Making Connections has moved to LifeofMatt.Net

We've Moved... to a new SUPERCOOL domain...

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:20:00 +0000

You may have noticed there haven't been many updates lately... that's cause we've moved. Don't ask me why I'm using the plural we... it just sounds cooler.

Anyways, check us out LifeofMatt.net... big things are coming.

Making Connections In the Moment: Inherent Value

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:19:00 +0000

Over the next few months, I'm going to be interspersing my own new original articles with both guest content and older articles that some of my new readers may not have seen.

This article is the latter, and is in my opinion among the top three articles on communication I've ever written.

Here it is:

Words are not words... they are just a flowing of value. Not an exchange, but a flow.

You do not judge people based on words, you are just feeling the inherent value that those words express. This comes from the core of the person, everyone can appreciate this inherent value. When you respond (and you respond with all your being, words are just a small part), you are acknowledging this value, and you are giving a part of yourself... letting your value flow forth.

Ever noticed how good music can get you into the moment? Listen to others like you listen to the music. You are merely enjoying the Inherent value that the music is holding in itself. You can start to sing along... Acknowledging the songs value without judging it, as well as giving a part of yourself. I have seen dismal rooms TRANSFORMED when one person comes in just singing a tune. Eventually everybody is doing it... allowing the value to flow throughout the room.

This is the same thing that happens in conversations where somebody is competely in the moment. Their value flows forth, affecting everybody. I have been this person, I have been affected by this person. You know the one I'm talking about.

You too can be this person. There are several ways to get yourself to this state, where you're not thinking or judging, just letting the value flow throughout the interaction.

The first way to do this is to listen for the inherent value coming from others. Don't try to listen to their words (hear their words all the same) just try to listen to their value. Passion is the biggest indicator of core value, the easiest to spot. Listen to the passion behind someones words, and you will soon be moved into this state. The Inherent value is always there, passion just brings it to the surface.

The next thing to do is to VOICE YOUR THOUGHTS. Thoughts are poison to the flow of value. Having long trains of thought will disrupt the flow of value. Instead of continuing to have the thoughts voice your thoughts stop thinking. By vocing your thoughts directly after you have them, you are effectively stopping the thought train in its track. Your inherent value is being voiced.

Another imporant aspect is to feel your value. I don't know if other people have this, but I actually physically feel this as a WARMTH throughout my body, a stillness in my mind, a fluidity to my movements. Value should flow from you when you are sitting, just sitting. You will get stares, people will feel the value flowing to them.

Senses, use them. Hear, smell, taste, feel, see. Don't judge. Hear, and be in wonder of the sounds. Smell, and let the joy of the smell spread through you. Taste, let your body be overcome by the sentation. Feel, and let all your warmth be amplified, the touch of a female when you are communicating like this is electric. Value flows from and to you and all becomes amplified. See. See the value. Not physical but tangible still. Value flows.

Feel the flow of value with all your senses.
See the inherent value in all people.
Be the value, until it is YOU who is flowing throughout.

The Law of Average Joes

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 06:51:00 +0000

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake;
you are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
We are all part of the same compost heap;
we are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world."

- Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

I call it The Law of Average Joes:

On average, you are average.

You may have a very discintive nose, or a distinctive thought process, or a distinctive emotional pattern... but on average, you're just like everybody else.

On first glance, this can seem rather offputting... almost insulting. In a culture where individuality is prized above all else, the notion that there are more similarities than differences between us can seem like an attack.

"But my differences are what make me, ME!"

-Anonymous

Anonymous has a great point, and I don't think his/her words are necessarily false or untrue... but I don't think what I'm saying and what anonymous are saying are any different. However, what I am saying, is that I think that in our quest to be individual, we've lost sight of our similarities. And, far from it liberating us, I think that we've ended up making things harder than they should be.

What am I talking about?

Well, let's say that someone wanted to figure out how to change a habit. They might start out with brute force, just trying to stop cold turkey. If that didn't work, they'd try a variety of different techniques, whatever made sense to them, until they finally found an effective way to change the habit. But what if they decided that before they tried to change the habit, they would first start with The Law of Average Joes. Rather than starting from scratch, they would start out trying to find other people who succesfully changed habits, and find, on average, the techniques that seemed to be most effective. Even better, they might try to find someone who has done Research on how the average joe changes a habit. Again, not every technique would work perfectly for them, but, on average, most of the techniques would.

Seems pretty common sense, almost not worth making a post about... except I think we often discount The Law of Average Joes in the name of uniqueness and individuality.

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."

-Douglas Adams

As Mr. Adams
eloquently points out, we often fail to use many of the great resources at our disposal to take advantage of The Law of Average Joes, such as "recorded history," "scientific research," and (probably the most frequently discounted of all), "advice."

To illustrate this point, lets take an example that isn't quite as neutral as changing a habit... happiness. Surely, happiness is a personal and individual thing... surely no two people have ever become happy in quite the same way. While this is true, The Law of Average Joes still holds. Turns out, that while the specifics are different from person to person, on average, people who are happy are happy for similar reasons. If being happy is one of your goals (and isn't it on most people's top tens?) you may want to check out some of the cool and relatively recent research being done in positive psychology.

The fact that "on average, you are average", leads to some other very liberating conclusions. Of course, this law does not discriminate... it applies to everybody. When you then apply it to the comparison of two people, you arrive at what you might call The Second Formulation of The Law of Average Joes:

You have as much in common with any given person as you have differences with them.

So why is this liberating?

"So, let us not be blind to our differences - but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved."

- John F. Kennedy

Because it means you can find common ground with ANYONE. When you realize that you have more in common with someone than there are differences, you realize that there's no such thing as "Us and Them"... there's just Us. And that my friends is a very liberating thing to realize. By focusing on and finding our similarities first, we can then have common ground through which to work through our differences.

So now that we know that The Law Average Joes applies to both groups and individuals, the next logical step is to ask how we can raise the odds. We know that things that work for most people on average should work for us too... but how can we get those odds to be ABOVE average? The answer lies in what we'll call The Law of Similar Differences:

For every time that an individual or group deviates from average in the same way you do, this will increase your chance of success.

So in practical terms, how would one use this law?

Well, in the 1960's, researchers needed to use this law to fix the problem of malnourished children in third world countries. They started out using The Law of Average Joes... asking themselves what the average joe did to keep their children nourished. Unfortunately, they ran into a stumbling block. The techniques the average joe used to keep their children nourished required money... money that their target joes just didn't have.

This is when they turned to The Law of Similar Differences... they started to look for households in the same countries, at the same poverty levels, which against all odds had properly nourished children. They then found the common behaviors among all these households, not present in the malnourished households, and found the right behaviors to teach the malnourished households. In Vietnam, Save the Children used this method to reduce malnutrition by nearly 80%.

On a personal level, I used The Law of Similar Differences to find a time management and planning system that worked for me. First, I took a look at what the consensus was online... what worked for the average joe. I found Getting Things Done, which seemed to come highly recommended. I used it, and many things definitely worked for me, but there were a few areas that I felt were a little off. So I went to someone I knew online who was planning and managing many of the same things I was, but was doing it way better than me. He recommended Zen to Done and I haven't looked back since.

So there you have it, The Law of Average Joes and it's derivatives. Tools for figuring out what works. Do you agree with The Law of Average Joes? Disagree? Leave a comment and let me know.

-Matt

Creative Expression: The Forgotten Skill

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:02:00 +0000

Creative Expression is IMO a sorely underdiscussed topic in both the self-help and seduction communities. Creative expression can roughly be described as anything that is not direct communication which conveys who you are. In the video, I give some basic principles and steps to take when learning to creatively express yourself through a new medium, as well as examples. Below, I'll give a quick outline for those of you who like reading more than watching. I understand that the video is sucky... I'm still new at this vlogging stuff :).

1.Start With First Principles

Start with those most basic rules which have been developed for your medium, which apply to everyone who is a master... you must work WITHIN those principles to express yourself.

2.Find a Role Model that You Connect With

Once you have found the first principles, the next step is to find a role model who's style of expression resonates with you. Straight out imitation is okay at this point, as you'll become more unique as you go through the next stages.

3. Find Moments of Brilliance

The next step is to take the baseline style that you have created, and look for places where you go ABOVE your current level. Artwork that you think is better than anything you've done, clothes that you like more than anything else in your wardrobe, etc. Extract personal principles of expression from these, and apply it to new pieces of art, new clothes, etc.

4.Increase Detail

Now, you use the same three techniques above but with increased detail. Instead of just the basics, you're starting to layer things together in ways that are uniquely you.

5. Add Flair

Now you add the finishing touches. Those tiny little details that tie everything else together. At this point, your expression should be completely unique.

6. Upgrade

Now it's time to start at the beginning again. Look at your original baseline for even deeper moments of brilliance. Then do the same thing for detail, then for flair. Remember not to skip anything here... you don't want to upgrade your flair, only to find that it doesn't fit with your upgraded baseline.

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 04:47:00 +0000

For those of you who haven't noticed, I've split my blog into two. Halffull's Journey (the new blog), is going to be for daily updates, personal goal setting, etc., such as the organization updateI promised for today. If you've been interested in those posts, you should Head On Over There and subscribe.

This blog is more about the big picture, it will contain only the big insights and articles gleaned from the smaller day to day stuff. I've you've been skipping over the todo lists and organization updates, to focus solely on the articles, then this is where you want to be.

In other news, my new digital video camera should be arriving soon (buying a digital video camera was on my six month dreamline). When it arrives, I think I may try my hand at vlogging.

Stay tuned.

-Matt

Cool Article by 10pin at "It's Just Talking to Girls"

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:47:00 +0000

The Eagles' Guide to Pimping: Check it Out.

Two Powerful Thoughts: Competitions of the Heart, and False Dependencies

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:39:00 +0000

Just got back from beating myself up at the gym... it was suprisingly energizing. When I walked into the room, the energy was dull, low, and unfocused. When I walked out of the room, I could feel the intensity. The experience really exemplified two powerful thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head the past few weeks: Competitions of the Heart and False Depencies. Once I fully embraced these two concepts, the energy just began to build and build, not just in myself, but in everyone else present as well... so how did this transformation happen?

Competitions of the Heart

Competitions of the Heart was a concept that I began to think about in it's current form as I was helping to coach my old middle school wrestling team. I noticed that there was a certain type of competitive spirit that was completely non-destructive, which pushed everyone to their limits but brang people together instead of pushed them apart. I began to refer to these situations in my own mind as "competitions of the heart". A competition of the heart looks something like this: Everybody is going along, doing their own thing, at a certain level of intensity and drive. Suddenly, someone comes along and kicks it up a notch. You can see it in their face, a slight bit more of intensity, a higher level of focus.

At first, people around them will try to make it a competition of the body, trying to match their speed or strength... then they'll realize that the challenge was not a challenge of the mind or body, but of the heart. Suddenly, you'll see THEIR faces begin to change, with that same slightly more intense, more focused look. This will begin to spread around the room, untill one of the competitive people decides to kick it up ANOTHER notch, and the process repeats.

The interesting thing about competitions of the heart is that they only take one person to grow. It only takes one person who challenges people not to be as good as him, but to be the best THEY can be. In doing so, it creates a synergystic effect around the room... causing EVERYBODY to be better. The question still remains though... if it's a competition, how do you know who's a winner, how do you measure it? The answer is to count false dependencies.

False Dependencies

When I first began thinking about false dependencies and competitions of the heart, I didn't connect the dots between the two. The notion of false dependencies came to my attention from one of the mentors I have enlisted to help me with my weaknesses. He's an expert on the issues of organization, productivity, focus, and attention that I'm working on right now. I was discussing with him the fact that my planning system had been falling apart for the past week, and I hadn't been able to get much done because of that.

He pointed out to me that just because I hadn't been putting things into my planning system as per usual, did not mean I couldn't do them. The notion came as a shock to me, not because it's a big huge notion that's earth shattering, but because I genuinely hadn't been thinking in those obvious terms. I had created a false depency between my planning and my doing, that had caused a literal halt in my productivity.

This experience caused me to begin thinking about where there might be other false dependencies in other areas of my life. I began to find them all over the place, and as I eliminated them one by one, my productivity began to skyrocket.

Me being strong depends on me exercising, me exercising depends on me having exercise equipment, me having an exercise equipment depends on me going to the gym, me going to the gym depends on me having a car.

I began to notice some patterns of false dependencies

Something Scary depends on Something Tedious.
Execution depends on Planning.
Something Hard depends on Something You're Waiting For.
Something New depends on Gathering More Information.

then I began to take it deeper, realizing just how deeply the false dependencies ran.

Getting up depends on having arms and legs.

As I began to take it to those deeper levels, I realzied that competitions of heart were nothing more than competitions to see who could eliminate more false dependencies. Eliminating everything false depenedcy until the only dependency left was heart, until you were running on sheer willpower alone.

I should clarify, I 'm not suggesting that you get rid of incentives, tools, and tricks, I'm merely saying that you learn to be able to live with out them, so that when you encounter a situation in which they're not there, you can still press on. Do you really think a prize will matter when you're beginning to feel pain from pushups? Do you think pain will matter when you literally don't feel like you have the strength to continue? Do you think thoughts will matter when you ACTUALLY don't have the strength to continue? As these false dependencies fade away one by one, you get closer and closer to relying on heart alone. The winner is the one who gets closest.

By consciously examining your life for false dependencies (paying special attention to the patterns I mentioned above), you can begin to develop your own heart. The, put yourself in situations where you can have competitions of the heart, and push your heart to the limits. IT's worth it.

If you liked the article (or you didn't) please leave a comment and let me know why, I'm trying to create content which is tailored directly to my readers.

On... those "Off days"

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 15:26:00 +0000

So, you're having one of those "off days". Maybe you didn't get enough sleep. Maybe somebody said something and it brought up old insecurities. Maybe you just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Whatever the case, you find yourself slipping back into old emotions and thought patterns, not being able to make eye contact, being clumsy and meek again, instead of the assured confident person you have worked so hard to become.

And you're killing yourself over it. You hate it. You struggle harder and harder to pull yourself out of the slump. You fix your body language, you try to make some clever comments in the conversation like you normally do. But it all just comes out forced and awkward, plunging you further into your own despair. You try to explain why you're not your usual self, but you know it's not really an excuse. The harder you try, the more awkward it becomes, and finally you're left sitting silently, or going to the bathroom to splash cold water on your face, or going somewhere to get a moment to yourself.

And still, you're killing yourself. What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck happened?

At least, that's how it is for me. I used to hate days like this, despised myself for becoming so weak again when I knew I could be stronger. And after dozens of these days, at various points in my own growth process, I've come to a singular conclusion:

It Doesn't Matter.

Read it again, in case you missed it the first time.

It Doesn't Matter.

It's not a big deal, really. It's not going to ruin your life, it's not going to kill you. I used to worry about people seeing this side of me, about how their perceptions of me would change, of what they'd think.

Then I realized something.

Noone Knows.

No one knows that there are insecure thoughts in my head. No one notices every slight mistake I make, every little tremble in my voice. I was putting myself deeper into insecure thoughts for nothing. Very few people even noticed that there was any change.

There were a few tho. A few observant ones, who would see that someone was different about me. That I was a little less confident than I normally was... but nothing happened. The next day, or the next week, when I was back to my normal self, there was no change, no big shift now that they had seen another side of me. Nothing. And I realized my second big epiphany.

Noone Cares.

All these big consequences that I had been dreaming in my head were fantasy. Everybody has an off day sometimes, and it's not a big deal, taken with all the positive impressions of you they have to the few off days. People notice, then shrug it off.

And finally, there were some people who both noticed and cared. They would worry about me, ask what was wrong, ask if it was something they did. The people who cared that I wasn't my usual self, cared because they cared about ME. These were the people who were the closest to me, and for these people:

It Doesn't Matter.

One off day is not going to change their feelings for you. These are the people who will stick with you through thick and thin, one little off day isn't going to change a thing.

I finally realized that by making these off days such a big deal, all I was doing was giving them power they didn't deserve. By constantly self monitoring myself, and fighting against myself, I was just making things worse. What started out as a molehill only became a mountain because I piled the dirt myself.

When a day like this strikes me now, I don't worry about it. I accept it, I understand that things will be a bit different today. Sometimes, if I find myself dwelling on it too much, constantly monitoring myself, I'll try to get in a little exercise. Do a few jumping jacks, wave my arms, go for a run. Anything to get myself out of my head.

Sometimes, you'll find that what you thought was an off day was merely an opportunity to express a differet side of your personality. Maybe you'll be a cool, laid back guy because you have less energy. Maybe you'll be a crazy wacky guy because your thought patterns all over the place. But by not fighting it, it becomes merely another form of expression.

Other times, you'll find the weird feeling will go away completely, and you'll be your normal self in no time.

Still other times, neither of these things will happen. you'll be that slightly more awkward persona you used to dread so much. But now you know the truth: It Doesn't Matter. and in realizing this truth, you'll find the problem won't be nearly as bad as it had been in the past... a small speedbump, and nothing more.

At the end of the day, instead of beating yourself up, you can look yourself in the mirror and ask yourself the only question that really matters at this point: What can I learn from this?

And the next day, when you wake up refreshed, confident, and alert, you can back to what you do best, knowing with utter certainty that you can handle yourself even at your worst... anything else is easy.

The Results Are In...

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 02:30:00 +0000

Tallied up the votes just now, looks like the top winners are:

1.Core Vs. Ego, how to tell the difference. (6 votes)

4.Back to Basics, How to be a Man (Tough love post) (4 votes)

6.How to have an Excellent Conversation with a Complete Stranger (6 votes)

8.College Game: Meet to Lay (5 votes)

I'm glad that 1 and 6 are the top votewinners... those are the two I feel most in tune with right now. I'm not sure I could write a tough love post right now with any sort of feeling, and I'm not at college. Core vs. Ego tho, HUGE topic, and one that I have some valuable insight on. Six is a community mainstay of course... but I think much of the community misses the mark on this one.

Getting laid and having an excellent conversation are two very different things... but they're not mutually exclusive if you know what you're doing. I'll be tying in a lot of the concepts from the blog together in this one.

Stay tuned,

Matt

Change Your Life Now: Two Skills You Can Implement Right Now, to Change the Quality of Your Life

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:01:00 +0000

Above you see highlighted what might be considered the core of behavior change. To the left you have your instinctual, on the spot decisions. To the right, you have something much more unique (although not exclusivey belonging) to the human race: Intellect, planning, self awareness. But in the center, that is where the true behavior change master focuses their initial effort. By making it a habit to control each of these four elements, you gain two huge advantages:

1. You learn how to consciously and easily switch between the Instinctual and Thoughtful Mind, which both have their own distinctive advantages and disadvantages

2. You make acquiring productive behavior both easy (Principle of Least Effort) and rewarding (Profit of Action Principle).

So what are these four area?

Logic- Making a habit of being able to think things through, and Plan.

Values- Making a habit of taking abroader moral perspective on things.

Emotion- Making a habit of knowing, expressing, and effectively dealing with your feelings.

Exercise- Making a habit of being aware of, taking care of, and using your body.

These all sound vague, but they break down to specific skills, all of which are scientifically validated, which through the use of The Succes On Autopilot System, you can turn in to habits.

So bringing this back to down to earth, what are two skills I can give you right now, which, if turned into habits, would immediately help you out:

Cognitve Reappraisal

This is used to go from the Instinctual Short Term Brain to the more long term focused brain. It's especiall useful to combat cravings and desires for bad habits.

1.Label: Turn your brain on, by consciously labeling the desire, and go a step further by judging it. "I want a cigarette... this is bad"

2.Bring your values into it, by tying the reason that you can't do it in with your beliefs and values about what's right and wrong.

3. Bring your long term planning mechanisms in, imagine the long term awful benifits of doing the behavior.

4.After 10-15 minutes, the craving or desire should fade.... now that your long term brain is involved, offending excitors no longer have the same weight.

Beware of moral disengagement as portrayed in the first example in the video above. The course also goes over "Cognitive Restructing", the process of changing your values and rules to make them more consistent and productive.

Motivational Priming

This technique is used to go from the Thoughtful Mind to the Instinctual Mind, and bring you to a state of immediatet positive action, it's effective when trying to defeat procrastination of a positive behavior.

1.Take a deep breath, relax every muscle in your body, release tension.

2.Stop Labeling, become intensly aware of the sensations provided by surrounding stimuli, but do not try to put words or thoughts to them.

3.Perform an action (such as a specific movement) or expose yourself to a stimulus (such as the above video clip) which gets you into a motivational or determined state.

4. You won't be able to help but doing the action you were previously procrastinating.

The key to this one is identifying stimuli or movements (which are stimuli in themselves) which can induce positive states within you. One particularly helpful way to do this is to take a look in the mirror, or better yet, videotape yourself, when you are in these positive states. Replicating the body language and facial expressions of a state will immediately bring you into that state.

The course also goes over how train new stimuli to specific states, and even how to take two or more states and combine them with one stimulus, creating "anchors" to the desired states.

I hope these help you guys in your quest to become more effective, productive, succesful, and integrous individuals. As always, I'm interested in getting feedback on how they worked for you, or any questions you may have about the techniques. Leave a comment, or shoot me an email at MagicMattG(at)Gmail.com and I'll get back to you as quick as possible.

Thanks,

Matt

Human Cognition: A Simplified Scientific Model of our Actions and Behaviors.

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:31:00 +0000

This is the result of the rigorous research I have done into human behavior and how habits are formed. The Succes On Autopilot system is a step by step process through which you can manipulate each one of the variables in the above picture, to influence both your short term actions and long term behaviors.

4 Hour Work Week: Chapter 7 + Update

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:06:00 +0000

I'm still finding the low information diet and the media fast extremely difficult. I have the tendency to get an idea or thought in my head, then do hours of online research about to satisfy my curiosity. I find myself having to push these thoughs out of my head, and resist the desire to research them (You know you're a dork when you find yourself having to resist the urge to research :) ). I think that in order to get these ideas out of my head, I'm going to start writing the idea down on a sticky note and putting these sticky notes together as "possiblities for future research"... I think that as long as I know that the idea is down, and that I'm going to take care of it, it should hopefully take the issue off my mind.

I am having trouble remembering to constantly apply the the Pareto and Parkinson principle to everything. I think that as I do the daily chapter reading and applications, I should also review my posts from the previous chapters, and come up with new applications for the things I've learned. This will allow me to stay motivated and ingrain everything I learn as a habit. One problem with doing this is that as I continue to go through all my self help books, I'll have a list of ever growing concepts, principles, and habits which I'll have to review every day. However, I'm confident that patterns will quickly emerge among all the self help material, and I'll be able to group the concepts together thus making things less complicated.

Chapter 7

This chapter is about eliminating interrruptions, which are a key contributor to loss of productivity. Tim breaks up interruptions into three types:

1.Time Wasters
2.Time Consumers
3.Empowerment Failures

1.Time Wasters

The first thing that Tim mentions, which I mentioned in my discussion in the last chapter, is email. He recommends setting up an autoresponder, then checking only twice daily. I love this idea, but I'm not ready to do it just yet... once this semester is over, I should be able to set this up.

He then talks about phone calls... screen incoming phonecalls, limit outgoing phonecalls, and check voicemail twice a day.

He then talks about meetings, and how you should really avoid them at all costs. His preferred method of contacting is 1.email 2.phonecall 3. meeting. I've been trying to do this, but people seem resistant... he recommends the better way to do things is to just say you can't make it... people in my group have been using this excuse to great success :).

If someone does manage to get a hold of you, he recommends saying that you're busy, and urging them to get to the point.

I like all the suggestions here, and I'm going to start implementing them.

2. Time Consumers

These are things which take up a lot of time, and distract you from the truly important things.

Tim has a simple method of dealing with them: Batching.

Batching is taking a task such as laundry, and letting it accumulate, then doing it all at a specific time. This eliminates the extra start up and ending times that you would have to deal with if you had done smaller versions of the task.

The amount you let to accumlate is determined by a cost benifit analysis... the benifit is time, the cost is any number of things, depending on the task.

This is a great tool... but I don't know how I'll go about measuring the cost and benifits.

Tim measures them in dollars, but that's because this is focused specifically towards business. I'll have to guesstimate: What problems does this create? How much time does it save?

The idea is to maximize the value of Benifits - Costs.

Empowerment Failures: Rules and Readjustments

Simple stuff here, as far as I'm concerned. Give people the power to make decisions, and have the power to make decisions. Then review results to see what changes need to be made. If any of these things are not the case, fix them.

4 Hour Work Week: Chapter 6

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:20:00 +0000

Very short chapter, the low information diet.

Only let very few things get into your field of view, and when you do, make sure their worth it and immediately actionable.

The exercise is to go on a one week media fast.

Like much of the book, I don't necessarily agree with Tim's short term thinking here, but I'm going short term for now because it's what I need.

I find the low information diet incredibly hard to follow, especially when it comes to online stuff. I find myself on facebook, rsdnation, or browsing the web for interesting shit without even realizing it, then remembering I'm on the low information diet and shutting it out.

I think I may want to keep this up for longer than a week... looking at such useless information so often is an awful habit, and one that I need to break.

I haven't been able to apply it to emails... this is a case where Tim's thinking is actually to long term for my situation. I'd just fuck myself over in the short term.

Chapter 7 coming up next.

4 Hour Work Week: Chapter 5

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 01:20:00 +0000

Here's where the real shit starts. I skipped Chapter four because it's about figurig out what you want, and I'm pretty clear on that already.

Chapter five is called "the end of time management", it talks about being effective, rather than just efficient.

There are three basics things thatI took from this chapter, which I applied immediately. I managed to get 3 assignments done in a short period of time using them.

1.The Pareto Principle

The Pareto principle is this: in general, 80% of the output comes from 20% of the input.

80% of the positive results come from 20% of the actions you take.

80% of the negative results come from 20% of the actions you take.

So, if you absolutey make sure you do the first 20%, and absolutely make sure you don't do the second 20%... you have 80% more time and 80% less problems. This applies on both a macro and micro level.

On a micro level, I'll apply it to writing a paper or making a presenation.

Things I do that get me 80% of my results:

1. Writing a small simplistic outline

2. Stream of consciousness writing to hash out some ideas

3. Doing it in the library, were there are less distractions.

4. Rereading the book chapter or chapters that it's based on.

Things that I do that give me 80% of my problems

1. Spending too much time researching

2. Spending too much time coming up with an idea

3. SPending too much time trying to find evidence for a specific point.

So, I want to keep the 20% that help me, and remove the 20% that hurt me.

My new process for writing a paper:

1.Reread the chapter.

2. Go to the library.

3. Come up with an idea, if I don't have one, write stream of consciosness till one emerges.

4. Write a small simplistic outline.

5. Based on the outline come up with with specific goals which I need to meet for researching.

6. Starting with the first goal, start my research.

7. Write the paper, the research and outline are now already done, and the paper becomes just a matter of filling in the blanks.

This seems excessive, but it includes all the actions that get results, and eliminates those that don't. If I later find that certain actions aren't actually helping me get results, I'll remove those (for instance, reading the chapter always seems to make everything else go faster, but it's also the most time consuming thing).

2.Parkinson's Law

Parkinson's Law is this :A tasks perceived importance and complexity is directly proportianal to the time alloted for completion.

What this means: Shorten a task, and it suddnely becomes simpler to do. You're forced to focus on the bare essentails.

So, now that I've come up with the critical tasks to perform for writing a paper, I can assign a time allotment to each task... let's assume it's a five page paper.

1. Reread the Chapter (no time alotment)

2.Go to the library (no time allotment)

3. Come up with an idea (5 minutes)

4. Write a small simplistic outline (10 minutes)

5. Come up with goals for research (10 minutes)

6. Research the goals (3 minutes per goal, if I can't find one in this time period, eliminate it)

7. Write the paper (30 minutes)

3. Multitasking Doesn't Work

So stop doing it.

This is exactly what I did, for a five page paper, and it took about an hour and half... not too shabby.

I'm going to try to get more work down, and see how far I can push this. Can I finish all my work for next week? My deadline is 1 oclock, which means an hour for every assignment... I'll let you know how it goes.

4 Hour Work Week: Chapter 3 Questions and Answers

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:07:00 +0000

Read THIS first.

1.Define your nightmare, the absolute worst thing that could happen if you did what you are considering,

Get kicked out of school for a semester. Parents lose money or school year. I have to stay at home, with no means of transportation. Don't get to see any of my friends at school, work during the semester.

2.What steps could you take to repair the damage or get things back on the upswing, even if temporarily?

Take time for ACTION, instead of thoughts. Go back through relevant reading material but apply it using suggested applications. Use this material to start my new business, and make money. Work at regal as well, have relationships and friendships there. Buy a fucking car and be free to transport myself.

What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probable scenarious?

I get shit handled learn to plan ahead, be reliable, and most importantly keep myself consistently focused on long term goals. Steve pavlina puled it off, I can too. Maybe make back a decent amount of money, be able to pay for gas to drive my parent's car.

If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control?

I can only go up from here.

What are you putting off out of fear?

Starting my new business. Writing things down and commiting to them. Going for the big goal and not succeeding.

What is it costing you-financially, emotionally, and physically-to postpone action?

I'm more stressed at college than I have ever been in my life. I'm out of shape, and I'm not making any money when I know I have the potentional to make a lot more. It's time to take action.

Self Help Application Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 20:16:00 +0000

Hey guys,

Time for a little personal shit. I'm doing pretty awful in school right now. I'm completely failing one class (to a horrible extent) and hopefully getting C's in all the other classes if I manage to do extremely well as the semester winds down. The thing that bugs me most about this is that this is not a problem of me understanding the material, nor is it a problem of me having the desire... I actually enjoy most of my classes, so homework isn't that big a deal. The problem lies entirely in execution.

If I had to break it down, I'd say there's three aspects of execution that I had trouble with:

1. Organization
This was a huge one. The class I'm failing was due to a bunch of stupid mistakes, like reading a chapter but not writing out the two required questions for the homework. Probably the biggest issue.

2. Clarifying and Remembering priorities.
This began to be an issue about half way through the semester. I forgot about my initial goals of doing exceptionally well at school, and began to make decisions based on other things. This led to a loss of momentum for me, which created problems with my...

3.Self Discipline
Once I lost that momentum, the next step would have been to use self-discipline to pull myself out of the hole and get back on track. I found myself thinking about priorities and making efforts to reorganize myself, but not following through because "I don't feel like it" or "I'll do it later" or "there's plenty of time".

Without that momentum backing me, I lacked the self discipline to say "fuck it, ACT NOW."

A lot of this stuff ties directly into empowering your inner-man, but that's for different articles.

Anyways, the second thing that really bugs me about this stuff is that I don't have any excuse for being bad at ANY of these things. Not ONLY do I read about them for fun, but the classes I'm taking (Art and Science of Management, The Art of the New, Psychology of Learning, and Entrepreneurial Communication and Influence)all relate DIRECTLY to these three issues. I probably have more information on how to deal with these three issues in my own room than many of my peers have seen in their entire lives.

The problem, again, lies in Execution and Application. I have the information, now I need to start USING it. Yes, I'm busy, but I can take one to two hours or so every day in the morning to read one chapter from a self help book, answer the questions it asks, and apply the material. I'll write about my experiences here.

The book I'm starting with is 4 hour work week by Tim Ferris. I'm using this book because I think it addresses all the issues I've mentioned above from a short term perspective. This is important because I only have about two weeks left of the semester.

The book is specified towards business, but I'm going to apply it in the context school.

I began this earlier today, then realized it was rather silly to be doingsomething so applicable to my blog and NOT be writing about it.

I started with Chapter Three, again, I'm applying these principles to school... and I think I even misinterpeted some of the questions to make them relevant. But that's not the point, it's about taking action and applying his principles so that I don't fuck up again. I'll post up the questions and answers from that chapter in a seperate post.

Need your Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 06:12:00 +0000

I don't know if anybody actually reads the blog... but either way I'm going to ask for some feedback.

I have a bunch of half written articles in the works, and I'm wondering which topics you guys would find interesting enough for me to finish. Leave me a comment and lemme know.

1.Core Vs. Ego, how to tell the difference.

2.How to be more likable

3.Community phrases we need to stop using, and their English equivalents.

4.Back to Basics, How to be a Man (Tough love post)

5.Things you don't talk about at the dinner table (a post on how to use sensitive and offensive topics as a way to get closer to someone)

6.How to have an Excellent Conversation with a Complete Stranger

7.How to be Compelling

8.College Game: Meet to Lay

9. The Wiseman (post on how to create a vibe of mystery, authority, and wisdom)

10.The Truth Thus Far (a list of principles in life which I have found to be overwhelmingly true and effective)

11. The Frame Snap Back: What it is and How to Avoid it

12. The Incredible Adaptability of Women

13. "Lusional Confidence"... The Alternative to Delusionsal Confidence

14. An Expansion of any of the Previous Articles I've Written

Response to Damien: How to Run Connection Game

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 02:45:00 +0000

This is one of those posts where you start writing your response, then you realize it should really be an article in its own right. It's in response to Damiens Excellent article : Skip Attraction - and still get the girl.

Fucking awesome article man. I've had some thoughts floating around in my head lately about this... would love to get your collaboration on this shit.

I never ever followed ACS model but I did notice that my club interactions pretty much followed it spot on... and I thought maybe Mr. E was right about that being the model for how interactions between male and female work.

But then I started doing daygame and I realized that my interactions would follow all sorts of weird patterns, but most commonly as I started getting deeper and deeper into the connection shit, it would be CSA.

So, it's not really Attraction that's necessary to start with in a club... it's attention.

The other interesting conclusion I came to from these observations was that Connection had NO bearing on attraction whatsoever. Listening to a girl, did not, as some community members advocate (and yes, I actually saw a post by an instructor an another forum advocating this position), kill attraction. Nor did it, as I originally thought, and you posit in this article, create attraction.

Rather, it just created an intense desire to be around you. And yet, there was attraction created in these interactions. The sexual tension was there, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

At first, I thought it was the tiny bits of "attraction" material I was throwing in. My listening allowed me to see exactly when she was getting bored, and so I would throw in a bit of fun to keep the interaction positive, and then go back to active listening. It was this process that made me include the actual step of "acting" in my active listening model... something that most active listening ironically doesn't include.

However, I soon realized that again, I wasn't responding to lack of ATTRACTION in the girl, but lack of attention, and that this was what would build up when I would throw these fun bits in. While there where small BT spikes when I would do this, it wasn't nearly enough to justify the massive attraction that I was generating from these girls.

Additionally, there were TONS of guys in the so called "friends zone" that had great connection with girls, but absolutely no attraction from them. What was I doing that I was able to have SEX with all my friends, while they couldn't...

I soon realized that while my typical pattern was CSA, the guys stuck in the friend zone would typically attempt to do CAS. They'd get really close to the girl, then they'd start to test the waters to see if she liked them, and try to do attractive things to impress her, then they'd "make a move" and if she didn't respond well, they'd "realize" that they had no chance, and that would be it.

So here's the insight:
It's the SEDUCTION which creates attraction. Specifically, Sexuality and Escalation. All the massive attraction gains I was getting came from when I introduced these two elements. ESPECIALLY when the girl realized that I was unapologetic about these things, and that it was just part of who I was. This is why Shock and Awe works so well, and also why a makeout will ALWAYS be more intense the more she rejects your kiss... she sees that you are unapologetic about your sexuality and escalation, and that your identity is not reactive to what she does.

Finally came the last piece. I found that when I had this massive connection built, EVEN when I then built massive attraction through escalation, the girl would still be scared to have sex. Luckily, through my active listening process, I was able to determine exactly WHY she was scared, and through the fourth step: Act, I was able to correct it.

I began to notice a pattern of three objections, that, if dealt with before hand, would eliminate 90% of lmr when using the CSA model:

1. This makes me a slut.
2. I'll get attached, and you won't.
3. You'll get attached, and I won't.

As long as you can answer these three objections (the answers all depend on what you want from the relationship with the girl) you'll have dealt with all the problems associated with running connection centered game. You'll still get the odd lmr associated with social conditioning, rape victims, etc, but 90% will be gone.

And that's connection game in a nut shell.

Take a lesson...

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:23:00 +0000

from this 11 year old boy.

Chemistry = Laughter

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 02:47:00 +0000

Don't know why this eluded me for so long... but it's simple. Shared Genuine Laughter = Chemistry.

This is why it only feels natural for me to escalate during shared laughter... I would escalate regardless, but it never felt right unless we were sharing genuine laughter.

The amusement part of self amusement makes much more sense to me now as well.

Also, I recently realized the color of Washington's White Horse.

Why is it things that are so obvious and simple escape our awareness?

"Shit test busters"

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:55:00 +0000

When I went to the Jeffy free conference, he mentioned a few ways to pass shit tests. Funny thing was he learrned these when he was new in the game, and saw them as tools. Me, learning from the NU-rsd, developed them naturally just as a way of fuckin around.

For instance, "If by x you mean y"...

"You're a loser" " If by loser, you mean sexy, then yeah"

Your mom, Your face,

"Go away" "Your MOM goes away!"

Fun tymez... got me thinking about if I have any other fun things I do frequently to pass shit tests, came up with a few

Yes and...: the name come from an improv technique... you never disagree with an assertion, you simply agree and add something. Incedeintally, this also leads to some fun role plays.

"Didya miss me?" "Devastated"

"We're lesbians" "Definitely. HUGE dykes. What's it like?"

"Do you hate me now?" "Yeah man, we're not even talking anymore... and btw, I WANT my mixtape back!"

The response to all name calling... Feminism.

"Sup loser" "sup losette"

"You're such a dork" "Psssssh... Dorkette."

Sometimes if the shit test is innappropriate, I don't reward it with any sort of banter.

"Do you even care about me?" "Stop" "Blah blah" "Not joking" "But you blah blah" "You can stop or you can leave."

Then there's some more common ones, like ignoring, acknowledging and changing threads, etc.

I'm not gonna be posting much hopefully, but I will try to keep up with little articles like this or chatlogs. Not much groundbreaking here but fuck it.

Leading...

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 21:28:00 +0000

This one hit me hard... the truth.

Start Sarging Again?

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:16:00 +0000

I think I may start Sarging again... had a situation a few days ago where a girl wanted me to escalate... and I wanted to escalate... but I didn't.

Unacceptable. I think I may have to get back into it... It seems I have yet to find a healthy balance.

Aim Snippet of the Week

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 08:17:00 +0000

And now for something completely different.

Some cheesy latenight fun.

"Her" (3:29:41 AM): hola

Auto Response from Him (3:29:41 AM): Crazy Times.

Him (3:29:53 AM): como estas?
"Her" (3:30:01 AM): im chilly
"Her" (3:30:06 AM): how are you?
Him (3:30:19 AM): muy bien
"Her" (3:30:38 AM): shit.. thats as far as my spanish vocab goes.. anything past muy bien and im fucked
"Her" (3:30:39 AM): haha
Him (3:31:02 AM): well
Him (3:31:05 AM): this is ok with me
Him (3:31:09 AM): yo estoy tambien
Him (3:40:23 AM): so hold my hand
Him (3:40:28 AM): I'll take you anywhere
Him (3:40:30 AM): everywhere
Him (3:40:33 AM): you want to gooo
"Her" (3:41:11 AM): well i sure do love holding hands and going places
"Her" (3:41:12 AM): so sure
"Her" (3:41:12 AM): haha
Him (3:47:03 AM): so
Him (3:47:05 AM): where are we going
Him (3:47:10 AM): let's go to venice
Him (3:47:14 AM): WHOOOOSHH
Him (3:47:17 AM): who
Him (3:47:21 AM): look at that cloud
Him (3:47:26 AM): what does that look like to you
"Her" (3:47:31 AM): a heart
Him (3:47:47 AM): awwww
Him (3:47:50 AM): romantic
Him (3:47:53 AM): :-*
"Her" (3:48:35 AM): we in venice yet?
Him (3:49:35 AM): use your imagination girly
Him (3:49:40 AM): and yes, we just landed
Him (3:49:43 AM): open your eyes
Him (3:49:44 AM): gosh
"Her" (3:50:31 AM): oh look, i see some guy peeing on the street corner.. how nice
Him (3:50:46 AM): yeah but that's the biggest dick I've ever seen
Him (3:50:53 AM): Iguess what they say about italiansis true
"Her" (3:51:17 AM): that they're hairy and loud?
Him (3:51:29 AM): exactly
Him (3:51:42 AM): let's go get some spaghetti!
"Her" (3:52:13 AM): mmm of course! with meatballs
"Her" (3:52:16 AM): i sure do love balls
"Her" (3:52:17 AM): haha
Him (3:52:30 AM): I know darling
Him (3:52:35 AM): but not in front of the waiter
"Her" (3:52:51 AM): thank goodness for table cloths than
Him (3:52:57 AM): yeup
"Her" (3:54:01 AM): so what do you want to do after we eat babe
Him (3:54:16 AM): high speed boat chase
"Her" (3:54:35 AM): are we being chased or the ones chasing
Him (3:54:45 AM): you'll chase me
Him (3:55:03 AM): probably cause i ruined your dress when you were donig naughty things to me under the tabble cloth
"Her" (3:55:42 AM): oh that doesnt bother me, i know the dress is coming off anyways
Him (3:55:48 AM): good point
Him (3:55:50 AM): oh wells
Him (3:55:54 AM): catch me if you can
"Her" (3:56:23 AM): the waves are going to knock over some unsuspecting people in a canoe
Him (3:56:38 AM): hahaha
Him (3:56:41 AM): look
Him (3:56:45 AM): taht guy can't evne swim
"Her" (3:57:06 AM): think i should go back and help him?
Him (3:57:11 AM): nah
Him (3:57:18 AM): he'll find away to not drown i'm sure
"Her" (3:58:18 AM): yeah im sure he'll use his girlfriends fake boobs as floatation devices
Him (3:58:30 AM): psssh
Him (3:58:37 AM): waste of perfectly good tools if you ask me
Him (3:58:48 AM): h
Him (3:58:54 AM): I want to swim now
Him (3:59:01 AM): *jumps in water
"Her" (3:59:14 AM): i must follow you in
"Her" (3:59:20 AM): i love swimming
Him (3:59:25 AM): me too
"Her" (3:59:57 AM): i'll be able to catch you for sure while swimming
"Her" (4:00:07 AM): so what happens when I finally catch you
Him (4:00:24 AM): I probably kiss you
"Her" (4:00:42 AM): and i'll probably wont let you stop
"Her" (4:01:24 AM): i do enjoy kisses
"Her" (4:01:29 AM): many many kisses
Him (4:03:00 AM): my hands may or may not start to wander over your body
Him (4:03:13 AM): exploring every feminine thing about you that makes you a female
"Her" (4:04:18 AM): well the water sure is chilly, so you'd be doing my poor nipples a favor if you kept rubbing them
Him (4:05:03 AM): well why don't we get out of water
Him (4:05:07 AM): and back onto a boaot
"Her" (4:05:39 AM): i like the way you think darling
"Her" (4:06:13 AM): so now you have a dripping wet girl in a dress clinging to all of her curves all alone with you on a boat
"Her" (4:06:18 AM): what do you plan on doing
Him (4:06:59 AM): well
Him (4:07:04 AM): first of all
Him (4:07:07 AM): just looking
Him (4:07:13 AM): and drinking it all in
Him (4:07:20 AM): then probably walking towards
Him (4:07:21 AM): you
Him (4:07:32 AM): and still looking and taking it all in
Him (4:07:37 AM): but mostly your eyes.
"Her" (4:08:23 AM): you keep looking into my eyes like that and you will be sure to have hands all over you in no time
Him (4:09:00 AM): well I don't think you'll be able to do that as they're both pinned against the will with my right hand.
Him (4:09:07 AM): which leaves my eyes free to look
Him (4:09:13 AM): and my left hand free to tantalize you.
"Her" (4:09:26 AM): kiss me
Him (4:09:36 AM): I'm having fun looking.
Him (4:09:38 AM): ok
Him (4:09:42 AM): I can't resist any loger
Him (4:09:48 AM): *kisses Her
"Her" (4:10:10 AM): no the question is what are you kissing
Him (4:10:21 AM): your mouth
Him (4:10:23 AM): meanwhile
Him (4:10:32 AM): my hand my have worked it's way under your soaking wet dress
Him (4:10:52 AM): and my ever so slightly be brushing along your thighs and occasionally crossing your moud
"Her" (4:12:09 AM): i would start to let out a very soft little moan
Him (4:12:26 AM): that would probably be appropriate
Him (4:12:44 AM): which may make you tantalize you even further
Him (4:12:55 AM): going under your panties but still being EVER so slight with my touches
"Her" (4:13:38 AM): i start to tremble and shake with anticipation
Him (4:14:00 AM): I should really get to bed
Him (4:14:04 AM): it's 4:15
"Her" (4:14:08 AM): haha okie
"Her" (4:14:11 AM): sweet dreams
Him (4:14:12 AM): gnite darling
Him (4:14:15 AM): sleep well
Him (4:14:16 AM): dream well
Him (4:14:24 AM): I'm sure your dreams will be ever so wonderful tonite
Him (4:14:27 AM): wake well.

Positivity and State Conditioning

noreply@blogger.com (Halffull) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:05:00 +0000

Really great post by Tyler over at the Real Social Dynamics Blog.

He covers a lot of the material that I try to get across on this blog, and does an especially good job of dealing with some of the paradoxes of being a non-judgmental high value guy, such as how to screen without judging.

You can check it out here:

Positivity And State Conditioning -- Why Seeing The Good In Yourself, Your Experiences, And Other People Makes You A More Potent Dude