Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

[Updated] Breakthroughs - go get some

My review of Lisa Haneberg's "Two Weeks to a Breakthrough: How to Zoom Toward Your Goal in 14 Days or Less" is now live at Joyful Jubilant Learning. Go check it out - I looove this book!

By the way - there is a review per day over there all month long, as part of the annual "Love Affair With Books" - some great finds await you.

[Update]

I just found out that Lisa's on YouTube (with all the cool kids - and Chad Vader) with a great song and video compilation associated with "Two Weeks to a Breakthrough." Very catchy, and includes some video effects that I liked a lot, like that one with the eye - yet another reason to go check it out [link].

Read More

Living Large: Shrinking Does Not Become You

OK, so I just got tagged by Thea of Life Wealth (from beautiful Australia). The object of this particular tagging scheme is to get every tagged person to share "the top 5 to 10 goals that you gotta' get so that you can truly say you have achieved your wildest dreams in life."

This one is tough - I pretty much want to do just about every interesting thing I hear about so I'm spoiled for choice, I suppose. For the past few days, I've been avoiding doing any posting here until I came to a list that felt right for me.

So, here are four goals from me:

  1. I will be part of an organization or effort that inspires and enables thousands 100,000 people per year to develop a passion for learning, helps them improve their skills, become happy, contribute meaningfully to the world, and achieve their personal goals.
  2. I will go back to school and get an advanced degree. The first time around, I didn't know how much fun learning could be - next time, I will.
  3. I will achieve financial freedom. I'll use this freedom to spend lots of time with my family, ensure that my children had whatever education they desire, spend time improving the state of primary education in the world, travel to interesting places with my wife, and build a nice cabin on a mountain.
  4. I will have a family that is healthy, happy, and knows that I love them no matter what. In particular, I will raise children that understand responsibility, respect others, have strong faith, practice good values, and have a strong sense of self worth.

I think that's enough for me.

Now, on to the tagging - I get to tag five people:

  1. EM Sky at Mind Unbound
  2. Mike St. Pierre at The Daily Saint
  3. David Zinger from David Zinger on Employee Engagement
  4. Ariane Benefit of Neat Living
  5. Greg Balanko-Dickson at The Remote Control CEO

Even if they don't pick up the tag or don't notice I've tagged them, you should go read what they have to say. It's high quality stuff.

Read More

What box are you in?

I recently heard someone say, "You have to see the box to get out of it." Interesting concept - without knowing what's limiting you, how do you know how to overcome it? There are several different approaches I've seen to "naming" and overcoming things that may be limiting you. Here are some that come to mind:

Seek outside help

Often, we can't see our own limitations objectively. This is where coaching comes into play. As I've described here previously, a coach can help you with a totally different perspective, and the advantage of experience that you don't have. A coach can also help you question self-imposed limitations that are inhibiting your success. Need a good coach? lots of them have blogs - start Googling, or ask around.

Use your imagination

One often-underutilized resource is your own imagination. Ask yourself questions like:

  • If I could wave a magic wand, what would help me break through to the next level?
  • If I could have any helpful resource, what would it be?
  • If I had access to the perfect expert to help me solve my problem, who would that be?
  • If I could make one limitation go away, which one would it be?
  • And so on...

Often, these kinds of questions will help you gain better clarity on what's really holding you up, or help you identify where you should go to get past your current limitations. The "magic wand" question, in particular, has helped me get past quite a few stuck spots.

By the way - once you answer one of these, go ask for what you came up with ,or figure out who you can ask to get it!

Find a good "how to" resource

If you have an issue, chances are someone's written about how to solve it (or something similar). Again, Google is a good place to start. Often, I find that blogs, books, and discussion groups have extremely helpful resources to tackle new challenges. And don't forget to ask questions - if the problem stays in your head, you aren't likely to get much helpful advice.

Get clear on what you want

Ambiguity is not your best friend, when it comes to feeling like you're making progress. Often, when I'm dissatisfied with the state of things, I find that it's because I'm not really clear on the outcomes I want. Some resources that can help here include:

Take it day by day

There are lots of resources that provide great tools and techniques to break your goals into bite-sized pieces. My favorite is Lisa Haneberg's "Two Weeks to a Breakthrough: How to Zoom Toward Your Goal in 14 Days or Less" since it gives you daily assignments to help you move toward any specific goal. This is kind of like having a coach in a book. I gave my wife a copy, and she said, "This is great - at some level, I already new a lot of the things in here, but having a daily assignment keeps me from feeling overwhelmed - and there are some new tricks in here, too."

Share

Share your goals with others. Share your frustrations with others. Share your success with others. Share your experience with others. All of these things can help you get out of the box your in, or help others get out of their boxes. Feeling stuck? Don't go it alone - use the resources at your disposal.

Remember: You are responsible for your own well-being.

Got any stories, resources, or breakthroughs? Please share them!

Related items:

Read More

[Updated] I command you to bring us Vader

[Update: the link I posted before (and yes, it was on the official Chad Vader site) didn't play correctly - these are updated to ones that play fine.]

As you may recall, I shared links to "Chad Vader: Night Shift Manager" in a recent post. For those of you who are now hooked on Chad Vader, don't forget to check out Episode 7.

If you haven't caught up on Chad's hijinks yet, check out the rest of the episodes first (for best results, watch them in order).

Related items:

Read More

Fresh Gear: Logitech Mobile Headset

This is a "Fresh Gear" post, but it also fits under "Travel Light" - it's all about a travel headset that's impressed me quite a bit. This one is called the Logitech Premium Mobile Headset, and I have been using it for about a month and just love it.

I'm a traveling dictater1 once again

Me, a dictater? No, I'm not a tyrant - I just use software to do dictation while I'm traveling.

Last year, I posted about how I use Dragon NaturallySpeaking (voice recognition software) to perform a number of tasks like creating speaker notes in presentations, responding to email, and even composing blog posts. I still do that, but I have not been traveling with my old headset since I wore it out (actually, I rolled a chair over the cord and sliced it so it got all staticy2).

I was looking for a replacement and found the Logitech Premium Mobile Headset. Here are some of the highlights:

  • This new headset folds up very flat and I can fit it easily into one of the inner pockets on my laptop bag
  • It has adjustable earpads so it is very comfortable
  • It includes an adapter so you can use it with USB or standard microphone/headset jacks
  • It works with any voice-related software, such as NaturallySpeaking, Skype, and even voice-capable instant messaging clients
  • It has inline controls for volume control and microphone muting
  • The microphone sound quality is excellent (I'm using the USB interface, primarily)
  • It has stereo sound so you can listen to music on it, should you wish to do so (and the sound is decent)
  • Its the behind the head design keeps you from getting "headset hair"
  • It also includes a carry case - however, I found the case to be too bulky for my needs

I'm very impressed with this one so far, and it has earned a place in my 'permanent checklist' for what goes in my laptop bag for every trip.

1 Yes, I know dictater isn't a real word. Some of my jokes are meant for me. Feel free to enjoy them with me, if you like.
2 I'm not sure "staticy" is a word to anyone but me, either.

Related items:

Read More