March 2009

Get Rid of Procrastination! – 7 Days to Lasting Personal Growth

by Vlad Dolezal on March 28, 2009

Have you got great dreams and goals… but somehow always find yourself sitting around, watching TV or browsing the web, not getting anything done?

Yes? Then listen up! I can help you learn how to stop spending time on trivial distractions when you’d rather be doing something productive!

Don’t worry, I won’t give you the old speech about “Just do it!”.

I’ve heard that speech about a thousand times myself, and frankly, I’m getting pretty tired of it. Sure, it’s a neat idea… but once you’re actually procrastinating, there’s NO WAY you can bring yourself to “just do it”!

Thankfully, I’ve spent years researching procrastination, and now I know EXACTLY what makes it happen, and how to stop it dead in its tracks, before it even kicks in. And I’m ready to share my secrets with you!

To get started, just put your name and e-mail in the box below. You will be reading the first part of my course on getting rid of procrastination within minutes. (If you’re reading this in your RSS reader, you might need to click through to the blog.)

(Or just continue reading below the form for more detail.)

Start getting rid of procrastination now!
Name:
E-mail:

(I take your privacy very seriously. I won’t share your e-mail address with anyone. Also, you can unsubscribe at any time.)

I’ve put together a free course I call Get rid of procrastination! – 7 Days to Lasting Personal Growth.

It consists of 7 e-mails, sent over 7 days, each covering a major personal growth topic, together with a major cause of procrastination. And each day contains hands-on lessons that you can use immediately to stop procrastinating and get things done.

Why 7 Days? Because there are many different causes of procrastination, and each of them requires a specific solution. I explain all of that in detail in the e-mail course.

Imagine going to sleep every day happy and content, knowing you’ve accomplished all your goals for that day. And in the morning, waking up, yawning, stretching, and then jumping out of bed with a smile on your face, knowing you’ve got a great productive day ahead of you!

Sounds nice? :)

All it takes… is a DECISION to get rid of procrastination, and get started on my simple free course 7 Days to Lasting Personal Growth.

Put your e-mail in that box above, and get started right now!

How I can help you get rid of procrastination

I will be sending you 7 e-mails, over 7 days, each detailing a different aspect of personal growth. Each of the lessons alone is worth more than its weight in gold. (Duh. It’s e-mail.)

But the real power comes from following through the whole 7 day course. Because not only will you get 7 fantastic ways to deal with procrastination, you will also get specific action steps to take each day. And by following through daily, you will literally hard-wire yourself for success and productivity!

Along the way, you will learn:

  • how motivation works, and why most people get it completely wrong (Day 2)
  • why bribing yourself to get stuff done is directly counter-productive (Day 4)
  • how to get your mind to give you virtually unlimited great solutions to any problems (Day 3)
  • the best way to conquer fear, and how to go about it (Day 5)
  • why battling procrastination head-on (using “willpower”) is useless (Day 4)
  • how to more than double your chances of getting something done, through one simple trick (Day 7)
  • and loads more!

So pop your name and e-mail in the box below, and get started!

Start getting rid of procrastination now!
Name:
E-mail:

(I take your privacy very seriously. I won’t share your e-mail address with anyone. Also, you can unsubscribe at any time.)

And if you’re still hesitating, realize one thing. All it takes to start shedding your procrastination habits is one simple action at a time. Which is exactly what I’m going to help you with. You just need to take the first step yourself – put your name and e-mail in the box above, and hit Submit!

(If you’re reading this in your RSS reader, you might need to click through to the blog.)

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Making Dreams Come True

by Vlad Dolezal on March 25, 2009

“When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.”
- Dom Helder Camara

Want to know one secret that can completely transform your relations with people?

It’s very simple. Just ask yourself – “What would be a dream come true?” (for the other party involved)

Walt Disney set out to create Disney Land, because he realized children want to believe in magic. In fact, in his own words: “I created Disney Land to make magic real for children.”

Sounds like making dreams come true, eh?

Or take Henry Ford, one of the most successful businessmen of all time. He realized that a dream come true for Americans would be a car that the average family can afford. So he built an assembly line, created the first mass-produced car… and made his customers’ dreams come true.

So in blogging, or in business, or in any other part of your life, just ask yourself the simple question: “What would be a dream come true?”.

And then set about making the dream come true for the other people involved. Because no matter what happens to the world around us, there’s always place for those who make others’ dreams come true.

###

Speaking of making dreams come true, many of you, my readers, have asked me about procrastination. It seems to be one of the biggest issues in personal development.

So I set about making your dream come true. Helping you get rid of procrastination!

Just imagine going to bed every evening with the feeling that you accomplished everything you wanted for that day. And waking up, stretching lazily, taking a big yawn, and jumping out of bed with a smile on your face, knowing you’ll accomplish everything you want that day.

Sounds good? Well, I’ve got a big free program coming to help you with just that. And it will be ready by this Saturday! So stay tuned :)

And one last thing. To improve my blog, and provide you with exactly the content you want… What would be a dream come true for you, as my blog readers? If there’s anything you would like to see on my blog, please leave an answer in the comments. Hey, as much as I enjoy rambling about random topics, this blog is really about helping you grow!

Cheers, and see you on Saturday!

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IR Goggles

by Vlad Dolezal on March 23, 2009

ir_goggles_1Wow!

Just… wow!

I just got back home after taking the first walk outside with my new IR goggles. I feel like… I’ve just been time travelling and visited some crazy post-apocalyptic future!

The almost black sky, the whole world in shades of red, the frosty pink grass that looks like it’s dead, fried dry by weeks of intense sunshine… yet when you touch it, you realize it’s healthy wet green grass.

Wait, let me backtrack a little bit.

IR stands for infra-red. So IR goggles are for infra-red viewing, with the bare human eye!

The idea comes from Bill Beaty. You can read his ideas about IR goggles for all the details of how he first thought of them, how he then built them, and how you can build your own for about $10! (The parts for mine cost me about 20 pounds, including shipping.). It’s a great read, so definitely check it out, either right now, or after you finish reading this blog post.

Basically, you buy cheap welding goggles with unscrewable lenses, and replace the dark lenses with several layers of congo blue and primary red color filters. And voila, you have IR goggles!

The color filters together filter out all the visible light. But they let through all the IR (infra-red) light! Now, we humans normally don’t notice IR light, because it’s drowned out by all the visible light. But if you remove all the visible light, your eyes can see the infra-red light, provided it’s bright enough! (Which is why the IR goggles need bright sunlight.)

So I built my goggles, and since it’s a bright sunny day, I went out to try them!

Going down the stairs in my house was quite fun, because I could see NOTHING. No, wait, actually, I could faintly see the railing, which is painted white. But that was it. Fun :D

Then, when I opened the outside door, my first thought was “Wow, I’ve just entered some crazy post-apocalyptic world!”

The sky near the sun was a bright red, while on the opposite it was deep dark blue-black. I went to the park, which is just two minutes’ walk away from my house. Crossing the road was fun, because in IR, the traffic lights have three colors… red, red and red. Of course, I could tell which red it was by the position of the light that was shining, but still :)

In the park, I walked around, looking at how everything changes in IR light. The pavements were very dark, while the grass was extremely bright. In fact, I first thought it was dried grass, with occasional patches of dark fresh grass in between.

Then, when I kneeled down and touched the grass, I realized the frosty pink that I thought was dried grass was in fact healthy live grass. And the dark patches were simply mud without grass. Also, as I was kneeling, I noticed my T-shirt sticking out under my hoodie. For a few moments, I was confused, because I couldn’t remember having a crimson red T-shirt. Then I remembered – I put on a BLACK T-shirt that morning! Bill Beaty wrote about how some T-shirts look very different under IR light, but I didn’t realize how strongly surreal the effect feels until you see it with your own eyes.

I also noticed people turning around looking at me like I was some madman. I probably LOOKED like one, with my welding goggles on, and a hood over my head and scarf over my face to block out the light trying to seep in around the edges of my goggles, walking around very slowly and turning around in wonder to look at all the amazing sights of the post-apocalyptic IR world.

Mr. Amundsen, I believe we have spotted signs of life!

Mr. Amundsen, I believe we have spotted signs of life!

Well, that’s all I have to say for now! I’m going to try removing the primary red filters from my goggles, to see what the infra-red world looks like if you add some shades of deep blue. Make sure you read Bill Beaty’s full article about the IR goggles. Who knows, you might also get tempted to build your own :)

And one last note. For those of you who know me personally – I have plenty of the color filters left. So if you want to build your own IR goggles, just get some cheap welding goggles off e-bay, give me a shout and I can help you build your own pair!

Cheers!

Addendum: Holy damn!

I just got back after going outside with only congo blue filters in my goggles. That means my goggles let through infra-red light, and also some deep blue light. You wouldn’t believe how INTENSE the colors are!

Adding the shades of deep blue creates such an amazing contrast!

The grass is a deep vibrant red! Think a communist flag. That kind of red. Now imagine every blade of grass, every leaf on bushes, every bit of green growth is that kind of deep red. And most of the rest of the world is a mild light blue. Except for the bits that are the intense vibrant red! Oh and trees… trees are just plain insane! The bark of trees combines the light blue with the deep red in such an amazing way… I really wish I could take a picture to show you!

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Interview with Mary Jaksch

by Vlad Dolezal on March 21, 2009

Hey everybody!

Today, I’m bringing you an interview with a truly remarkable blogger!

Mary managed to go from being a virtually unknown blogger to taking over the responsibility for Leo Babauta’s blog Write To Done (over 8000 subscribers at the moment), as well as maintaining her own blog Goodlife Zen. And she did that in a few short months after she started blogging!

She’s got a great knack for dealing with people, as well as being an awesome person herself.

In this interview, Mary shares with us:

  • how to successfully build relationships with other people (hint: It’s all very honest and direct. No sneakiness involved.)
  • a simple principle to live by (hint: It’s also the slogan of a company you all know)
  • why cooking dinner for your partner just because you want them to cook a dinner for you doesn’t really work :p

Mary is also an authorized Zen Master, and she recently managed a great job of joining together modern technology with traditional spirituality… by organising a Virtual Zen Retreat! As one of her friends pointed out – she used a virtual medium to get people to inhabit their own minds more. Woot!

Listen to the interview to find out more about this great experience, and when she’s planning future Virtual Retreats.

And finally, she shares a great technique for immediately reducing your stress! (I’ve tried it, and it works!)

Without further ado, here’s the interview! Big round of applause for Mary Jaksch, please!

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You can also right-click here to download the interview, for convenient listening on your portable mp3 player.

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The Masculine Approach to Happiness

by Vlad Dolezal on March 18, 2009

A few days ago, I was talking to a Muslim friend of mine, and we got talking about religion.

I’m an atheist, so I don’t believe in God, but I don’t mind what other people believe, as long as it works for them. The reason I’m sharing this story is because of the following exchange:

“But what do you do when you’re feeling down? When I feel down, I kneel and pray, or meditate and then I feel better. But what do you do?”
“When I’m feeling down, I pause and figure out why. Then I go and do something about it.”

He went on to claim that I might be feeling down for no reason. I just smiled and said “I don’t think so, buddy.”

I thought – There is ALWAYS a REASON why you’re feeling down. Sometimes it’s just hiding really well. If you have a knife sticking out of your back, and a pool of blood spreading around you on the floor, it’s pretty obvious why you’re feeling down. When you let too much stress and adrenaline build up in your body (without releasing it through exercise) it’s less obvious. But there’s always a reason.

Until recently, I used to think that’s the only approach. That people who believe in “feeling down for no reason” are just lazy thinkers. That they can’t be bothered to figure out the reason, and they like to give up responsibility for their life.

But then I started reading The Way of The Superior Man by David Deida. (Which is an awesome book, by the way. Guys – my highest recommendation!) And I realized I was using the masculine approach to feeling better:

  1. Notice you’re feeling bad
  2. Identify the reason
  3. Solve the problem
  4. Feel good

Apparently, there’s also a feminine approach to feeling better, which goes something like:

  1. Notice you’re feeling bad
  2. ??? (I don’t really understand this step)
  3. Feel good

The second step involves something along the lines of feeling through your emotions, or talking about them, or something like that. I’ve read through the explanation several times, but I still don’t get it at a deep gut level.

Just because they’re called the masculine and feminine approach… it doesn’t mean that every man uses the former and every woman uses the latter. They’re just a lot more common among those genders.

…

As a man, I’ve found some common causes that make me unhappy. They probably affect you too, whether you realize it or not. Maybe you can benefit from my masculine identify-aim-kill approach here. In fact, 90% of the time I find myself feeling down, it’s for these two reasons:

1. Lack of exercise

When I go for 3 or 4 days without physical exercise, I start feeling irritable and vaguely bad. Lack of exercise is by far the most common reason why I find myself feeling down. The good news is, if you find yourself in this situation, ANY form of exercise will do! Just get down and do pushups until you hit the floor and can’t get up, or get outside and run!

2. Focusing on the wrong things

I sometimes simply replay negative experiences in my mind over and over. I usually catch myself and stop, but once every couple of months, I manage to completely trash my mood by doing this. Once I realize this is the problem, I just lie down comfortably, and do a bunch of quick visualisation exercises, getting rid of the negative images and making them less emotionally charged (that stuff is way too much to get into here). And voila! I’m back to being a happy skippy penguin!

…

And that’s it. So remember the masculine approach: When you’re feeling down, just pause, figure out the reason, and then DO something about it! Like a warrior – quickly kill the problem, and then feel good again.

For you women readers – do you use a different approach to feeling better? Can you maybe quickly explain it? Who knows, we guys might benefit from it too!

###

In other news, I’ve got another interview for you, coming this Saturday. This time I interviewed an actual Zen Master! Make sure you don’t miss this interview :)

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Co-operate, Don’t Compete

by Vlad Dolezal on March 14, 2009

A few days ago, I was reading this post at a forum for men learning how to meet women. Let’s call the poster Joe:

“I recently started working at a new place. Now I’m a pretty attractive guy, but there’s this one surfer dude here who’s a lot more attractive than me, and he gets all the attention from the women at our workplace. How can I subtly bring him down and let the women know I’m the alpha male, without him being aware of it?”

And one guru responded like this:

“Don’t compete against him. Befriend him instead. He can then introduce you to far more beautiful women than you could ever meet at your workplace.”

I’m sure I could rewrite this as a Zen koan and end with the words “And Joe was enligtened.” :)

But the advice is spot on. There is no need to create enemies when you can create friends instead. And it doesn’t apply just to meeting women, but to every area of your life.

You don’t need to create competition. Create allies instead.

I was recently interviewing the life coach Tim Brownson, and here’s one thing he said:

“I get clients referred to me all the time by psychotherapists and NLP practitioners. And I also refer clients to them all the time. We all have slightly different skillsets, and we are all useful to different clients.”

With this arrangement, everybody wins. The clients get the best person for their particular situation, and the practitioners get the exact people on whom they can have the biggest impact. They do that by recognizing that we all have different skillsets, and therefore are useful for different jobs.

So next time you find yourself directly competing against someone… don’t. Instead, ask yourself – in what way are you slightly different? How do you complement each other? And then become allies.

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Good Ideas are Common

by Vlad Dolezal on March 10, 2009

Hop to any library, and have a look at the self-help section. Hundreds of books, all full of great ideas on how to completely transform your life.

Or send a few e-mails to successful businessmen, asking them about their secrets for success. The chances are, you will get responses that are packed absolutely full of amazing value.

But you know what? You can’t just release the value packed in those ideas into the world. It’s not ready.

It’s a bit like instant soup. Still missing one vital ingredient.

ACTION.

Good ideas are a dime a dozen. What’s really rare is implementing those ideas.

Why do you think philosophy majors suffer the highest unemployment rate of all college graduates? They have plenty of ideas… but ideas are next to worthless without implementation!

In fact, a lot of us personal growth enthusiasts tend to drown ourselves with good ideas. It’s like watering a plant. Without water, your plant will die. With just the right amount of water, your plant grows and blossoms into absolute beauty. But give your plant too much water… and you will kill it, just as readily as if you gave it no water at all.

And that’s what we tend to do. We read tons of RSS feeds, news articles and books, listen to podcasts, and so on. We consume so many ideas that we sometimes forget that ideas alone have no value whatsoever. You need to add ACTION to create real value from ideas!

That’s why Leo Babauta is so successful with his principle “Do less. Get more done.” When you first hear it, it’s like “What, give my plant less water? But water is essential for life! Surely my plant needs MORE water!” But if your plant is already overwatered, the solution is to give it LESS water.

And the same applies to you. Stop drowning yourself with ideas, and remember – ideas only have real value if you apply them.

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Interview with Tim Brownson

by Vlad Dolezal on March 8, 2009

Hey Everybody! Today, I’ve got a real gem for you – an audio interview with the life coach Tim Brownson!

Tim writes the fantastic blog The Discomfort Zone. I really recommend you check it out, if only to see Tim’s writing style. (The first time I saw it, my thoughts were “Hey, this guy’s writing style is similar to mine! Except he’s 10 times better!”)

I could go on to give you a full bio. You know, Tim is a great guy, blah blah, he poops unicorns and farts rainbows and in his spare time he cures cancer. But his blog speaks for itself, so just go visit that :)

…

In the interview, I asked Tim about what a life coach does, because that was a huge mystery to me. I mean, think about it. A train coach is full of bored people, a football coach shouts at people, and a living room couch (which is obviously just a mis-spelled coach) is made for being sat on by people. So based on that… a life coach has bored people sit on top of him while he shouts at them?

Listen to the interview to find out exactly what a life coach does. It turns out to be quite different from my deduction. (Tim also shares a couple of great tips for improving your life).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Interview with Tim Brownson

(You can also download the interview by right-clicking the link above, and selecting “Save target as…” or similar. That way you can conveniently listen to it on your mp3 player etc.)

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Self-Destructive behavior? Nah… there’s no such thing!

by Vlad Dolezal on March 5, 2009

I don’t believe in self-destructive behavior.

I know, I know… you can immediately point out some examples of self-destructive behavior to me. Like suicide bombers. Surely those are pretty “self-destruct”-ive! (Ha ha, get it? Self-destruct? Ha ha… no? Like… as in… never mind.)

No, even that isn’t self-destructive behavior. (I’ll explain in a sec.)

Your brain has evolved over millions of years. And all along the way, the whole point of your brain has been to help you survive. It doesn’t make much sense that the brain would suddenly turn on you and start destroying you just because it seems like a fun idea.

Every so-called “self-destructive behavior” has a positive intent behind it. Your brain wants to help you! When you see someone worrying, that means their brain probably wants them to be safe. A perpetual complainer wants something changed (though they’re not going about it the best way). When someone gets drunk, it’s out of a desire to belong, or to have fun, or to relax and forget about the worries of their daily life.

Even a suicide bomber isn’t being self-destructive. He honestly believes that by doing the right thing (by his definition), he will get a great afterlife. And an great infinite afterlife is very much worth sacrificing a finite life for.

In fact, this can be extended a bit:

Every action has a positive intent behind it

We humans are nice creatures. We never ever do something purely negative. There’s always a positive intent behind everything we do.

Unfortunately, sometimes we continue a behavior even though the original reason is long gone. Someone might whine and bitch when something’s not going according to their wishes, because that used to work when they were a kid. And even though it doesn’t work for them as an adult, they still continue doing it, even though there are MUCH better ways of getting their needs met.

So if you see someone (or even yourself) doing something “self-destructive” or just plain negative, the first question is – what is the positive intent?

Then you can go about getting rid of the self-destructive behavior. Simply get the positive intent handled in a different way. So if someone is, say, mortally afraid of flying in airplanes, that probably comes down to the desire to be safe. There are ways to make them feel safe even while flying (which is the logical thing to do, as it’s A LOT safer per passenger mile than even using a car.).

I won’t go into the details of how the major changes are done, because that’s the realm of psychotherapy and NLP, and it would take reading a dozen books and having years of practice to truly understand.

But on a small scale, you can apply this yourself! Immediately! Just realize that when you or someone you know does something “negative”, there’s always a positive intention. So figure out what that intention is, and see if there’s a better way to get that need met.

Cheers!

###

Great news!

I’m going to start creating audio for my blog as well as text. And what’s a better way to start that than an interview with an awesome blogger!

Stay tuned, because in the first interview (coming this Sunday), I will talk with a guy who is not only a totally awesome blogger, but also has a dream job – helping improve other people’s lives for a living. That’s right, I’ll be interviewing a life coach!

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