Archive for November 10, 2007

Toxic iPhone: bad for business?

November 10, 2007 / Luke / No comments

Trees

I have found out recently that Greenpeace have filed a suit against Apple‘s new iPhone. The question that I think us business minded people are asking is: how will this kind of negative word of mouth effect the toxic iPhone? Even though it’s clear to me that the phone violates laws and as a result could have major problems for the future of the planet, people seem to showing support for the iPhone. When I read this I thought… why is this the case?

What we have here is a clash of value systems. The first is based on materialism and the other is based on environmentalism. A materialist philosophy puts ‘stuff’ ahead of people and other concerns, whereas an environmental philosophy puts the planet and it’s concern to the fore. In my book materialism wins hands down and always will. Why? Because largely we are a materialistic society. Economics come before the environment. However, this environmentalist concern against the iPhone is a business problem. What can they do to appease environmentalist concerns? Should they even bother?

Yes they should, I think, make some kind of statement about the toxic chemicals and how it can be best dealt with, environmentally speaking. I say this for two reasons. I think that a company has to show a human face (which Apple do regularly). It would be consistent with their marketing strategy for the mac as well as for their iPhone product. Secondly, people are much more aware of environmental concerns these days thanks to the constant coverage it gets in the media. We are having an election here in Australia in a short while and what each party thinks of a pulp mill project in Tasmania is a source of hot debate.

This is a business problem for Apple. Granted, not a major one but I think they need to show their customers that their values are appreciated and that they take the environment problems seriously. After all this is one of their promises to their clients is it not? How they do this could be in the form of an impact statement, a plan to recycle old iPhones that leads to their safe disposal, an reduced price upgrade option for iPhone users if they want a version that’s less toxic and so on. Companies cannot afford not to take such issues lightly in modern times.  More importantly for a greener Apple, there needs to be some decisive action on their part.

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Category: life problems /

My other dog’s a Doberman

November 9, 2007 / Luke / 4 comments

I am still quite busy so I enlisted the help of my wife Danielle to make something for this week’s creative project. See below. Enjoy!

Lilly the wonder dog.

Special thanks to Lilly the wonderdog for starring in this week’s project.

Category: life problems / Tags: , ,

Is there any integrity left in the world of blogging?

November 8, 2007 / Luke / 2 comments

In daily meanderings on the web I came across this article by John Cow the internet marketing guy (no not John Chow though they are very similar… funny that).  This publicity stunt had people believing the John Cow website was shutdown because it was hacked.  Some people thought the stunt was funny and clever whilst some thought it was evil or poor marketing.  This guy said it undermined his whole brand and I think that is an apt description.   Other people were asking questions about advertising and whether it was fair to the people who pay money that they missed out on 24 hours worth of advertising.  Isn’t that a breach of contract?

Using controversy to get attention is nothing new.   Richard Branson does it masterfully well and so have others.  I am reminded of Peter Spann‘s use of the concept of leverage in his book.  He uses the concept to explain that you can have positive and negative leverage.  Negative leverage is like having a virus you can’t cure.  It keeps bringing you bad publicity.  Positive leverage gives you something that keeps flowing positivity in your direction.  I think John Cow’s stunt may actually be a ploy that could ultimately back fire.  Why?  Because it lacks integrity.

In an earlier post I pointed out how some people value money more than relationships and people and you can tell this by the it’s not personal it’s business line that they use.  There is nothing wrong with making money (I would be a hypocrite to say otherwise) but you can by still be entrepreneurial and have integrity.  That is, you can make money and do so in a way where people are not deceived.   Check out this latest problogger post on how to get noticed on popular blogs.  I noticed a comment from Missy that I thought was relevant.   She argues that a lot of the comments on blogs (generally speaking) are congratulatory rather than critical and I would have to agree.  Ryan also wrote in the comments:

    What about shamelessly saying I’ve got next to no readers at all, and everyone should visit my boring blog right now? It’s not even a joke… I really do have next to no     readers, and I’m quite sure if I was someone else, I’d find my blog boring as hell. So everyone… if you want to see some boring stuff, you know where to look eh?

Man do I know how he feels! So my question is this:  is there any integrity left in the world of blogging?  Ok, so I have framed the debate somewhat by using a yes/no box … sorry about that.   Let me climb out.  Ahh, that’s better. The point I got out of Ryan’s comment relates in a different way to John Cow’s stunt.   Ryan, I think, is speaking out of sarcasm and making fun of people who write comments in blog posts that are designed to drive traffic.   Not promote debate or discussions.  Maybe I am idealist… but I think a blog should be a space to build communities and share ideas.   When we use words like ‘traffic’ we should also use words like ‘value adding to human lives’ for without one how can the other exist?  We have this silly attitude about being in business that says, ‘well I am in this to make money… not make friends.’   Yes but people engage with you because of the essence of what you are doing and the relationship you are building with them.

I learned this through teaching evaluations.  In one semester I was complete Nazi to my students and I scored low.  When I freed up I realised that I scored a whole point higher!  I can’t say this enough times… what people believe is a perspective or a point of view.  Now, what did I change to provoke that result.  Lots of things.  In particular I changed how I related to students.  Most importantly, I did would I could do to change how they perceived me. I began to talk with them and treat them like human beings and not cattle (or traffic).   If you are conning people or deceiving them after a while you will have this as your reputation and people will really believe you are like this. Don’t believe me?  What about people like Bill Clinton?  What do you remember him for?

Take a look at the top five blogs at technorati.  Heres a list I got this morning:

1. Boing Boing

2. Problogger

3. TechCrunch

4. LifeHacker

5. Engadget

What do they have in common?  Let me see:

1. They provide valuable information to a community 

Each one of these popular provide information that groups of people (i.e. communities of practice) find interesting.  Did they just get lucky… I think so.  Most of them appeal to cultures, groups and ideas.  Blogging, at least to me, appeals to communities.  It’s a way to engage with similar minded people for very little cost and it represents a way to add value (see my later point).

2. They provide most of their advice free

This goes without saying but I need to add something here which I think is important.  The internet is a part of free culture.  People want stuff for free.  I know, why should I work my butt off writing stuff that I may never make money out of?  Think about that while I work out a reasonable answer.

3. They add value firstly and secondly focus on how that value can be used to make money 

Value is added to people’s life by these sites.   They make money because of this perceived value adding.  They don’t make money through controversy, smart or dumb tactics or anything else.  People see the value and spread it for them.  Read this if you want to see what I mean here.

4. They grew a reputation through people

People make things popular because they see the value and share it with others.  As a blog grows in popularity it’s because of the ‘integrity’ of that blog in the eyes of the readers.  Integrity means the value and personal character of the blog itself.   It also means the authority that blog has in the eyes of the community.  Authority is the toughest thing to build because it requires a validation process.  I wonder, how do we validate things?  How do we determine authority?

So is there any integrity left?  Of course there is but this is a business model we are talking about.  Whenever money comes into the picture there are bound to be stunts like John Cow‘s that provoke people to write stuff like this.  My question is: is this really the right thing to do?  There are several answers we need to consider here:  First, will it help the blogger in the long term?  There are those that think this kind of stunt will have a negative effect on John Cow.  I think it will further polarise his audience and weed out those that aren’t of the same value set as he is.

Secondly, the use of controversy is a sure-fire tactic to get attention for a limited amount of time.  However, it will pass on and I think in a month or two we won’t be talking about it anymore.  It’s simply a stunt.   Thirdly, the thing about blogging is that there is an implied trust in the readership that I think is exploited by a great many of us.  We do not realise that people believe first then analyse later.  There is tremendous power in this concept and it’s worth writing down!  Because of this I think more care needs to be taken about the authority and quality of information provided.  These communities are self-regulating which is both a problem and a curse.  Those that hunger after the dollar will group together.   That information is based on a set of values that override others and so on.   Lastly, if there is any integrity in our blogging it should be evident in what we post.  What’s our motivation?  Money or people?  If it’s money the readers should be able to see that and then make a value judgement for themselves.  If they can’t then I think a subtle form of manipulation is going on.   That, is not good for bloggers and it’s not good for our readers.

In closing I would like to say that the John Cow stunt is something which I thought was clever but I wouldn’t do something like that myself.   Why not?  Personally, I don’t think it was very clear to the readers of his blog that he was joking.  This got me thinking that perhaps we need more integrity in our blogging.  I think this is the case because even though this was just a marketing ploy… people really believed he was hacked!  It did however get me talking about it (which isn’t saying that much!) and thinking why do we fall for things like this?  On the one hand I admire the clever ploy yet on the other I am thinking well isn’t that deceptive? Either way, I still think we need to have more integrity in our blogs and be more upfront about what we are setting out to achieve.

 

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Category: rants / Tags: ,

What to know more about me?

November 8, 2007 / Luke / No comments

You probably don’t.  But if you do check out my facebook icon in the navigation tab.

Happy reading!

Luke

Category: life problems / Tags:

The Pakistan crisis is a good example of a messy problem

November 6, 2007 / Luke / No comments

In management circles the idea that problems can be messy (not structured, poorly defined) has been around for some time. I was reading the news this morning and came across a good example of a messy problem. This is the Pakistan crisis. A messy problem is said to have no clear solution that will work and any idea that is used might make the situation better or much worse. In this article the writer points out how the Pakistan crisis is good for business. Two different viewpoints are offered here and we can express them meaningfully as a narrative:

“The Pakistan crisis threatens economic stability”

and

“Businesses are worried about their future because they attach it to Pervez Musharraf staying in power”

From a business point of view a political crisis is an economic crisis because later in the article the report notes the economy fell as a result of the news that the General may not be in control. This is perception is it not? The perception or idea that he is not control is causing economic problems. Think about it… that’s almost worth remembering and writing down!

So we see that what is happening in the political economy could make an impact on the business economy of Pakistan. Now to the solutions:

1. General Musharraf leaves

If he leaves the country may fall into economic turmoil destroying it’s livelihood.  There is a perceptual link between stability and Musharraf that needs to be handeld carefully here.
2. General Musharraf stays

If he stays political unrest may come anyway and then economic turmoil is coming anyway (apparently).

3. General Musharraf resigns his military post but stays on as Prime Minister

The market will see this as a show of weakness and in favour of political stability we have economic instability. This in turn would lead to more political instability in the long term and would keep the country in turmoil over a longer period of time.

4. General Musharraf keeps his military position but resigns leadership of the country

This option would see a new election. Possibly Imran Kahn or Benezir Bhutto could take power. This would mean a conversation would need to be struck between Kahn or Bhutto about how the military role would play out in the new government. I would think this is impossible given that both of the aforementioned people are currently on the run.

5. General Musharraf is ‘removed’ and a democratic election held… again

Say for a moment that Musharraf goes into exile and a new election is held. This would mean either Kahn or Bhutto would get in. Which would mean in the short term (according to the article) that economic unrest would follow. Now, for a country that already has a history of economic problems, this would be a huge blow. Economic turmoil always seems to follow political unrest.

6. Any of the above solutions may lead to unrest which in turn may lead to drug growth industries

Consider this article on Lebanon and the growing drug trade there.  When unrest occurs, the restrains are lifted off and crime begins to rise.  Unrest means chaos and this in turn means legal, political, economical systems begin to fall apart.  Sure, it’s the illusion of control but it’s an illusion that’s real enough alright.

These are just a few options that on the surface present new ideas which in turn present new problems. In order to effectively overcome such problems in life you need to dissolve the problem. How can this crisis be dissolved?  A higher order solution that removes the problems above is required.  Yet, none immediately spring to mind. Everything that I think of only makes new problems.  I could go on and list solutions here but what is really required is a change of perspective.   A fresh set of ideas.  Yet in a country that is in this much turmoil it’s unlikely that it will ever occur.  Do you have any ideas?

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Category: life problems / Tags: , , , , ,

The think different challenge: Learning to love your boss

November 5, 2007 / Luke / 14 comments

I got an email from Tristan at the synergy institute about the Think Different Challenge. A friend of his from I will change your life.com started the idea a few days ago. The rules of the challenge can be found here. In short I have to take something I feel negative about and change my thinking. I picked a person who I think represents a problem I have with authority in my life. I am not overly rebellious neither am I difficult to get along with but I sometimes am very suspicious of people in authority over me. I don’t think one person stands out as being ‘Nazi boss from hell’ and I really think this is a bad belief system that I am holding on to. So, I have decided to think differently about authority and learn to love my boss.

Our thoughts make up our being to a large extent. We are the sum total of what we spend our time thinking about. So, what do I think about authority? Here is a list.

1. I don’t like it

I hate people telling me what to do. Not a bad thing considering I have two failed attempts at business in the can. Yet this is a dominating thought pattern I need to overcome if I am to consider success.

2. I want freedom

Who doesn’t? In me is the inbuilt desire to want to do what I want and not be told by anyone what to do. A good belief to a point but I am employed and I need to respect the rules of that institution. After all they give me money!

3. A host of other reasons…

I think the majority of it can be explained by my heritage. My dad hates authority. There some excuses. Now for the real deal.  I am going to take this guys advice and avoid procrastination!

How do I change my perspective to allow me to have a better relationship with authority? I learn to love my boss. Firstly, what is it about my boss that I don’t like? Him or the position he holds. I thought he was a great bloke until he got the job. Now, I need to, in my mind, separate the position from the person and attempt to think in the same way they do. I start by surfacing my hidden assumptions about authority and deliberately challenging them. So here goes:

1. My boss rules me with an iron fist

Does he? How many times a day does he tell me what I can and can’t do? Only when he has to because he is being paid to. You would be surprised the amount of general and upper level managers are putting on the game face at work. I often talk to people in these positions and most of the time they are just doing what they think they should be in accordance with the wishes of management. They are playing a role and for this reason are under a lot of pressure. As a defense mechanism they are resorting to control because it’s there responsibility to. Is this personal… not likely so I can’t believe my boss is Hitler I have to move on.  This next one really stretches my comfort zone but here we go.

2. My boss is stealing away my freedom of expression

Really? Is your freedom of expression relevant to what you are being paid to do? Maybe you chose the wrong job and your boss isn’t the problem. My freedom of expression is only relevant to what my job is. If my job requires no freedom of expression then why should I be ‘free’ to use it? My perspective should be I am here to do the job I was paid to, not create a new job for which the boss isn’t paying me. I can do ‘me’ things when I have the ability to support myself. When I signed the contract that was it! I can bring my creative expression to my set tasks or make them better but this is not the place to get cute with creativity. I have a contractual obligation! Don’t burn out on it and quit your job because you will find the assumption following you to your next job if you do.

3. I have a problem with authority

Why? This is because in your brain you think authority is a bad thing. Authority is a good thing. Why? Imagine if your house caught fire and you wanted it put out but you needed to give permission to the fire brigade. Say you are being beaten and because there are no police officers you never get your case heard. What if the laws that are designed to protect your rights don’t work and your house is taken away. What then? What you are really saying is: I don’t want authority in my life I want it all my own way. Being under submission to other people is a good thing in the right circumstances. Remember, whatever you do that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

4. My boss never hears what I say

Really? Your boss never pays attention to you? That is a good thing! If your boss is watching you it’s because you are a problem. Managers only solve the problems they are engaged with. They delegate everything they can because it helps them in their jobs. Chances are your boss doesn’t want to hear what you have to say because you are not in his/her engagement space. People only ever solve the problems they have to because people perceive things to be problematic. That is, problems are perspectives.  A person in management is under pressure to make decisions, perform lots of boring routine tasks and make difficult and complex decisions.  Your issue is probably not as important as the one that they are currently engaged with.

These are the four key assumptions in my life that I challenged and you know what… I feel better already.   To do this for yourself find a negative thing you don’t like and write down the hidden assumptions it’s built on.  Then systematically challenge those negative assumptions by building positive alternatives.  Over time as you gently reinforce these positive assumptions they will come to replace the negative ones.  Tie your imagination to the process and see yourself being happy with the problem.  See yourself coping.

I hope you have enjoyed this article.  To learn more about the thinking differently challenge.  Click the link below.

Think different

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Category: personal development, strategy / Tags: , ,

Why you should never lose hope

November 3, 2007 / Luke / 18 comments

Do you have a dream?  I do.  I dream to be successful in all that I do.  One thing that kept me going through the hard times was a desire to see something happen in my life that was great.  I would say that at least on one occasion holding onto hope was very important.  Having working with a aid organisation for awhile now I can say of the hallmarks of extreme poverty is how people in the slums of the world lose hope.   The dreams they have escape them and the reality of the sounds, smell and feelings of their situation stop them from hoping for something better.   It’s sad to see older people who have given up hope that their dreams will ever come to pass.  Here are some reasons why you should never give up hope.

1. Hope is a goal setter

Hope sets the goal for some future event to come to pass.  Whether you realise it or not, you have the power to hope for something better.  When you focus on what’s happening in your life and hope sets in you will begin to dream.  We are all equipped with the mechanisms of hope, so there is no excuse.  Transcending reality is the hard part and I will talk about that in a later post.   You need some kind of goal to set for yourself so hope for something.  Ask yourself this question:  What do you like doing?  Are you doing it?  No?  Why not begin to hope you will?  Set a goal on the inside and begin hoping.  Without the goal how can you ever get anywhere?

2. Hope makes you feel good

Hope can be medicine for your soul.  Are you stuck in a terrible situation.  Begin to hope for things to change.  Recognise what it is that you want to change and begin dreaming about it.  Think about the underlying emotions that rise into your consciousness when you do.   What feelings do you feel?  Doesn’t it make you feel better.  The only problem is staying in that state.  You need to foster hope and make it grow.  You do this by remembering the hope day after day and entertaining it in your imagination.  I do this often and it has helped me tremendously in goals I have achieved and goals I haven’t.  I almost have a PhD which is the result of hoping for something first.  When I began this journey I wasn’t qualified and I should not have been let in.  But I hoped and believed and here I am today.  It all began when I had a dream in my heart of wanting to study more at university.   I will share this story in more detail later on.  There were times when I was studying over the past seven years that I felt I would never emerge out of it in one piece.  But, thank God, I never lost hope that I would emerge out of it with my dream in hand.  What do you dream about?  Begin hoping for it by seeing it in your minds eyes.  Hope for something better.

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3. Hope is a template for faith

In the post that follows this one I will explain it in more detail.  Hope sets the goal and provides the template for you to believe.  The power of belief is something everybody has.  You use it to shape and guide your life on a daily basis.  Think of it this way: hope is the blueprint of your dreams whereas belief is the concrete.  What do you dream about?  I dream about a world where communities are transformed from poverty into prosperity.  I dream about things that spontaneously come to me during prayer, my children’s life and those that I teach.  This is not real it’s a dream.  Yet it provides the template for me to want something better in my life.  There is a saying I have heard in Christian circles, ‘hope deferred makes the heart grow sick’ (it comes from the proverbs).  When you lose hope you lose everything.  I have seen the reality of this in people’s life.  What you think about your life and the direction it’s taking is very much the substance of hope.  Everything you are doing is based on it.  If you are a practicing lawyer, doctor, accountant or IT person you once hoped you could do that.  That hope lived in you as a dream.  Now that you are doing it, you no longer hope for what you have.  Yet, if you didn’t hope in the first place you would have had to template to form a belief in you and you would have thrown it all away.

4. Hope builds optimism for the future

A very close friend of mind said it this way, ‘hope is faith in the future’.  I like that.  Hope is faith that at same point you will be experiencing a future dream.  Whatever it is that you want to do if you hope for it, see it and begin to expect it you will eventually have it.   You cannot reach your dreams if you don’t have one.  You cannot build a better life if you don’t think about what it is you want and hope like crazy.  Will you get it if you hope for it?  No, but you will begin to move towards it and without that you will never get your dreams.  Hope is the substance we use to lay down a blueprint for the future.  It’s the part of us that was born into us or discovered as we grew older and it’s the real us surfacing up from underneath letting us know that we are really there.    Today, why don’t you begin to hope and see what you find in your heart.

Remember what you see is not always what is real.  Hope forms a firm foundation for the future actions you wish to take.  If you don’t do it… then your life will resemble pretty much what it does at present.

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Category: the heart / Tags: , , , ,

Creative project of the week: Adding pictures to my novel

November 2, 2007 / Luke / No comments

Note I have discontinued this project.

Okay so this is a cheapie. It’s end of semester… I have marking out the wazoo! A while ago I was playing around with the Adobe Premiere Elements and stock photos and thought… I will make a version of my novel which is digitally illustrated. So, here we are for this project. Enjoy.

Experimental fiction that’s digitally illustrated… oh yeah you know you like it!

The full version is available for download here if you found this interesting.

Thanks for reading.

Category: creativity / Tags:

Working out your niche… a few lessons

November 1, 2007 / Luke / No comments

Okay so I am fairly new at this blogging thing. So for my very first blogging advice post I wanted to share with you what I learned about build a niche. When I started this I was thinking to myself how do I convert what I know in my academic pursuits to the world of blogging. After all I am a problem solving expert apparently. In the beginning I really didn’t know what I wanted to say or what I wanted to communicate so I actually just started posting stuff that was on my heart. Stuff that I felt was important to me. What was the net result of that? Well this article on the wiki way of thinking was the most popular one I have written. Followed closely to that one was some insights I have about strategic thinking. The third one that was most popular was this one about the art of presenting. Rounding out the top four was 8 things I have learned about success. So these are the four most viewed articles so far. Given that last month (October) I had 950 odd unique visitors I can begin to speculate about what people want to see from me. I should also say that I have relied on keywords and blog carnivals at this stage from traffic. I haven’t yet had the time to do more networking but over summer I should see significantly more traffic increases as the time to do this becomes available.

What wasn’t popular? Hard to tell after only four months but these are the emergent ‘stinkers’ reader wise: What to say when there is nothing to say, My SEO attempt, The problem of perspectives, Knowing the real you.

When I was reflecting on this I noticed a pattern emerge:

1. My shorter more specific articles gained more attention.

2. The articles about simpler things got more attention

3. The articles aimed at head stuff got less attention

4. The stuff about everyday problems got a lot of attention

In short, I learned that in blogging less is more and quality is important. In information design we always stress the information that’s presented the best is read the most. I would express it this way for blogging: less complex content + higher quality post (razor specific) = more viewable content. The four least popular articles I have written were promoted in much the same way. However, people aren’t stupid. As Russell Ackoff says, ‘there is always a rationality behind action.’ So skip the crap, focus on what you know and take it from there. So what did I learn about my niche?

People don’t want head stuff necessarily. I know, there are a lot of people who do well with the head stuff (i.e. Steve Pavlina). What I learned about my niche is that I need to focus down on the issues of life. Life stuff! I didn’t learn this by guessing it. I learned it by posting about 70 articles and fishing around to see what people wanted to read. People want real stuff that’s helpful from me, not head stuff. I am not too bad at the head stuff (i.e. my reality post) but people don’t want that. At least not from me. The long tail used the Pareto principle to establish the idea that niche markets drive 80% of business.  To my understanding at least I think the ‘long tail’ idea is suggesting something more akin to human behaviour that anything actually surprising. We have always been called to ‘niche’ markets. Take the (western) church as a case in point. Just how many denominational branches are there?  There would be 80% of Christians in most of the fringe dominations?  I don’t think so.  I think 20% of Christians would make up the niches and 80% belong to the popular ‘mainstream’ varieties.   I think the smaller markets account for the bigger markets just in a different way.  The long tail stuff sort of suggests that the 20 makes is covered by the 80.  What I am saying is that 80 (the mainstream) is reflected in part by the 20 (smaller grooves in the market).

An alternative movie gains an audience because it grows in conjunction with the mainstream.  Mainstream doesn’t account for alternative movies necessarily but alternative movies reflect a substrata of the mainstream and hence grow a following.  They may not have the same values but in essence it’s the same thing just targeted at ‘groups’ of people who have placed a demand in smaller numbers.  It’s popular… just a different kind of popular.  The stuff that’s unpopular is really a marginal product.  It’s non-existent.  Academic writing is marginal.  It’s not popular.  In the last census it was found that less than 1% of Australians were interested in academic content.   Are you interested in academic content?  Probably not!  You are interested in being helped and finding practical advice… so that’s the direction I am going to take.

In the case of this blog, the content that’s the most popular is popular in real life.  No surprises there.  The head stuff wasn’t popular to the readers because a lot of it is not interesting, applicable or relevant to everyday life.  Popular stuff is that way because large groups of people find it relevant.  Niche content on a blog I think has to be a subset of a popular idea if the readership is to grow.  Granted 950 uniques last month isn’t a huge amount of traffic by any means but mark my words… as I narrow down to the content streams people want, this blog will grow.   Yes it will!
What about going to a mall?  In Queen street I see a stack of shops carrying a variety of niche content. It’s only the big places like Kmart or Myer that have these huge scattergun approaches. Even then, they have niche categories. For the 20% of high selling products the niche products carry the rest.  In my case I noticed that these articles were highly viewed and others weren’t even though the same groups of people had the same opportunity to see them (roughly speaking).   Taking all this into consideration I have decided that this blog will now focus less on head stuff and more on the practical issues of life, work and the web.  In particular I am focusing on everyday things because that’s what my readers have indicated they want.  More specifics, higher quality and less head stuff.  I learned this ‘niche’ by testing out different ideas and so on.  Hence, I have changed my name to the Life Problems blog.  That is what this will be about and that is the niche I am farming in to coin an agricultural metaphor.

Earnings I hear you say?  Well I will post on that soon (when I have something to post about!).  I am still growing and learning about this blogging thing.  I have learned something though… if it’s popular offline chances are it will be online too.  Funny that!

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Category: strategy / Tags: , ,

The dartboard approach to life problems

November 1, 2007 / Luke / One comment

 

In a previous post I spoke about the problems of life. I want to write briefly today about a way we can walk through problems using a dartboard approach. What is the dartboard approach? In short, the dartboard approach is where you take a best guess as what you should do and take it from there. Also remembering, to let go and just go for it. Here are some of the hallmarks to the dartboard approach.

1. When you can’t work out what to do… do something!

If you are stuck for an idea take whatever you can and just straight up go for it.  What’s the worse thing that could happen?  If it involves money take your time and consider your shot before throwing BUT don’t do nothing.  Make a plan that involves you taking some action first.

2. Make sure it’s an educated guess

When thinking through problems you have to look at what your options are and be thinking strategically.  A confident dart player does not simply shut their eyes and hurl the projectile without thought.  They are working off a ‘best guest’ scenario as to what their opponent is thinking.  In short they are sizing up their own plan of attack against what they think is the opponents next move.  There is no answer to what somebody will do next but those that make an educated guess and then take action are more likely to be right than wrong most of the time.

3. Have confidence in your choices 

I would hate to tell you this but most decisions are driven by emotions.  That means, you have a decision you make based on the emotions you have and as a consequence will often favour those.  If you are like me, you have a problem believing in yourself.  This means, most of the time you write something only to receive a criticism from somebody else who drags you down.  Remember, they are not responsible for your decisions… you are.  Listen to good counsel by all means (my next point), but do not allow yourself to be told by someone that you have no right to make choices.  You do have that right.  You should therefore be confident and say to yourself, ‘I made a choice and I am happy with it.’  Be confident and know that your choice is a good educated guess and it’s relevant to you and your situation.

4. Talk to others

When planning and taking action it’s a key thing to remember that you are not alone.  You have people around you that care deeply for you and if you ask them they will help you talk it through.   People are there to help.   If it’s a tough decision talk to them about it if you need a fresh set of eyes.   In a later post I will be speaking about how we can recognise the role emotions play in our lives.

5. Pray

Before I make a big decision I turn to God and ask him to help me.  After all, he is interested.  So I pray and ask for a feeling through my inner man that what I am about to do is right for me.  This works most of the time for me.  Sometimes I get a horrible feeling in my gut and this tells me not to do that thing I was planning.  Other times I feel comfortable or at peace with it… so this helps too.  There are times when my life seems to be going nowhere… if I stop and talk to God about it and write down what I believe he is telling me then I fair a lot better than I do otherwise.

In all of these things it’s important to recognise that life is not certain.  I was not born near a roadmap neither was I handed a list of what I am to do here.  Largely, I believe, it’s us to me what I do and how I travel.  I believe in destiny but at the same time I believe we have a free choice to make.  When I am struggling I resort to this list and it’s helped me greatly.  One time I didn’t know whether I should enrol in a course or not.  So I just enrolled.  I figured that, if I take the chance, I will probably be fine even if I get it wrong.  What happens if I do and I fail? Unless what you are planning to do is dangerous to others… so what?  I have failed at heaps of things and each one of those failures eventually led to an open door somewhere else that became a success.  Am I saying that you have to fail to succeed.  Yes.  So just think about it and throw that dart!

Thanks for reading.  Why not talk about this article in my forum? Alternatively you can leave a comment or talk to me personally about it.

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