I like charts.

As I migrated the blog over, I couldn’t help but notice the decline in the frequency of my posts over the last couple of years. Then, I saw a pattern. Since March ’07 I’ve been tracking the relative progress of a particular situation in my life on a monthly [...]]]>

I like charts.

As I migrated the blog over, I couldn’t help but notice the decline in the frequency of my posts over the last couple of years. Then, I saw a pattern. Since March ’07 I’ve been tracking the relative progress of a particular situation in my life on a monthly basis. Unfortunately, as you can see, that situation (the blue line) hasn’t been going well. The interesting thing, is when I superimpose the number of blog posts per month (the green line) on that chart, you notice the obvious correlation.

Back in October ’07, I wrote a “Why I haven’t been blogging” post and the #1 reason has (roughly) held true over the last 2 years. This chart makes it even more obvious that even after trying to remediate the situation, I continued to let it affect my general happiness which has been my biggest mistake all along.

The more I tried to fix the situation, the worse it seemed to get. At the beginning of October, I realized I had to let go. Letting go is really hard to do, especially when it’s something important. Letting go is tough because it almost feels like giving up and I hate to give up.

I was reminded of a quote one of my mentors shared with me: “What you resist will persist.“ Although much of the situation was out of my control, I got the sinking feeling that I was partially to blame as I didn’t expect it to improve. The amazing thing is that as soon as I let go, things have almost immediately started picking up. I’m not stressed, I’m not bothered, I’m not even tracking the blue line anymore!

Lessons learned?

If you’re going through a rough patch or things aren’t working the way you want/expect, you need to focus on something else; something positive. Stop focusing on what’s going wrong: the more you focus on the negative, the more negative you’ll attract. I’ve always been an extremely positive person and have generally attracted positive things, so this has definitely been an eye opening experience for me! Over the last 2 months, I’ve been attracting a lot of good things, so let’s hope this keeps up!!

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Interest: Green

“People with green interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve persuasion, sales, promotions, and group or personal contact. People with green Interests enjoy activities that include: motivating, mediating, selling, influencing, consensus building, persuading, delegating authority, entertaining, and lobbying. [...]]]> I tried the Princeton Review Career Quiz this afternoon and came out with the following results:

Interest: Green

“People with green interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve persuasion, sales, promotions, and group or personal contact. People with green Interests enjoy activities that include: motivating, mediating, selling, influencing, consensus building, persuading, delegating authority, entertaining, and lobbying. These interests often lead to work in marketing, advertising, training, therapy, consulting, teaching, law, and public relations.”

Usual Style: Red

“People with red styles prefer to perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is action-oriented and practical. They prefer to work where things happen quickly and results are seen immediately. People with red styles tend to be straightforward, assertive, logical, personable, authoritative, friendly, direct, and resourceful, and usually thrive in a self-structured, high-pressured, hierarchical, production-oriented, competitive environment. You will want to choose a work environment or career path in which your style is welcomed and produces results.”

Try it for yourself and see what you get! Does what you do align with your interests and/or strengths?

I’m the kind of person who tends to live my life one step at a time. I have some very general (high level) goals for my life, but nothing too specific. [...]]]>

Photo from iStockPhoto

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
-Lewis Carroll (said by the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland)

I’m the kind of person who tends to live my life one step at a time. I have some very general (high level) goals for my life, but nothing too specific. I think I’m this way because [as I've mentioned several times on this blog] somehow things always seem to work out for the best in my life. I’m still on track in terms of my high level goal(s), but despite having a good job (“good” is very relative of course!), somehow I don’t feel successful by my own standards.

Over the last year I’ve often asked myself: “Is this what I’m supposed to be doing? Is this what the ‘Real World’ really is? If I’m as talented as people think I am, what am I doing here?”

I’m a very firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I’m where I am today, not because of any specific plan I made, but rather due to a sequence of events which, I believe, is “what’s meant to be”.

The reason I’ve never questioned anything up until now is because I’ve always been happy with the outcome of events regardless of current circumstances. Somehow things always work out. However, is where I am now where I’m supposed to be? Let me put it another way:

I’ve been driving along a road where the scenery has been very nice and I know I’m heading in roughly the right direction, but has the time come for me to get a map?

Flickr photo by zigmar

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Several of my friends and I were born in 1982. This means that the time has finally come for us to turn 25 and my turn is coming up in less than 2 days… This is somewhat of the [...]]]>

How does [...]]]>

Pretension Lithographic Print from Despair.com

How does one define arrogance? I looked it up on Merriam Webster and Wikipedia. Both sites seem to define arrogance the way I would define pretension. Are they one in the same? I’m not sure. The real question is: What differentiates confidence from arrogance? Is it success? Is it how you say things? Is it how people perceive you? Is it how you perceive yourself? Is it if what you say is quantifiable and verifiable? I’ve asked a variety of people how they define arrogance and based on the wide range of responses I think it’s safe to assume that (similar to beauty) arrogance is in the eye of the beholder.

I was often concerned with appearing arrogant, but it took me a few years to realize the following: People who assume others are cocky are typically insecure with themselves.

Most of my stories that can sometimes come across as cocky are more to say: “If someone like me can do it, believe me, so can you!”. I feel that arrogance/cockiness becomes a problem when you believe that you’re better than others and as a consequence, you often become unapproachable. I don’t think people are comfortable talking to arrogant people (feel free to disagree).

When I was traveling, I asked someone who’s very intelligent, very good at what he does and someone I respect a lot if he thought I was cocky. His response was: “Ian, you’re so f*cking good at what you do, you don’t have to say a word. Trust me, people will just know.” What I liked about his response (besides the obvious ego booster) was that he sets a good example for this type of behavior. He’s done a lot of interesting stuff in his time and has a few skills most people wouldn’t guess at first glance, but since he doesn’t speak much, you’d never know unless you asked.

This brings us to a whole new topic: Humility. I don’t believe I’m arrogant. Can I be more humble? Definitely. More on humbleness another time…

When You Shouldn’t Care

My grandmother often says: “What will [...]]]> Before I get started looking inward, I was considering: should one care what other people think? This topic has the potential to go all over the place, so I’ll try to be as concise as possible and I’m going to give the typical consultant answer: “It depends.”

When You Shouldn’t Care

My grandmother often says: “What will people think?!” I find this amusing because note how this seems to imply that the general public actually cares about what I do! This becomes even sillier when we consider the fact that we don’t actually know what someone will (or will not) think because I haven’t done anything yet!

If you are doing (or not doing) things for the sole reason that you’re concerned about what other people will think, I believe this is a problem. I believe it’s important not to drastically change who you are because of what other people think. This also becomes a very tiring/tedious way to live because you constantly have to watch your actions and behaviour to conform to other people’s standards.

I would have to say that in general, I do my best to not bother with what other people think (especially in the last couple of years). However, I must also admit that due to my [relatively strict] upbringing (or perhaps this is also a cultural thing??), there’s still a certain amount of: “I wonder how I will be perceived if I do this…”

When You Should Care

On the flipside, I think it’s completely unrealistic to believe you can properly function in society without caring what others think at all. Can you imagine if someone never listened to any feedback they received over the years about their behaviour? I feel it’s important to be aware of how other people perceive you. If a number of people (from different backgrounds) have given you similar feedback, then odds are they’re not crazy.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you should generally take other people’s perceptions of you with a huge grain of salt. I’ve often found that people tend to project themselves onto others. Thus, people who are generally negative, will not have positive things to say about others most of the time and vice versa.

If someone is telling you something to hurt you or make you feel bad and there’s nothing you can do about it, don’t waste your time. If you’re getting constructive feedback and you can “fix” it, then you should definitely try.

Keeping all this in mind, it’s important to know that whatever your personality is, there will always be those you love you and those who hate you. You can’t please everyone, so why bother wasting time worrying about what others are thinking? Be yourself, do what you sincerely believe is right and let others assume what they want…