Image from Scarface (1983)

1. The world doesn’t really care where you came from.

Don’t think that you need to have a certain background to make it to the top. If you’re lucky enough to be born in a free country, or you’re able to make it to one, you have a shot. You can be a political refugee with an accent, a scar, no money, no skills, and no connections, but you’re free to decide at any point to not let it hold you back.

2. The world can be yours…

Using nothing but street smarts and determination, Tony Montana achieved his vision of the American Dream. He had money, power, respect…everything he always wanted.

3. …but it comes at a price.

On the other hand, he was lucky to even survive long enough to get to that point, and it ended up costing him everything. Before you pursue something, know what the price is, and decide whether you’re willing to pay it. And don’t envy someone until you know what they’ve been through to get to where there are.

4. Don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed.

This was lesson number one from Frank Lopez, and Tony ignored it. If you’re standing in the way of someone who will stop at nothing in their fanatical pursuit of power, you might want to watch out for them.

5. Don’t get high on your own supply.

This was lesson number two from Frank Lopez, and Tony ignored it as well. Of course, literally staying off drugs is always a good idea (as well as moderating your consumption of alcohol and caffeine). But beyond that, you don’t want to get so absorbed in what you’re doing that you forget who you are.

6. The guys that last are the guys who fly straight. Low-key, quiet. But the guys who want it all, chicas, champagne, flash…they don’t last.

(You know, if Tony listened to Frank once in a while, things would have turned out very differently.) Don’t obsess about the pie in the sky. Stay focused and don’t get greedy, and you’ll win in the long run.

7. When you get involved with the wrong people, sometimes no decision is the right one.

Tony sealed his doom when he refused to carry out a hit after the target’s wife and two kids unexpectedly got in the car. He had to choose between sacrificing three innocent people and sacrificing himself. This is why you don’t want to work with people whose values are different from yours. There will be a conflict of interests at some point, and possibly no way out.

8. All you have in this world is your balls and your word—don’t break them for anyone.

This isn’t literally true—you have much more than that—but the point is to live by your own code of ethics. If a criminal can do it, then we certainly can too.

9. Every day above ground is a good day.

Be gracious for what you have. Very often we take things for granted until they’re gone.

10. Don’t kill your best friend for no reason.

Kind of an obvious lesson, but important nonetheless. Relationships that take years to build can take an instant to destroy, so don’t act hastily.

11. When people want to play rough, you can either say “I give up” or “Say hello to my little friend!”

Everyone faces seemingly unwinnable showdowns at some point. Sometimes surrender is the best option, and sometimes it isn’t. But if you’re going to make a stand, then really do it.

12. Be careful when naming something after something else.

Oliver Stone named Tony Montana after his favorite football player, Joe Montana. The problem is that giving him a non-Cuban name destroys the illusion of the movie. He might as well have called him Tony Navratilova or Tony Abdul-Jabbar. Other people might not have the same attachment to your creation’s namesake that you do. Keep this in mind before calling your company something like Joe Montana Software, because all that matters is what other people think of it.

13. If the rose smells sweet enough, someone will be willing to snip off the thorns.

Editing Scarface for network TV presented some serious challenges, most notably finding someone willing to dub out 226 f-words. But someone decided it was worth doing, and got it done.

14. Have a contingency plan.

In the final shootout, Al Pacino badly burned his hand by grabbing his gun by the barrel, and had to sit out for a few weeks. Fortunately, they were able to use this time somewhat productively by shooting a lot of footage of the other people in this scene. It could have been a lot worse. You want to identify your high-risk areas, do what you can to mitigate the risk, and know what you’ll do if things fall through.

Rated R for brief cocaine-fueled maniacal machine gun / grenade launcher violence.

Related reading: The Criminally-Minded Approach for Achieving Goals by Al at 7P. Al reminded me that I had this draft post sitting around collecting dust since January. Apparently I wrote a list post! Who’da thunk it?

In 1969, John Rendall and Anthony “Ace” Berg went to the exotic animals department at Harrod’s, a London department store. They decided they had to check it out after their friend had walked in, declared that she wanted a camel, and the manager asked, “One hump or two, madam?”

To their amazement, John and Ace found a lion cub. He didn’t look happy, and they wanted to do something about that. They took him home, but Christian the lion quickly became too big for them to keep. They decided that…well, the video explains everything:

OK, the music is a bit ridiculous, but it’s an endearing video, don’t you think? It’s interesting how affectionate a partly wild lion can be, when a house cat won’t give you the time of day.

Disney has been criticized for making movies like The Lion King that lead kids to believe that certain animals are much friendlier than they really are. So make sure your kids don’t try this at home, as John and Ace were taking a big risk. Still, it’s nice to know that even a wild lion can remember old friends. Can you?

For more information and pictures, read Christian, the lion who lived in my London living room.

By the way, how does a lion get married?

Steve Pavlina has just written his first book: Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth, and it’s already reached the Amazon top 100 bestseller list. Not bad for a book that hasn’t even gone to the printer yet.

The scheduled release date is October 15, 2008, and if you order it now, they’ll ship it to you when it’s ready. The retail price is $24.95, and it’s currently selling for $16.47 on Amazon. If the price changes between now and the release date, Amazon will give you the lowest price.

If you hadn’t heard of Steve Pavlina before, you heard about him in my post yesterday, Overnight Success. Steve got to where he is by having lots of fantastic original ideas about personal development. So when he says he’s come out with something he’s really proud of, that gets my attention.

In Steve’s previous attempt to write a book, he did a ton of research and wrote 30,000 words before realizing that it just wasn’t deep enough. He scrapped the book idea, and put it on hold for more than three years before he knew what he was really supposed to write about.

What he wanted to do was come up with a holistic approach to personal development. He wanted to reduce all the concepts of personal growth to a set of core principles that covers everything without being redundant.

For example, computers represent colors with the RGB (red, green, blue) model. You start with the primary colors of red, green, and blue, and by mixing them in various combinations, you can create any of the 16 million other colors. Technically, red, green, and blue didn’t have to be chosen as the primary colors, but you do need three primaries. With only two primary colors, there would be some colors you couldn’t derive. And with four primary colors, one of them would be redundant, since you could derive any color without it. So you can say the entire color spectrum can be reduced to the three primary colors of red, green, and blue.

What Steve does in his book is apply this concept to personal development. There are all kinds of ways in which people can grow, but if you were to distill everything down to a core set of principles, what would you have? Steve defines the three primary principles as truth, love, and power. He defines four secondary principles of oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence. The secondary principles can be derived from the primary principles as follows:

• Oneness = Truth + Love
• Authority = Truth + Power
• Courage = Love + Power
• Intelligence = Truth + Love + Power

This diagram shows the relationship of the seven core principles:

So apparently, all we need is truth, love, power, and the derived principles to reach the highest level of consciousness. Using the seven core principles, you can solve any problem in your life. Steve says he combines theory and practice, uses left-brained and right-brained presentation, and makes it all very deep while also being easy to understand (though I’m sure you still have to be smart). Here’s what’s inside:

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: Fundamental Principles

Chapter 1: Truth

Chapter 2: Love

Chapter 3: Power

Chapter 4: Oneness

Chapter 5: Authority

Chapter 6: Courage

Chapter 7: Intelligence

Part II: Practical Application

Chapter 8: Habits

Chapter 9: Career

Chapter 10: Money

Chapter 11: Health

Chapter 12: Relationships

Chapter 13: Spirituality

Afterword

About the Author

Resources

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I’ve really been looking forward to this book for a while, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to wait three more months before it’s released. If you want to understand personal development as only Steve Pavlina can explain it, be sure to pre-order Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth.

Photo by Jason Gulledge

Personal development blogger Steve Pavlina is considered by many people to be a great example of an overnight success. His blog achieved an income of $40,000 per month after only two years. But most people who create blogs fail to make any profit at all, and give up in frustration. Why?

In his article titled Skill, Steve gave what I think is the best answer to that question:

“There are several ways to answer this, but perhaps the most obvious answer is that most new bloggers give up within the first six months. The web is littered with abandoned blogs. But six months is nothing. It takes six months just to get your bearings in the blogosphere.”

In his first 6 months, he made $167, which by his estimates works out to 17 cents per hour. If you don’t have a blog, you probably think 17 cents per hour doesn’t sound like much, but believe me, it’s way above average! And it grew exponentially from there, reaching extraordinary levels after two years.

But many people don’t realize that it actually took Steve far longer than two years to get to that point. Before he started his blog, he read 700 personal development books. He also had experience with writing articles (some paid, some unpaid). He also had ten years of experience in running a computer games business, where he learned many valuable lessons in entrepreneurship after turning $20,000 in cash to $150,000 in debt. These were the dues he paid before he earned the privilege of making 17 cents an hour.

Compare this to an anonymous blogger I heard about last September. This person had written to Darren Rowse at ProBlogger with some questions about his make money online blog, and Darren replied with a video post. The anonymous blogger’s letter went something like this:

“Darren, thanks for your great blog. I’m amazed at how much money you’ve made from blogging, and I’ve decided to do the same. I’ve just started my own blog on how to make money online, and I’ll have some really great tips. I have some questions though, because this is my first blog. How do I set it up? How do I find advertisers and make money quickly? And what tips should I write about?”

Amazingly, Darren almost managed to keep a straight face in his video reply, something I sure couldn’t have done. Coming from nowhere, this person is starting a blog in an overcrowded niche, with no experience in the subject, and asking how to be an overnight success when he doesn’t even know what to write about.

Let’s look at this in a more visual format:

	Steve Pavlina	Anonymous blogger
Number of relevant books read before starting blog	700	0
Years of relevant experience before starting blog	13	0
Money spent gaining the experience	At least $170,000	$0
Knows what to blog about	Yes	No
Income for first 6 months	$0.17/hour	Probably $0
Income after 2 years	$40,000/month	Hasn’t made it 2 years yet, will probably quit well before then
Continues to work hard	Yes	Never did in the first place

Given the difference in the dues each blogger paid, is the difference in their results unexpected, or unfair?

In the Fortune Magazine article What it takes to be great, Geoffrey Colvin points to research indicating that hard work is far more important than natural talent. This applies to sports, music, chess, business, and pretty much every other field. People don’t become an overnight success just because they stumble into a field they were born for.

“Reinforcing that no-free-lunch finding is vast evidence that even the most accomplished people need around ten years of hard work before becoming world-class, a pattern so well established researchers call it the ten-year rule…And as John Horn of the University of Southern California and Hiromi Masunaga of California State University observe, ‘The ten-year rule represents a very rough estimate, and most researchers regard it as a minimum, not an average.’ In many fields (music, literature) elite performers need 20 or 30 years’ experience before hitting their zenith.”

When people reach the highest levels of success at a young age, we might think they were an overnight success, when really they just started early. Bobby Fischer became a chess grandmaster when he was only 16, but after 9 years of practice. Tiger Woods won the U.S. Amateur Championship when he was only 18, but after 15 years of practice.

The article went into more detail about the link between practice and performance:

“Evidence crosses a remarkable range of fields. In a study of 20-year-old violinists by Ericsson and colleagues, the best group (judged by conservatory teachers) averaged 10,000 hours of deliberate practice over their lives; the next-best averaged 7,500 hours; and the next, 5,000. It’s the same story in surgery, insurance sales, and virtually every sport. More deliberate practice equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance.”

How are you reacting to hearing this? Are you disappointed that you can kiss your chances of overnight success goodbye? Or are you inspired to know that there’s no reason you can’t reach any level of success you desire if you’re willing to put in the work?

I have some American friends who are staying in Japan for a year, and I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to visit them. I went there from April 15 – 24, 2008, staying mainly in Kyoto, with a couple days in Tokyo.

I found Japan exotic in some ways, like with all the castles and Geisha and beckoning cats. But in other ways, it seemed they were just using common sense. I wish the U.S. could pick up some aspects of Japan.

Upon reading my eBook about Japan, Akemi Gaines at Yes to Me suggested a joint writing project. So here we go. When you’re done with this part, you can read the second half of the discussion, Comparing America and Japan, Part 2, on her blog.

Akemi: I am originally from Nagoya, Japan, and have been in the U.S. since 1995. I’m glad you liked my home country, Hunter.

Hunter: Here are some things I specifically like about Japan:

Food

Hunter:

American restaurants seem to keep making portions bigger and bigger. Do we really need Outback’s 2,900-calorie Aussie Cheese Fries appetizer? OK, that’s a bit extreme, but many Americans consume what should be almost a full day’s worth of calories in one meal. And it’s normal to us, so we don’t realize it’s excessive. We feel like we’re getting a good deal when we say “Supersize me!” The emphasis is usually on the quantity of food, instead of the quality.

I was concerned that I’d get to Japan and not be able to find any food I could eat. Boy, were those fears unfounded! The food was incredible everywhere. There was only one place where I found the food merely OK (it was basically just fried food on a stick), but other than that, it was amazing. And I don’t even like seafood, so why is sushi so good? I don’t know, but it is. And even though they’ve got all this great food, they’re not fat. I’m not sure why, though portion size is a part of it.

Akemi:

Well, there is a secret . . . I could have written the book “Japanese women don’t get fat” I guess

When I came to the US, food was one of the biggest issues, so I know what you mean. The problem is Americans just don’t pay attention to taste. All they care, it seems to me, is the numbers, like calorie and price. And this is the main reason of obesity in the US, I believe. We want to get satisfaction, so if we don’t get it from taste, we substitute it with quantity, the sheer sensation of fullness. When the food tastes good, small amount is more satisfying and we don’t need to pig out.

When more Americans become discerning to taste, restaurants will have to make good foods to win the competition. But currently, people who pay attention are called “foodie” in the U.S.

Hunter:

Yeah, foodies are really a different kind of person here. I recently attended a Guerilla Cuisine dinner in Charleston, SC, where a group of people get together for food prepared by local chefs, and the theme, menu, and location are announced at the last minute. The people were all great, but they were different…hippies and “arteests” and…well, I don’t even know the words to describe them. It seems that your typical person is not really interested in food, and that will have to change before restaurants feel pressure to improve. Even the Japanese restaurant near me doesn’t have food that tastes similar to actual Japanese food.

Akemi:

Exactly. It’s a process that takes some time. Japanese didn’t become gourmet overnight. When Americans were traveling to the West in wagons, Japanese already had restaurants and cookbooks

We really need to treat foods with more respect, rather than treating it like fuel. We are humans, not automobiles. We are entitled to enjoy foods!

Crime

Hunter:

I didn’t feel great about having to carry around a bunch of cash (since most places don’t take credit cards), but my friends said that crime is ridiculously low in Japan. When I looked it up, I saw that they weren’t kidding. Japan’s robbery rate is less than 1% of what it is in America!

They’ve done a good job of getting rid of guns, and not many people have the guts to rob someone without a gun. When I went to Tokyo Disneyland, the handout said tattoos weren’t allowed (tattoos are a sign of some criminal organizations). I guess they had a problem with the Japanese mafia hanging out on the teacups ride. But the point is that the laws and rules they’ve put in place seem to be working, though there’s some loss of individual liberty.

Akemi:

Allow me to correct one thing you said . . . Japan didn’t get rid of guns. The vast majority of Japanese never had guns. The samurais had swords, but not guns. You need a special license to carry a gun in Japan.

I agree the crime rate is so much lower in Japan. When I was in Japan, as a young woman ^_^, I usually carried more than 10,000 yen ($100) in my wallet without much thought to it. My first job in the U.S. was for a bank, and I learned we could get killed for a few hundred dollars here. Now I pay everything by credit card.

Having said this, there is a dark side in Japanese society. For example, domestic violence, including parent killing their child or vice versa, is often reported in the news, and there are probably far more hidden violence than we know. There is a culture of not releasing family shame to outsiders. Hidden violence at school is also a problem.

Hunter:

That’s funny that you’re making what I guess is a manga smiley (^_^)!

We have hidden violence and a dark side here too, sometimes in places you’d never suspect. There was a typical “all-American kid” who once lived just down the street from me, named Danny Petrole (he was all over the national news). No one had any idea that he was the head of a huge drug ring until a fellow dealer, who is now on death row, hired someone to kill him.

I have a friend who stupidly decided to intimidate someone who cut him off in traffic. They turned out to be members of a triad, and they followed him home and threatened him with knives and bumper jacks. When the cops came, they arrested my friend despite what all the witnesses were saying, because apparently the cops are afraid of the triad. And this is all happening in a quiet suburb. It’s scary to think about how much stuff is going on that we don’t know about.

Akemi:

Wow. I’ll be more careful then. I never suspected my good neighbors. . .

Kaizen

Hunter:

Kaizen simply means “improvement,” but they take it very seriously. They know that continuous incremental improvements over time lead to massive results, so they encourage experimenting with new ideas and measuring the outcome.

U.S. auto makers were slow to notice that times were changing and consumers wanted smaller cars. They kept cranking out full-size sedans because that’s what they had always done. Meanwhile, the people at Toyota responded to what consumers were saying, and by changing a little here and a little there, they became the industry leader.

I’ve worked at some companies where I saw obvious opportunities for improvement, but no one wanted to hear it. I worked at one company where they actually asked for suggestions, and people would suggest things like “stop paying millions of dollars to fired executives,” but I don’t know if any of the suggestions were even considered.

Akemi:

That’s interesting. I thought Americans were more open to accept everyone’s opinions. Why do you think American management is so closed minded?

Hunter:

I don’t know if there’s any single answer. I’ve seen higher ups not understanding technical details, or not having respect for the employees, or just wanting to do things their way, or thinking that what worked in the past would always be the best option, or being so focused on tight deadlines that there was no time to rethink things. And sometimes you might convince your boss, but they don’t want to take the idea to their boss. It can be hard to get your ideas in front of the right people.

To be fair, a lot of people will adamantly demand changes without fully understanding the reasons for the current way. But I think instead of just saying “no,” management should explain why these suggestions might not be feasible and encourage further suggestions. That builds respect and cooperation instead of resentment.

Akemi:

I agree. I think Kaizen started in the post WWII collective spirit that Japan must catch up to compete against well-established “foreign” industries. All the major cities, including their factories and transportation systems, were burned down in the war, and it was clear we had to work hard.

Now that Japanese industries are well-established themselves, I think they face the same challenge you described, “We’ve always done it this way.” thinking . . . while Americans learn the Kaizen.

Living within their means

Hunter:

I’m not sure about the current statistics, but the average savings rate is very high in Japan and basically nothing in the U.S. The U.S. as a country and many American families are practically bankrupt, yet they keep wasting more and more money. The government can bail out the irresponsible spenders, but who will bail out the government when other countries decide to stop lending us money? The Japanese are among the highest savers in the world. Why can’t we save even a fraction of what they do?

Akemi:

I’d be cautious to compare two countries’ statistics. It is very possible we may not be comparing apples to apples. Having said this, I agree U.S. economy has serious problems, and by now, many Americans are aware of this.

Japanese love saving, to the point it can be a problem. They have issues enjoying life. I think our hope lies somewhere between the American and Japanese ways of living – in the big Pacific ocean – to enjoy life while being sensible to spending. Not all good things come with price tags, you know.

Hunter:

Americans have issues enjoying life too. Someone might put on a happy face, but beyond that and their big house and their fancy car, they’re feeling the great stress of keeping up with the Joneses. I agree that moderation is good here. If you can keep your wants reasonable, it’s not so hard to afford what you need while saving for a rainy day.

---

Akemi, I want to thank you for suggesting this joint writing project and taking the time to do it with me. I think it’s interesting to compare the perspectives of people from two very different backgrounds.

I also want to make sure my readers continue to Comparing America and Japan, Part 2 to read our discussion on Housing, Education, Freedom and Opportunities. Don’t miss it!

I’ve heard some people talking about how the U.S. was recently declared the “12th most livable country.” The top 20 are:

1. Iceland
2. Norway
3. Australia
4. Canada
5. Ireland
6. Sweden
7. Switzerland
8. Japan
9. Netherlands
10. France
11. Finland
12. United States
13. Spain
14. Denmark
15. Austria
16. United Kingdom
17. Belgium
18. Luxembourg
19. New Zealand
20. Italy

But what does this mean? This list is actually the most recent ranking of countries by the Human Development Index published by the United Nations Development Program. And that index is based on life expectancy, literacy, education attained, and GDP per capita.

If people are going to call these the “most livable countries,” I would think it was based on things like crime, health care, affordable housing, number of hours worked, etc. This index is an interesting metric, but I’m not going to be moving to Iceland just yet.

Ladies and gentlemen, today I’m very happy to release my second ebook, Memoirs of a Gaijin. It’s free as a direct PDF download (6 MB), with no opt-in required.

“Gaijin” is a Japanese word meaning “outsider.” It often refers specifically to a white person, and is now considered politically incorrect. But it’s certainly what I was.

From April 15 - 24, 2008, I visited my American friends who were spending a year in Kyoto. I learned a lot during my stay, and I felt compelled to read some books to learn even more. Japan is a fascinating country, and certainly very different from the United States.

I wrote this ebook to tell a story of Japan as seen through the eyes of an American tourist. My perspective is admittedly and intentionally biased. I’m an American, and I’m sure that castles and Geisha and kaizen are no more exotic to me than hamburgers and forks and individualism are to the Japanese. We already have official tour guides of Japan. Now we have my story too.

It’s a whopping 6 MB because of all the embedded photos, plus it has links to more than 250 exclusive photos and video clips. And don’t be intimidated by the 75 pages. It’s broken down into small sections for easy scanning. Now, read Memoirs of a Gaijin and see Japan as you’ve never seen it before.

Table of contents:

Foreword by the Author	2
How to Read this Ebook	2
Table of Contents	3
Getting There	5
My Seat Number	5
Just What You Want to Hear on a Plane	6
The Time Difference	6
Jet Lag	6
Currency Exchange	7
Getting From the Airport to Kyoto	8
An Awkward Dinner Party	10
Speaking English in Japan	11
Kids Practicing Their English	12
English Words in Japanese	13
Writing Japanese Characters	13
The Capital of Japan	14
Kyoto	15
Going to Tokyo	15
Capsule Inn Akihabara	16
Tokyo Disneyland	17
Tokyo	18
Pollen Masks	19
The Food	19
Fugu, the Deadly Blowfish	20
McDonald’s	22
Fish Market	23
Fruit	24
The Cookie Trap	25
Sake	26
Filling Up Your Glass	27
Chopsticks	28
“The World is Their Buffet”	28
Cherry Blossoms	29
Miyako Odori and Geisha	30
Tea Ceremony at the Miyako Odori	31
Geisha, Geiko, and Maiko	32
Are Geisha Prostitutes?	33
Kimono	33
Kyoto Handicraft Center	34
Swords	35
Kendo	38
Sumo	39
Castles and Temples and Shrines, Oh My!	40
Nijo Castle (Nijo-jo)	41
Ninna-ji Temple	42
Ryoanji Temple	43
Eikando Zenrin-Ji Temple	43
Hikone Castle	44
Hikonyan the Samurai Cat	45
Visiting a Different Prefecture	46
Path of Philosophy	46
Cats	47
Den-Den Daiko (Mr. Miyagi’s Drum)	48
Bikes	49
Vending Machines	50
Smoking	51
Taking off Your Shoes	52
Manga and Anime	53
The Lucky Pine Needles	54
Shinto	54
Buddhism	55
Super Mario Bros.	56
Commas In Numbers	56
Toilets	57
V for the Camera	58
Karaoke	59
The Public Eye	59
Platform Pizza	59
Obsession with Newness	60
Hair Styles for Men	60
Godzilla (Gojira)	60
Sudoku	61
No Shaking Hands	62
Kaizen	62
Toyota	63
The Girls	63
Buses	64
Technology	65
Water	65
Napkins and Toilet Paper	66
Rule of the Road	66
Crime	67
Discrimination	67
Imports	67
Mount Fuji	68
The Great Wave off Kanagawa	69
Signs	70
Getting Back	71
Why Visit Japan?	72
Further Reading	74
About the Author	75

Mark Buban (no URL given) left a comment on my blog that I didn’t understand at first. He said he had found my blog after reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I wrote about Randy in My Final Post: Top 9 Lessons In Awesomeness, but I didn’t understand how Mark would be able to find that.

Mark then told me that Randy mentions my blog in his book! On page 184, he says:

“A former student emailed to say I had helped inspire him to create a new personal-development Web site titled ‘Stop Sucking and Live a Life of Abundance,’ designed to help people who are living far below their potential. That sounded sort of like my philosophy, though certainly not my exact words.”

I laughed when I read this. Those definitely aren’t Randy’s exact words…I was going for something a little more blunt!

Like many people, I’m still living far below my potential, but one thing I’ve noticed since starting this blog is that I’ve attracted a huge abundance of ideas. When I started, I thought that maybe I had enough ideas for 20 posts, and I had no idea what I’d do after that. But I’ve met a lot of great people in the online world that I never would have met otherwise, and by exchanging thoughts with them, I now have far more ideas flowing than I have time to write about. So I thank you all for that.

Something has occurred to me as I’ve watched Randy Pausch’s rise to fame. Unfortunately, we often don’t pay enough attention to people until something bad happens. If Randy didn’t have pancreatic cancer, you probably wouldn’t have heard of The Last Lecture. How do I know that? Because he basically gave the same talk years ago, and he didn’t become famous then. I heard Randy talk about many of the ideas from The Last Lecture as his student in 1996. And this was a class on Usability Engineering, not a class on how to live your life! He’s had the same message for years, but when he gets cancer, then suddenly it’s considered newsworthy.

Why don’t we start paying more attention to people who are worth listening to? Randy is certainly special, but I don’t think he’s at all unique. How many Randy Pauschs do you know who you could learn something from today? You don’t have to wait until they become famous.

I didn’t even know that Randy’s book was out yet, but after Mark’s comment, I went out and picked up a copy of The Last Lecture right away. I’ll be reviewing it later, but my queue is pretty backed up. If you haven’t already, you can see the video of The Last Lecture in My Final Post: Top 9 Lessons In Awesomeness. By the way, I’ve signed up for Amazon.com Associates, so going forward, all book and movie links will generally be affiliate links (it’s probably too annoying to disclose each one individually).

Thanks again to Mark Buban for telling me I was mentioned in Randy’s book. This also solves the mystery of why I’m getting 10 searches a day on my tagline!

Image from Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)

After you figure out whether you’re a Gryffindor or a Slytherin, it’s time to figure out whether you’re a Jedi or a Sith. So head on over to Remarkablogger and read my “guest post” Are You a Jedi or a Sith Blogger?

I put “guest post” in quotes because it wasn’t really a guest post. Instead, Michael took a question I asked and used it as the basis for a post. A good deal for both of us!

I asked Michael “What’s the best way to make it as a blogger? The way of the Jedi, or the way of the Sith?” You may recognize these terms from Star Wars, but I defined a Jedi blogger as one who focuses on providing value, and a Sith blogger as one who focuses on tactics.

Just to be clear, this is not the difference between good and evil. A Jedi asks “how can I help my readers?” while a Sith asks “how can I help myself?” As a Sith is thinking about what tactics will work best, they will consider options without regard to whether they’re evil.

I consider myself to be mainly a Jedi blogger in that I focus on value creation. For example, I choose topics without consideration of how much the relevant AdSense ads will pay, I respond to all comments (for now), and I link to low-ranking sites if they’re relevant. But I consider myself partly Sith, in that I put my sidebar on the left because that’s where people look, I sometimes put numbers in headlines because I know they grab attention, and I’m considering Ezine Articles to get more traffic. None of these things are evil, but they don’t come from a perspective of “how can I help my readers?”

I asked Michael which is the best way to make it as a blogger, and I left the door open to the possibility that the answer might be somewhere in the middle. So go on over to Are You a Jedi or a Sith Blogger? and share your thoughts.

Points for participating in the blogging discussion. Bonus points for realizing that this has nothing to do with blogging.

Vered posted this picture that had me and some friends laughing for two days straight:

At first I thought it was real, because Vered posts a lot of 1950s ads, all of which seem pretty crazy. But after thinking about it, I decided it was definitely a fake.

A lot of people were fooled by Tim Ferriss’ April Fools’ joke, something I thought was quite obviously a joke. Distinguishing fact from fiction is an important skill to have, so I thought I’d use the cola ad as an exercise in fraud detection.

Take a look at the ad, and without using Google, see if you notice anything that suggests it’s a fake. Here’s what I saw:

1. It’s not clear what’s being advertised. Is it soda, cola, or “other sugary carbonated beverages?” I think the Soda Pop Board of America would be advertising soda pop.

2. They couldn’t use “laboratory tests” to confirm these results. That would involve locking up a baby in the lab, feeding him cola, keeping him there until he was a teenager, and then seeing if he would fit in. They’d probably use surveys instead, asking teenagers if they fit in and when they started drinking soda.

3. The ad talks about babies and says they can’t start soon enough, but the kid shown is not a baby.

4. It seems odd that they would suggest a strict regimen of sodas, but not say what that regimen should be.

5. I can’t believe any ad would say “gives body essential sugars.”

6. This is awfully aggressive for a 50s ad, saying “not soon enough,” “strict regimen,” “right now,” and “guaranteed happiness.”

7. “Guaranteed” is misspelled. I know they didn’t have spell check back then, but I think the great Soda Pop Board of America could do better.

8. I don’t know what the official abbreviation of Illinois was before we moved to the two letter standard, but it wasn’t “ILL.” Maybe it was “Ill,” but the ls would definitely be lowercase.

9. There’s no ZIP code.

10. The capitalization is inconsistent in the bullet points on the left. Marketers would pay attention to this.

So that’s why I thought it was a fake. Unfortunately, you can’t trust everyone these days. And while this ad was harmless (assuming today’s parents know better), some things might not be. Be sure to run everything through your fraud filter.