Tag: learning

Extrinsic rewards

I would like to pass CFA level one. I have already tried the exam twice and failed! Like anything this is a multi-variable problem – I have a job and 2 young kids, I never did maths at school, I don’t have a lot of time for studying. Etc. Etc. But I was very close to passing the last time.

Previously all the reward for studying has been intrinsic. But now I am going to give myself some sort of extrinsic, materialistic, awesome enticement for passing the next exam in December. Hopefully this sort of motivation works. It can’t hurt. Candidates for the prize include:

  • an apple device ( I like the look of the new watch and the new phones and the new speaker)
  • a hifi device (my speakers could do with an upgrade)
  • a holiday (after all that studying)
  • a new bed….because sleep.

I am stretching the limits with this exam, but I like the challenge and am lucky enough to be able to try.

To be chanted like the Americans chant: C F A…C F A…C F A

The world is your ostrich – on scope

The world is your oyster. (Or as they say in Kenya, the world is your ostrich). This is a fine saying full of hope and optimism, but how do you know what part of the world/oyster/ostrich to focus on? How do you define scope for your next project?

Scoping your work is probably the most important part. Scope is what lets us understand where to allocate time and resources to a project. It sets the boundaries, and it is very subjective.

How to decide on a focus and a scope of a project then? Stick with what you know. This is hard because the internet and TV can convince you that you know about all sorts of stuff. But to quote Seth Godin: “There’s a difference between being aware of the emergency of the day and having firsthand experience and firsthand empathy for different people in different places.”

Focus then on something which you understand through first hand experience. Perhaps you can show people how to do something (check out my mate Martin’s excellent Vlog series for his art). Or perhaps you know exactly where there is a gap in the market. The point is – take the real, personal interactions you have in the world and grow the project from there.

70% with control

I like to play squash. Probably the best advice I have been given is to only give 70% with each shot, and focus all that energy on cleanly hitting the ball. Do it properly at 70% rather than flying in and flailing around at 110% (which is my natural inclination!)

This is more than just a squash tactic. I am at my best when I am calmly dealing with what is in front of me. If I decide to go 110% and expend every ounce of energy in pursuit of one thing, i usually burn out pretty fast.

Life is a juggling act. Keep some energy in store. Keep your head and wits about you. Do things in the correct way.

 

Quest love

I asked the owl in the woods how to lead a good life. He turned his head sideways, looked hard at my face and then said to find myself a quest. But what sort of quest? I asked. He held up seven feathers to me as he said this:

Overcome a monster. Pull the dragon out of the cave and stick your sword through its rotten heart.

Spin yourself some gold and grow your riches. Pull the levers of wealth in your favour to grow from nothing to luxuries beyond your dreams.

Discover a lost land. Leave your home and find another one somewhere far where the sky is a different colour.

Return a prodigal son. Come back home from the journey of a lifetime and see it with different eyes to the ones you left with.

Make people laugh. “With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come”.

Make people cry. “To weep is to make less the depth of grief”.

Die a thousand times over and come back stronger than ever.

 

 

Humbled through Twitter blocks

I am learning how to use Twitter. An intimidating place sometimes, Twitter for me is a roller-coaster ride of fumbling around. Like a little kid with training wheels on a bicycle I am wobbling through it.

I get stuck wondering what I actually want to say. In real life I am not particularly outspoken which is something I want to change, but what sort of stuff should I start to be outspoken about? As you can see Twitter raises lots of questions for me to grapple with.

Finding people to follow has been relatively easy. It is creating content that is the hard part for me. I get desperate to put stuff out there into the Twitter-sphere, even if I have nothing coherent to say, and it has bad results!

Today I re-tweeted one of my favourite people on Twitter and the result was a block.

To explain, it was a very heavy tweet to re-tweet (Mau-era China resulting in deaths for millions of Chinese) and I added an extremely vague and poorly written comment, tenuously linking the story to Cape Town’s current drought. I kept the guy’s Twitter handle in there, linking him with my post. It was extremely clumsy and didn’t go down well!

 

I am devastated and hope he reconsiders. I have written to him to ask for forgiveness. He is one of my favourite people to follow….dammit! Twitter is not coming naturally but I see there may be huge benefits to persevering.

Recovery of strategic position

Some options for how to approach a situation that is not working out as you planned:

A scorched-earth policy brutally removes resources from the game – starving the competition (and any bystanders) as you flee the battle ground.

Offensive moves take the conflict to the ‘enemy’. The aim here is to destroy the enemy’s resources to make them easier targets for domination.

A third option is to not compete for resources at all – instead put in the groundwork to build a network that encourages flexibility and stability during volatile times.

All three are valid, but you can only do one at a time.

Pleasure, sadness and reality

As an experiment, try and find the habits in your daily life that are driven by pleasure – you know the ones i mean – those things you do when you’re a little bit bored which give you that nice little buzz and dopamine hit.

It is difficult. It forces you to reflect on your actions and life, and it eventually forces you to recognise that pleasurable things are not the most fulfilling things, precisely because they are temporary and external. In this way, pleasure is different to happiness.

Pleasure is a momentary feeling that comes from something external — a good meal, a message notification, making love and so on. Pleasurable experiences can give us momentary feelings of satisfaction, but this feeling does not last long because it is dependent upon external events and experiences. Try and locate the pleasurable (not happy, remember) activity in your life and try to stop doing it for a whole day – I’m almost certain you’ll find it hard to do.

But pleasure is not wrong in and of itself – so why stop? Because we need to know how we feel without the constant pleasure seeking. Are we doing all these things because we are sad without them? And if we are in fact sad about something, shouldn’t we find a more permanent solution?

The trouble comes when we ascribe the pleasurable activities in our lives more value and power than we should. A drug addict gives heroine priority over everything else – she sees it as the source of her happiness and of her power in life. Similarly a bulimic ascribes power to food and the control thereof. In actual fact, drugs and throwing up give us but a temporary pleasure – not a true satisfaction. They are not the answer to any sadness that is felt.

Once we see the things we are deriving pleasure from, a useful next step is to reflect on how we feel when we do not have access to these things – are we happy or sad without them? If we are happy without them, then there is no real problem. Carry on living.

If we are sad without them, and furthermore if we rely on the activity more than we should – then something needs to change for the sadness to lift.

Recovery

I am reading Russel Brand’s new book Recovery and I am struck by a few things already:

  • Brand is smart – super smart and articulate
  • Recovery is a word full of meaning and depth I did not recognise before reading the book
  • My life is full of addictions
  • Spirituality needs to be understood consciously and explicitly in one’s life

It has given me food for thought and for writing. It has already made me want to change my life.

Making it digestible

If you want to learn something, then it is not always the best idea to dive headlong into the most technical detail. It can be confusing for the uninitiated, can get boring and does not allow for playing around with concepts so easily.

Alternatively, find a summary that is in your language written for people like you. Whether it is a blog, or a friend who knows their stuff, or a book that is concisely written – Start in a place that makes sense and hints at the complexity underneath. If you are into it then you can always follow up on the theory afterwards.