Important note for RSS subscribers:
Before I get on to the main article, I’ve got an important note for you. In a few weeks’ time, I will be releasing a free e-book via my RSS feed. Unfortunately, to get the e-book, you need to be subscribed to the feed of my blog hosted on feedburner. Due to my own mistake (sorry), about 15% of you are subscribed to the wrong feed.
(If you don’t know anything about RSS feeds, ignore this for now. You’ll have a chance to find out soon.)
How do you check you’re subscribed to the right feed? Scroll to the bottom of this post. If you see two small links saying something along the lines of “Stumble This!” and “3 Comments on this item”, congratulations! You’re subscribed to the right feed! If you don’t see anything like that, please subscribe to:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/AnAmazingMind
Thanks for your attention!
An amazing Mind – The Manifesto
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’re probably wondering – What exactly IS “An Amazing Mind”?
Hmm. Let’s see. It’s a mind. It’s amazing. … Okay, that wasn’t the best explanation… Let me start by telling you what it’s not. It’s not me implying I have a super awesome mind. In fact, my mind is pretty average.
An Amazing Mind is about the philosophy of my blog. It’s not even an actual thing. It’s more like a… mirage in the desert. Something you keep going towards, but never quite attain it. Consider this story (I’ve told it before):
In one advanced rock-climbing class, the instructor devised an interesting test to see which of the beginners were ready to join the advanced class. He had them climb a mountain with a fake top. That’s basically a spot where it looks like the top of the mountain from below, but once you get there, you find out you’ve got plenty more climbing ahead of you.
The instructor then hid behind a rock at the fake top, and watched the students’ reactions as they reached the fake top and discovered they have a lot more climbing ahead of them. Those who looked disappointed were politely refused entry to the advanced class. But those whose eyes have lit up at the prospect of more climbing were welcomed with open arms!
The instructor knew his stuff. Rock-climbing isn’t about getting to the top. It’s about enjoying the journey. And that’s what An Amazing Mind is about.
In martial arts, there isn’t a point where you can say “There, I now know everything there is to know about the martial art. Now I can just lean back and do nothing for the rest of my life.” Martial arts are about constantly improving yourself. Even after being a black belt for 30 years, you still have loads to learn. And that’s what An Amazing Mind is about.
It’s the symbolic ideal mind you keep aiming for. Of course you never reach it. It’s like some computer games magazines – they used to rate games from 1 to 10. But some games that weren’t quite perfect started getting 10, which was surely supposed to mean absolute perfection? So the magazines included 11 in their ratings. It would represent the unattainable perfection that computer games should strive for. Similarly, An Amazing Mind is something you can never attain, but it keeps you on track, constantly growing and improving your own mind.
In other words, An Amazing Mind is about:
- becoming more knowledgeable every day
- becoming happier every day
- becoming more productive
- becoming more authentic
Finally, I’d like to quote from Steve Pavlina’s article How to get from a 7 to a 10. His 10 is pretty much the same thing I call An Amazing Mind:
As you begin charging ahead towards your 10, youll eventually discover that there is no 10, at least not in the sense of a fixed position. It was just a mirage. You may reach the 10 you defined back when you were a 7, but once you reach it, youll see a new 10 off in the distance. There will always be another pot of gold ahead of you.
The real 10 is not some position. Its the path itself. Human beings arent cattle we arent supposed to be settled and domesticated. We need to keep things stirred up in order to continue learning and growing.
No matter what fixed position you arrive at in life, it will never be fulfilling. Fulfillment comes from action, not position.
So what are you waiting for? Take some action!
The real reason
Okay, after all that fluffy nonsense, let me tell you why I REALLY called my blog “An Amazing Mind”. I never expected my blog to become big. So I went with the first name I thought of that still had the .com domain available. Not so exciting, huh? 
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December is here! With that, it’s time to look back at how far you’ve come this year, and plan for the year ahead. So expect more stuff on goal-setting and your life as a whole! My blog’s birthday is also coming up on December 26th, so you’ll get a chance to find out more about me as a person
Plus I’ve got a free e-book coming up! Keep your eyes open for opportunities to get your hands on it early!
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
One technical thing… I was subscribed to the “wrong” feed but still got the “Stumble this!” etc. links so this doesn’t seem like the ultimate criterion. I changed the feed to the “right” one anyway.