Archive for the ‘ goals ’ Category

Epiphany

Its normal to be asked what the plan is after school, or and why you picked a certain pathway and for a while I had trouble answering this. I study Accounting and as much as I tried I couldn’t imagine myself doing that sort of work. I am a very practical sort of person who loves pulling stuff apart, for example computers seem pretty natural to me.

So why am I going down this bean counter pathway?

I read the Richest Man in Babylon and came to the realisation of why, I had subconsciously been studying money (although I kinda knew that) simply to learn exactly how it works.

I really need to emphasise how little I actually want money, by all means I’d love to be a millionaire (and I’m convinced that I probably will be later on) but for the time being I would rather enjoy my youth and earn a 1/4 of what a normal person does if it would mean I have 4 times as much free time.

Money doesn’t bring you happiness but I need cash to do everything on my bucket list and If money would miraculously land in my lap it would be great.

So I’ve studied money for the past four years, becoming as financially literate as possible so this may happen.

two side effects of this is:

  1. Money makes the world go round, so understanding the why behind a lot of things is easy.
  2. I am qualified to work in the financial industry.

Now I don’t feel so bad about the career I’m going to leave behind when I travel to Canada after graduation.

2012
03/07
CATEGORY
Financial
goals
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Light at the end of the tunnel

This session happens to be my last of undergraduate studies, I only have 2 more subjects before I am finished with my accounting degree. This is pretty intense as it will mean entering the real world.

After high school, rather than taking a year off I went straight to uni, mostly because I wanted to finish earlier and because I was pretty over working unskilled labour jobs. Which means I am about to finish while most of my friends will still be studying.

And I am not keen on working at all, I missed out on travelling and still feel way too young to settle down. I feel like I know nothing when it comes to anything (Not literally nothing but I want to learn everything there is and what I know is only the tip of the iceberg), I feel so immature.

That is why I’m travelling when I graduate. To figure myself out and to give myself a chance to create  something amazing.

2012
03/01
CATEGORY
goals
Travel
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Back into it

I went travelling over the summer, it wasn’t to anywhere exotic but simply to New Zealand. As far as I am concerned it is very similar to home. But this was the important bit, because of the similarities it meant that the travelling adventure wasn’t too far outside of my comfort zone.

So for 2 months my girlfriend and I roadtripped the small country whilst living out of the car and tent, we saw as much as we could with what money we had (We were on a shoestring budget) and I am really glad we did it. What I’ve learned from those months was incredible, living without a proper home for that period of time really pushes you. I mean having no reliable internet connection was a big deal in itself.

But now that I’m home I plan to get a schedule going and start working towards better things.

At uni O-week has finished and classes have just started.

That means all my self development goals start today.

2012
02/29
CATEGORY
goals
Travel
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The End of the World

My vision for the future is binary (2 options) either we will develop and advance until we reach the technological singularity, or we destroy ourselves in the process. I don’t believe there is any middle ground for these as we are tending towards the singularity (at which point the robots will take over), or our fragile world will collapse and apocalyptic films will become a reality.

I will talk about my idea for the singularity tomorrow but this post is about the world end situation.

It stems from the truth that all great civilisations fall and we are no different, but due to the global nature of our society few will be spared. Be it from a nuclear winter or a contagion (or zombie whatever) it doesn’t matter, the environment we will have to survive in will be as:

  • Little to no food
  • Survival of the fittest and smartest
  • Constant warring
  • Disease rampant
  • Few isolated communities that struggle to survive
  • Production of anything slightly complex will come to a halt
plus anything else that is bad. It is for the long term so there is no escaping in a bunker or anything.
The only way to survive is to firstly make you and your skill set useful and needed. This can be from creating anything of value for an apocalyptic economy; when you manage to band together and form a small community it means the others have to feed you else they lose a necessary skill. The people who will be needed will be:
  • Doctors
  • Engineers and Craftsmen
  • Leaders
  • Warriors
There are many others, the important thing is to not be less useful than the food they are giving you (Probable cannibalistic nature of society makes this even more scary).
Secondly you need to know how to defend yourself, even with important skills rogues will ravage you to get to anything of value in your possession. With no production of guns or advanced weaponry you need to excel in hand to hand, sword and knife combat and archery.
Lastly you need to physically be at your peak, there is no time to waste on being lazy because you need to prepare your body for the immense shock its about to receive.
I have few of these attributes currently and its a little worrying, but we have a bit of time yet to prepare (I hope).
These should be a minimum for all who wish to survive an apocalypse.
Just to make a note though: The singularity is more probable but knowing all this stuff is an important contingency plan; plus it actually would help one excel in our modern society (who doesn’t want a strong, confident and useful person around).
2011
11/12
CATEGORY
goals
Martial Arts
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That Click

Over my short lifetime I have looked into many sports, not as many as I would like I follow through into playing regularly. The most recent of my ambitions is surf boat rowing..

One thing I have noticed and love more than anything is that through the learning curve you get that “Click” in your head.. This doesn’t make much sense because it is something I made up, it probably has a name already, but when you make a correction to your technique and notice improvement.

It happens so often during the early adoption of a new activity and drives a persons craving to become better.

I raise this point because it happened during today’s training session, we were going about normally and I’m having a break on the beach watching another crew launch. I see that they finish the leg stage of their strokes really early.. I think okay I’ll try that. And boom! suddenly my strokes are easier to keep in time.

And that was all it took, speeding up one little thing.

I read somewhere that the difference between a beginner and an intermediate weightlifter is once you reach intermediate you no longer make quantifiable gains every session. After the beginners learning curve these “Clicks” become less and less frequent, and they become more and more valuable. So much to the point that you can only find these gems after long periods of mindless practice.

But its a positive feedback loop, the passion for the sport drives your discovery of these gems and the discovery of these gems drive your passion.

Then you get into a routine, your weekly hour training session becomes so much fun you pick up a few more hours. Next thing you know you are there 2 hours a day and doing additional activities like weight training to speed up your development.

At this stage you have to decide whether to go professional, dedicate your life full time to the activity and find the impossibly hidden final gems. The opportunity cost of this often is too large however, your career can’t be pushed to the side. But later in life you regret not following it..

In The Talent Code there was a quote from a tennis player, I can’t for the love of me remember who but he said this:

“If I miss 1 day of training I notice, If I miss 2 days my wife notices, If I miss 3 days the world notices”

This describes the dedication required to maintain the top level of anything, any less and the competition overtakes. Its interesting that If you look at top level soccer players they have to compete against everybody for the most prestigious spots in the worlds favourite sport, the result is the craziest level of achievement and skill (to an extreme not found in other sports). Anything less than perfect is not good enough. They need to be genetically superior, be incredibly lucky and on top of that put in 200% all the time.

and it all starts with the one mental “click”.

2011
11/10
CATEGORY
goals
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The Hours to Become a Pro

Originating in ‘Outliers‘ (haven’t actually read it yet but know it comes from there) is the idea that it takes 10,000 hours to become a champion at anything. This of course is not a literal rule but the idea behind it is to emphasis the effort required to get to such a high level of competency. So using the 10,000 hours rule, working full time (38 hours a week) it will take you approximately 5 years to become top level. At an hour a day its closer to 30 years..

This is discouraging, especially if you consider the fact that to dedicate 8 hours a day you have to be really committed. But it aims to remove the ‘effort shock‘ (Based off price shock theory) where people pick up a new activity until they realise how hard it actually is, then they give up.

In actual reality its probable less but I assume you start off at close to an hour a week until you learn to love the art, then dedicate more an more time until you’re working full time on perfecting it.

The younger you are, the easier it is to pick things up also which would affect your ability to become amazing.

‘The dip‘ is also an interesting book as it ephasises that the law of diminishing returns grows until it seems like you are making negative progress. Pushing through this is the hardest part and separates the truely dedicated from the rest.

This applies to everything, creative pursuits, arts, sciences, sports, whatever

There was a forum I recently saw which amazed me, this is a guy painted every day for 9 years. He posted most of his paintings during this whole time and you can see his progress.. it is amazing.

Anyway the point to this is that I want to become proficient in many things and it can at times feel like I don’t have enough time to achieve this.. Also partially to give the mentality that you can achieve anything you put your head to (with appropriate dedication).

Hopefully the technological singularity brings immortality and I have all the time in the world to perfect everything 🙂

2011
11/07
CATEGORY
goals
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Benefits of Reading

I have been trying to read a lot more, as a child I was pretty keen on books but towards the end of high school this quickly stopped. I had an awful English teacher who recommended I drop out of school and needless to say I didn’t have the urge to read anymore.

Shortly after starting university I regained this passion and have over the last 6 months been pumping out a couple books a week. These are on a huge range of topics and it really doesn’t bother me as long as I learn new stuff then I bought a kindle and this contributed further to my reading(The free books are easily worth the cost of the ebook reader).

I also try to read more blogs and news sites to keep up to date.

One thing I am trying to learn to do more effectively is speed read, I haven’t looked at it in too much detail but whenever an author starts talking about something that doesn’t interest me I trace the whole line in like a second. The eye and brain are pretty good at picking up the gist of what is going on and once a topic becomes interesting again I slow down.

After reading a couple biographies (Malcolm X, George Soro) you begin to realise that many successful people read a ridiculous amount. This evidence further adds to the value of reading.

Normally I read non-fiction stuff but I have been told novels are really important also, I am not too good at the whole using one thing to symbolise another but I feel I should try to.

The only problem I find is that to cement the ideas within a book you should try implement it into your everyday life, something I am not too good at yet.

After exams I plan on reading the more difficult books (couldn’t get very far into dante’s inferno) by using study guides, maybe I’ll read Aristotle, Plato and such.

2011
11/03
CATEGORY
books
goals
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IT and Software Dev

I have always had a keen interest in computing, as a kid pulling apart toys and building things with lego evolved into skills in this area. Although I don’t study computer science I make an effort to read and program as often as I feel motivated to do so. Recently I had a project in website design and I followed the youtube channel and taught myself a heap to do with HTML and CSS.

A few months back I worked through dive into Python, MySQL, PHP plus a little of Javascript.

Also I read up on TCP/IP.

The following goals I have to teach myself in development are:

  • Further knowledge in Python
  • Assembly
  • Graphics programming
  • Android Development (Java)
Normally I can pump through a large amount of material in these areas if I manage to motivate myself. This motivation to do Hours of reading comes in bursts but as the war of art (If programming is viewed as a creative pursuit) states, the way to overcome these demons is to simply be consistent. If I simply sit down and force myself the motivation will eventually come.
I am really interested in this as having the technical knowledge is complementary in becoming a technical founder/co-founder of a start-up.
Now for the motivation…
2011
10/23
CATEGORY
goals
IT
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