Worry gets us nowhere
Tag: video
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Go With the Flow
Flow is amazing.
What is flow? Flow is when you concentrate on a particular task so much that everything else drops out of focus. It’s “in the zone.”
Ever had one of those days where you worked on something at 9 and the next time you looked up it was 4:30?
That’s flow.
As a result of flow, I’ve written things in a day that otherwise would take a week.
It’s that powerful and as a tool, it can 10x your workflow.
It’s beautiful and finicky. Be careful.
Flow disappears with any interruption.
This fickleness is worth thinking about before “pinging.”Getting a person’s attention is a cost.
It’s worth the time to study this subject – and I recommend the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
TED Talk:
Every week I do a video blog (or VLOG).
This week I talked about minimalism.
When I started this, I was very scared of putting myself on video, so I got the courage and put myself in the arena, killing a lot of bad self talk.This gives me the chance to work on my communication skills, start a new medium, and experiment!
Once a week, after I have thought about them, I will give them a day here on the blog.
These aren’t just promotion posts (although they are, please watch and share 
) I want to take the time to break them down and try to clarify what I want to communicate and the tactical things I learned through doing.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please,subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook page where I post them every Sunday night.
What I Wanted To Communicate About Minimalism
Working with less allows you to work with more. Minimalism is the art of “minimizing” or eliminating the things that aren’t necessary to focus on the things that are.
- Less to keep up and clean up – When you try minimalism, you have less to clean up.How much easier is it to clean your place when you have to pick up five things instead of fifty.
- More energy to appreciate when you have – It’s easier to appreciate the stuff you have when you have less of it. If your shirt tears up, then its easier to see you need to fix it.
- Your place (brain) works better and feels better when you have less to support then you have more mental processing power to work with.
What I Learned Doing This Video
- Standardizing the intro and outro made this quicker.
- Light is important – I need to check out a tutorial on it.
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The Default
We accept the default
It’s human nature. We normally accept whatever is in front of us. Our brains can’t do the math, we work with too many stimuli per second to figure out every single decision. Our brains take the path of least resistance because we are on the lookout for things that could harm us.
This isn’t a bad thing, nor should you think of it as such. If we considered every option we would be paralyzed by choice. If you thought going through your closet in the morning on a stressful day is bad, considering every decision that presents itself to us is that feeling times 1000x.
So, we take the default, and we should, for most things. The hard part of life is determining of what defaults you don’t want to take and doing the hard work up from in changing them.
Don't accept the defaults you don't want
Every week I do a video blog (or VLOG).
When I started this, I was very scared of putting myself on video, so I got the courage and put myself in the arena, killing a lot of bad self talk.This gives me the chance to work on my communication skills, start a new medium, and experiment!
Once a week, after I have thought about them, I will give them a day here on the blog.
These aren’t just promotion posts (although they are, please watch and share ) I want to take the time to break them down and try to clarify what I want to communicate and the tactical things I learned through doing.
This week I talked about intentional scarcity.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please,subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook page where I post them every Sunday night.
What I Wanted To Communicate About Intentional Scarcity
When you take away things purposefully, you train your mind to get stronger. The stronger your mind, the more you get to do. Intentional scarcity is a great way to do that. It makes you tougher so the tough things don’t break you.
- Get used to less – We don’t use that much, and getting used to the idea that you have less and deal with less helps.
- We have limited focus – nothing is boundless, especially our focus. With less to focus on, you spend more focus on the things that matter.
- Improve your willpower – Seeing you can do it will improve your confidence that you can do other things. It levels up your willpower.
What I Learned Doing This Video
- Centering the shot looks better.
- I am going to need a LAV mic to pick up sound better.
- I need a preproduction checklist.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please,subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook page where I post them every Sunday night.
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Life As Usual Video Blog #14 – Sleep
QOTW: How much sleep do you get?
Every week I do a video blog (or VLOG).
This week I talked about sleep.
When I started this, I was very scared of putting myself on video, so I got the courage and put myself in the arena, killing a lot of bad self talk.This gives me the chance to work on my communication skills, start a new medium, and experiment!
Once a week, after I have thought about them, I will give them a day here on the blog.
These aren’t just promotion posts (although they are, please watch and share ) I want to take the time to break them down and try to clarify what I want to communicate and the tactical things I learned through doing.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please,subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook page where I post them every Sunday night.
What I Wanted To Communicate About Sleep
Sleep is critical to any type of thinking you do. If you want to be at your best, please take the time to integrate sleep in your schedule. The idea of sleeping when your dead will leave you mentally dead instead.
- Keeps you working at 100% – When you lay down, it allows your brain to catchup. It’s like the sand in an hour-glass. When you sleep, you flip it, giving you energy.
- A necessary expense – If you want to work at 100%, you need it. If you don’t get it, it’s like living in a major city with no transportation.
- You don’t get it back – Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and with it go ideas and willpower. There is no such thing as catchup sleep – You need to focus on getting sleep regularly, those marathon sessions during the weekend aren’t doing you any favors.
What I Learned Doing This Video
- Pre-production is critical. It makes the work much easier.
- Cutting it into 4 pieces works better, instead of trying to get it all in one or two shots.
- Moving the camera closer made the video look better.
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The Consume Principle
I read too much
When I came up with the idea to read 100 books in a year in late 2014, I only looked at the number as the goal. I thought 100 is an impressive number, and I figured that the more I did in terms of reading, the better I was. I finished and soon realized that although I had consumed a lot that year, I left 2015 on the “outer limits. ”
But first, a bigger lesson on what we consume.
The GIGO Principle
Carlin is one of my favorite thinkers.
We are what we consume. When I was younger, I heard the concept of garbage in garbage out (GIGO). For those unfamiliar, it’s a programming term. It means that if you feed a computer garbage data, you get a garbage answer. It isn’t the computers fault that the answer isn’t right, it’s the programmer for starting it off on the wrong foot.
As I got older, I started to see my mind as a computer. I noticed the more I put bad stuff into it (shallow experiences and opinions) the more my own opinions and experiences became shallow.
The Outer Limits
Realizing I read too much.
I learned this lesson the hard way, taking my mind, one that was once sharp, and dulling it over drinks and shallow arguments about who was the better running back that week. As I got older, I realized that I was in the middle of wasting my potential, and my reading project was born in 2013.
I started slow, spending 2013 investing in my book collection. In 2014, I added more (also started writing here much more – that is no coincidence) books to the collection, and by 2015, I started with the ambitious goal of 100 books. By the end, I ended up making that video, realizing that there is no such thing as unlimited runway. No matter how much you want to do, you have to stop at some point and collect yourself.
We are creatures of our enviroment
What we digest is what we ultimately use to create our opinions. All ideas have a starting point. Nothing materializes out of thin air. What we consume physically, emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually creates our ideas. Staying vigilant on what we digest is just as important as keeping an eye on what we do or who we talk to, because if our start is bad, then we doom the idea from the start (GIGO). The other thing to remember is that this is a limited resource. The outer limits are real, so guard what you know, and defend against taking on too much to soon,
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Life As Usual Video Blog #13 – Trust
Every week I do a video blog (or VLOG).
This week I talked about trust.
When I started this, I was very scared of putting myself on video, so I got the courage and put myself in the arena, killing a lot of bad self talk.This gives me the chance to work on my communication skills, start a new medium, and experiment!
Once a week, after I have thought about them, I will give them a day here on the blog.
These aren’t just promotion posts (although they are, please watch and share ) I want to take the time to break them down and try to clarify what I want to communicate and the tactical things I learned through doing.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please,subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook page where I post them every Sunday night.
What I Wanted To Communicate About Trust
Trust is a fragile cycle, but worth all the padding in the world because it colors all of our decisions. It’s quite simple – if we are in a place where we can’t trust or aren’t trusted, we can’t work our absolute best.
- Trust allows for dialogue – If we go into a situation where there is trust, we get a chance to talk and be honest.
- Fragile cycle – Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose. Breaking trust damages the relationship.
- Dialog creates innovation – The best innovation happens when everyone is trusted to do their job, and they are honest. This in turn creates more trust.
What I Learned Doing This Video
- Prewriting the intro makes it sound a lot better.
- Talking slower made it sound better
- Now I have to move the camera closer (thanks Yuriy B.)
Every week I do a video blog (or VLOG).
This week I talked about Adaptability.
When I started this, I was very scared of putting myself on video, so I got the courage and put myself in the arena, killing a lot of bad self talk.This gives me the chance to work on my communication skills, start a new medium, and experiment!
Once a week, after I have thought about them, I will give them a day here on the blog.
These aren’t just promotion posts (although they are, please watch and share ) I want to take the time to break them down and try to clarify what I want to communicate and the tactical things I learned through doing.
Question of the Week:How have you adapted? What did you learn the last time you had to adapt?
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please,subscribe to my YouTube channel, and join my Facebook people page where they post every Sunday night.
What I Wanted To Communicate About Adaptability
Learning how to adapt (Adaptability) is a powerful skill. It’s what connects high value people in any business. Learning how to take opportunities and gain both lessons and value make anyone better at anything they do.
- Taking opportunities
- Take advantage of a new issue, turn a negative into a positive (I decided to shoot outside since we just had one of the biggest snow storms on the east coast.
- Learning through action
- I got my first outside video done, and got a ton of lessons from it that will help me shoot the next few, and any that I decide to do outside.
- Willpower check
What I Learned Doing This Video
- Audio – If I record outside I need a microphone, or else it’s not going to get my audio.
- Lighting issues get eliminated outside, but sound issues matter a lot more.
- The apple microphone is good at capturing just your voice when its close. It’s a tradeoff because I can’t use my tripod for stability, but another way to learn.
- I have to keep the camera above my head. (thanks Yuriy B.)
- People are open to help (I had a lot of passers-by offer to help me.) People love people who are doing something.
- Back away a bit.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please, subscribe to my YouTube Channel, and join my Facebook fan page where the videos post every Sunday night.
Every week I do a video blog (of VLOG). This week I talked about my reread list.
When I started this, I was very scared of putting myself on video, so I got the courage and put myself in the arena, killing a lot of bad self talk.This gives me the chance to work on my communication skills, start a new medium, and experiment!
Once a week, after I have thought about them, I will give them a day here on the blog.
These aren’t just promotion posts (although they are, please watch and share ) I want to take the time to break them down and try to clarify what I want to communicate and the tactical things I learned through doing.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please,subscribe to the YouTube channel, and join the Facebook page where they post every Sunday night.
What I Wanted To Communicate About Reread Lists
It isn’t enough to read books. You have to spend your time reading the books that matter. A Reread list ensures your library is full of books that do.
- Developing The List – Books come out often. So often, we can’t keep up. I think we all should read. With that said, its best to spend your time reading the books that have the most impact. To get there, it’s a war of attrition. Be ruthless and give away the books that give you what you need.
- Gifts – If you have a list, now you have books that give others value. Instead of giving random books, now you can gift books that you know help people.
What I Learned Doing This Video
- I hunch a lot, I need to straighten up while I do this.
- A waiter pad helped cut this down. It is now in the tool box for preproduction.
- I found out my tripod got higher (every week I learn something new about equipment). Makes everything look better when the camera is higher than me.
If you enjoyed the video, and if you want to get on the ride, please, subscribe to the YouTube Channel, and join the Facebook page where they post every Sunday night.
From the desk of Adam Thomas 