The paradigm of working to providing money for the family or time

In work you get paid more and given more responsibility based on your experience level/years of service.  With the average length of duty at any one company being much less than 10-15 years it certainly logical to agree with the saying "learn in your twenties and earn in your thirties".  There is a disparity and disconnect in this traditional career path.  In your twenties you are paid the least and in essence you put in the most effort.  (Related reading: The Crossover Point)  In your thirties you tend to get married/have kids and your level of effort dips at work.  I ask the question why is there a dis-correlation between pay and effort?

There is a paradigm shift where they must ask the question now that I have hit my stride in my career... do I pull pack and re-configure my efforts to providing more money for my family or provide more time with my family (less time at work). 

Perhaps because many people take the "path of more time with my family" that those who chose to take the career orientated route are rewarded with higher career paths due to less competition.

Balance

There is this site called http://www.seekingarrangement.com/ where you can find a sugar daddy/momma or find yourself a golddigger.  People find themselves in these predicaments where there is no balance to their lives.  Having to much money and no time or friends and the converse is no ones fault but your own and this lack of balance is due to lack of planning.

Occupy Wall Street

“The next time you find yourself in an argument, rather than defend your position, see if you can see the other point of view first.” – Richard Carlson

Lately there has been much talk about the 99% vs the 1%.  People occupying wall street over the bailouts and excessive executive compensation... basically the poor hating the rich.

In a recent popular blog the writer asked readers the vague question, "How much money do you make and how much money do you have saved".  In the comments people there were two type of responses the haves "I make 70k a yr and have 450k in savings" and have-nots "I work from home and make 20k a year and have 2k in savings".  Then the have-nots got really jealous and stated to rip on the haves.  The post got to explicit and was taken of the site. 

It has been said before but part of the reason the haves are the 1% and in the position they are in is because they are not thinking like the 99% (I say that even though a lot of the 1% are born into wealth).  The 99% percent instead of protesting (camping out and smoking pot with the other jobless) how can you better harness this collaborative effort to something productive and more creative (other than copying your hippy parents' shenanigans).

Another observation is that whats the goal of the occupy wall street?  Productive companies spend massive resources and are very deliberate in defining strategy and vision in order to steer a movement towards a common goal.  It seems to me that there is no goal, end game, or progress towards a greater good with these protests.

Let us disband these misery camps and get out and get some... Ok there might not be any jobs out there so lets go and create them.

It's Ok To Be Different

No today's is not a motivational speech...

I would just like to point out that it advantageous to be different and think outside the box. In case you haven't noticed the average person is not doing that hot.

Doing the typical thing you work 9-5 or 5-9 for a capped salary building someones else's empire essentially trading your time for money, get laid off when times get tough, buy things that is advertized on mainstream media(ipad 1-2-3, iphone 1-2-3-4, lattes), become one of the 70% of people living paycheck to paycheck, buy the American dream home/cars that you will never be able to pay off and ultimately defer true happiness and freedom until you are living off medicare. Most importantly and in a higher level you are living a life void of freewill and of originality. Again don't compare yourself with other people, what they are/have has nothing to do with you.

What I am alluding to is a giant paradigm shift between the average person and revolutionary people who challenged the status quo and think for ourselves.

Henry Ford went outside the box to create the assembly line.
What if Edison just thought the gas lamp was about as good as it got?
What if the Wiki folks didn't work on that open-sourced encyclopedia (We would be using Encarta...YIKES!)?

"The world is full of nice, ordinary little people who live in nice, ordinary little houses on the ground. But didn’t you ever dream of a house up on a treetop?"
-Johann David Wyss Swiss family Robinson

"We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
-Albert Einstein

"Have some balls and venture off the beaten path, and quit being a f-ing drone"
-A Wiseman

10,000 Hours to Mastery

Experts (more on this experts term to come) cite the "10,000-Hour Rule" repeatedly. True or not there is some validity to it.

Dan McLaughlin a jon doe quit his job in hopes to transform himself into a professional golfer. He has no previous experience nor special ability in golf but he is doing it to on the premise that the "10,000-Hour Rule" is true. By using the “10,000 hours of practice” model for mastery he’s engaging in six hours of deliberate golf practice a day and hopes to try out for the PGA tour in late 2015.

Here is Dan's story... see he really does exist.

Some related math:
(8 hours/day) x (6 days a week) x (50 weeks a year) x (4 years) = about mastery level

(2 hours/day) x (6 days a week) x (50 weeks a year) x (16 years) = about mastery level

Take 33.33/how many hours a day you can dedicate to it and that is how many years you will take to reach mastery. So you better start working on those free-throws now Shaq.

Monkey Soup

Here is a true story... somewhere in south Africa there exists a native tribe that uses a bottle to trap monkeys to eat. Long story short, monkey comes to bottle with a kumquat inside which the monkey loves... monkey sticks hand inside for the kumquat. As the monkey clenches he can't take his hand out of the bottle... silly monkey... Remember the native tribe dude he comes along with a club and BAMMO! Monkey Soup. The monkey wanted the kumquat and he obviously wanted to survive till the weekend, yet he did not release the kumquat.

Point of the story is don't be like the monkey you can't have both things. You must choose. In the gym you can't get Jay Cutler big and Brad Pitt ripped... you have to pick one. The saying "you can't ride two horses at once". Ride that first horse and kick it to side when it gets tired and then ride the other one.

Hello World + Goals

I like to ramble because I am a passionate passionate man.  I'm not into politics but there are a lot of topics that interest me such as: diet, exercise, leadership, making everything in life relate to some sort of sport analogy, geeking out on statistics, taking about Pareto's laws, Darwinism, how videogames ruined my childhood, how cloudy and dark Seattle is, maximum gains from minimal effort... and the list goes on.

Another reason I am starting this is to improve my typing speed (w/ the death of AIM/MSN) and I just sprained my ankle and can't move.

So here is the first post... and unfortunately it not a humorous one.  It goes hand in hand with 2011 new years goals.  I was trying to sit here and complete my graduate application essay... its not that hard just 500 words but I'd rather run a 5K race.  And in addition I have my work crew's startup meeting where I have to give some more inspirational speeches again to motivate people to "work safely in 2011".  So i've always had these notes on how to make a goals since I don't know how to get the folks to work safely and I am having trouble writing this freaking essay.

Its pretty generic and people prob heard this stuff before: Using the SMART acronym

* Specific – Be as specific as possible as to what you want to accomplish. “Spend more time with friends” is not specific and too easy to abandon because you don’t know when you’ve reached that goal.
* Measurable – If you can measure it then you’ll be able to track your progress. If you can track your progress, you’ll know when you’ve achieved it or how far close you are.
* Attainable – You can’t run a race unless you know when it ends right? It has to be an attainable goal otherwise it’s too easy to give up. You don’t want it to be easy to achieve, but you don’t want to put it out of reach.
* Realistic – This pairs with attainable because you don’t want to set such an auspicious goal that it’s impossible to achieve. You can adjust it based on your progress but you can’t shoot for the next galaxy at the start (the moon is OK though).
* Timely – Everything needs a bound. If you have no sense of when it needs to be achieved, then it can always wait until tomorrow. Or the next day. Or next year.


But if you want my skinny on it here is what I came up with a ding dong proof pokeyoke template (just fill in the blanks):

"I will achieve this attainable+challenging goal of ______, by this time realistic frame _______, measured by this metric of achievement ____, by doing this action plan_____, my first course of action will be____"

A Real life example:

"I will achieve this attainable+challenging goal of making everyone work safe by this time realistic frame the whole 2011 work season or until I get promoted, measured by this metric of achievement zero-reportable injuries, by doing this action plan un-assing myself from my truck and building better relationships, my first course of action will be to have a good 2011 startup meeting"