Sicher, auch jemand, der in der Schule beide Teile des Faust auswendig gelernt hat und abends zur Entspannung gerne Shakespeare liest, kann ein beinharter Stalinist sein. Aber wenigstens hätte man bei Sahra Wagenknecht die Gewissheit, dass sie die bürgerlichen Werte kennt, die sie dann im Feuer der Revolution zu Asche verglühen lassen möchte.

Das wäre ein nicht zu gering zu schätzender Fortschritt gegenüber der Ignoranz des bisherigen Führungsduos der Linkspartei.

Du mußt dein Leben ändern rief Peter Sloterdijk im vergangenen Jahr seinen Lesern zu. In dieser monumentalen Darstellung zeichnet der Philosoph ein Bild des Menschen als ein seit der Antike stets nach Perfektion strebendes Wesen. Der Mensch als ein übendes Wesen, welches eine "Konversion zum Können" (in: Du mußt dein Leben ändern, S. 306) anstrebe, stellt für Sloterdijk eine Grundkonstante menschlichen Daseins dar. In seinem neuen Buch "Scheintod im Denken - Von Philosophie und Wissenschaft als Übung" vertieft und erweitert er das Konzept der Übung und dessen Bedeutung für uns Menschen.

Zuerst scheint es so, als stelle "Scheintod im Denken" lediglich eine kurze Zusammenfassung der in "Du musst dein Leben ändern" aufgestellten Thesen dar, zuallererst dem Konzept der Übung: "Üben ist die älteste und folgenreichste Form der selbstbezüglichen Praxis [...]. Das Ergebnis von Übung zeigt sich in der aktuellen 'Kondition', das heißt in der Könnensverfassung des Übenden" (16f.). Jedoch geht Sloterdijk nun noch einen Schritt weiter und beschreibt die seiner Ansicht nach anzustrebende Lebensform eines übenden Menschen. Diese bestehe in einer Art Abstandnehmen vom Leben, für die er den von Husserl geprägten Begriff der epoché verwendet (vgl. S. 37). Damit ist jedoch kein einsam geführtes lebensfeindliches Eremitendasein gemeint. Vielmehr bedeutet es, dem aktuellen Geschehen mit einer auf Distanz bedachten Haltung der sanften Ironie zu folgen: "Die epoché entspricht hier der Einstellung des Kunden, der über den Markt spaziert, ohne zu kaufen" (38). Das bedeutet nicht jeden Quatsch mitzumachen, neue Trends bewusst abzulehnen, sich auch mal die Frage nach dem Sinn und Zweck von Neuerungen zu stellen. I-Pod, Auto, Wohnung, Beförderung - brauch ich das alles eigentlich in neuer, größer, schneller, teurer oder ist es nicht vielleicht doch so, dass die Kollateralschäden der Segnungen der Moderne deren angepriesenen Nutzen um ein vielfaches überschreiten? Der epochéfähige Mensch ist auch ein zur Entschleunigung fähige Mensch.

Es bleibt die Frage, wie man als Mensch zur epoché-Fähigkeit gelangen kann. Die im besten Sinne konservative Antwort Sloterdijks lautet: Lesen, lesen, lesen: "Der alteuropäische Zugang zur Erfahrungswelt hingegen ist durch grammatische Dressuren vorgeformt, ja, der Weltstoff selbst wird in den Schriftkulturen nach Buchstabe, Silbe, Zeile, Seite, Absatz und Kapitel formuliert mit dem Effekt, daß wir als Leser, die in Büchern wie in Situationen blättern, und Situationen wie Buchseiten auffassen, von vornherein die Disposition von abstandhaltenden Beobachtern mitbringen [...]. Das Lesen gilt folgerichtig als Ernten auf den Feldern des Wissens. Der homo legens wird so auf unauffällige Weise zu allgemeiner epoché-Fähigkeit erzogen" (90).

Fazit: Ein Muss für alle, die auch mit Begeisterung "Du musst dein Leben ändern" gelesen haben. Sloterdijks kunstvolle Sprache ist ein Genuss und sein Hauptthema vergangener Jahre geht uns alle an: Welche Möglichkeiten haben wir als Individuen, unserem Leben im Zeitalter des Tod Gottes einen Sinn zu geben? Der Geist Nietzsches weht deutlich spürbar durch Sloterdijks Denken und Übungsmensch und Übermensch sind sicherlich nicht nur phonologisch sondern auch semantisch zumindestens verwandter Natur.

Der grösste Fehler ist es, Angst vor dem Fehlermachen zu haben.

Now, at the time I was researching frameworks I was also in the process of trying to find and hire our first full time developers at UserScape (besides me). As I researched further, I found out that Laravel was the work of just one person, Taylor Otwell. He was working on it nights and weekends after his day job.

I've come to since find out that Taylor wasn't really a PHP guy, working primarily in .NET before deciding to pickup PHP a few years back. I think a great deal of why Laravel is so unique is due to that fact. He learned PHP at 5.3+. Most people you see working on PHP frameworks have been around since 4 and before.

Er hat sich 2010 selbstständig gemacht, mitten in der Wirtschaftskrise. Eine gute Zeit, meint er, um sich darauf zu besinnen, was die portugiesische Küche ausmacht: Bescheidenheit und Fantasie. Wenn Mouro nicht gerade Hausmannskost dekonstruiert, denkt er sich wilde Sachen aus: Austern mit Birne, Blumenkohl und Mandeln. Ente mit Sojasauce, Artischocke und zerbröseltem Hummer... Speisen, über die man streiten kann – »ich bin ein Koch mit Eiern«.

"Yeah, save money whenever possible, and use all the resources you can," he said. "And don't die. That's basically my motto."

Früher landeten alte Schränke und abgewohnte Dielen auf dem Müll. Designer machen aus solchen Resten nun Möbel mit Geschichte und setzen Handwerk gegen Massenfertigung

Storage-Riese EMC kauft Cloud-Startup
Meldung vorlesen und MP3-Download

Das Storage-Unternehmen EMC hat den den Cloud-Anbieter Syncplicity übernommen. Das gaben beide Unternehmen am Montag bekannt. Die bislang in Privatbesitz befindliche Firma Syncplicity bietet Lösungen für Cloud-Speicher und Datensynchronisation an. Details wie etwa die Übernahmesumme nannten beide Unternehmen nicht.

Laut einem Beitrag im eigenen Unternehmensblog soll das 2008 gegründete Startup als Tochterunternehmen von EMC weiterarbeiten – ohne Veränderungen an der Belegschaft. Dabei will man sich besonders auf Clouddienste für Unternehmen konzentri

"Dave's a very good philosopher. He works hard. He's a good teacher."

Das antike Lehrgedicht von Lukrez riet seinen Lesern: Es gibt kein Jenseits, also suche den Genuss, und du wirst zu einem glücklichen und guten Menschen. Die italienischen Bücherjäger finden Parallelen zwischen Lukrez und den deutschen Badefreuden, schreibt Greenblatt: eine postreligiöse, hedonistische Welt. Er zitiert den Brief eines Italieners: "Alle nämlich haben einerley Absicht, Traurigkeit zu verbannen, Vergnügen zu suchen, keinen Gedanken zu haben, als wie sie des Lebens und seiner Freuden genießen mögen".

“These organisms live so slowly that when we look at it at our own time scale, it’s like suspended animation,” said Danish scientist Hans Roy, a biologist at Aarhus University and the lead author of the study. “The main lesson here is that we need to stop looking at life at our own time scale.”

About a month ago, I watched Scott Hanselman's awesome productivity talk, It's not what you read, it's what you ignore, and it spurred me to take a hard look at my daily Internet usage. As a result I've finished several projects that were previously languishing on my todo list, and I've improved my focus.

One key thought that I took from Scott's presentation is the importance of being intentional about the content I consume--tweets, blog posts, videos. Distractions can often give you the same "I'm awesome" jolt that you'd get from creating something, only without the trouble of actually having to put out any effort. Look, I finished all of the posts in my Google Reader feeds!

michelle_ 4 hours ago | link

Thank you! I used PHP and MySQL for the backend and jQuery for the front. :)

This doesn’t mean you’ll fail. It means you need to be smarter and harder working, and surround yourself with extraordinary people.

bignoggins 15 hours ago | link | parent | on: The 10k Bootstrap Challenge

I'm a big fan of bootstrapping, allow me to add my own data point. I was the typical bored-at-BigCo guy but was afraid to completely jump into startups full time (I have a family). I decided to bootstrap my startup (mobile app) at the beginning of 2010, while working full time for 6 months. 6 months after that I quit my job full time as the income from the startup surpassed my SV engineering salary (made 75K in 6 months). In 2011, I traveled the world for 7 months with my wife while making my 2nd app, and my income went up to 340K. This year, I'm pretty much working ~20 hrs a week and I'm on track to hit at least 600K (already did 300K YTD). No full time employees, no VCs, no board, minimal expenses (macbook + iphone), no hassle.

I have friends and relatives who have done YC, gone the whole fundraising route, etc. Some who are fairly successful, but I wouldn't trade places with them in a second. I'm not saying bootstrapping is better, but if you are like me (risk averse and lazy) then it is definitely a legitimate option.



bignoggins 10 hours ago | link

I haven't spent any money and barely any time on marketing. Development I did all the coding myself and eventually hired a graphic designer part time. The thing is I'm not usually on the Top 100 list (or even Top 300 for that matter), I just charge more for my apps (my price points are $3, $5, $8). That's the best kept secret of the app store. Sure the Top 100 apps make a ton of money, but there is a growing class of niche apps that can make just as much money by charging more and catering to a smaller niche audience.

My advice is to not create the next Angry Birds, but try and find a niche that is underserved and create a great app and charge as much as you can get away with. And get a great designer too, that's the best ROI I can think of.

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sayemm 9 hours ago | link

I think it's very smart, and not just for the risk-averse and lazy... starting small and earning your first stripes as an entrepreneur may prove to be a solid stepping stone to pursue bigger ventures in the future, I think. And now that you're financially independent, you won't have to worry about money holding you back. Gabriel Weinberg (DuckDuckGo founder), Ben Milne (Dwolla founder), Nat Turner (Invite Media founder), the list goes on... were all proven bootstrapped entrepreneurs before they worked on their first venture-backed startup.

Congrats on your success, do you recommend any good books or resources for bootstrapping/marketing apps?

I'm a big fan of Rob Walling's book/blog.

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bignoggins 9 hours ago | link

pretty much followed Rob's advice to the T

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sayemm 8 hours ago | link

good to know! thanks

It's a picture of a company being run from a very rational and respectable set of philosophies.

Die größte Wut entsteht oft aus enttäuschter Erwartung. Wie man sieht, hatte man am Stammsitz des anständigen Deutschlands fest mit dem Ableben der Liberalen gerechnet. Nun musste man nicht nur mit ihrer wundersame Auferstehung fertig werden, sondern auch noch mit der Tatsache, dass diese ausgerechnet von einem solchen Windbeutel wie Wolfgang Kubicki bewerkstelligt wurde, einem Mann, der nach eigenem Bekenntnis zur Entspannung gerne "Steiner, das Eiserne Kreuz" schaut und sich auch sonst wenig schert, was man in den besseren Vierteln von ihm hält. Oder, um in der Diktion der "Süddeutschen" zu bleiben: einem Intriganten, Quertreiber und Egomanen, der für ein fetziges Morgeninterview seine Großmutter verkaufen würde, wenn er noch eine hätte.

The elements are taken as a whole, with no single one making or breaking the decision; it's a balancing act. However, despite Oracle pointing out the commercial success of Android — which would tend to weigh against a finding of fair use — it was clear that Judge Alsup wasn't inclined to side with the company. The judge even scolded Oracle counsel Michael Jacobs when he first argued his case, pointing out that the company's legal team had insisted on a jury trial and "now we got their verdict and you want something else."

When I was a PhD student 15 years ago, I studied with Don Hambrick who is a scholar known for a career showing the effects of management teams and directors (for good and for ill) on their organizations’ strategies and performance. One of the central tenants of this school of thought on organizations is that senior teams and directors have an outsized influence on organizational outcomes. What’s more, their backgrounds (including education and career paths) have a big effect on how they see the world, various competitive situations and the choices they make.

Facebook hat mehr als 900 Millionen Nutzer und wächst noch immer. Doch will das Unternehmen auch künftig Gewinn machen, muss es bald auf mobilen Geräten Geld verdienen

Allerdings blickt die Wall Street nach anfänglicher Begeisterung inzwischen deutlich kritischer auf das 2004 von Mark Zuckerberg gegründete Netzwerk - nicht zuletzt wegen Zweifeln, ob das Turbo-Wachstum ewig weitergeht und ob es sich in entsprechenden Gewinnen niederschlägt. Verglichen mit dem Vorquartal ging der Umsatz im ersten Vierteljahr 2012 um sechs Prozent zurück. Die erzielten 1,06 Milliarden Dollar entsprechen aber einem Plus von 45 Prozent im Vergleich zum Vorjahreszeitraum. Der Nettogewinn sank auf Jahressicht um zwölf Prozent auf 205 Millionen Dollar.

Gerade auf Wachstumsmärkten wie Brasilien und Indien hat Facebook Analysten zufolge Schwierigkeiten, aus seinen Diensten Gewinn zu ziehen. "Sie haben die internationalen Märkte noch nicht geknackt, während andere wie Google im Ausland sehr erfolgreich sind", sagte Anupam Palit von GreenCrest Capital. Auch die saisonalen Schwankungen der Werbung scheint Google weniger zu spüren: Der Suchmaschinenbetreiber erhöhte seinen Umsatz im ersten Quartal auch im Vergleich zum Vierteljahr davor leicht.

virtualeyes 1 hour ago | link | parent | on: Software Engineers Will Work One Day for English M...

I couldn't agree more: as a self-employed software engineer with degrees in literature and psychology, I am living proof that now (not one day, right now) programmers are working for liberal arts "managers" ;-)

virtualeyes 56 minutes ago | link

same deal, started in 2001 on LAMP stack

2 years ago woke up and started exploring, Groovy, Ruby, and then, bing, penny dropped, Scala.

New life at 40 ;-)

In the end you need passion. I would be shocked if I am not coding full-time at 60, nothing grabs me more...

Die Welt umstülpen

Robert Byrnes

"Alles hat mehr als zwei Seiten"
Bericht vom Blick in eine Schatzkiste der Zukunft
Ein Beitrag von Otto Ulrich

„Wir müssen die Gesellschaft neu erfinden," sagt Professor Dr. Schellnhuber, Klimaberater von Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel. Er verweist damit auf die Tiefe der Dimensionen, auf den Kern, um den es zu gehen hat, soll Zukunft gelingen: Um die sozialen Herausforderungen des Klimawandels zu meistern, geht es um die (Wieder-)Aneignung der „Qualität des Lebendigen", um eine „Mathematik in Bewegung", wie es Paul Schatz, der Künstler-Ingenieur und geistige Vater des „denkenden Würfels", damals, am Anfang des letzten Jahrhunderts formuliert hat - und was heute dringlicher den je, der erneuten Entdeckung und Entfaltung bedarf.
...
Und Robert Byrnes, würdiger Vertreter einer „dynamischen Mathematik, also einer Umstülpungsmathematik, die auch als „Schule des Denkens" verstanden werden kann, hatte es leicht: Anhand von zahlreichen Umstülpungskörpern demonstrierte er den fasziniert lauschenden Zuhörern, welch Innenleben ein scheinbar simpler Würfel hat, welche Dynamik in der Bewegung der Kanten eines Würfels stecken und welche mathematischen Gesetzmäßigkeiten dahinter stehen - die von Paul Schatz 1922 entdeckt wurden und die die Chance haben, die Technik zu revolutionieren.
Dies zu demonstrieren oblag Tobias Langscheid, dem Neffen von Paul Schatz und Geschäftsführer der Oloid AG, was, begrifflich wie als Phänomen, darauf verweist, was als Basisinnovation nunmehr, im heraufdämmernden neuen Zeitalter der Ressourceneffizienz, noch mehr verspricht eine große Zukunft vor sich zu haben: Das Oloid.

So I absolutely *love* the distributions, because they are doing all the things that I’m not interested in

ericHosick 4 hours ago | link

This is something I learned in my Grad. Cert. class when I started lecturing at a University (for a few years).

We retain:

5% from lecture.

10% from reading.

20% from audio-visual.

30% from demonstration.

50% from group discussion.

75% from practice.

90% from teaching.

(above copied from somewhere but there is a lot of information on this subject: John Biggs is a good source).

I would have students lecture classes for me (I would have them lecture to me the day before to make sure they had the lessons figured out).
---

awy 5 hours ago | link

This is why I'm a contributor on Stack Overflow.

The more I teach others, the more I learn myself.

18-Stunden-Tage, enormer Druck, abgeschottet in der Vorstands-Festung - wo bleibt da der Blick über den Tag hinaus? Die Führungskultur in Deutschland gehört erneuert, sagen Soziologin Jutta Allmendinger, Personalberater Jörg Ritter und Stiftungsvorstand Tobias Leipprand im Gespräch.

Ihr akademischer Lehrer Bracher zählt zu den Begründern der demokratischen Politikwissenschaft in der frühen Bonner Republik und war an der Uni eine unangreifbare Respektsperson.

Sport kompakt Nahende Abschiede

Nowitzki verliert mal wieder. Kohlschreiber und Mayer scheitern frühzeitig. Gille spielt nicht mehr mit. Und Isinbajewa hat ihr finales Ziel definiert. Sport kompakt am Dienstag

If you're stuck at the starting line, you don't need more time or permission. You don’t need to wait for a boss’s okay or to be told to push the button; you just need to poke.

A Q&A with Seth Godin

Question: What does it mean to Poke the Box?

Seth Godin: Conformity used to be crucial--fitting in, not standing out. Compliance used to be the heart of every successful organization, every successful career. The reason? We all worked for the system, in the factory, doing what we were told. Now, though, compliance is no longer a competitive advantage.

Poke the Box is about the spark that brings things to life. We need to be nudged away from conformity and toward ingenuity, toward answering unknown questions for ourselves. Even if we fail, as I have done many times in my life, we learn what not to do by experience and doing the new.

This isn’t the same thing as taking a risk. In fact, the riskiest thing we can do right now is nothing.

I’ve had an extraordinary run, creating a dozen nationwide bestsellers, starting Internet companies and giving speeches around the world. The key thing I bring to the projects I take on is not more talent than most (I don’t) or even more hours than most (hardly). My contribution is a willingness to poke, to start, to lean into the project and to get it out the door.

Question: What will I learn from reading Poke the Box?

Seth Godin: Hopefully you will learn lots but do more. Start thinking about when you’ve taken initiative in a way that really meant something to you and your team, your family. When was the last time you did something for the first time? How did it feel?

There are no step-by-step how-to instructions in Poke the Box. Instead, you’ll find a series of layers, a foundation for taking a different approach to your work. Instead of learning to be more compliant, I want to push you to be the one who takes initiative.

Question: Why did you write this book?

Seth Godin: I’ve been fortunate enough to hear from almost a million people over the years, to talk with CEOs and bosses and customers around the world. And they all tell me precisely the same thing: it’s the motive force they demand, the person who will shake things up and move them forward.

Static is not an acceptable state. The status quo is no longer something we want at work or in politics or in any organization we care about.

The market is just waiting for people to step forward. I wrote the book for those people, the ones who’ve been hesitating to take the leap.

Question: Why did you start The Domino Project?

Seth Godin: The Domino Project is my latest attempt at "poking." It’s an independent publishing imprint founded by me and powered by Amazon. This is an opportunity to publish "idea manifestos" committed to readers, rather than being bookstore friendly. It’s named after the domino effect--where one powerful idea spreads down the line, pushing from person to person.

I have two audacious goals: I want to change the people who read (not enough do) and I want to change the way books are published (they’re too hard to find and spread). I honestly believe that a book can change a mind like nothing else, and that’s our focus. To help anyone to do work they’re proud of and to make a difference.

Question: Why Amazon?

Seth Godin: I partnered with Amazon so we could leverage what we both do best--Amazon is the leader in global distribution, multiple format production capabilities, and reaching people in the right way, and I want to spread powerful ideas to the people who want to read them.

For 15 years, Amazon has been building an audience and gaining our trust. Many surveys identify them as the most-trusted new brand in the world. Now that Amazon is interacting with more people more often, they have a chance to bring those customers new ideas in innovative ways. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring ideas worth spreading to a huge and eager audience.

Question: Who is Seth Godin?

Seth Godin: I’m an author, entrepreneur, and a person who starts things.

john napiorkowski | April 12, 2012 6:22 PM | Reply

In the Perl class I taught last year, newbies really liked straightup Plack, and I found it let me concentrate on teaching Perl, instead of teaching a web framework.

When I did reach for a framework I used Web::Simple, which is even more micro than Dancer. That also went pretty well, and again it let me concentrate on teaching Perl and programming concepts instead of teaching a web framework. I'd be happy to share code and slides if you'd like, just give me a shout!

I'm a long time redditor, but wanted to keep my reddit life and my company life seperate, hence the throwaway.

I'll get right to it:

In October last year I was reading an article about a guy that started a cleaning company in his city and is now doing $150,000 per year.

I work full-time, but figured, shoot, if he can pull that off, why can't I?

I got to working in this order:

1) I drew up a quick marketing plan-literally one page in bullet form
2) Had a website built that featured some of the ideas that I thought was most appealing about his site.
3) Asked my home cleaner if she would take the jobs if I got any and she basically said "hells yeah" (I now have a total of 8 cleaners)
4) I brushed up on my adwords (I had already owned an Adwords guide and had dabbled in adwords before for another local company)
5) Started Twitter and Facebook page.

All of this took like 3 weeks.

I launched the site on November 3rd and had the first job on the first day.

By the end of November I made my first $1,000 profit, and now the site is doing $1,000 profit per week ($4,000 per month), which exceeds the take home pay from my full time job.

This post is two-fold. To say,

1) This is not brain surgery and 2) Don't overthink shit, sometimes just doing it is the only answer.

I'm just getting started with this and feel I could hit $10,000 per month profit in the next 4 or 5 months if things keep going like this.

ASK ME ANYTHING!

Also, I feel like I can duplicate this success in another venture: Lawncare. I plan to start a lawncare company (and by plan, I literally mean I'm going to get that bad boy jumping in the next two weeks) and I try to duplicate my success.

If you guys want to tag along for the ride I plan to document everything here and you can follow along. I'll make everything super transparent, including money I make the entire thing.

Tl/dr I started a cleaning company that replaced my take home salary from my full time job in 4 fucking months. Now I'm going to try again with a lawn care company and I'll make the entire process super transparent if you guys are interested.

Edit: I figured I would share the site: http://www.maidsinblack.com/

Edit: Here is where the lawn site follow along will take place: http://www.reddit.com/r/EntrepreneurRideAlong/ (Thanks to tabasquito for setting this up).

Edit: It's amazing seeing folks come to the site from as far away as China, that's awesome!

Edit: Thanks to the redditor that emailed me through the site to verify that it was me! :-)

Ask away.
...

patio11 10 hours ago | link

He's essentially figured out that cleaning is one of many services which would have lower barrier to entry if it were not regulated. He is, of course, right. I sincerely hope for his sake that he reinvests profits into bringing himself into compliance with e.g. employment taxes, workers comp, etc.

Andreas Scholz wurde 1969 geboren. Vor 25 Jahren sattelte der gelernte Verwaltungsangestellte um und studierte Ernährungswissenschaft. Er ist Mitglied der Gesellschaft für Ernährungsforschung e. V., Fitnesstrainer mit 26 Jahren Trainingserfahrung und Autor diverser Bücher zum Thema Fitness und Ernährung.Prof. Dr. troph. Michael Hamm ist Ernährungswissenschaftler und Dozent am Fachbereich Ökotrophologie der Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaft in Hamburg. Seine Arbeits- und Lehrgebiete sind Sportlerernährung, Ernährungsphysiologie, Ernährungsphysiologie, Diätetik und Prävention. Nach ernährungswissenschaftlichem Studium und der Promotion an der Universität Bonn war Prof. Hamm mehrere Jahre als Leiter der wissenschaftlichen Abteilung von zwei Unternehmen tätig und hat sich mit der Entwicklung von diätetischen Lebensmitteln und Nahrungsergänzung beschäftigt. Neben seiner Hochschullehrertätigkeit ist er vor allem als Referent und Buchautor bekannt. Er berät die Zeitung 'Fit for Fun' bei Ernährungsthemen, hat die 'Fit for Fun-Diät' entwickelt und ist Autor verschiedener 'Fit for Fun'-Ratgeber. Prof. Hamm ist Mitglied im wissenschaftlichen Beirat der Herzstiftung, des Arbeitskreises 'Omega 3' und des 'Richtig Essen Instituts' in Bonn sowie in der Abteilung Gesundheitsmanagement der 'Continentale Krankenversicherung' in Dortmund. Er ist darüber hinaus Mitglied der Deutschen Akademie für Ernährungsmedizin und im Kollegium der Medizinjournalisten sowie in verschiedenen internationalen Arbeitskreisen zur Sportlerernährung.

So gewinnen Sie mehr Selbstvertrauen: Sich annehmen, Freundschaft mit sich schließen, den inneren Kritiker besiegen
...
5.0 von 5 Sternen Ein Buch, das einen großen Schatz in sich trägt, 23. September 2009
Von
CeKay - Alle meine Rezensionen ansehen
Rezension bezieht sich auf: So gewinnen Sie mehr Selbstvertrauen: Sich annehmen, Freundschaft mit sich schließen, den inneren Kritiker besiegen (Taschenbuch)
Ich möchte mich bei dem Autor dieses Buches von ganzem Herzen bedanken! Das Buch 'So gewinnen Sie mehr Selbstvertrauen' zählt zu den größten Bereicherungen meines Lebens!

Hier meine Geschichte:

Vor ca. 5 Jahren stieß auf das Buch 'So gewinnen Sie mehr Selbstvertrauen'. Ich fand den Titel recht interessant und dachte mir, dass sich ein Blick hinein vielleicht ja lohnen würde. 'Selbstannahme' war für mich bis dato fremd und auch vor Selbstvertrauen sprudelte ich nicht gerade: Ich wusste wohl, dass ich einige Talente mit auf den Weg bekommen hatte. Von mir als gesamte Person hielt ich jedoch ziemlich wenig, sowohl was meine Optik als auch viele meiner geistigen Eigenschaften anbelangten. Ich war nicht sehr zufrieden mit meinem Gesicht und kam mir in manchen Situationen im Beisein anderer total peinlich vor. Ich begann im Alter von 16 Jahren mit Muskeltraining, um so an Attraktivität hinzuzugewinnen. Komplimente und Lob nahm ich nur bedingt an, auch in der Angst überheblich zu werden. Und sowieso war ich der felsenfesten Überzeugung, dass keiner wirklich zufrieden und glücklich mit sich selber sein konnte. Ich war zu dem Fazit gekommen, jeder versuche durch seine Art und sein Verhalten im Grunde nur den anderem zu imponieren, um besser da zu stehen und gemocht zu werden. 'Selbstlob' setzte ich entweder mit 'Arroganz' gleich (was ich unter keinen Umständen werden wollte!) oder hielt es für eine weitere Form, zusätzliche Bestätigung von außen zu erhasschen. Ich dachte, man erwarte dabei ein: 'Ja, das kannst du echt gut! Ich wünschte, ich könnte das auch.' Eine Form also, mit der man sich selber aufbaut. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt ahnte ich auch noch nicht, dass gerade die Leute, die sich sehr arrogant und herablassend geben, vielfach im Herzen nicht sehr viel für sich selber übrig haben.

Als ich das Buch 'So gewinnen Sie mehr Selbstvertrauen' zu lesen begann, war ich von Anfang an begeistert. Ich wurde quasi an der Stelle abgeholt, an der ich mich befand. All meine Schlussfolgerungen über mich und meine Mitmenschen, wurden auf einmal völlig in Frage gestellt. Ich war entsetzt darüber, welch negative Sachen ich lautstark jeden Tag zu mir sagte und dachte. Sagte ich etwas Falsches in Gegenwart eines Menschen, dachte ich 'Mensch, was bist du blöd! Denk doch mal vorher nach!' Schaute ich in den Spiegel werte ich mich ab, indem ich sagte: 'Wie siehst du nur aus!' Lange und ernsthaft und ohne mieses Gefühl konnte ich mir eh nicht in die Augen schauen. Das jedoch sollte sich ändern. Das Buch bewirkte zweierlei in mir: Zum einen öffnete es mir die Augen. Ich erkannte: 'Ich darf mich annehmen, mich lieben, mich wertschätzen. Es ist etwas Gutes! Nicht gut ist es, wenn ich mich selber runterputze und mich selber klein mache' Zum anderen bewirkte es eine große Motivation in mir. Ich sah einen Silberstreifen am Horizont. Etwas in mir sagte, dass ich es wirklich schaffen könnte! Dass ich mehr Zufriedenheit erleben könnte. Und dass ich wirklich 'selbstlos' werden könnte, ohne vom anderen etwas zurückfordern zu wollen.

Zunächst begann ich damit, auf meine Worte und Gedanken mir gegenüber zu achten. Mit am Eindruckvollsten in dem Buch fand ich nämlich, den Unterschied zwischen meiner Person (Bspw: 'Ich bin ein Tollpatsch') und meinem Verhalten (Bspw: 'Das war ungeschickt.') Ich hörte förmlich, wie oft ich etwas Negatives, persönlich Beleidigendes, zu mir sagte. Ich begann damit, es einfach nicht mehr zu sagen, es sein zu lassen. Wenn mir etwas herunter fiel oder ich etwas vergaß, sagte ich nicht mehr 'Du Trottel!' Das Gefühl, nichts in diesem Moment zu sagen, empfand ich als absolut widerlich! Mein Magen drehte sich dabei förmlich um. Am liebsten hätte ich mir bei jedem Mal ins eigene Gesäß gebissen. Ich wollte unbedingt sagen, dass ich 'ein Trottel' bin, da ich es so fühlte und mich für denselbigen hielt. Ich hatte starkes verlangen danach, weil ich es ja gewohnt war. Doch ich blieb hartnäckig. Ich hörte wirklich auf damit! Ich beleidigte mich nicht mehr, auch wenn es mir bei manchen Gelegenheiten aus dem Effekt doch wieder passierte. Um wenn es mir passierte, machte ich mir keine Vorwürfe deswegen. Oder ich machte mir keine Vorwürfe, wenn ich mir Vorwürfe machte. Momente zum Üben gab es reichlich im Überfluss. Das miese Bauchgefühl hielt noch längere Zeit an. Ich weiß selber nicht mehr, wann es aufhörte, vielleicht nach ein paar Monaten. Auch war es mir ein Anliegen anderen Menschen, wenn sie mir aufgrund einer ungeschickten Tat vorzuhalten versuchten, ich sei dumm, zu sagen: 'Nein, das ist nicht wahr! Ich bin nicht dumm, ich habe lediglich etwas fallen gelassen. Das war ungeschickt, mehr nicht!' Oft schauten mich meine Mitmenschen in diesem Moment etwas entgeistert an, denn viele hielten dies inhaltlich für dasselbe. (Wohlmöglich, weil sie es selber zu sich sagen). Mir hingegen half es und es bestärkte mich darin, das Richtige zu sagen. Der Gedanke, 'Trottel' oder etwas Ähnliches zu sagen, verschwand auch mit der Zeit. Ich dachte zwar immer wieder daran, dass ich die Alternative hätte dies sagen zu können, doch ich tat es einfach nicht. Und weil das schlechte Bauchgefühl nachließ, ließ ich mich auch nicht mehr davon abbringen das zu tun, was ich tun wollte: Mir das Richtige zu sagen. Heute verspüre ich noch nicht einmal mehr das verlangen danach. Im Gegenteil: Ich halte es für falsch und eine Unwahrheit sich persönlich zu beleidigen! Es ist eine der hartnäckigsten praktizierten Lügen dieser Welt! Ich bin froh, dies erkannt zu haben.

Dann begann ich damit mir in einen Handspiegel zu sagen: 'Ich mag dich.' In dem Buch wird beschrieben, dass dies die wirkungsvollste Handlung gegen den Einfluss des Kritikers auf das Wohlbefinden sei und gleichsam auch die Schwierigste. Ja, das kann ich bestätigen! Auch hier meldete sich mein Magen sehr extrem. Ich hatte ich großes Unwohlgefühl dabei als ich dies begann zu sagen. Es sträubte sich in mir. Ich jonglierte mit verschiedenen Worten. Ich sagte: 'Ich bin dein Freund.', 'Ich mag dich.' Ich begann mit mir zu sprechen. Das hatte ich noch nie getan. Ich dachte daran, wie peinlich es wäre, wenn mich dabei jemand sehen würde. Auch sagte ich zu mir in den Spiegel: 'Achte jetzt nicht auf dein Gefühl, lausche einfach meiner Worte.' Wie vorhin schon angedeutet: Ich fand mein Gesicht, nicht besonders hübsch und meinen Kopf zu klein. Doch ich wusste von mir, dass ich die Fähigkeit besitze, positive Dinge in Menschen sehen zu können. Also suchte ich gezielt nach Dingen in meinem Gesicht, die mir gefielen. Ich dachte, wenn ich nur eine einzige Sache finden würde die mir gefällt, so würde ich versuchen mich allzeit daran zu erfreuen. Und das schaffte ich auch: Ich fand meine Augen und meine Augenfarbe recht hübsch und fand meine Gesichtshälften simetrisch. Jedesmal wenn ich mich ansah, dachte ich daran. Ich machte es mir zur Gewohnheit bewusst positiv zu mir zu sprechen. Die Gedanken, dies sei 'nicht normal' konterte ich damit, dass jeder permanent bewusst oder unbewusst zu sich redet. Das half mir. Es bauten sich viele negative Gedanken in mir auf, die ich entweder mit korrigierenden Worten oder mit Ignoranz bekämpfte. Bildlich betrachte ich dies immer mit einem Schwert und einem Schild. Ich habe viele Auf- und Abs erlebt. Aufgegeben hab ich trotz vieler Zweifel nie. Seither ging es mir echt besser. So etwas hatte bisher nicht erlebt.

Vor einem halben Jahr habe ich mein Training zur Selbstannahme erneut intensiviert. Ich habe mir einen Mut-machenden Text auf meinen MP3-Player gesprochen, den ich mir täglich auf dem Weg zu meinem Nebenjob im Bus anhörte. Ich habe u. a. gesprochen: 'Ich mag dich! Du bist ein liebenswerter und wertvoller Mensch! Du hast viele Talente. Ich verzeihe dir alle deine Fehler' Auch bin ich irgendwann übergangen von 'Ich mag dich' zu 'Ich liebe dich.' Dies kann ich mittlerweile völlig ernst gemeint und mit einem guten Gefühl zu mir in den Spiegel sagen, was anfangs auch sehr ungewohnt war. Zusätzlich habe ich mir angeeignet, wenn mir Missgeschicke passieren, ich zu spät komme, ich was vergesse oder mir Sonstiges widerfährt, aufbauende Worte zu sagen, statt etwas Neutrales. Ich sage jetzt: 'Kopf hoch, ich liebe dich sehr, du bist ein liebenswerter und wertvoller Mensch! Fehler passieren jedem! Ich bin dein Freund, helfe dir und stehe dir allezeit zur Seite!' Ich nutze meine Missgeschicke nun als Training. Mittlerweile kommen diese Worte aber ganz von allein. Manchmal bin ich selber überrascht, wie die Worte einfach aus mir heraussprudeln. Es bereitet mir Freude, mit einer liebevollen Stimme zu mir zu reden.

Ja, ich fühle mich gut! Ich bin gerne mit mir zusammen! Ich fühle mich selten alleine, weil ich weiß, einen guten Freund ' mich selber ' zur Seite zu haben. Es macht mir Spaß, mir gut zuzureden. Das ist was Wunderbares! Gewiss: Es gibt immer noch Bereiche in meinem Leben, an denen ich arbeiten möchte. Es fällt mir in bestimmten Situationen nicht leicht, 'Nein' zu sagen oder fürchte hin und wieder abgelehnt zu werden. Mit Kritik kann ich schon lange recht gut umgehen. Persönliche Beleidigungen machen mir in der Regel gar nichts mehr aus (Ich kenne ja den Unterschied zwischen Mir und Meiner Tat). Ich erfreue mich meines Lebens, doch ich möchte weiter an mir arbeiten. Ich weiß, dass ich nicht perfekt sein muss, um glücklich zu sein. Umso mehr liebe ich es, mir zu verzeihen. Das ist ein schönes Gefühl, das ich jedem gönnen möchte. Dass es soweit gekommen ist, verdanke i[…]

I was to work with
the president and owner, Dr. Howard Marshall, Ph.D., on a project to
develop an instrument to measure the real-time sulphur content of a
coal stream by detecting and analysing the prompt gamma ray spectrum
resulting from the absorption of thermal neutrons from a Californium
252 radioactive source. The opportunity sounded exciting to my naive
ears, as it was my first professional job. I was finally in the real
work world of adults and ready to go on to do great things. Remember,
this was twenty years ago and I was only twenty-two years old. I had
no previous experience to guide me in the situation I was in, no
mentor to teach me, no helping hand and no idea of where to begin or
what to do. Like most good engineers, I decided to fake it until I
understood my value.

Weil ihm die bisher erhältlichen externen Lautsprecher für seinen MP3-Player nicht gefielen oder schlicht zu teuer waren, hat sich der Berliner Designer Axel Pfaender seinen selbst gebastelt - aus Karton. Gestaltet wie ein klassischer Ghettoblaster sucht er jetzt Unterstützer für die Vermarktung seiner Boombox.

ANZEIGE
"Berlin" hat ja vielerorts einen coolen Beiklang. Die Stadt gilt als hip, trendy und was man sich da noch ausdenken mag. Ein bisschen setzt Axel Pfaender auch auf diesen Effekt, wenn er seine Produktidee "Berlin Boombox" nennt. Man sieht sie geradezu vor Augen, die Intellektuellen, die Kreativen, die Hipster, wie sie sich für Retro begeistern können (oder war das Vintage?).

Wer das Projekt finanziell unterstützen will, kann das auf Kickstarter tun. Aktuell sind es noch drei Wochen bis zum Ende der Laufzeit. 14.000 Dollar braucht Axel Pfaender. Derzeit kann man die Boombox noch für 50 Dollar bestellen, später soll sie 59 Dollar kosten. Für 100 Dollar gibt es eine Version im speziellen Kickstarter-Design. Ab 250 US-Dollar kann man sein eigenes Logo integrieren lassen. Und wer gar 500 US-Dollar ausgibt bekommt den Designer gleich dazu - jedenfalls für einen Abend. Denn mit so großzügigen Spendern geht Axel Pfaender Essen und zeigt ihnen Berlin Mitte.

"Android is on fire, and the pace of mobile innovation has never been greater," he wrote. "Over 850,000 devices are activated daily through a network of 55 manufacturers and more than 300 carriers."

Real Hackers, of course, have long known that object-oriented programming is not the panacea that its partisans have claimed. Real Hackers have moved on to more advanced concepts such as immutable data structures, type inferencing, lazy evaluation, monads, arrows, pattern matching, constraint-based programming, and so forth. Real Hackers have also known, for a while, that C and C++ are not appropriate for most programs that don't need to do arbitrary bit-fiddling. Nevertheless, the Lisp Curse still holds.

Ich brauchte eine kleine Wärmequelle für unser Blockhaus. Für einen unkomplizierten Imbis wie Wienerle oder Weißwürste ist die Kochplatte genau mein Ding.

When I taught at Stanford Law School last year, I asked students what they planned to do with their lives. Most were headed to big law firms but didn’t expect to become partners and didn’t know the next step after that. They didn’t have long-term plans about what they wanted to achieve in their lives. I think the educational system has become a major factor stopping people from thinking about the future

Hi, I’m Amy!

Hi, I'm Amy Hoy. I'm a Product Crusader. I'm building my own product empire of web apps.

(Freckle, Charm), training, and educational products. I aim to help you do the same.

Why is there a narwhal impaling a unicorn on my blog heading? Simple: Unicorns are a fantasy -- but narwhals are the stunning reality. So in nature, so in life: You can't base a business on glitter and rainbows. Real businesses charge.

Also significant is the fact that Ulrich left Red Hat in September, 2010; according to his LinkedIn page, he is now "VP, Technology Division at Goldman Sachs." One can easily imagine that his new position might just have requirements that are unrelated to glibc maintenance. So a drop in participation is not entirely surprising; what is significant is that a growing community is more than taking up the slack.

Tom Clynes war natürlich fasziniert von dem Erfindergeist und der Genialität des Teenagers Taylor Wilson. Aber ebenso beeindruckte ihn die Gelassenheit und Weisheit von Wilsons Eltern, die ihren Sohn konsequent dabei unterstützen, seine Träume zu verwirklichen. »Ich wäre schon heilfroh«, sagt Clynes, Vater zweier Jungen, 6 und 8 Jahre alt, »wenn mir das bei meinen Söhnen auch nur halb so gut gelingt.«

Often the screen will be blank (default console-blanking in Linux), but even if you plan ahead and disable that, there’s only so much you can do with a crashed system from the console. You need something more.

Enter kdump. kdump is similar to other utilities like diskdump and netdump that let you grab a core from a system and push it to disk or across the network. They work, but they have some prerequisites relating to your storage and networking drivers that can be problematic. kdump dodges these issues by taking another approach. (If you’d prefer the canonical lowdown on kdump, head over to the kernel’s git repo and check out their docs.)

One feature that’s been around for a little while now is kexec. We’ll gloss over the details, but kexec is an interesting hack that lets you reboot into a new kernel by jumping straight into execution of the new binary. It’s a bit of a cheat and there’s many ways you could come adrift in the process (who knows what state your devices are in?), but it’s the perfect answer for simpler tasks. kdump leverages kexec to execute some code that will grab a copy of the system state and leave it somewhere safe.

The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs.

― Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason

_delirium 2 hours ago | link

This used to be common in parts of Europe as well, until not that long ago. There are still inhabited houses set into cliffs in parts of France, e.g. around Chinon (http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/6368827), and some in Italy have become tourist destinations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassi_di_Matera).

Wer wüsste nicht gern, was Politiker in langweiligen Sitzungen treiben? Jetzt ist ein seltenes Dokument aus den achtziger Jahren aufgetaucht: Es zeigt Skizzen des früheren US-Präsidenten Ronald Reagan. Zu verdanken sind die Bilder der findigen Diebin Margaret Thatcher.

The myth of the overnight success

Angry Birds was Rovio’s 52nd game. They spent eight years and almost went bankrupt before finally creating their massive hit. Pinterest is one of the fastest growing websites in history, but struggled for a long time. Pinterest’s CEO recently said that they had “catastrophically small numbers” in their first year after launch, and that if he had listened to popular startup advice he probably would have quit.

You tend to hear about startups when they are successful but not when they are struggling. This creates a systematically distorted perception that companies succeed overnight. Almost always, when you learn the backstory, you find that behind every “overnight success” is a story of entrepreneurs toiling away for years, with very few people except themselves and perhaps a few friends, users, and investors supporting them.

Startups are hard, but they can also go from difficult to great incredibly quickly. You just need to survive long enough and keep going so you can create your 52nd game.

Think with your whole body. ~Taisen Deshimaru

Ambitious startup ideas usually operate in large markets where there are often lots of customers and lots of money flowing. If you start out trying to create or disrupt such a market you often end up stumbling on an initial beachhead where you can attack the greater landmass.

Now Steve is gone there's a vacuum we can all feel. If a new company led boldly into the future of hardware, users would follow. The CEO of that company, the "next Steve Jobs," might not measure up to Steve Jobs. But he wouldn't have to. He'd just have to do a better job than Samsung and HP and Nokia, and that seems pretty doable.

"A very lengthy and somewhat meandering essay from Crista Videira Lopes has sparked off some discussion of where new programming languages come from. She's writing from the viewpoint of academia, under the premise that new languages don't come from academia. And they've been steadily progressing outside of large companies (with the exception of Java and .NET) into the bedrooms and hobbies of people she identifies as 'designers' or 'lone programmers' instead of groups of 'researchers.' Examples include PHP by Rasmus Lerdorf, JavaScript by Brenden Eich, Python by Guido van Rossum and — of course — Ruby by Yukihiro Matsumoto. The author notes that, as we escape our computational and memory bounds that once plagued programming languages in the past and marred them with ultra efficient syntax in the name of hardware, our new languages are coming from designers with seemingly little worry about the budget CPU being able to handle a large project in the new language. The piece is littered with interesting assertions like 'one striking commonality in all modern programming languages, especially the popular ones, is how little innovation there is in them!' and 'We require scientific evidence for the claimed value of experimental drugs. Should we require scientific evidence for the value of experimental software?' Is she right? Is the answer to studying modern programming languages to quantify their design as she attempts in this post? Given the response of Slashdot to Google's Dart it would appear that something is indeed missing in coercing developers that a modern language has valid offerings worthy of their

The equivalent program in F# is not only shorter but also 17× faster:

let n = 10000000 let m = System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary(n) for i=1 to n do m.[i] <- 1.0f / float32 i printf "m[100] = %fn" m.[100]

Product Launch Checklist ✶

A very decent list of "things to do" to help a launch go better. However, It's worth pointing out that none of those things (save, perhaps, the SSL certificate) should stop you from launching your product, at least in the sense of allowing people to sign up, use the service, and pay you money.

Die verkaufen Ihnen fünf Paar verschiedene Schuhe, deren Absätze jeweils um 3 mm verringert werden. Anfangs also dicke, "heavyly cushioned" Schuhe, und dann immer weniger gepolsterte bis schlussendlich zu den "Zero Shoc-Zone" Modellen. Praktisch Barfußlaufschuhe.

Geniale Idee. Endlich. Finden Sie unter www.inov-8.com

You must do the thing which you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt

Johnny Thunders: Der Sänger und Gitarrist der Punkband New York Dolls war das Vorbild etlicher anderer Musiker und Bands wie beispielsweise The Clash, Guns n' Roses oder der Toten Hosen. Noch zu Beginn der neunziger Jahre hatte er sich eine neue Band - The Oddballs - zusammengestellt, mit der er durch die Welt tourte.

If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. ~ Siddhartha Gautama

Magdalena, die den Druck weglächelt

Only from the heart Can you touch the sky. ~ Rumi

And no one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves. ~ Marianne Williamson

Almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure... fall away in the face of death. ~SteveJobs

Know the enemy, know yourself, wrote Sun Tzu in his classic The Art of War, and your victory will be certain. For anyone who is stuck at a level below their God-given potential, who can't seem to get on track to do the things they need to do in order to achieve their most authentic goals, knowing the enemy and knowing yourself are one and the same.

Steve Pressfield's magnificent little book The War of Art is about being more creative - but more important, it's also about fulfilling your potential as a human being. To do this, he says, you must overcome Resistance (the "R" is capitalized be Pressfield to represent the fact that it is a very real entity - as real to your authentic Self as Charles Manson or Genghis Khan were to their victims).

The whole aim of Resistance, says Pressfield (who is the bestselling author of The Legend of Bagger Vance and Gates of Fire), is to prevent you from doing the work you are called to do. Resistance wants you to take it easy, to be ordinary and mediocre, to take the low road. Resistance is the reason so many people place a basket over the brilliant candle that shines within them. The fight against Resistance is, Pressfield says, a war to the death.

Pressfield disputes the standard motivational cliché that you can have, do, or be anything if you follow the right formula and just work hard enough. Rather, he says: "We are not born with unlimited choices... Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal that we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it."

There are two occasions when Resistance will be the most relentless, and they are related. The first is when something really matters to you. "Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it." If your lifelong goal is to be a writer, a rejection letter from a publisher will hurt a whole lot more than if you submitted your manuscript on a dare.

The second occasion that Resistance is most dangerous is related to what Pressfield calls "the mother of all fears," namely the fear that you will actually succeed. Resistance builds as you get closer to the finish line. "At this point, Resistance knows we're about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It marshals one last assault and slams us with everything it's got." There is a real paradox here: the closer you get to reaching that proverbial tipping point, where things are really starting to click, the more likely you are to engage in the self-sabotaging behavior that is the calling card of Resistance.

Pressfield offers a prescription for defeating Resistance. You must, he says, become "a pro." But he does not mean that in the sense of earning a living at the work, in the sense of being a member of a certain profession, or in the sense of being looked up to by your peers. Rather, he simply means showing up every day with your lunch pail and getting to work. Much of the book has to do with how you make this transformation so that you can do the work that you are called to do.

I have made a small poster with this quote from Steve's book and placed it prominently above my computer: "There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work." My own next book has been on the back-burner for far too long, victim to Resistance. But now I have a weapon: Every time Resistance stands between me and doing my work, I pull Steve's book from out of my bookshelf and beat Resistance over the head. Then in that very second, I sit down and do my work. And it's working.

Question: What is the distinction between Do the Work and War of Art, the book where you first introduced Resistance? Does Do the Work take it a step further?

Steven Pressfield: Do the Work is structured to take the reader from A to Z. If the reader has a project they want to start or complete, such as a new business they want to open or a book they want to write, Do the Work is designed to take them from starting to shipping to hitting all the predictable resistance points along the way. I know you’re familiar with these moments; The beginning, the middle, and all the moments in between just before you ship and then just after you ship. Do the Work guides you from the start of the project and takes you all the way through.

It’s about getting off your behind and starting something. And Seth Godin writes about this, that once you start, you have to finish; you don’t get off the hook half way through. I recently got an email from a guy who said, "Help. I’m stuck." He was in a class and he had to write a screenplay and he was a quarter of the way through. Normally I would cheer him on, but just for fun, I gave him a little program to do; I put on my instructor voice and said, “Do this, do that, do this, do that.” It worked because right away he got over a couple speed bumps and took it all the way to the finish line. He loved it! I’d always been too shy to do that before, but I tried the assertive tone of voice and it really worked--he responded really well to it. So I thought, let me try that tone of voice in Do the Work.

Question: What did you tell him to do?

Steven Pressfield: One of the first things I told him to do was to banish the self-censor. I could tell he was frozen, worrying, "Is this going to be good? Is this going to be perfect? So I told him, "Take the next five days and write for two hours everyday. I don’t care what else is in your life--banish it. When you write for those two hours, start on minute one and don’t think for one second all the way through until minute 120. Just write, don’t self censor. Don’t do anything." That really seemed to get him moving and gave him permission to not be paralyzed with seeking perfection.

Ishita: You almost have to be ruthless with yourself when you’re confronting your censor. What do you think is the difference between our natural limitations and Resistance? How can we tell Resistance from our own stuff coming up?

Steve: First let me say one thing. My rule of thumb is: When in doubt, it’s Resistance. When you think it might be something else, it’s not, it’s Resistance. When I went through my 20s and early 30s, I had about a seven-year period where I wandered into the wilderness, I ran away from everything in my life, believing the voices in my head and not recognizing them as Resistance. I went through a long, long period of getting in my own way in a really bad way, hurting other people along the way. The worst stuff you can imagine. It was only after that, when I came to this rule of thumb that "When in doubt, it is Resistance." The answer is that you have to overcome it.

Ishita: So that was a time when you weren’t "doing the work?"

Steve: Absolutely, I wasn’t doing it at all.

Ishita: I relate to that. I’ll give you an example unrelated to creative work, but where Resistance rears its ugly head in a big way. Sometimes I’ll lace up my gym shoes, make the ten minute walk to the gym, and turn right back around and go home. And all the while I’m thinking, "What am I doing?!" I then wonder if there’s something before taking the action that comes into play, something that comes just prior to taking action.

Steve: I can just picture you now, Ishita.

Ishita: I don’t know if I should have told you that but there we have it!

Steve: I understand that. It’s almost like you have to say, "Put your ass where your heart wants to be" and just put your body there and do it. For me it seems like a head of steam has to build up inside before you’re actually able to take that plunge. That the pain of not doing it is worse then the pain of walking home from the gym, for example.

Ishita: You get so sick of not doing it that you force yourself to ultimately do it. It seems like we fight so hard against Resistance, it’s a never-ending battle. As soon as you’re done overcoming one obstacle, here comes another.

Steve: Absolutely, I mean, it never gets any easier. And it almost gets to a spiritual level, where it’s just part of the human condition. Simply put, there are dark forces in religions and views of the world that stop us from ascending to higher levels and stops the higher level from communicating with us. The ancient rabbis and monks and Zen masters recognized that as just a part of life. In America, we’re in this "Go, go, go" power positive thinking society, that we think there’s no such thing as evil or that we can overcome it by the proper social program or going to the right school, etc. But George Lucas was right: The dark force is there. And we have to fight it in ourselves everyday. It’s always there, just like gravity, and it’s always keeping us from being able to fly. Resistance is the same.

Ishita: I think about people who’ve made "it" at the top of their game. They’re putting stuff out into the world but it’s clear that Resistance still comes up. I’m learning that no matter what, there are always challenges and that no one really has it "made."

Steve: I don’t think anyone has it made at all. In fact, I love stories when an artist or a writer tells the various hells they went through who we now look at and think, "Wow, they must have been at the top of their game!" And then you realize that no, they were going through a divorce or lawsuits were filed against them, or their kids were sick or whatever. Yet they still did it. That’s just the way it is. It’s what separates the men from the boys, so to speak. There’s a famous story of Picasso after he had finished about 24 paintings for his next show. He invited his agent or his manager to his studio to look at the paintings and as Picasso was looking at them with his manager, he started to hate them. He grabbed a painting knife and started slashing the paintings. The manager absolutely freaked out and said, "NO, NO, NO!" but Picasso kept slashing until they were all ruined. Then he went back to the drawing board.

Ishita: That’s crazy--I had never heard that story! It shows just how powerful Resistance can really be. Switching gears to doing the work, how do you choose what’s next for you? How do you recognize a new challenge and mix it up for yourself?

Steve: I think you’re always starting from scratch when you come to a new project, Ishita. I always want to do something that number one I love--that just seizes me, rather than try to second-guess the marketplace. I also want to do something that’s new and that will make me stretch. At the same time I don’t want to go too far because I think that you can lose readers and your audience, so you go a half step at a time. You have to do something where you say, "I don’t know if I can pull this off." And in fact that you really think, "I don’t think I can pull this off." You want that feeling. So you’ll have to use new muscles and try something different. Fail, fail, fail, succeed, fail, fail, fail, succeed; That’s kind of the way it goes. I’m definitely a believer that you have to be as fearless as you can be. Usually the projects that work out best for me are the ones that I think to myself no one in the world is going to be interested in this except me. I’m starting a new one now, which I’m not going to tell you about, but I have that exact feeling, that I must be crazy to do this because no one will care about it but me. But I’m interested in it and so I’m doing it.

Ishita: The filmmaker Mira Nair said, "The more specific you get with your story, the more universal it becomes." So the more you do what you want and what lights your fire, the more people will resonate with it. That you delve so deeply into the story that interests you and you think, "Why would anyone else be interested in this?" but it’s exactly that reason that people will be interested in it.

Steve: I think that’s exactly true, Ishita. Like when you wrote me that email describing the MBA program you were a part of and how great it was, but also how challenging it was and that you cried every night. Then you wrote back and said, "Perhaps don’t publish that part?" and I thought it was actually the most charming and most involving part of our conversation about it because when I read that, I literally lit up and I said to myself, "Ah, I can just see it..." So you’re right. That’s a specific detail that really makes something universal because we all feel, "Yeah, I was crying every night too" at some point in time in our lives.

Ishita: As creators we collaborate and work on teams, but being alone is the nature of the job of being an artist or writer. How do you hold yourself accountable when it’s just you, solo--with no boss or "job" to hold yourself to? For example, how did you finally write your novel while you were living in your car with just your typewriter and no one else to motivate you?

Steve: That’s a great question. I just ran away from it for so long and in so many different avenues that proved to be dead ends, that I just ran out of places to run to. So the pain of not doing it was worse than the pain of doing it. I never really thought about it from an accountable point of view because I just had to do it, there was no question. I thought, "If I were to crap out now, I’d just have to hang myself." So for me at least, I don’t need anybody else’s opinion to make me go forward. I just know that I’ll be so unhappy inside myself if I don’t. And vice versa. I know I’ll feel good at the end of the day when I do put in the work and do what I need to d[…]

Daniel H. Pink is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Drive and A Whole New Mind, which together have been translated into 31 languages. Read his guest review of Seth Godin's Poke the Box:

Let me begin with a professional and personal disclosure: If Seth Godin weren’t a friend of mine, I would probably hate his guts.

He makes those of us in the word-slinging, meme-spreading trade look like a bunch of ne’er-do-well slackers. He is so preposterously creative and so endlessly productive--a new blog post every day, a new book every year, dozens of efforts to raise money for charity, Squidoo, the Domino Project, and more--that I once suspected "Seth Godin" was really a cover name for an army of elves toiling in a work camp near the Hudson River.

But after reading this remarkable book, I’ve discovered Seth’s secret: He’s willing to poke the box. To start. To initiate. To begin. That’s all.

Indeed, the message of this book is so profoundly simple and so simply profound, I can encapsulate it in a single word.

Go.

Don’t cogitate. Don’t ruminate. Don’t plan on getting started or wait for permission to begin.

Go.

Of course, that’s a little scary. Starting is a risk. Things might not work out. You could flop. But one theme of this book--and it’s a theme that you should write on a rock, imprint on your brain, and inject into your bloodstream--is that we ought to be much more concerned about mediocrity than failure. "If you can’t fail," Seth writes, "it doesn’t count."

Like the man who produced it, Poke the Box is inspired and inspiring. I’ll place it on my shelf alongside two other extraordinary books: The War of Art by Steven Pressfield and Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. If you enjoyed those two, you’ll love this one. It will simultaneously stir your heart and kick your butt.

Which brings us to a final question: When should you get started on that project, that business, that work of art only you can deliver to the world?

Seth has the answer to that, too: "Soon is not as good as now."

In other words, go. --Daniel H. Pink
-------------------
A Q&A with Seth Godin

Question: What does it mean to Poke the Box?

Seth Godin: Conformity used to be crucial--fitting in, not standing out. Compliance used to be the heart of every successful organization, every successful career. The reason? We all worked for the system, in the factory, doing what we were told. Now, though, compliance is no longer a competitive advantage.

Poke the Box is about the spark that brings things to life. We need to be nudged away from conformity and toward ingenuity, toward answering unknown questions for ourselves. Even if we fail, as I have done many times in my life, we learn what not to do by experience and doing the new.

This isn’t the same thing as taking a risk. In fact, the riskiest thing we can do right now is nothing.

I’ve had an extraordinary run, creating a dozen nationwide bestsellers, starting Internet companies and giving speeches around the world. The key thing I bring to the projects I take on is not more talent than most (I don’t) or even more hours than most (hardly). My contribution is a willingness to poke, to start, to lean into the project and to get it out the door.

Question: What will I learn from reading Poke the Box?

Seth Godin: Hopefully you will learn lots but do more. Start thinking about when you’ve taken initiative in a way that really meant something to you and your team, your family. When was the last time you did something for the first time? How did it feel?

There are no step-by-step how-to instructions in Poke the Box. Instead, you’ll find a series of layers, a foundation for taking a different approach to your work. Instead of learning to be more compliant, I want to push you to be the one who takes initiative.

Question: Why did you write this book?

Seth Godin: I’ve been fortunate enough to hear from almost a million people over the years, to talk with CEOs and bosses and customers around the world. And they all tell me precisely the same thing: it’s the motive force they demand, the person who will shake things up and move them forward.

Static is not an acceptable state. The status quo is no longer something we want at work or in politics or in any organization we care about.

The market is just waiting for people to step forward. I wrote the book for those people, the ones who’ve been hesitating to take the leap.

Question: Why did you start The Domino Project?

Seth Godin: The Domino Project is my latest attempt at "poking." It’s an independent publishing imprint founded by me and powered by Amazon. This is an opportunity to publish "idea manifestos" committed to readers, rather than being bookstore friendly. It’s named after the domino effect--where one powerful idea spreads down the line, pushing from person to person.

I have two audacious goals: I want to change the people who read (not enough do) and I want to change the way books are published (they’re too hard to find and spread). I honestly believe that a book can change a mind like nothing else, and that’s our focus. To help anyone to do work they’re proud of and to make a difference.

Question: Why Amazon?

Seth Godin: I partnered with Amazon so we could leverage what we both do best--Amazon is the leader in global distribution, multiple format production capabilities, and reaching people in the right way, and I want to spread powerful ideas to the people who want to read them.

For 15 years, Amazon has been building an audience and gaining our trust. Many surveys identify them as the most-trusted new brand in the world. Now that Amazon is interacting with more people more often, they have a chance to bring those customers new ideas in innovative ways. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring ideas worth spreading to a huge and eager audience.

Question: Who is Seth Godin?

Seth Godin: I’m an author, entrepreneur, and a person who starts things.
Review
“Seth Godin may be the ultimate entrepreneur for the information age.” --Business Week

“It’s easy to see why people pay to hear what he has to say.” --Time Magazine

One word reviews for Poke the Box

“Embarkable.” --Annie Duke, world poker champion, author and talk show host

“Rut-reversing.” --Sarah Jones, playwright

“Essential.” --Jill Greenberg, photographer, manipulator.org
See all Editorial Reviews

I like most of Seth Godin's ideas, including this one, but to what end is the purpose of this 100 page book that, I believe, would have been suited for a short article or blog post.?

We are all weird, is self-evident in a day when we can choose between a couple of hundred pasta sauces in the supermarket. If you want to buy and learn how to play the ukulele, you will be sure to find like minded people online. The market is no longer of limited choice dictated by others.

Today, you can do, buy, sell, and associate with anyone you want, as long as it is legal, and it's as easy as ever to find it. That pretty much sums it up.

Seth Godin is still an amazing person to listen to and take advice from. I think Seth Godin's book, " Poke the Box" deserves 5 stars.