographical locations, cities, countries, or local places) as solutions. [...]
Selecting Uplifting Outcomes
A fellow coach posted a series of question on taking action. I’ll list the question and then what I think each question accomplishes under each quesiton -What’s the first step you need to take? -What would someone, who is fearless, do about this? -What needs to happen now? -What would it make sense to do now? -Can you come up with some action steps to take this week? -What is the risk involved in this if you do not do it? -What is stopping you from moving forward? -Acknowledge movement [...]
Respect and Judgment or Invalidation: A Subtle, Beautiful, and Important Distinction
Just partook on a great class discussion on judgment versus respect. In addition to the class leader being a great facilitator, I’ve written a book on emotional validation and validity (and invalidity), and judgment and respect is a huge part of that, so I naturally had a lot of ideas resulting from the concept of respect versus invalidity/judgment. My ultiimate perception was, the distinction between between respect and judgment is: Subtle Beautiful Significant Think about that as you read this post. Judgment can often be (deleteriously so) misconstrued as [...]
Maniacal Three Year-Old over the Decapitated Chicken
While getting my certification I joined some coaches in a discussion on the concept of “action”. The gist of the brainstorming was positive benefits of action or how action is taken at times of desperation or fear and ultimately leads to something more or less good. I had the exact opposite relationship with action. I described how I had done an enormous amount of things and taken tons of action at times impulsively, at times recklessly, at times where I was spot on, but more so when I thought I [...]
The Surprising Large Picture of What and Whom You Read!
Bloody hell I can’t wait until Derren Brown’s next book. Kindle version (I don’t buy paper-based books anymore…long story but a good one — saves trees, saves space, saves storage room ,saves shipping costs, easier to organize, etc) comes out oct. 14. Seems like ages away!! I listen and relisten to the audio version (and have thoroughly read nad hey! may reread! good idea) his Tricks of hte Mind. witty, funny as heck, but most importantlyt insightful. I developed my frickin’ “spiritual scientific level of life” (atheism) from reading that [...]
The Illuminating Prospect of Personal Anecdotes
I was on a live coaching conference call talking about different brain changes and patterns with some other coaches and I thought about the prospect of sharing a personal story. We were discussing how adolescents can sometimes be sensitized to things that other people may deem as unproblematic, like, for example, not having someone to sit with for lunch. Yikes! I instantly communicated the effect of delivering a bit of personal history with the purpose of galvanizing the conversation, session, and communication. On the topic of offering personal anecdotes….ANYWHERE! in [...]
Goal-Setting is Fail
I’ve given Goal-Setting a lot of thought….and experience…..and saw it lead to a lot of failures…and occasional successes….but ultimately I’ve learned tha goal-setting is a fail agenda and a behavior that denigrates clarity and induces self-doubt all while unnecessarily increasing otherwise-avoidable stress. Some of these may sound like semantics, but it really isn’t. These different ways of looking at achievements changes the way your brain interprets goals and then achieve the outcome(s). Here’s Why and How Goal-Setting is Fail: Inadequacy. Goal-Setting is BY DEFINITION intrinsically and inextricably intertwined with INADEQUACY! [...]
It’s not Life, It’s Time
Life — I dislike the word life. It doesn’t exist. “Life” is an over-inflated amalgam of accomplishments, time, desires, goals frequently utilized and inflated to grotesque proportions by self-help books. There is no “life”. There’s evolution; there’s cellular growth; there’s time. I prefer to look at what I have is just time. I don’t have “life”. What is life? That’s like asking What’s an idea? I have a commodity and that is time. Focusing on life bleeds your focus away from the valuableness of time. Life is an absurd and [...]
Going all Vegan with Intellectual Subjects
Going all Vegan with Intellectual Subjects I LOVE Eating Vegan. So much more digestive time for the foods I enjoy, savor, and that are healthiest. Best of all, nothing I eat feels heavy or burdensome. I remember my brothers (both whom of which are also vegan but are so because of animal rights reasons) asking me what compelled me to go vegan. For me, the animal rights, the better for the environment, all those reasons are dandy, but for me it just plain out felt better. Even when I drank [...]
Distinguishing Smart from Stupid People
I’ve given this a tremendous amount of thought. No, more. I’ve written chapters in books to this topic. No…More. I’ve devoted many years of my life to interacting with people and trying to treat all people as equal of equal intelligence. My mantra, rubric, guideline, personal manifesto, what have you, was something along the lines of this (outlined in the 8th chapter of the complete rubbish book I wrote, Validate Your Life): “Everyone is of equal intelligence; we all simply channel our intelligence cultivate intelligence rather into different areas. Meaning [...]
Parkour!
— September 12, 2009 — 3:49 AM DISCOVERED PARKOUR. LOOKS Sooooooooooooo RAd. Agility, Gymnatisc, alacrity, intelligence, obstacle overcoming, Running RAD RAD RAD!!!!!! French terminology. bRiLLIANt. It’s agility. ALL my favorite video games. prince of persia all the games are like free running and parkour. The French terminolgy is brilliant. this is an intelligent discipline. It requires TREMENDOUS finesse. It’s fun, it requires massive planning and problem solving. This would be GREAT something to train for. Training “for women” is REALLY gay, retarded, and falalcious (because you’ll end up a pissed [...]
Electric Agenda: The Equation for Taking Ownership of Your Time
(this needs serious work organizing but the Electric Agenda: Reclaiming Ownership of your Temporality is DEFINITELY PRINCIPLE that I MUST ABIDE BY!!!!! YES!!!) I recently saw the Fantastic, utterly incredible movie In Bruges. It was incredible because of the Irish component, great acting, fantastic direction from McDonough, Ferrel was A+ and his exchange with Gleeson (all three Irish dudes, mind you) was beautiful and humorous rapport)….BUT but but! But the most prominently cool and awesome part of the the movie was it’s seriousnesss and incredible depth! That movie was deep! [...]
