December 29th, 2016 Year End Recap
As the year comes to a close, I wanted to reflect back on some of the key moments of 2016. Since I have not posted a video in a while, I decided to make it into a video.
December 28, 2016 Short Review of Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick
This is one of the books that I have recently picked up. As I have stated many times previously, I love reading biographies of famous people. One of my goals is to have a biography one day and for someone to read it and decide to give it a review. For those of you who would like to take a look at the book here is a link to Scrappy Little Nobody.
I know the first question that you are asking yourself right now, "Why did Josh chose to read this book?" The answer to that the question is quite simple, I was browsing for some books to read when I saw it on the front page of the google play books store. Since I have been traveling to Manhattan more frequently, I needed something to occupy my time on the train. I'm not a big fan of playing games on my phone, it is often a waste of our most precious resource, time. The day I looked at my phone was a week after the release of the book, so it was being heavily advertised on the google play book store. For those of you who live in NYC know how cramped the trains are during rush hour, so I decided to read the eBook version of the book. The book exceeded my expectations and was pretty good. So lets begin my short review of the book.
Anna Kendrick is not considered an A list actress but she has been in showbiz for most of her life. The book starts off with her telling a story from when she was younger, but from the first couple of paragraphs you can tell that it is well written. The words flow very well and make it seem as if you are having a conversation with Ms. Kendrick. On the second page of the introduction the reader is greeted with some profanity, this may be a turn off for some readers (I could care less). The use of slight profanity in my opinion, makes the writer seem more genuine and down to earth. Throughout the pages of the book, we the reader learn that Ms. Kendrick was essentially the weird kid. She talks about her being shorter than the other girls, being a late bloomer and having hard to manage hair. This look actually helped her during her years of Broadway. The thing I really loved about the book was it showed the life of an actor behind the scenes. From losing money while working on Broadway to what happens after someone wins an award. By reading this book I gained a better understanding of actors as a whole. Most people see an actor and say to themselves "That person had connections or they just got lucky." This book shows the fear that most actors possess, the fear that their current casting will be their last.
It is pretty hard to review a book without giving spoilers, I hope you enjoyed this review. This is my first book review on this site and I will be doing many more. If any of you do chose to pick up this book, be sure to let me know your thoughts on it. I'll catch you guys in the next one.
December 27th, 2016 What I have been up to
I haven't posted on here in a while, but don't worry I'm back for good.
Just last week I did some freelance in the place I used to work. Man do I NOT regret my decision for leaving. The experience I had working there last Friday was horrible. I remember when I used to love going in to work, I wasn't tap dancing to work but I was happy to be at work. The reason why the day dragged on was because the core values had changed. Back when I was working there and managing the store, I made it my duty to make sure every customer was happy and their issues were always resolved. The new owners' core values are about maximizing profits no matter what. I know right now some of you reading this are saying to yourself "But Josh, business is about making money. If there is no money then the business can not keep its door open". It is true that businesses need money to survive but not at the expense of the customers. Throughout the day I noticed that the customer's experience was highly degraded because of price hikes and no one to one time. I understand maximizing profit but for something that was previously sold at $40 should not be sold at $80 when it clearly does not have the features or build quality of items at that price point. When I say one to one time I am talking about dealing with a cashier I am talking about Red Carpet Service. This is something I learned back in 2008, you have to treat the person in front of you as if they are the most important customer in the world. This means making sure that they have no questions about the product or service. This is how you maintain a good relationship with customers, just by seeing me a customer came in and bought me lunch. This might be just me preaching to the choir, but without a loyal customer base, businesses can not succeed. So after working that day, I have vowed to never work there under the new owners, no matter what they want to pay me.
Other than doing that day of freelance, I have been working on getting back in shape. I know lots of people say that they want to get in shape so I actually made a workout plan. I might not look like it now but I used to workout like a madman. Throughout the years I picked up knowledge of the human body and learned workouts that give great results. This plan is not that easy and some of my fit friends had trouble keeping up with it. Heck even I can't do some of the things on it, it is more of a road map with recommended exercises. If you would like to download it, here is a link to the workout
Another thing that I have been doing while I have been away from this site, is simply taking out my camera. I have a DSLR and I have been messing around with it, sounds like I'm wasting time. Well yes and no, I will try my best to use it to record videos for my YouTube channel. Using this I will be able to bring better quality videos to you my viewers. Other than making videos, I was contemplating selling stock images. At the end of it I love taking photos, even though not that many people will see them.
The main thing that I have been doing during my time away from the site is reading. This in my opinion is the most valuable use of my time these past couple of weeks. Remember the books that I read are for the most part non fiction books. Reading books is one of the cheapest ways of learning something. I am not talking about picking up one of those for Dummies books (if these books work for you great, not really my cup of tea). I absolutely love reading biographies of successful people, heck I have Kevin Smith's biography in my list of approved books. By reading biographies you get to learn that your heroes are normal people like you and I. You also get to learn certain mistakes that they have made and how to avoid them. When most of us get out of school we stop learning. Hey Mark Cuban didn't know anything about software when he was selling it. No one taught him about it so he read every computer software he could get his hands on. The knowledge he gained from those manuals helped him launch his company MicroSolutions, which he later sold for a total of six million dollars.
There are many other things that I have been doing during the time of my last post to now. I chose to talk about these activities because I feel that you the readers can learn from these topics. I have also changed the books that I am currently reading and recommended book list. I'll catch you guys in the next post.
October 19th, 2016 Overcoming my fear of public speaking
Just the other day I was messaged with a topic request. After reviewing the request, I felt very honored because the topic is something that could benefit many readers. The topic was overcoming the fear of public speaking, For those who do not know me personally, I am a shy person. If i could do it so can you, so let's dive in.
The first time that I noticed my fear of public speaking was back in the sixth grade. Back in those days I used to compete in math tournaments and wanted to try something new. Lucky for me, because I was now in sixth grade I automatically qualified to take part in the story telling competition. At this point in my life I was reading a book or two every week and even writing short stories in my spare time. Just to put it into perspective, my sixth grade teacher had a competition between me and one other student to see who could read the most books and write book reports for them; I won the competition. All the kids that wanted to compete in the story telling competition had to go through a screening process with the school librarian. From my classroom of thirty students only one other student applied, she was the same person who I was in competition for most book reports in a school year. We were both given about ten minutes to read a short passage before we had to try and retell it. Sounds simple but when it was my turn to speak I began to mumble and talk in a low voice. As you can probably tell, I did not pass the primary screening. Many of you right now might think that I was mumbling and talking in a low voice because I had not memorized the passage. Unfortunately I have a very good memory and pride myself on that. Heck throughout my working life my coworkers had to change their phone passcode multiple times throughout the month. They had to change it because they knew once I saw it once I would remember it even months later.
To graduate eighth grade I had to do an exit project for science and social studies (history). The exit project consisted of a five page typed report and a presentation that required both visual and verbal presentation. I know I have spoken on this presentation before and how it came off of the top of my head. The reason I had no notes for my verbal presentation was because I knew that they would not help me. If I had note cards, they would either be damp from sweat or would have cause a distraction for the audience because of my trembling hands. When it was my turn to go, I stood up at the front of the room and just stood there. My audience was my entire eighth grade class, my homeroom teacher, the dean and the teacher of the subject. To make matters worse than they already was, I had not even done research on my topic. I remember being told that I can start by the dean. I tried to start but the words didn’t come out. I swear I am one of the luckiest people alive because right in the front row sat my best friend; I looked at him and saw what appeared to be thumbs up. For both of my presentations I only looked in his direction while I spoke. Seeing a familiar face in the crowd can help calm you down when speaking. I know that in my case it allowed me to talk and act as if I was conversing with him and only him. When I am truly being myself I can be very convincing. If you don’t believe that, let me tell you that my social studies topic was about how great a Leader Hitler was. That is correct I convinced an entire room of over thirty people that Adolf Hitler was an amazing leader and a great role model.
As a high school senior I was given the option of picking my English class, I chose Gothic English. To my surprise my course has a semester of public speaking aka speech class. We had to give different types of speeches ranging from persuasive speeches to explanatory speeches. Before each speech we were given a couple of minutes to prepare outside of the classroom. Throughout my high school life I was always the silent partner in group projects. So this preparation time was never used effectively, rather I just paced back and forth in the hallway like a madman. To help cool my nerves I decided to think of my public speaking performances as a game. If I kept the attention of a single one person or got applause at the end of the speech I would win the game. So when I walked in and gave the first speech I locked on to the face of a friend and did my best to keep them entertained. My teacher was aware that many people suffer from stage fright so she did not say anything about presenters not focusing on the entire audience. With every speech I preformed I added a couple more targets to focus on. By the end of the semester I was able to maintain eye contact with the entire class not just one person. The only problem was that I would still tremble a bit and sweat when I was in front of a crowd.
As a college freshman I had to take a semester of speech 101 as a prerequisite for my major. The speeches were mostly informative speeches, so they were backed by facts. I remember one of the speeches given in the class was talking about in taking water and certain fruits with a high ph. value can help your immune system. Since we had to submit outlines for the speech before hand with a bibliography, I had to change my approach for giving speeches. It was no longer about me planning a mind game with myself; I had a mission that had to be completed. My mission was to explain my topic to the class as best I could. The only catch was if I didn’t perform my duty, they could potentially die. I set it in my mind that the information I held was crucial in my peer’s survival. This helped stop me from becoming nervous when speaking in front of people. Now the only problem I had was getting rid of the monotone voice I had whenever I did public speaking.
This problem had nothing to do with my voice, but rather my level of comfort when speaking out loud in front of a group of people. You might think that comfort level is the same as nervousness, but they are two completely different things. Just because I am not nervous when preforming a task, does not mean that I am in my comfort zone. Just take cooking for instance; I am not nervous when cooking a meal because I know the basics, but I am not comfortable when cooking because I do not know the correct temperatures to cook at. The way I overcame this problem is honestly quite funny. Karaoke helped me solve this problem, not at first of course. When I first went out to sing karaoke with a group of friends I could only do background vocals because I hated how I sound on a microphone and. As I went to karaoke more frequent I began to come out of my shell. It didn’t matter what other people thought of my singing, it was my time to shine. This might sound easy to do but it is a long process that took me months to perfect. In about eight months I was able to go from a low sounding background singer to singing on a stage in front of people. Just so you know, my singing is horrible but I was able to sing and dance in front of over five hundred people. Yes, you heard me correctly; I performed in front of over half a thousand people without breaking a sweat.
Public speaking has become a big part in my life both in my personal life and my professional life. My titles on my resume range from supervisor to assistant manager all the way up to manager. For all these positions I am required to hold meetings with team members. If I had not gone through all the steps listed above in overcoming my fear of public speaking I would not have been able to perform my job duties. Another way that overcoming my fear of public speaking has helped me is working in retail. Since I work in retail I have to talk face to face with customers. These interactions aren’t always bright, there are many times that I have to tell someone bad news. Imagine telling a customer that all their info from their computer is gone, or that all their contacts and photos on their phone have been lost. These are extremely difficult conversations to have with someone, however with the lessons that I have taught myself over the years they have become easy conversations to have. Heck, they have become as easy to speak of as if I was telling the customer about the weather. If I had not overcome this fear I would not be able to post videos online on YouTube, not even my audio only ones. In today’s digital age public speaking also deals with social media. Just a simple tweet or Facebook post is seen by thousands within a matter of seconds. In society today people get bullied heavily on social media, this increases the fear of public speaking.
I know there are thousands of ways to overcome the fear of public speaking, but these are the steps I took in overcoming my fear. They may or may not work for you, but some “proven” methods did not work for me. We all know the cliché remedy of picturing your audience in their underwear. This did not work for me at all. The reason why is because my classes were at least 50% FEMALE. Picturing them in their underwear would have a different effect on me. As a closer, I just want to touch on the story telling contest’s other applicant. The person that I went up against ended up being the three-time champion in the contest. Not from the school but from the city and if I recall they might have won the state competition one year. This person also became valedictorian for my junior high class consisting of 120 students and class president and valedictorian of my high school class consisting of 1092 students. You might say that the bar was too high for me for the story telling competition but who knows. What I do know is that it was a stepping stone for me to overcome my fear of public speaking.
Feel free to share this with a person who you think this post might help. If I have helped you with in any way overcome your own fear of public speaking, feel free to let me know in the comment section bellow. Feel free to send in topics that you the reader would like me to go over. You can send it to me in the comment section or through the various methods on our contact page.
October 17, 2016 What technology do I use on a daily basis
So recently I have changed a couple of my tech accessories, so I have decided to update you the reader. Remember I am a tech lover/geek so you might not agree with some of my choices. So let's dive in...
For my cell phones, I have a Nexus 6p and a Samsung Note 5 as my daily drivers. I use Google Project Fi for the Nexus and At&t for the Note 5. Since it's October this is the prime time to buy a new cellphone. I would upgrade but no phone released has that wow factor. The new Pixel XL is a nice phone but not at $869.99 for the 128gb. A lot of readers might ask why I have two different carriers, the answer is simple. One is for work and the other is for personal/business. Google Project Fi lets me pay the same rate for data in over 200 countries.
Another good thing about Project Fi is that it gives me a free data only sim card for my tablet. For tablets I have a total of four different ones. Each one has a different purpose but for this site and my writing I use only one of them. The tablet that I use on the go is an unlocked Galaxy Tab S 8.4. The reason I prefer this tablet over my other three is because of the weight and size make it very portable, also the addition of a cellular antenna allows me to post without WiFi. As you can tell I am a very avid fan of android and the reason is simple, syncing. I use Google Apps for Work Suite so always in sync with the cloud. I have an IPad and have used many iIPones in the past, they have caused me to receive emails a couple of minutes late. It might not sound like a big deal, but when you are waiting for an important response time is of the essence.
For real productivity on the go I have my trusty Microsoft Surface Pro 3. It combines a tablet and a laptop in one. One problem I have with all of my tablets is google docs is good on the go for small writing sessions, but does not work well for extended writing sessions. So the ability to use full Microsoft Office on the go is amazing. Even though tablets are great for portability, they lack true multitasking ability. The surface pro allows me to edit videos and photos on the go while ruining multiple windows at the same time. Nothing will ever replace Microsoft Outlook on a desktop, once you use it you can never go back. Other than the surface I have a desktop that i built myself, it is where I get most of my serious work done. It has three screens and top of the line components.
There are many other devices that I own like my Canon 60D dslr, but at the moment I do not use it for this site. That's it for today's post. Feel free to ask any questions in the comment and feel free to send this post to a friend.
October 10, 2016 What books do I enjoy and where I get them from
As the title suggests, today's post is about what books I enjoy and how I obtain them. Before you dismiss this post, just stick around for a bit you might learn something. At the bottom of this post you will see a preview of my book library, just the electronic ones for now. My physical book library is for another day.
Nine out of ten readers who don't know me personally must think that I buy most of my physical books and eBooks from Amazon. Unfortunately you would be wrong, Amazon is one of the last places that I purchase my books from, especially my eBooks. If you have an android phone or tablet, you will more than likely thank me at the end of this post. Before I purchase books, I must find out what book that I want to read. This is probably the hardest part of the whole book buying experience. There are millions of books out there but finding the right ones can be quite hard. The books that I read fall into five different categories, don't worry there is no extensive equation I just read five types of books.
The first type of books that I read are books about finances, it's never too early to tell your money where to go. The books from this category that I can recommend whole heartily are... The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey, this book will help you get out of debt by learning basics of money and implementing a written budget. The second book from this category that I love telling people about is Money Master the Game 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom by Tony Robbins. Yes the self help guru has a best selling book about financial freedom, he is not a financial guru but this book has many stars from the financial world. I recommend this book for anyone that is scared to enter the investment world, this is a great starter book to teach things to look out for when investing. Both are great books and should go hand in hand because you need to know where your money goes before you can tell it where to go. To find financial books I look on Amazon for the top 100 financial books.
The next type of book that I read are motivational books, these books can help make you positive in the hard times. There are two books that I can recommend off of the top of my head the first being... Act Like a Success, Think Like a Success by Steve Harvey, this is an amazing book. Many long time readers of this site, know that Steve Harvey has played a major role in my life. I have spoken to Mr. Harvey one time during my senior year of high school, I snuck back stage with some friends I passed through security. I shook his hand and asked him one question as I got pushed back by security. I asked him how to be successful and got told to never give up. The second book that I recommend is Unlimited Power by Tony Robbins, yes another book by the self help guru because it helps. This book helps teach the readers how to change their current state. Mr Robbins has coached many celebrities and athletes, so if his advice helps them why can't it help us? For books like this I look for recommendations based on books I already have read. This sometimes give great reads but sometimes the books are rather bland.
The third type of book that I read are entrepreneur type books, these books help change my mindset to a business mindset. To be an entrepreneur takes thinking out the box and we are not taught to think this way so we must learn to change our mindset. The first book I highly recommend reading is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, it is a timeless classic that is still on every best sellers list. This book is magical and its teachings are helpful to this day, I do not wish to ruin the suspense so read it as soon as possible. The next book that I love is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This book has helped me talk to people better and learn how to lead conversations to my liking. It also has taught me to judge and rather to learn from them. The final book that I want to recommend in this category is Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, this was the first book I had read in this category. This book taught me the basics of thinking out of the box. Mr Kiyosaki has two dads one was his friend's dad and the other his biological dad. The story might surprise you. For books in this category I find them on Amazon and Reddit. But recently I have been grabbing books off of Tai Lopez's book club list. He reads a book a day so his library has many different books.
The fourth type of book that I read is biographies and autobiographies, these books hold an amazing wealth of knowledge. There are so many books from this category that I could go on for paragraphs, but I will try to contain myself. The first book I recommend is Tough Sh*t by Kevin Smith, this is truly an Average Joe who has made it. There was nothing special about him yet his drive is what made him become a film director and obtain success. He maxed out his credit cards and made a movie, he saw opportunity and grabbed it and ran with it. The next book that I recommend is Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, this is the first biography that I read for entertainment. Steve Jobs is one of the greatest entrepreneur in our lifetimes. This book is a peak into his mind and how it works. Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger, this book shows that hard works pays off. If you disagree with that statement, then how can you explain Arnold's success. He came to America with a dream and he made that dream come true. For biographies I just look up a celebrity and just purchase their biography. I've read biographies from Asa Akira (porn star) to Sam Walton (richest person in America).
I know that this post has been long but we are almost done, the final type of books that I enjoy are mystery novels. I'm a mystery writer so I must model myself after successful mystery writers. Since the first book that I'm writing is a modern day Hardy Boys book I of course have to mention them. To this day I enjoy the original Hardy Boys book and Nancy Drew books. They brought me joy as a child and still bring me joys to this day as I re read them. I also enjoy darker mystery novels like Who Censored Roger Rabbit by Gary Wolf. Before you think that it is similar to the movie, you would be wrong this book is dark but a good mystery novel. It is a cult classic but it will keep you guessing until the end. I buy any mystery novel that peaks my interest either from the synopsis or the cover.
Most people purchase their eBooks on Amazon Kindle but i prefer to buy them on Google Play Books. The reason I use Google for my eBooks because I get to use my Play Credit. If you have an android phone or tablet you can download Google Opinion Rewards and take surveys for credit in the Play Store. Another reason I recommend using Google for eBooks is because it syncs between all of my devices. I have two phones, four tablets and one pc so being able to access my eBook library from anyone of my devices and not losing my place is amazing. For my physical books I tend to buy them from Ebay, no special reason other than getting the best price. Sorry for the wrong post but I love books.
October 5, 2016 It doesn't matter how slowly you go as long as you don't stop - Confucius
Over the past couple of years I have found myself drawn into the world of philosophy. I know that a lot of people tend to discredit philosophy as a subject, however I believe that philosophy is important for personal growth. Philosophical thinking and analysis can help with a person's critical thinking ability. There are two main reasons why I love philosophy, the first being a peak inside a philosopher's mind. Aristotle, Plato, Confucius, Lao Tzu, Zengzi and even Bruce Lee are great philosophers who are no longer with us. Their teachings however have stood the test of time. The second reason that I enjoy philosophy is because it changes the way I see the world. Growing up the world is painted as black or white with no gray in between. But philosophy paints a different story with certain teachings questioning the fundamentals of our very own society. Powerful stuff right, that's why I decided to begin including my very own take on some teachings and incorporate it on my website.
So let's dive into today's teaching. Today I decided to touch upon a very famous teaching by Confucius. The teaching is "It doesn't matter how slowly you go as long as you don't stop". One of the reasons that I decided to choose this teaching is because I feel that it embodies my current situation. For most readers of this site and my YouTube subscribers know, I have recently hit a fork in the road. Instead of bearing right to continue working and living just as I had for the past three years, I decided to take the left road which has no guarantee of success. If you are a new reader or have missed my post about my situation, you might be asking yourself why I would take such a risk. Let's just say that the easy road would have made me miserable and I would have regretted taking said road. The left road might or might not bring me any success but at the end of it all I can never say what if.
So this teaching stood out to me today because I was a bit down in the dumps. I have been working on a couple of projects for months now and have not seen the results that I was expecting. Negative results and rejection after rejection would drain the energy out of many. So why wouldn't an average Joe like myself be affected by this constant flow of negativity. Before you go saying that I just need motivation, let me ask you to pump the brake. I already have my Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn and Abraham Hicks YouTube playlist at the ready at all times, so I have enough "motivational" audios. Motivation can only take you so far, without results it is just wishful thinking. If a business does not make money it closes, if an employee does not produce they are fired. That is the way the world works, plain and simple. Yes we all know the saying that Rome was not built in a day, but try telling that to your bills.
So now picture me in the morning rediscovering this amazing teaching by Confucius. I was sitting in my seat on the Metro North going through my two and a half hour commute, second guessing my decision to leave my current industry. I was already contemplating contacting some people in the industry to see if I could find something. But then boom, I notice Confucius' teaching among a list of top one hundred philosophy teachings. As I read it over and over I begin to gain back my belief in myself. It's easy to quit and throw in the towel, it's hard to see something through to the end. If you ever read a biography ( I have read many), no one achieves success over night it is a hard strenuous process. For some success takes 5 years while for others it takes 20 to 30. As long as at the end of it you achieve the success that you always dreamed of, what's wrong with falling a couple of times along the way. I know there are some skeptics in the crowd reading this who think that all this is made up. To those readers all I can say is you are free to believe what you want but this is my story and I'm sticking to it.
As you can see this is almost the length of a high-school essay, so let me wrap it up. I don't know if you could tell from reading my text but this was directly from the heart. When I write I try my best to let the words come naturally. None of the text on this paper were written before hand or planned. I found this teaching today wrote it down and kept it on my note pad. I did not come up with what I was going to say on my commute back to my house. Once I opened up this page the post essentially wrote itself. My post might not be written conventionally but they are written directly from the heart without a filter. So if you enjoyed this post or if you have a favorite philosopher you would like me to read up on let me know below in the comments.
October 3, 2016 The first interview in our new interview section.
The title is pretty much explains itself.
September 27th, 2016 Newer update on my situation
Just wanted to provide a quick update on my current situation, enjoy.
September 12th, 2016 Update on my current situation.
Just a small update on what I'm going through right now.
September 9th, 2016 How do you eat a Banana?
Today I learned that the way I eat a banana says a lot about me.
No the title is not a joke. This simple question has helped change my outlook on life. Hopefully by listening to this audio, you will also have your mindset changed.
August 17th, 2016 Today I learned a life lesson from a flip phone
Yes the title is true, I did learn something worth while from a flipphone.
August 16th 2016, Just a Random talk
Today was a good day learned a couple of things. Listen in and see what I learned...
August 11th, 2016 Break away from the herd
Today I actually want to touch upon breaking what is know as the social norm. I call it breaking away from the herd.
August 10th, 2016 Fear not the person who...
Today I decided to tackle another one of Bruce Lee's sayings. So let me know in the comments what you think.
August 9th, 2016 The person who chases two rabbits catches neither
Today I was turned down by a fiduciary, instead of wallowing in self pity I turned to Confucius. So here is another audio only post, be sure to leave some feedback in the comments.
August 6th, 2016 Motivation Rant
Today I decided to do an audio only on the subject of motivation. Feel free to let me know how you like it.
August 3rd 2016, Don't focus on the dot
Today's vlog is about making sure we that we don't get tunnel vision. So sit back and enjoy today's vlog.
August 2nd, 2016 Success isn't over night
Just yesterday I decided to walk to the beach, to get some exercise. The entire walk was a little over 6 miles. Just because I exercised one time, I can not expect to instantly get into shape. Success is the same you can not expect it to come over night. Yes that is the topic of today's post.
Recently I picked up the book "Bounce" by Matthew Syed. The book goes over the ten thousand hour principle. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this principle, it basically means that to become a master at something takes a minimum of ten thousand hours. It goes in depth about many professional athletes and musicians, describing all the hard work they did to achieve their greatness. Everyone believes that they were naturally gifted but in reality they put in the hours. Think about the thoughts that go through your mind when you see someone successful. You think to yourself that the person is either lucky or it was easy for them.
If you are currently not succeeding at a certain aspect of your life, give it time. People usually give up right before they find success. Failure is a major part of success because we can learn from it. When we were learning to walk as babies we often fell, yet we all learned how to walk. Just look at J K Rowling, she never gave up and she achieved success. I highly recommend picking up the book, it is a great read
July 30th, 2016. Received some great tips today
Today I was fortunate enough to receive a couple of tips at work. They were not monetary tips, no they were greater than that. I received a book and a good review. Might not sound like a lot but it made my day.
The book was given to me by a professor of plasma physics from Columnist University. Like I stated many times before, my job allows me to meet interesting people. The professor comes in from time to time to have talks with me. The book was an unexpected gift, it is a book about math. We had a conversation yesterday and I spoke of my past as a mathematical athlete. I never expected him to take note of it and get me a book to further my learning on the subject. Out of the kindness of his heart he took it upon himself to give me a gift that would help me better myself. As many readers of this site know, I love reading so this is a perfect gift for me.
The second gift was from a lady who works in realestate. Just like the professor she is in her 70s, so they both have a wealth of knowledge. She wrote a nice note for my boss. Just that little token of appreciation shows that what I do is appreciated. Remember it's the little things that count. Before you guys go off saying that money tips are better, stop. Money will only last for so long, but these gifts will stay with me till the end.
