366 or How I Tricked Myself into Being Awesome. Like most developers, I am an introvert, so it is hard to say this: I am awesome.
Fuuuuuu.... I can't even leave it at that. I look at so many amazing people in the Ruby, Javascript, and other communities that actually are amazing and I feel like I haven't done anything. But even so, looking back at the 366 days of the last year, what I did was, well... amazing. I wrote three books on very different technologies that I knew nothing about. I wrote The SPDY Book, which is still the only book on SPDY: Three months later, I co-authored Recipes with Backbone(.js) with Nick Gauthier: Three months later, I wrote the first book on Dart, Dart for Hipsters: Each of these technologies has two things in common:They are game changing (or at least possibly)I knew nothing about them before I started writing them.
How did I do it? Blogged every, single day. I honestly don't know why I started doing this. And it worked. Marianne Schnall: An In-depth Interview With Life Coach Tony Robbins. When I recently met author, strategist and coach Tony Robbins backstage at a taping of Oprah Winfrey's ground-breaking series Lifeclass, the first thing I was struck by was his sheer size.
He is a somewhat startling six-feet-seven, yet he comes across like a loving, gentle giant, and when he talks to you he gives you his full magnetic attention. He is known for being an exuberantly charming, inspiring, energetic and articulate speaker and is also a huggably nice, caring person and a generous humanitarian. The New York Times calls Tony Robbins "the high priest of human potential. " In the course of his impressive career, he has advised a diversity of luminaries including Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Mother Teresa and three U.S. presidents, and CEOs, Olympic athletes and individuals all over the world regularly consult with him for his guidance.
Countless more people have been transformed by his extensive selection of books, tapes and his exhilarating seminars. Why Most People Dream and Only Some Do: The Go-Getter Theory. I remember it like it was yesterday.
I just won the biggest marble from a boy three years younger than me, and my “best buddy” back then was talking to me on how much he liked his new moped. (He wasn’t legally old enough to drive it on the street, yet he did). He got it from his father who, I believe, up till now still has a bicycle shop.
We used to talk about things we’d like to do. He was going to have his own motor-shop one day, while all I could think about at that time was my new marble. Now let’s fast forward to present tense. What differs those who are naturally set to succeed, from others who are not? It boggles my mind why some entrepreneurs make it big while others settle for mediocre or close to nothing results!
Lately, I’ve met a lot of business men and students set to create a startup, and I started noticing a few differences… It’s not education, skills or talent; It’s passion, drive and motivation. People who get stuff done strive for “good enough” and go on to the next. Which Traits Predict Success? (The Importance of Grit) What are the causes of success?
At first glance, the answer is easy: success is about talent. It’s about being able to do something – hit a baseball, play chess, trade stocks, write a blog – better than most anyone else. That’s a fine answer, but it immediately invites another question: What is talent? How did that person get so good at hitting a baseball or trading stocks? For a long time, talent seemed to be about inheritance, about the blessed set of genes that gave rise to some particular skill.
Outsmarting Yourself for Success. Is the following familiar to you?
You set a goal, or take on a new project. You are excited! But soon you discover that your progress is, frankly, a joke. If you are getting closer to achieving your goal or finishing your project at all, your progress is SO-DAMN-SLOW than it COULD have been! You know it, but you just CAN’T get yourself to take the right actions necessary for success.
You are both the grand visionary and architect of your life, and your worst enemy that sabotages your dreams. Why is that? You have two brains: A rational brain and a caveman brain (also known as “reptile” brain). The rational brain wants you to achieve that goal or project. Caveman brain wants you to pig out, watch TV, play games, surf the web, read news and lay around. The bad news is that until you learn to co-operate with your caveman brain, you will never be successful. The good news is that the rational brain is much smarter than the caveman brain. It’s all about stacking the deck in your favor. Summary.