Is everyone here? I hope you all survived Friday the 13th. Yesterday was our third Friday the 13th of the year, which is the greatest number of times it can happen in one year. The next year with three Friday the 13ths is 2012, a year which now has yet another reason for people to fear it.

On Friday, February 13th, 2009, I wrote about why Friday the 13th is considered bad luck. There were many possible reasons, none of which sounded very convincing. But it shows that people can be afraid of something without having any idea why.

Now it’s time to talk about another superstition: that breaking a mirror gives you seven years of bad luck. I’m sure there are hundreds of millions of people who believe this. What’s interesting about this one is that not only is the superstition baseless, but what we’ve heard isn’t even the right superstition.

I had always heard that if you break a mirror, you get seven years of bad luck, simple as that. But I later learned that this wasn’t the original superstition. I’ve heard different variations, but I’ll tell you the one that sounds right to me.

The idea is that your reflection contains part of your soul. If you break a mirror while your reflection is in it, that part of your soul dies. But you get a new soul every seven years. So until the end of your current soul’s seven year lifetime, whether that happens in one year or five or whatever, you’ll be walking around with a damaged soul, and you’ll have bad luck.

This means that even if you believe the superstition, breaking a mirror is completely harmless if your reflection isn’t in it at the time. Granted, it usually will be, but it’s good news if you were holding the mirror away from you when you dropped it.

More importantly, you won’t get seven years of bad luck. It’s only until your age reaches the next multiple of seven, when you get a new soul. That’s three and a half years of bad luck on average.

There’s some bad news though. If a mirror breaks while your reflection is in it, you’ll get bad luck even if you weren’t the one who broke it.

Nobody believes in the original version of this superstition, though. At the age of 34 (one year before a new soul), someone will drop a mirror with a sheet draped over it (no reflection), and convince themselves that they’re getting seven years of bad luck.

But also, they’ll be standing in front of a mirror while someone else breaks it, and have no concern at all for themselves, not being aware that it doesn’t matter who breaks the mirror. If they don’t believe in that part, then they don’t have to believe in the other part.

How many people create a self-fulfilling prophecy of bad luck for themselves, because they believe in a superstition that never was?

Monika Mundell and Gobala Krishnan have just released a new ebook called Freelance Superstar: How To Quit Your Job And Make A Living From Freelance Writing.

While I hadn’t heard of Gobala before, I know that Monika has been making a living purely from freelance writing for quite a while now. I expected that she would have some solid information to share, and she certainly does.

This ebook is very professional and covers many different aspects of freelance writing, from finding a niche to setting rates to promoting yourself to working with clients to managing the many other aspects of your business. Anyone with basic competency in the English language who puts this information to use will be able to start making money very quickly, and with enough effort, making a living from it is possible.

What I find most useful about this ebook is the precise detail on how to find work. It gives an overview of 10 different job sites, along with pros and cons of each. It explains exactly how to apply for jobs, including email templates that you can use to make an effective pitch. And it includes detailed information on setting up a site for your portfolio, including 5 WordPress themes you can use.

My favorite part of Freelance Superstar: “Once you have grabbed the editor with a riveting intro, you can move in for the kill. The pitch is similar to a hunt; you grab hold of the animal with your teeth and refuse to let go until you taste blood or your prey is dead.”

Are you an aspiring freelance writer still looking for that first taste of blood? This ebook gives you everything you need to tear off the flesh of freelance success as it lays there bleeding to death, looking up at you with terror in its eyes and saying with its last breath of life, “You are now a freelance superstar.”

Here’s a true story about how daylight saving time can point out overly conforming tendencies. (Note that it’s not “daylight savings time” – it’s about conservation of daylight, not a clearance event.)

The newspaper said it very clearly. “At 2 AM, you should set your clocks back one hour.” And so, she set her alarm for 2 AM, waking up in the middle of the night to set back every clock in her house at the scheduled time.

Yes, she followed the rules to the letter. But was that the best way to do it? Would the time cops have found out if she had changed her clocks the night before, or the morning after?

Not everyone is a natural rule breaker, but if you can’t take the plunge with your own clocks, perhaps that’s something to work on.

It’s been about five months since I last wrote about Alex Fayle, the “Someday Syndrome” guy. For those who don’t know him, he specializes in helping people uncover hidden patterns so they can break their procrastination habit and start living the life they desire.

He’s taken his previous ebook off the market to update and expand it. But he’s also just released his new one: I’ll Get Around To It Someday: A Practical Guide To Getting Things Done.

In this new ebook, he gives us more insight into how to end the procrastination that makes us put our somedays off to, well, “someday.” When you learn how to kill the disinterest, inertia, and fear at the roots of procrastination, you can start making serious progress on what’s important to you.

If you ever find day after day going by, without taking steps towards your dreams, definitely check it out.

The other day, I heard some people talking about their dreams of winning the lottery. They decided they’d really need to win the big money, because if they only won $2 million or so as a lump sum after taxes, that wouldn’t be enough to retire.

Their reasoning was that if they got 5% interest on $2 million, that would be $100,000 a year of taxable income. But that’s like a normal salary, not enough for the lavish retirement they have in mind. So how can you retire on only $2 million?

Aside from the ridiculous odds of winning that much money in the lottery, their logic isn’t quite right. You can get more than a 5% rate of return, and also you’re not limited to spending only the returns (you can spend the initial $2 million too).

But the basic idea is right: what may sound like a lot of money isn’t so much when you need it to support your big spending plans for the rest of your life.

Whenever someone asks if $x is enough to retire, the answer is always no. Because if you were planning to live within your means and spend money at an indefinitely sustainable rate, you wouldn’t have to ask.

If you have to ask, what you’re really wondering is “Since my desires will expand completely out of control with my unrestrained greed and carelessness, is this so much money that I can’t possibly screw it up?” No, it never is.

I remember when Michael Vick got his 6 year, $62 million contract in 2001. Everyone wondered how he could possibly spend it all. Aside from the obvious fact that you don’t have to spend it all, I didn’t see any reason he couldn’t run out of money if he wasn’t careful. Oprah had recently spent $52 million on a single house.

Fast forward 7 years. He had lost his salary and endorsement deals because of the dogfighting scandal. And the bills continued to pile up: steep lawyer fees, 6 luxury homes, and living expenses and 10 cars for friends and family. With no other options, he filed for bankruptcy.

Your retirement could last longer than you think, and you probably won’t have close to $62 million to take you through it. So how can you prevent this from happening to you? It’s pretty simple, actually.

1. Be frugal. It might not be fun and sexy, but it’s by far the most important tip for becoming and remaining financially independent.

2. Don’t stop earning money in retirement. Earning money comes from creating value. Why do you need to stop creating value at a certain age? You might want to change the way you do it, but you don’t need to shut down completely.

Keep these tips in mind, and you can live indefinitely with no savings at all. Ignore them, and no amount of money will ever be enough.

Yes, this guy looks really creepy. But don’t judge him because he’s different. Perhaps we just don’t know beauty when we see it.

Notice the unmistakable look of utter serenity on his face. His left and right sides are brought together in perfect harmony, forming a new being that knows no limits, united with the oneness of the universe.

OK, that’s about all I can say with a straight face. Anyway…

After my initial post on mixed handedness got some attention, I began a deep exploration into the mysteries of handedness: left, right, and especially mixed. I wasn’t just looking for trivia; I wanted to know how we can use both sides of our brain and body to our best advantage.

Seven months later, that search now culminates with the release of my new ebook, which comes in two versions:

Ambidextrous: A Right-Hander’s Guide to Developing Two Dominant Hands
Ambisinistrous: A Left-Hander’s Guide to Developing Two Dominant Hands

The word “ambidextrous” sounds balanced but it’s actually a very biased term, being Latin for “right on both sides.” Its counterpart, “ambisinistrous,” is Latin for “left on both sides.”

I’m using these terms to refer to a right-hander or left-hander who has made their weak hand into a strong hand. These people are more formally called Penwald ambidextrous, and I’m now one of them.

Why two versions of the ebook? Because I’m so sick of books that explain how to do something right-handed, and expect left-handers to just reverse everything! They deserve something specifically for them.

Also because these are really two different audiences. For example, left-handers and right-handers learned to write differently and they have different motivations for writing with the other hand, so you can’t treat them exactly the same.

(To keep things simple, both versions are included together in one download for one price. Read the version for you, and ignore the other.)

After a lot of research and personal experimentation, I’ve learned that:

1. You can change your natural handedness. I learned to do many things with the other hand, and even went from -0.2 (mildly left-handed) to +0.2 (mildly right-handed) on the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory (whose scale goes from -1.0 to +1.0).

2. There are cases where it’s very practical and beneficial to switch hands, but also cases where it’s not. That’s why I explain how to know when it’s worth it, and also how to practice efficiently and effectively.

3. Two hands are way better than one.

If you want to boost your physical prowess, balance your brain and body, and awaken your sleeping half, check out the right-handed sales page or the left-handed sales page. Any questions? Ask away.

Photo by striatic.

“What resemblance more perfect than that between the hands, and yet what a striking difference there is!”

- Michael Herz

The release of my new ebook on ambidexterity is just around the corner. More on that later, but I thought this would be a good time to answer some of the questions I’ve received about being ambidextrous or mixed-handed.

1. How many people are ambidextrous?

It depends on your definition. Almost nobody on earth can do everything equally well with either hand. But about 40% of right-handers and 75% of left-handers are considered mixed-handed, meaning that they prefer their non-dominant hand for at least one task on an official handedness test.

In between are an unknown number of people who might be called ambidextrous – those who get significant use out of both hands, even if they’re not perfectly equal.

2. What famous people are ambidextrous?

It’s hard enough just coming up with a reliable list of famous left-handers, because so many people circulate rumors without consulting a primary source.

And reliably determining what famous people are ambidextrous is a million times more difficult for the same reason, and also because we’ve always thought in terms of left and right while ignoring everything in between.

However, there are lots of people who were known to be at least very mixed-handed, and possibly ambidextrous. The list includes James Garfield, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Robert Baden-Powell, Plato, Hippocrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Nikola Tessla, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Not surprisingly, there are mixed-handed athletes from just about every sport, including LeBron James, Maria Sharapova, Mickey Mantle, Eli Manning, Pelé, and Gordie Howe.

3. Can you learn to be ambidextrous, or at least a little more ambidextrous than most people?

Yup! People who are born perfectly ambidextrous are extremely rare, and possibly nonexistent. But many people have learned to become ambidextrous or mixed-handed to boost athletic performance, improve left brain/right brain integration, do things more efficiently, reduce the risk of carpal tunnel syndrome, and more.

4. Instead of practicing with both hands, doesn’t it make more sense to get really good with one hand?

That’s like saying you shouldn’t learn a foreign language because it takes time away from perfecting your native language. But there’s a point of diminishing returns, where continuing to work on your native language gives little benefit, while learning a new language lets you make progress much faster.

5. But doesn’t it take twice as long to learn something with both hands?

No, because you’re not starting from scratch. Put it this way – if you’re right-handed, you can probably write in the sand just fine with your right foot. Even if you’ve never tried it before, your foot has learned by osmosis. To a lesser extent, your left hand has learned by osmosis as well.

6. Are there advantages to being mixed-handed, other than the physical ones?

Yes, though we’re not entirely sure what they are yet. They may include the ability to read people better, see both sides of an issue, and recall details of an event and their context.

For a long time, scientists thought that left-handers and right-handers had certain psychological differences, but the findings weren’t always consistent. For example, they say that lefties are more creative and emotional, but there are plenty of counterexamples to that.

Only recently have they discovered that the important differences are not between left-handers and right-handers, but between strong-handers and mixed-handers.

7. If left-handers are more likely to be mixed-handed than right-handers are, then why are most switch hitters in baseball right-handed?

Because (1) most baseball players overall are right-handed, and (2) since left-handers have a big advantage when batting, they have less of an incentive to switch.

8. What is the biggest myth about handedness?

That left-handers are right-brained and creative, while right-handers are left-brained and analytical.

It’s true that each side of the body is mostly controlled by the opposite side of the brain, but motor control is just one of the many things our brain does. People of either handedness can be either left-brained or right-brained.

9. What is the weirdest fact you know about handedness?

The hand clasping thing. Clasp your hands, and see which thumb is on top. It’s almost a sure thing you always do it the same way (and it’s not correlated with handedness).

About 60% of people in England put their left thumb on top. Now, the weird thing is that this percentage drops steadily as you go east across Europe and Asia, reaching a low of 30% in the Solomon Islands. If anyone has a theory about how this evolved, I’d love to hear it.

10. When right-handers see somebody writing with their left hand, why do they so often say “Oh my God, you’re left-handed?”

I’m not sure. There are 700 million of us, you know.

For more mixed-handed goodness, check out my ebooks Ambidextrous (for right-handers) and Ambisinistrous (for left-handers).

I’m not really into career books, so at first I wasn’t particularly interested in this book called The Leap: How 3 Simple Changes Can Propel Your Career from Good to Great, even though it’s a bestseller. Frankly, I probably wouldn’t have read it if the author Rick Smith hadn’t sent me a copy.

But it’s good, really good. It’s really not about traditional career advice, but more about how ordinary people make a quantum leap from an average life to a great life. One example is the author himself, who went from being fired from a job he didn’t care about to starting World 50, an elite executive networking company.

Other case studies are a door-to-door fax machine saleswoman who started her own clothing line, a shrimp farmer who became a renowned genetics expert, a software designer who became a leading advocate for the homeless, and a guy named Bill Gates who started a company called Microsoft.

The book is about how to make your own leap by following three rules. The first rule is to find your primary color, which represents the intersection of your greatest strengths and passions.

It’s illustrated with a color chart, with red representing curiosity, green representing execution, and blue representing leadership. Where do these intersect for you?

You can find out your primary color for free at http://www.primarycolorassessment.com. It takes about 15 minutes, and an email address is required, but you can use a fake one if you want since they give you the results right there in the web page. My results are below.

It says:

YOUR PRIMARY COLOR IS:
CANDY APPLE RED – Wildly Curious

Congratulations! Your primary color is that specific area of the spectrum that best represents the intersection of your greatest strengths and passions. Be sure to check out the So What?! and Now What?! tabs for additional information and resources.

Curiosity is the cornerstone of this color area. You are energized by the new and novel…interested in trying new things and exploring innovative approaches and solutions. Leaders in this cluster are generally most comfortable and effective when leading through vision and ideas. You are decisive, yet are always looking for a better answer and need time to think and explore alternatives.

Fast paced go-go environments can be a negative place for you even though you may be energetic and driven. You are also quality driven and motivated by achieving excellence. If you are a STRONG RED, others may see you as idealistic and perfectionistic – certainly difficult to please – never settling for “just OK.”

I thought “wildly curious” was accurate, but a couple of things jumped out at me. First, 0% for execution? Do I really have that little follow through? The other thing is that these numbers add up to 94%. Did 6% of my soul leak out?

Then I thought that maybe they’re not supposed to add up to 100%, but each one can be 100% for a max total of 300%. And I saw that the inside of the book jacket shows a screenshot with 95% curiosity, 21% execution, and 86% leadership, for a total of 202%.

Now my scores look really low! Oh well, I’m focusing on the color rather than the numbers.

I agree with him that the MBTI isn’t useful for career planning, but then again it’s not meant to be, despite what everyone thinks.

To find your field, you’d want something that measures strengths and passions, like his primary color assessment. One thing I’d like to see is what other people with my primary color have done to make their leap.

I do think he has some good insights about how to live the life you’re supposed to have, and the common elements among ideas that really take off. If you’re looking to make a leap, you’ll love this book.

If you take the primary color assessment, please tell us your color. Any other candy apple reds out there?

I just read Hugh McLeod’s book Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity. This is the book version of his 13,000 word post how to be creative, which has been read by over a million people, and is a must-read if you’re not one of those million. And you can read more about Ignore Everybody here.

I don’t remember how different that post is from the book, but they’re probably very similar. The main difference may be that a way-too-long post works better as a bit-too-short book. Anyway, the book retains his wisdom, his cynicism, and most importantly, his cartoons drawn on the backs of business cards.

And by turning it into a book, Hugh gives us yet one more key to creativity: if you can’t think of what to write a book about, first write a blog post that a million people want to read. You now have a best seller just waiting to be published.

We all know we live in a right-handed world. Every day, we use countless things that were designed for right-handers: refrigerators, microwaves, can openers, coffee mugs, corkscrews, notebooks, phones, scissors, cameras, and so on.

This arrangement creates two kinds of people: those who use everything the intended way, and those who have to figure everything out. Of course this affects the way we look at appliances, but in a bigger sense, can it affect the way we look at the world?

In David Wolman’s book A Left Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw, he shares the thoughts of his father, a Harvard psychologist:

“Lefties can never accept the world as it is presented to them, always reconfiguring spatial arrangements, implements, and the like from right-oriented to left-oriented. My guess? The same thing happens conceptually, and lefties are often re-imaging ideas and concepts because of their proclivity not to take things at face value.”

Ask a right-hander how they write, and they’ll just show you. Ask a left-hander how they write, and there’s a good chance they’ll say “Well, I can do it this way, or maybe this way, or sometimes this way…”

Because they can’t just accept what’s presented to them, they’re forced to figure out their own way, and this mentality may extend beyond figuring out how to use a right-handed guitar or field hockey stick.

Which way is better? Well, there are obvious benefits to doing things the direct and efficient way. But if you get in the habit of doing everything on autopilot, you might get lazy and miss out on what can be gained from a novel approach.

On the other hand, there are obvious benefits to working out alternative solutions to problems. But if you insist on bypassing the standard route every time, you can get really burned out from overcomplicating things.

There’s room for both approaches: following a tried and proven path, as well as forging your own. And that’s true regardless of which hand you use.

For more stuff for lefties and righties alike, check out my ebooks Ambidextrous (for right-handers) and Ambisinistrous (for left-handers).