l.p.g. - flammable gas

According to some research or another 80% of all people behind a wheel drive better than average. And it doesn't seem to be the only illusory superiority around:



It may be discouraging, but still helpful to respect from time to time ones own averageness.

This week in self improvement porn we have some Reflections on TEDGlobal. Which is full of great quotes like this one from Tim Jackson:



Great list. Great quotes. Great waste of time if you don't get up and start doing something along the amazing lines of what the quotes all tell you.

Chriss Sacca says about current chances to start something, get it running, and off the ground:

Today, web services can be conceived, architected, tested, and deployed to millions of users for little incremental cost beyond rent and Ramen noodles for the entrepreneurs.

Chriss is the CEO of Lowercase Capital. So he is supposed to know.

Ignoring his main point about the VC philosophy being stuck in vintage times, one question pops up: When was the last time you rambled that you could have done some piece just the same or even better than those who actually did it?

And the answer is so obvious: Stop bitching, start doing.

This week in self improvement porn we have the post-project view on the Atacama Challenge 2010:



It's a project by Norman Bücher, who took 14 days to run about 14 consecutive little marathons right through the Atacama desert.

This is not so much a project to be tried at home (Kids, don't do it!) but rather a very fine example of breaking personal barriers in order to achieve seemingly impossible goals. Or to put it like Norman does:

I don't run 100 kilometres. I run one kilometre 100 times.

And now we all have the choice: We can go and watch some videos of the Atacama Challenge 2010 or pick up our running shoes and get around the block. For a change.

This week in self improvement porn we care about the oh so famous what-would-be-if. Like the What would I do if only I had enough money to be free to do it.

Paul Buchheit boils down nicely why this is actually a worthy question to ask oneself:

Many people with jobs have a fantasy about all the amazing things they would do if they didn't need to work. In reality, if they had the drive and commitment to do actually do those things, they wouldn't let a job get in the way.

The question is good to be asked in order to know what to aim for. As soon as the answer jumps to mind, though, stop pondering dreams and start working on implementing them. Because most dreams don't really need a million to come true.

Know someone who seems to be wasting time in meetings? Tell her about the fine idea of shooting for 22 Minute Meetings. And no more than that. Maybe by using the Toastmasters speech outline I put together for this very purpose:



Enjoy.

This week in self improvement porn is dedicated to the fellow researchers among us. With Brian Martin on Research productivity: some paths less travelled.

Boring topic, you think? Who cares about researchers? We all do. In the end. Just as Señor Martin is putting it:

Research is commonly thought to follow a sequence like this: have an idea, find out what has been done already, plan the investigation, carry it out, obtain findings and - at the end - write papers.

That's not so much different from what most of us do: sitting on the couch, having ideas; watch some movie on what other people do; plan on who to call to arrange our next trip to some muddy bar; actually going to the bar; finding out that only unproductive losers hang out in the place; and eventually sharing all these insights on Foursquare and Twitter.

So, what are you waiting for? Start the procrastination, head over to Brian Martin's piece, and enjoy the less travelled paths on missing alternatives, the value of writing, the art of creativity, the importance of luck, the intrinsic value of happiness, the brain rules-affected grounds behinds health, and the James Surowiecki-esk crowd wisdom.

Or just lay back, catch some idea, and start doing something about it.

This week we have some kind of a word play: Is time found or made?

Take Josh 'The Personal MBA' Kaufman as a starter. He very recently claimed that Time is Never “Found” for ANYTHING. He claims that for the sake of having time to do something one cannot just find this time. Because he doesn't see it lying around somewhere. Instead, one is supposed to make the time. Actively. Consciously.

One of the points he backs up his make-not-find theory with is the fact that time is there. 24 hours. Every day. For everybody.

Which is very true. And precisely the point why making time doesn't make much sense. To make something means to create something new. Something that just wasn't there before. Which doesn't work out with the hours that are in a day. 24 is 24. Is 24. Regardless of how hard one might try to change it.

All we can do if we want to have some time is go and look for it. We have to find it. Even, and especially, if that means to move away all the nitty-gritty-keep-us-busy activities that soak up the day without providing much value. The latest and greatest daily soap? Hides our time! Some endless meeting about a topic we never even heard of before? Hides our time! The illusion of using some constant all-day-multi-tasking to get something great done in the end? Hides our time!

Time is there. It just may be hiding all too well. Lets dig it up.

And lets not hide it much more by contemplating about whether it's found or made. It's there to be used. Or it will be gone for good.

This week we have something practical for a change: a team challenge. You improve yourself by watching how the others do. How smart they are, how big they lose.

By doing what?

By going for the Marshmallow Challenge and building up: a free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top. The tallest structure wins. And needs to be build in no more than 18 minutes.



And if you think, 18 minutes is nothing to waste, here is the accompanying TED presentation:

OK, the poorly titled book Who Moved My Cheese fits its title and isn't really worth the hour you need to read it. So, may a speech with just as lame a title be any better?

It may. If it's by Señor Merlin Mann. Who presented the following slides to some group at Rutgers University:



And the self improvement porn? Is spread all over the set, but specifically hides in slide no. 37 for the big picture and slide no. 47 for some real world practical advice.

And as we all know that slides do not really speak for themselves, there is a video of the whole speech included with the last slide. Don't miss it. After all, it lasts for more than an hour. Time you don't have to spend calculating your opportunity costs.

Self improvement serves an excellent purpose just on its own. But what do they say? Do good and talk about it. That's what they say. So, what is self improvement if it doesn't come with a healthy set of marketing? Right, a pure waste of valuable potential.

This is exactly what This Week In Self Improvement Porn is all about: Marketing. Or more precisely: a marketeer. And who would be a better fit than the omnipresent Seth Godin himself? Somebody digesting Seth and coming up with a fine collection of his most witty tips and quotes, of course.

Here you go: Lessons Learned from Seth Godin over at Sources of Insight.

And now you can go there, dig into the list, nod your head every now and than in some quiet agreement, and eventually brag about the few quotes you managed to remember.

Or you could just pick any one of these smart tips, find a way to put it into action, and watch yourself in awe.

Not even Andrea Ferlin is one! Even though his One More Shot is quite an amazing tune. And available on Sleep is Commercial's Morning Tools No. 1 release.



Go there and listen!

Some say: «I’ve Tried Self Improvement, It Doesn’t Work!». Which is a myth, according to Dirk from Amsterdam who used to run a supermarket for two years.

And Dirk collected nine more. Not supermarkets, but myths. He put them all in order, thus coming up with a list of top ten myths of self improvement.

Out of these, myth No. 2 is called:

Self Improvement Means Making Big Change

Or in resolved mode:

Self improvement starts by making tiny little changes, taking it step-by-step and day by day.

So why not do exactly this and take a little step? Like, right now, and stop reading around for the sake of getting something done. It may even work out as something useful in the end.

This week's TWISIP is about an op-ed column by David Brooks at the fancy NY Times. It features using Sandra Bullock as an attention catcher, and then puts on a lesson that is all about the insignificance of money with regard to happiness compared to the happiness we all get from emotional highs in a healthy relationship.

Which is so absolutely not new, innovative, and never-said-before that it fits perfectly well for jumping in, reading, contemplating, and mourning about how important it is to reconsider all values. All right at the very moment one stumbles across it (which is, like, right now).

And if that's not enough: the piece is not just stating the obvious, but it does so in a well written manner:

This isn’t just sermonizing. This is the age of research, so there’s data to back this up. Over the past few decades, teams of researchers have been studying happiness. Their work, which seemed flimsy at first, has developed an impressive rigor, and one of the key findings is that, just as the old sages predicted, worldly success has shallow roots while interpersonal bonds permeate through and through.

Oh, and while we are talking about happiness: Why not waste even more time by clicking through the set of slides on how to stay happy - in an imperfect world?

Go ahead.

Or hug your spouse and be happy.

Let's assume you truly want to keep burning. You want to be productive; you want to improve yourself up to the limit and beyond; you want to use just about every available resource in order to get there without any detours.

So you read books. Really helpful books. And at least one book per week, because you really want to improve, don't you?

You also follow some really helpful people on Twitter, especially all those who are influential, well-known, highly productive, self-improving, zen-productive, or book-writing.

And you read articles: online articles of newspapers that tweeple tweeted about, blog posts you found at just the same source, or just all the very supportive writings that Google Reader suggests to you, or that Google Alerts diggs out for you. Not to forget your news feed at Facebook and everything people have been digging out just for you, of course.

Eventually, you'll find what you are looking for. Like this:

Also, I tell myself that the best work I do is when I am not constantly distracted by randomly interesting searches. Like, the last time I remember doing this was, in fact, last night, when I got stuck looking up soporific. It means sleep inducing. But I thought maybe I was missing a nuance of the word because it was in a picture caption in a movie review. Who puts a word like that in a picture caption? So I thought it had another slang meaning or something. And then, when it turns out that it really does mean sleep inducing I didn’t feel accomplished. It was not on my to-do list. And I can’t even figure out how to slip it into my own writing. Unless you find my paragraph about soporific to be soporific.

Which is just a starter. Now you need to digg in and do the reading about all the stuff that'll make you better and burn hotter.

Go on and read it all!

Or just stop it, start burning, and write something yourself. (Re-tweets don't count.)