Author: Nick Kempinski

One of the biggest steps I ever made in my life was admitting “I don’t know what I don’t know”.

I needed help.

Fortunately for me, I found my coach – Dari. (I’ll be talking about her more as we go along )

I’ve been reading Brian Greene’s, “The fabric of the cosmos”. And there is an interesting principle that we are all immersed in a Higgs ocean. It’s like the original idea of the aether. We are all subject to the field. Our mass is a result of friction between it and out particles.

But what sparked me was the analogy used to explain it. A frog in a dish, with food in the middle. Not only did it show the idea of Higgs field, but it also showed one of the principles of “You don’t know what you don’t know”

Take a bowl and put some food in the middle of it.

Take a frog and put it in the bottom of the bowl. ( His analogy has hot water, and the frog jumping all over the place, but that’s because of universal cooling. Although this is very fascinating, not where I’m going with it. So just putting the frog in the bowl will do ).

Now, in his explanation of the Higgs field, the dish is shaped like a tin for making a ring cake. One with a deep trough, and a pillar in the middle – like an island.

The food is in the very middle, at the top of the pillar.

The frog is at rest at the very bottom of the trough. Or even better, let’s say that the trough is so deep that the frog could even jump half way up the dish.

Can the frog see the food? No. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

If someone who wasn’t “in it”, could they see the food? Of course they can.

If you are the frog, then who sees the food?

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Seth Godin pointed out a very good secret of the web, Patience.

But, it’s not just the web. If you take any Big-Win/Big-Money/Big-Prestige/Big-Anything life, they all have the same virtue present.

In music, most lasting name artists ( key: lasting name, no fly by nighter one shots ), had the same virtue. Gwen Stephanie and No Doubt started in 1986. That’s 9 years before they had their big boom with Tragic Kingdom.

In acting, watch the Actors studio, and all of them have been trying for countless years before any of us ever heard their names.

In politics, do any of us really hear these names until the election machine hoists them up for the nation to see? I didn’t. And yet they spend their lives in the political arena

Over and over again, if you stick with it, you inherently get better and you get noticed.

There is a real catch, and I think deeper than patience is another virtue. How do you have patience? How do you get it? You need to know that what ever your are doing is why you are hear on this earth. And you have to know, no matter what, that it will work out,

The only way I know something is with belief and faith. Not in the religious context, but the personal.

I’ve been more productive lately. At times maybe a little too productive to the point of burn out ( but that’s a different post, which I may or may not write ). So, what then made the change? Was there any change at all?

Was there any change?

This is very philosophical. A kin to the one with the bear, in the woods with no one around, and the odd smell of pepper. Hmmmmm.

Simple answer “yes”.

Long answer, is still “yes” but with explanation.

Change is funny. Change is difficult. Change is messy. And the first thing one must do, is feel awkward about something; anything! If you don’t have some sort of knot, or confusion, or nerves, then my friend, you are not changing.

And with this new regime, I feel very awkward and overwhelmed and off kilter, to put it mildly. And regardless of external proof ( which I have here, here and here), because of the attempt and the feeling, I know that something is happening and change will bubble out.

“Ignorance is bliss”, and asking the question opens the door that you don’t know something. And no matter what you do, you can’t go back and forget that you thought you didn’t know something. So, simply by asking the question, or putting a foot forward, you are making a step forward.

Now, what the hell did I do?

It’s as simple as a to-do list.

{pause}

Yes! A to-do list. But for some odd reason, these little simple yet menial powerhouses of organization fell short on me. I have some sort of magical power that shuts them out completely. I feel overwhelmed by these lines on a piece of paper say “do me”. And I feel this power that I must do them today!

Then I start racing down the rabbit hole with all sorts of other things I wanted to do – you know, like goto the moon.

Now I’ve got “Go to the moon” on my to-do list with a super urgency to do this today! And then comes the inevitable “Snap”. I then either “loose” the paper, or flat out crumple it up and through it around the house. The last one, was a really good toy for my cat, few at least a month.

What kind of to-do list?

I’m using Omni Focus. I decided that for my improvement I would tighten the student belt buckle and dish out the 75 or so bucks to have the fully running version. And it’s been very helpful.

There are loads of features that seem to work right for me.

It doesn’t yell – I’ve set it so that there are no exclamation points or jumping icons that say “tsk, tsk, Nick, you haven’t gone to the moon”

Daily Review and ongoing reassessment – I’ve set it up, so that there is a review period for each series of tasks. So for example, my Clients, I have set to review everyday, were as my long term career goals, set for 2 weeks. In the morning while drinking my coffee – I open my review list, and simply check that I’ve reviewed the items. I might not change anything – and sometimes I do an overhaul as I think of it.

What I don’t need doesn’t show – In the same way I look at my review items, I have a perspective for my daily docket. These are the things I know for sure I want on the list. If I don’t know – I take it off. And it’s not deleted, just hidden for today. Which I’ll review tomorrow and add again if I desire.

What’s in this whole post for you?

I think we’ve got a few tid bits for you.

Trust your gut. Admit if something isn’t working for you, even though that the world thinks it’s simple and powerful. I can say to-do lists do not work for me. What doesn’t work for you?

Feel free to trick yourself. I know my mind is hard to fool. I can see through various ploys and sometimes it fights me. So, when that happens I trick it. In this case, I hide things. “No, that task isn’t there” I say.

Keep searching. I’ve tried what seems like billions of “task managers” and some have come close, but there are key elements that stop me. So, I made a list of deal breakers, and they were that The task list shouldn’t be pushy, I need to drive, and I need to hide things from myself.

To unlock anything – I think you need to ask what are your deal breakers. And if there is the slightest problem and your gut is saying those important needs aren’t met. Admit it doesn’t work and move on.

It’s an engineering diagram…they swear.

http://www.needcoffee.com/2008/08/04/hanna-barbera-anti-marijuana/
http://saturdaymorn.blogspot.com/2008/07/hanna-barbera-against-marijuana-1970.html

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