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Success in Life is like Spawning Salmon

October 11, 2008 By 1 Comment

Anyone who has fished salmon runs in a river (that would be me in Alaska) can really appreciate the meaning of intense dedication to a life goal.

You see, millions of salmon enter the river to spawn, but very few make it. Before they even get to the river, they have to evade natural predators like whales, sharks, seals and commercial fisherman. If they get past that they then have to deals with set-netters, gill-netters, dip netters, line fishermen and bears — all while swimming upstream against strong currents.

All the salmon I ever caught got my complete respect. They were on a one-track mission to get to the lake, and I had abruptly ended their life’s journey so I could feed my family.

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Filed Under: Mindset and Productivity Tagged With: , , , ,

Over-Thinking Kills Me

October 10, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I remember when I was in my early 20s and I used to frequent these waterfalls and tropical pools behind my house in Hilo, Hawaii. My friends and I would stand at the top of these cliffs overlooking the water and then jump off. Sometimes the height was over 40 feet.

Many times I could not bring myself to jump. I would end up standing on the cliff, peering down and thinking so hard about doing it but not being able to. My mind was over-analyzing a situation of fear and anxiety, and it was preventing my body from acting.

It wasn’t until I learned how to let go of my thoughts that I began to enjoy jumping off of cliffs into water. The feeling of free falling and splashing into a turquiose cool pond was sensational, and it liberated me from the limitations of my thoughts.

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Filed Under: Mindset and Productivity Tagged With: , , ,

A Little History on Wordful

October 9, 2008 By 1 Comment

Since for now I’m enjoying this loose, free flow writing, which is clearly not authoritative, I’d like to go into how Wordful evolved.

Writing is my predilection, but I tried for years to avoid that calling out of insecurity and job security. I figured that writers were important but highly undervalued people. And once I started a family, the hopes of making it big as a writer were quickly replaced by the need to make money. It happens to a lot of us.

In college I got an English degree with a 4.0 GPA, but also pursued “the holy grail” of careers at the time: the web industry trade. The internet was blowing up and I wanted a piece of it.

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Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With: , , , , ,

Articles vs. Blog Posts: What’s it Going to Be?

October 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment

I read a very interesting AlertBox article by Jakob Nielsen the other day entitled “Write Articles, Not Blog Postings.” While I tend to think that there is a gray area between what’s an article and what’s a blog post, Nielsen presents a valid point: there’s a limit to the value you can provide if the blog post is “just another comment” on someone else’s work (gee that sounds like this post).

Even someone who demonstrates leadership within their specialized niche is bound to produce some crappy or at least quasi-crappy blog posts, claims Nielsen. “Blogs are also fine for websites that sell cheap products,” he adds.

So here’s my plan: to produce quality and value 100% of the time no matter what. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editing Tagged With: , , , ,

A Preview of this Site’s Categories

October 7, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Before I begin, I’d like clarify that this website won’t be formally public until my design and WordPress integration are complete, which should be about next week (trust me it’s going to look totally different.) So if there are actually any readers out there, you’re viewing this site in pre-beta mode. But feel free to comment if you have the urge anyway.

Early this morning I was running and it was cold but I managed to clearly map out in my head what types of categories this site will have: [Read more...]

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Tagged With:
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