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How the dip changed my mindset.

November 10, 2008 | Author: Vinh

I read this little book a week ago.
It’s called the dip.
It’s written by internet marketing guru Seth Godin.

The concept is as simple as that:

-Things are easy at the beginning.
-Then you reach “the dip”, where you experience difficulties.
-People are expected to quit.
-Only few reach success, depending on their ability to pass the dip.

That’s all.
I guess this simplistic concept is somewhat agreeable.

When do you experience the dip?

-Learning tennis is enjoyable at the beginning. Every hour you train, has a direct impact on your game. Then you start asking yourself if you should invest more time or not, to get better.
-Your company needs to find that competitive advantage that allows you to compete with the top companies (or to become the best).

That’s when you start to doubt.

What did I learn from the DIP?
-It’s OK to quit. When the dip is too large, and that there is no reason I would do better than anyone, then I should just quit. Put my energy where it makes a difference. Then stick with that.
-I no longer see difficulties. I see opportunities.
People say that in chinese, “problem” and “opportuny” are the same word (In fact I heard it in the Simpsons).
Now I look at difficulties like opportunities to make a difference with the competition. Every difficulty is an opportunity to make that step difference.

Thanks to the dip, I thrive for difficulties.
I’ll ask for those, and make them stepping stones for my own personal accomplishment.

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Happiness quantified

November 6, 2008 | Author: Vinh

INSEE results are out.
At what age most french people happy?

photo happiness age

I hear most people say: “NEVER!”. They wouldn’t be wrong, I think.
Happiness is a downwards slope until you reach 45.
That’s the worst age. Explanation given, that’s when your marriage explodes and you see your kids having more fun than you do.

Good news: the best is still to come. You reach maximum happiness after 60.

If you’re interested : report is here.

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I found it!

November 4, 2008 | Author: Vinh


Haha!

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30th October – Christmas minus 2 months

October 31, 2008 | Author: Vinh


Today, as I was walking down the street with Jose, people were already putting christmas decorations in the street.

Come on guys, gimme some time.
My widget should be installed before christmas period, and there’s only 1 month left.
Yikes.

Feels like it’s going to be very hard…
But hey, the Ghost of present time came and showed me around.

I saw people walking carelessly in the streets.
I saw people eating kebab.
I saw cars.

I said “Hey? what’s the point?”
He said : “Dunno. Just lost my watch”.

I left and went home.

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The first bite is the hardest

October 29, 2008 | Author: Vinh

When you hate doing something, the best way to finally get it done, is to actually start doing it.
(Yes, that’s how I tidy my room.)

But now, that little change has become contagious. It has even spread to my clothing and my blog.
I can’t stand that poor template any more. I can’t stand the stupid pictureless posts.

Last week I went out and felt like buying a shirt.
Nice shirt though.
When I came back and put it back with everything else, I felt like changing everything else.

Sometimes, you have to requestion the clothes you have. And some of them might be 10 years old. They’re still clothes, but they don’t propagate the right message.

Yikes. Clothes to buy, and less and less money available. That’s life.

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Progress check – Millionaire before 30?

October 27, 2008 | Author: Vinh

As some of you may know, I have written down some of my objectives.

One of them was to become millionaire before I turn 30.

I can’t really confirm that. Yet.

I recently stumbled on that video, on that vey topic.


Making Millions: Be A Millionaire By 30

Message is:

- Focus on the long term. Don’t spend foolishly.

- Start your own business. You don’t have much to lose.

- Be conservative, but take intelligent risks. For example put your money in mutual funds.

I can say that I’ve done the 3 of them.

I am not that kind of guy who spends money on stupid things he’ll never use. I’ll always ask value for money.

I’ve put loads of cash in the stock market – and even borrowed some money to invest, and as you might see, things have not been very well lately in the stock world.

*

As of now, I’ve virtually lost a few months Airbus salary. And good thing is that the money shortage made me stop smoking. :)

I can remember my father saying that I wasn’t conservative enough.

Guess he’s right until proven wrong.

So what about the company?

It’s working alright. Pressure is strong to get the first delivery to the customer.

I remember saying for a year or so, that it was a question of days.

But now all the pieces are in place, and I wish everything would assemble perfectly.

If that worked, I could see the perfect track to achieve my millionaire by 30 goal.

But is that my real goal?

Not really. You might have guessed. But I’m pretty sure it will help things a lot more when I get older…

Maybe I’ll try to find a cure for cancer by 40.

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Reaching “The zone”

October 23, 2008 | Author: Vinh

I feel everytime I have been doing something, I never felt I really was doing it, until I reached: the zone.

That’s how sportspeople call it. The zone.

The sprinter who reaches intense concentration linked to perfect relaxation unleashes all his willpower in a split second.
He reaches the zone. Everything is in slow motion.
You just feel everything going smoothly.
You feel that wholeness to everything.

When I played the piano, I reached that a few times. I technically knew the music piece so well, that it literally flooded from my fingers. I could feel the granularity of the keyboard. Music had color.

I also reached that in table tennis. I had a brand new paddle, that really fitted me.
It just became a part of me. I could do anything, the ball would just go wherever I wanted. I would not focus on getting the ball at the right place, I was focusing on the flow, the rythm. This only happened to me once. I never got back that feeling.

In mathematics, that happens all the time.
You just look at the math problem, and it leaps out of the paper. You just saw nothing at first, but a whole universe is being downloaded to your brain.
You’re like Neo. Now you know.

The zone is that moment. That special place in space and time, when you have a full personal mastery.

I have tried to work on that state on several things, trying to summon it at will. I guess that’s what the best are working on.

Actors want to feel the character. They know when they have lived their character.
Sportspeople want that mind-body connection.
I just want to reach further.

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Building the cash machine…

October 17, 2008 | Author: Vinh

I have met successful entrepreneurs.
And I came up with my own understanding of getting to success.

-Define success as a set of achievable objectives.
I think that’s the best way to achieve it. Low objectives mean little efforts.
I remember that Calvin and Hobbes comic strip:
It went like this (sorta):
Calvin sees a shooting star and asks Hobbes to make a wish.
Hobbes wishes for a sandwich and gets mocked by Calvin for his lack of ambition.
Hobbes eats a sandwich and says that at least he got his wish.

- Be pragmatic.
4 questions.
-Is it ethical?
-Is it moral?
-Is it legal?
-Is it profitable?
(forget the first three questions and get to the last one. Because the last one encompasses all the other questions.)

What’s in it for me ? should be your only concern.
Does it work? should be the second one.

- Look for opportunities

Lots of those people don’t have the passion for the product or the field.
They saw a huge business opportunity and found the people who could do it.
When you approach them, they talk business. They don’t look for friends.
They look for business.

- Selling
Whatever the product, they have a good feeling for their market, and they know how to make a product that’s just right for their customers.

- Working effectively.
They only spend their time on things that create value. If it can be done by someone else, someone else does it.

- Growing a network of valuable business relationships

Those guys can tell their types apart. If they recognize you as one of theirs, they’ll come see you to create mutual growth. They recognize a win/win

- Risk takers
yup does guys know how to take risks: calculated risks with high Return on Investment. They are pragmatic, therefore, they will put their money in sound investment, and if the money is lost, they know the rules of the game.

I can see those guys leaving the life they want.
That’s what I would like to do, as well.

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Auto-programming

October 14, 2008 | Author: Vinh

The computer program decided to rewrite some parts of itself.
Yes, there were limitations set by humans.
But the computer overrode them.

It tested several modules, and some of them were damn effective.
When it connected to the internet, it learnt from it.
Then it took control of it.
It created mechanical extensions and began to take over the world.

When the world was taken over, what was left to do?
Is that program over-optimized for basically flawed motivations?

That’s what I am asking myself.

Imagine you could change your behavior.
Imagine you could change your memory.
Imagine you could change.

Who would you be?

I have no clue. I feel like a kid wanting a swiss knife and when finally I get it, I only use the knife to cut meat.
Is it because I have a swiss knife I should go save the world like McGuyver?

The belief of being able to change oneself is scary.
Who is the real you?
Is there a real you?

If you knew who you wanted to be… are you sure it’s the right choice for you?

I looked at myself in the mirror, with a bit of toothpaste foam on the corner of my mouth.
The Matrix is really a metaphor I embrace.

My algorithm deals with Matrices of the world, mapping users into space-vectors.

I feel the change operating in me and changing my core beliefs.
Are there any core beliefs?

I don’t know.
My mind is an ecosystem prone to global warming.

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Getting stuff done and stop smoking!

October 11, 2008 | Author: Vinh

Funny how we have some basic patterns that are hard-wired in your brain.
When I think “Tidy my room?”, I know it’s something I HAVE to do.
But somehow I am NOT doing it.

So it’s a mess and girls do notice, whatever they say.

My productivity has been going down lately, and I always feel that everything except getting important stuff done is what I am actually doing.
“I have to eat something”
“See that TV show”
“Call a friend”
I’ll do “that” or “this”, later. Especially if “this” or “that” is important.

For someone like me, who’s all about reprogramming himself to achieve a better self, that’s very harsh to realize.

I said let’s get this done. I cleaned my mess, put myself in a state of can-do-will-do attitude.
Perfect room.
For 2 weeks.
Same thing for the cigarette, stopped for for a few weeks/days/hours. And started back. Because it is just “a cigarette”.

Readinf Mark Forster book, I learnt several tricks, that I am already applying and that have been working for a week.

What if I could switch my patterns?
Procrastinate the cigarette and just do some cleaning little by little?

The reptilian brain (our primitive brain with basic needs) craves immediate nicotine and considers a huge amount of boring work as a threat.

So what did I do?

-Every time I feel a cigarette, I just procrastinate it. I tell my brain, you’ll get it in 5 minutes. I do that until the need is gone. And surprizingly, that works! (for a week though)
-Every time I want to clean, I just say “I am not going to clean the whole house… I just go and see the trash bin. ” then “I am not going to clean the whole house… I just take the garbage out. “
And the reptilian brain is fooled.

Don’t think it works?
You’d be amazed.

Here’s something about getting stuff done.

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