The Advantage Of Dual Identities (And The Paradox Of Intellectual Promiscuity)

February 6th, 2011

Here’s an interesting article about the advantage of dual identities. (Thanks, @introvertzone!)

Vladimir Nabokov is best known as the author of Lolita and other works of fiction. But he had a dual identity as a lepidopterist. He frequently described his life pleasures as “the two most intense known to man: writing and butterfly hunting.”

The article is about what Stephen Jay Gould called “the paradox of intellectual promiscuity.” Nabokov had proven himself as a writer, and he couldn’t have gone wrong by sticking with that. So did his interest in butterflies have a positive, negative, or neutral effect on him?

Some possibilities:

  • He wasted all this time on butterflies instead of writing another Lolita.
  • Don’t worry, he didn’t waste too much time on butterflies.
  • Lolita was great only because he studied butterflies.
  • His work on butterflies was more important than his fiction. Lolita was the time waster.

To Nabokov, these two fields weren’t even all that different. They were just two puzzles he solved in the same way, using his deep passion for detail and precision.

His crazy hypothesis about the migration of a particular group of butterflies didn’t earn him much credit as a scientist in his lifetime, but modern technology recently proved him right. So in this case, we can score a win for lepidoptery and intellectual promiscuity, though more than 30 years after Nabokov’s death.

I think the right answer can only be decided on a case by case basis. I don’t know if there’s any hard and fast rule as to whether we should be chasing our butterflies.

Did Your Zodiac Sign Change?

January 14th, 2011

“What’s your sign?” has become a very volatile question to ask today. Millions of Scorpios are terribly upset to have possibly metamorphosed into Libras or even Virgos overnight. And there hasn’t been this much heavenly hubbub since Pluto was demoted from planet status in 2006.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it appears that the astrological community suddenly realized today that the stars have moved over the last few thousand years, and the zodiac has been given a long overdue realignment. As a result, most people have shifted back one sign, the long lost sign of Ophiuchus is now back with a vengeance, and Scorpios have been placed on the endangered species list.

I’m not sure if the new system will stick, or whether horoscopes are purported to be based on tropical zodiac signs or the actual position of the constellations, or whether the Chinese lunar calendar will have to restate quarterly earnings. Fortunately, I’m still a Taurus in the new system, so I’ve been spared from the potential identity crisis.

Questions for you: Do you believe in astrology at all? If you don’t, does your sign still matter to you, and why? Do you think some people will deliberately change their personality to fit their new sign? Are horoscopes dangerous?

(Below are the date ranges of the signs under three different systems. The tropical zodiac is the one you know and love; the IAU definition gives the new dates that everyone’s talking about. Dates are not set in stone, but vary each year depending on the timing of the vernal equinox, etc.)

Sign Tropical Zodiac Sidereal Zodiac IAU Definition
Aries 3/20 – 4/20 4/14 – 5/1 4/19 – 5/14
Taurus 4/20 – 5/21 5/14 – 6/1 5/14 – 6/21
Gemini 5/21 – 6/21 6/14 – 7/31 6/21 – 7/21
Cancer 6/21 – 7/23 7/14 – 8/1 7/21 – 8/11
Leo 7/23 – 8/23 8/14 – 9/13 8/11 – 9/17
Virgo 8/23 – 9/23 9/13 – 10/30 9/17 – 10/31
Libra 9/23 – 10/23 10/14 – 11/13 10/31 – 11/21
Scorpio 10/23 – 11/22 11/13 – 12/30 11/21 – 11/30
Ophiuchus N/A N/A 11/30 – 12/18
Sagittarius 11/22 – 12/22 12/14 – 1/2 12/18 – 1/21
Capricorn 12/22 – 1/20 1/13 – 2/1 1/21 – 2/17
Aquarius 1/20 – 2/19 2/12 – 3/2 2/17 – 3/12
Pisces 2/19 – 3/20 3/14 – 4/1 3/12 – 4/19

How To Write A Novel In 29 Days

December 19th, 2010

How do you write a novel in 29 days? The same way you write a novel in 21 days, only slower.

This past November, I wrote my second novel for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), completing the required 50,000 words the day before the deadline. But my experience this time was very different from when I wrote my first novel, Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York.

Last time, the words flowed effortlessly. It was a lot of work, for sure, but nothing was forced. This time, it was really a chore, and the results show it. There’s only one semi-decent character, and the plot is held together by supernatural band-aids.

The whole point of NaNoWriMo is to go for quantity over quality, and just get a first draft done quickly instead of editing yourself to death and never finishing. So this was a success in that I crossed the finish line. I’m going to make a few revisions, then post it anonymously on one of my other sites.

Some people say that you can’t force inspiration when your muse is on sabbatical. Others say that writer’s block is a lame excuse to avoid work. What do you say?

The Secret And The Power

December 12th, 2010

I just picked up The Power by Rhonda Byrne, thinking it would make a good gift for someone. She says she felt inspired to write this sequel to The Secret after answering several thousand reader letters, and that it contains the essence of everything she’s learned since then.

Based on this, I was surprised to find that it’s a very toned down version of The Secret, feeling much more like a prequel than a sequel. It’s actually a halfway decent book, but probably not what its readers would want. People who didn’t like The Secret won’t like The Power either, and people who did like The Secret will find The Power to be a very weak second act. Oh well.

Now, can you guess what “the power” is, the greatest force in the universe and the key to having everything you want? Hint: it’s not a genie, it’s not quantum physics, and it’s not really even the law of attraction. Go ahead, take a guess.

Achieve Anything In Just One Year

December 4th, 2010

If you could achieve anything in just one year, what would you do? Clone dinosaurs? Achieve 0% body fat? Swim around the world at warp 10? Discover the lost treasure of the Knights Templar? Sneeze with your eyes open?

Nothing is off the table if you read Achieve Anything In Just One Year by Jason Harvey, a Certified Life Coach and the founder of The Limitless Institute.

OK, the title is perhaps a bit exaggerated, but you already knew that. A more accurate (though less marketable) title would be “Daily Bite-Sized Self Improvement Tips for a Whole Year: Makes a Great Holiday Gift.”

This comprehensive and inspiring book shows you how to do things such as:

  • Set goals and stick with them
  • Take daily action that creates a ripple effect
  • Stay motivated, focused and balanced
  • Feel happier every day
  • Define, pursue and celebrate personal success

Yes, a lot of books cover this kind of stuff, but what sets this book apart from the pack is the way it’s organized. The page-a-day format was a fantastic idea, and I definitely think that if you read one page a day and really take the time to think about it, do the exercises, and put it into practice, then major transformation is possible.

I’ll be giving away my copy as a Christmas present, since New Year’s is the perfect time to begin the 365 day program. If you’re short on holiday gift ideas, this would make a good one for a lot of people.

Keep in mind that while this book has enough material to cover all of 2011, it can’t cover all of 2012 because of the leap year and the 366th day. (Of course, that could be a moot point, considering the end of the world in 2012.)

How Much Math Do We Really Need?

October 31st, 2010

“How much math do you really need in everyday life? Ask yourself that — and also the next 10 people you meet, say, your plumber, your lawyer, your grocer, your mechanic, your physician or even a math teacher. Unlike literature, history, politics and music, math has little relevance to everyday life.”

This quote is from G.V. Ramanathan’s article How much math do we really need? While I somewhat agreed with most of the article, that last sentence instantly struck me as perhaps the dumbest thing I had read in the month of October.

True, the average person doesn’t need much math in everyday life. Everyone needs some, and people in certain jobs need a lot, but most people need so little that they don’t even realize they’re using math.

But notice what happens when you take his question — “How much _____ do you really need in everyday life?” — and fill in any of the other subjects he mentioned. The answer in every case is still “almost none.” Really, how often have you turned to Shakespeare or Beethoven to get yourself out of a jam?

Of course, that doesn’t mean that these subjects are worthless. Despite the limitations on their practical value, they’re still part of being a civilized human being, and worth studying for their own sake.

But math, in addition to being a worthy subject from a purely academic perspective, is a basic life skill (at least lower level math). Not being able to balance your checking account is about as stupid as not being able to find Florida on a map. Yet someone would be ridiculed for the latter while getting a pass on the former, simply by using the excuse “I’m terrible at math.”

In all fairness, math majors, teachers, etc. probably tend to overstate its importance. I have to admit that it’s entirely possible to get by just fine without having ever learned the multiplication tables. But I can’t think of another school subject where ignorance has more potential to hurt you.

Show me someone who thinks they can win at blackjack without counting cards, who thinks they can afford a mortgage ten times their annual income, and who doesn’t know the difference between itemizing their deductions and taking the standard deduction. I think it’s a pretty safe bet that they can’t pass a 7th grade math test.

You don’t actually need the quadratic formula or the Pythagorean theorem to figure out how much retirement income you’ll need, or whether paying off your mortgage is a good idea, or whether paying 24% credit card interest is a wise investment. But someone who learns how to solve problems in the classroom grows up better able to solve problems in the real world.

I’m not saying that mathematical illiteracy is our biggest problem, or that America’s educational system will be its downfall, or that everyone needs to take math after high school. But can we agree that any self-respecting adult should have better math skills than a dog?

“Dave the Math Dog” was once a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman. Dave the dog was asked to figure out the square root of 36, and answered with 6 taps of his paw. Dave the human was unable to verify the answer until he was given a calculator. (The dog is probably explained by the Clever Hans effect, but still…)

Photo by Mykl Roventine

A World Without Time

October 10th, 2010

Buckminster Fuller thought it was important to describe the world as accurately as possible, in order to avoid clouded intuition and maintain a good grip on reality. To do that, he used language in unusual ways. For example:

  • Because we now know that the world is not flat, the word “worldwide” doesn’t make any sense. He said “world-around.”
  • Since we now know that the sun does not revolve around the earth, it doesn’t make sense to talk about “sunrises” and “sunsets” as if we’re still and the sun is moving. He called them “sunsights” and “sunclipses” to describe them from our perspective as the earth rotates.
  • “Up” and “down” are awkward because they refer to directions in a plane that moves around with you. If someone at the South Pole goes “upstairs” (relative to them), would someone at the North Pole say the other guy was going “downstairs?” That’s why Fuller said he was walking “outstairs” or “instairs,” referring to his motion relative to the center of the earth.

I wonder what Buckminster Fuller would have said about “next weekend.”

People fall into two groups in terms of what “next weekend” means to them:

  1. Those who say “If I meant this weekend, I would have said this weekend.”
  2. Those who say “But this weekend is the next weekend.”

This became an issue for me a few weeks ago on a Tuesday, when my friend said she’d be in town “next weekend.” That Friday, she again said that she’d be in town “next weekend.” While technically correct, I thought it was odd that she’d say “next weekend” instead of “tomorrow.”

Had she forgotten that it was Friday? Or was she pushing her plans back a week? Or was she just talking weird? I called to ask, and found out she’s in group 1 and I’m in group 2.

I always knew group 1 people were out there, but I didn’t know I actually knew one. And thus began a long and painful investigation into the matter. Short answer: almost everyone is in group 1, but they can’t say why.

Despite my best efforts to understand how “next weekend” could mean two weekends from now, I’ve still come up blank. The best I can come up with is that “next weekend” could be interpreted as “the end of next week,” except that (1) I didn’t say “the end of next week,” I said “next weekend,” and (2) the weekend does not come at the end of the week (although personally, I think Monday should be the first day of the week).

Here are some points of confusion that come up when “next” can potentially mean either “next” or “next next” depending on who you’re talking to:

  • If someone says “Our next meeting is next Friday,” almost everyone thinks that means that one meeting from now is two Fridays from now. Why doesn’t it mean that two meetings from now is one Friday from now, or one of the other combinations?
  • If someone calls you on the phone and says “I’m going to kick your ass the next time I see you,” does that mean this coming time or the following time?
  • If someone says “I’m going to turn into a werewolf at the next full moon,” does that mean this coming full moon, the following one, the full moon of the next calendar month, the full moon of the next lunar month, or what?

(Notice that all of this confusion is avoided if “next” always means “next.” Just sayin’.)

I actually think that the confusion is mainly around the meaning of “this” rather than the meaning of “next.” After all, if today is Saturday, everyone agrees on what “this weekend” and “next weekend” mean.

But what if today is Wednesday? In that case, “this weekend” makes no sense at face value. You can’t say “Are you having a good time so far this weekend?” But we say “this weekend” as a shortcut for “this coming weekend,” and then it makes sense.

On the other hand, on a Monday, many people think that “this weekend” means “this past weekend,” and a few of them think that “last weekend” means the weekend before that.

Could you ask, on a Monday, “Did you have a good time this weekend, and will you have an even better time this weekend?” Does “this Arbor Day” mean Arbor Day of this year (possibly in the past), or this coming Arbor Day (possibly next year)? Don’t even get me started on the linguistics of time travel.

Does “this light” mean the light a few feet in front of you, and so “the next light” means the following one? Or does “this light” make no sense because we’re not at a light, so “the next light” is this one a few feet in front of us?

Anyway, once I realized how ambiguous something as simple as “next weekend” can be, that changed everything for me. The language we use shapes our thinking, for better or for worse. If I can’t say “this” and “next” because of the potential confusion, then how can I express concepts of time? And if I can’t express them, how can I perceive them?

Two years ago, Glen Allsopp left this comment on my post Don’t Label Me:

“I watched a film by Eckhart Tolle recently in which he asked you to imagine the world if you didn’t have a name. Close your eyes and try it, it’s quite interesting.”

When I imagine a world without names, I get the sense that the separation of you and me is an illusion. There is no “me,” because I am you. When I imagine a world without time, I get the sense that the separation of past and future is an illusion, or at least not accurately represented by a one-way absolute dimension.

As Christian Shephard said on LOST, “There is no ‘now,’ ‘here.’” Or as some guy at the National Institute of Standards and Technology said, “Our clocks do not measure time. Time is defined to be what our clocks measure.”

This post was published on Metric Moment, 10/10/10 10:10:10.

Photo by fdecomite

9 Life Lessons From Texas Hold’em

September 12th, 2010

“You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em
Know when to walk away, and know when to run
You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table
There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done”

- Kenny Rogers, “The Gambler”

In the Old West, poker was a game played mostly by drunk gun-toting cowboys just itching to say their favorite stock phrase – “Them’s fightin’ words!” Its image improved only slightly over the next century, as it was still considered no better than the other vices so popular in the seedy underbellies of gambling towns.

Things changed with the use of hole cams in televised poker (which made it fun to watch), the invention of online poker (which made it fun to play), and the 2003 World Series of Poker win by amateur Chris Moneymaker (which gave hope to everyone that they too could beat the game).

Poker is now popular enough to be shown on ESPN, where online poker sites are advertised despite being illegal the U.S. (OK, technically they advertise their legal play money .net sister sites, but can’t we all see through that? BTW, consult an attorney regarding the legality of online poker in your country – this post is fictional and for entertainment purposes only.)

The number of World Series of Poker entrants has grown from dozens to thousands, millions of people play online, and James Bond is now playing poker instead of baccarat (the change was made in the film version of Casino Royale). And yet, I have to wonder if any of this would have happened, had five card draw and seven card stud not been supplanted by Texas hold’em.

What’s so great about hold’em? Mainly the use of community cards. Instead of everyone playing a separate game at the same table, they’re trying to outplay each other at the same game. It’s a totally different feel, and people seem to love it.

I’ve been playing less than two months, so I’m just scratching the surface. But it’s clear to me that poker is far from a game of pure luck. It’s about strategy, psychology, self-control, risk assessment, and making decisions under pressure with limited information.

Crandell Addington, founder of the World Series of Poker, says skills he learned through poker helped him succeed in the business world as CEO of Phoenix Biotechnology. He said, “I’ve been trying to get someone’s attention about this for years. Poker is a microcosm for life.”

So what life lessons does poker have for us?

1. Pick your best game.

There’s no one game called “poker.” Poker is a family of closely related games, but even slight variations can produce vast differences.

For example, limit and no-limit Texas hold’em differ only in the betting structure, yet they are completely different games. Limit is more analytical, no-limit is more psychological. It’s very unusual for someone to be world class at both of them because they require completely different skills. Likewise, tournaments are different from cash games, heads-up play is different from full or short-handed tables, etc.

One of the most important decisions you make in any game is whether to play. Be sure you make the right choice here. My no-limit friends make fun of me for playing eight limit tables simultaneously, but my response is always the same – I’ll switch games if and when I find one that works better for me.

Are you in a career that’s the right game for you?

2. Keep your bad beat stories to yourself.

They say that opinions are like bad beat stories. Everyone’s got one, and no one wants to hear it.

A bad beat is when you have a hand that is heavily favored to win, which ends up losing. Bad beats are inevitable, but they can be hard to deal with when you lose a lot of money, especially to someone who made a mistake and just got lucky.

Here’s an example from limit hold’em that happened to me. (Sorry if you’re not familiar with hold’em jargon, but it would take too long to explain.) With pocket aces, I re-raise the opener before the flop, and he calls. The flop is A-rag-rag rainbow, I bet my top set, and get called by the initial opener. The turn and river look good, so I keep betting, and keep getting called. I have the best possible hand…almost. There is technically a possible A-5 straight out there, but he’d have to have 4-2 to fill it.

So I’m thinking, “OK, the straight would have me beat, but there’s no way this guy raised before the flop with 4-2.” But sure enough, he raised before the flop with 4-2. The river fills his unlikely straight and beats my three aces. His bad move paid off only because of miracle cards.

Here’s another example, this time a bad beat reversal. I flopped an ace-high flush, a nearly unbeatable hand. Unfortunately for me, the turn gave someone a full house. Unfortunately for them, the river gave me a straight flush. Their chat comment said it all: “nooooooo!”

Now, there is apparently an unwritten rule in poker that says when you suffer a bad beat, you should carry it around with you for the rest of your life and talk about it to everyone within earshot. Or you can choose to explode right then, a la Phil Hellmuth, “the poker brat.” In a typical game, he’ll say something like this more than once:

“You’re an idiot. What kind of idiot calls a $20,000 bet with queen-ten? I would never do something that stupid, that’s why I have eleven bracelets. But you internet kids, my advanced strategies don’t work on you because you’re too dumb to know any better. Maybe for you this is just poker, but for me it’s my whole life.”

Yeah, no one likes taking a bad beat (getting fired, divorced, etc.), but how is going on tilt going to help you? And especially if a bad beat comes from a lucky mistake someone made, their bad play helps you in the long run. Vent respectably if you must, but then let it go and get your game back on.

3. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

This Randy Pausch quote from “The Last Lecture” is as true in life as it is in poker.

Do you spend too much time wishing you could change your cards?

4. Nothing is certain. Play anyway.

The best possible starting hand is A-A. It has about an 85% chance of beating a random hand. A clear favorite, yes, but far from a guaranteed win, and that’s against just one opponent. The vast majority of the time, you’ll have less than A-A, and more than one opponent. But you can’t be overly intimidated by anything that could possibly beat you. You can’t win if you don’t play.

Are you missing out on anything because you’re afraid to take a chance?

5. Play your best bets.

The worst possible starting hand is 7-2 offsuit – the two lowest unpaired cards that can’t form a straight or a flush. Even if you’re lucky enough to flop two pair with 7-2, it might not be enough. You could possibly flop a monster hand, but it’s not worth paying for that shot in the dark. Dump it, and a better opportunity is just around the corner.

Are you investing too much in a 7-2 offsuit job or relationship?

6. Your biggest losses come when you have the second best hand.

It’s easy to fold when you have nothing. But the hands that you just can’t get away from, the ones that make you keep throwing in chips while drawing dead, are the ones that are almost good enough. The king-high flush. The ace with a weak kicker. The low end of the straight. These are the hands that cost you big time.

It’s like with a job that’s almost secure enough, an insurance policy that offers almost enough coverage, or a crippling balloon payment that will almost certainly never come due. Know where you’re weak, and tread carefully.

7. The best hand is not necessarily the most profitable.

Flopping quads to your pocket aces may give you a nice feeling, but it does you no good if everyone instafolds. Only once have I been able to get good money into the pot after flopping quads. I had pocket 4s in the small blind, and the flop was A-4-4. I slow played it, and fortunately someone liked the ace enough to bet. The ace was important to them, and therefore it was important to me.

People don’t care how much you want them to stick around; they only care about their own motivations. Because everyone is listening to the same radio station: WII-FM (what’s in it for me?). The biggest mistake people make when trying to do any kind of persuading is not understanding the difference between features and benefits.

8. It’s hard to be your own coach.

You could be making lots of mistakes without knowing it, and you won’t necessarily get better through practice alone.

I’ve found that playing limit 5 card draw has improved my limit hold’em game because it let me observe myself better. The simpler and faster paced 5 card draw let me see more clearly the consequences of position, aggression, bluffing, etc., most of which transfers to hold’em. And watching no-limit hold’em on TV has obviously helped me in that game.

Are you blind to certain problems that may be obvious to an outsider? Can a life coach help you see yourself in a new way?

9. All you need is a chip and a chair.

This poker aphorism reminds us that a miracle comeback can always happen. Anyone, anyplace, anytime.

It may have originated at the 1982 World Series of Poker main event. Jack Strauss pushed in all his chips on a bluff, got called, and lost everything. As he got up to leave, he discovered a $500 chip under his cocktail napkin. Had he actually said the words “all-in” on his last bet, he would have had to surrender this chip. But because he didn’t, he was allowed to continue playing. Two days later, he went home with a bracelet and $520,000.

Luck comes and goes, but good players win in the long run. If you’re down but not out, there’s always another chip somewhere.

Photo by Ross Elliott

Refuse To Choose: How To Do Everything You Love

August 22nd, 2010

Refuse to Choose

I just read the very interesting Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher (recommended to me by Paul Strobl of Confide Coaching). It’s about the types of people she calls “scanners” (as opposed to “divers”); people who would rather survey the whole horizon than go diving as deep as they can in one spot. She calls them scanners, I call them polymaths, but they’re very similar.

The copy I picked up at the library had the subtitle A Revolutionary Program for Doing Everything That You Love. I thought this was a little odd, as I didn’t see why doing everything you love would be such a big challenge, aside from productivity issues. Like Nike said, just do it.

But when I looked it up on Amazon, I came across the alternate subtitle “Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams.” I found this much more intriguing, though perhaps overly ambitious. But it made me wonder if it was just a different subtitle, or a completely revised edition.

And now I’ve written yet another subtitle in my headline, so I’m not exactly helping. Anyway, my comments are based on the version I read.

The main thing I got out of this book was that it’s OK to be a scanner, it’s just how we’re wired and not something we should try to suppress, and in fact it’s a good thing. Which I already knew, of course, but it was nice to see a recognized life coach saying so and talking about her clients who have successfully pursued their diverse interests.

One example of how she shows that scanners are OK: the false stigma of quitting. Many scanners get very frustrated with themselves for not being able to finish what they set out to do. Barbara explains why this is not a sign of failure, but a sign of having goals that are achieved before a project appears to be done. When a bee gets nectar from a flower and then moves on to the next one, do you call it a quitter for not sticking around?

I especially like how she separately addresses all the different types of scanners. From her experiences with working with so many scanners, she’s found that they don’t all fit the same pattern. Instead, there are two broad groups – cyclical scanners, who keep returning to the same interests, and sequential scanners, who don’t. Then these groups are further broken down into nine types:

  • Cyclical Scanners
    • The Double Agent
    • The Sybil
    • The Plate Spinner
  • Sequential Scanners
    • The Serial Specialist
    • The Serial Master
    • The Jack-of-All-Trades
    • The Wanderer
    • The Sampler
    • The High-Speed Indecisive

She talks about the unique challenges of each type, and goes into practical methods for managing your time, staying focused, and doing what you want to do.

However, don’t assume you’ll fit neatly into one category. I identified myself as a combination of the Sybil, Serial Master, Jack-of-All-Trades, Wanderer, and Sampler, thereby spanning more than half the categories. Oh well, I guess I’m difficult.

Hats off to Barbara Sher for standing up for scanners. When the world demands that you choose a path, what is a scanner to do? Simple: refuse to choose!

How To Live Your Best Life (Creating And Achieving Your Life List)

August 1st, 2010

As much as I want to continue my month-long posting fast that magically took me above 2,000 subscribers for the first time, I thought I’d better tell you about Marelisa Fabrega’s new ebook before the price goes up.

Currently priced at just $9.50 (that’s 5.76 cents per page for you value shoppers), I’m inclined to say “just go buy it – how can you go wrong with something by Marelisa at that price?” But perhaps I can manage a better introduction.

As long as I’ve known Marelisa, she’s been big on life lists, also known as bucket lists. You know, those 100 or so things you want to accomplish before you die, or the things you’d most regret not doing if you suddenly found you didn’t have long to live. She’s well known for her popular and high-ranking Squidoo lens on this topic, so who better to write an ebook about life lists?

And that’s what she’s done with How To Live Your Best Life – The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List. This ebook is designed to help you rekindle your adventurous spirit, figure out exactly what you want in each area of your life, break through falsely perceived limits, and thereby achieve your life list.

Do I have a life list? You betcha (though I lost the original version, and the current one exists only in my head). Here are some items I’ve recently added to it:

  • Complete all 100 levels on Wii Tanks (seemed impossible, until I did it in a lucky outlier run lasting nearly two hours, with 10 lives to spare)
  • Run a marathon in under 5 hours (seems impossible at this point, but who knows?)
  • Write ten novels (one down, nine to go)
  • Create a steady income stream from playing poker (just started reading books and playing at the lowest limits)
  • Have lunch at every restaurant in the vicinity of my workplace (every day is a field trip for me and my lunch buddy)

This ebook is both inspirational and practical, so different people may get different things out of it. Since I prefer to follow my impulses and let my life list unfold naturally, I especially liked the stories and lessons from both average Joes and famous people. Those who prefer a more organized and systematic approach will appreciate the exercises and instructions where she walks you through the process of creating your life list and starting to cross off the items.

I’ve included an abridged version of the table of contents below, so you can see at a glance how much Marelisa has managed to pack into this guide. If you’re serious about achieving your life goals, read How To Live Your Best Life!

Introduction

Part I: Create Your Life List – Decide What You Want
Chapter One: Be The Hero of Your Life
Chapter Two: Give Focus and Purpose To Your Life
Chapter Three: Creating Your “Master Dream List”
Chapter Four: Life List Guidelines and Litmus Test

Part II: Turn Your Dreams Into Goals
Chapter Five: How to Prioritize Your Life List
Chapter Six: Set Specific, Measurable, Time-Bound Goals
Chapter Seven: Have Many Reasons “Why”
Chapter Eight: Commit to Your Goals

Part III: Winning the Mind Game – Your Mental Blueprint
Chapter Nine: Set Empowering Beliefs
Chapter Ten: Boost Your Self-Image
Chapter Eleven: Success Through Visualizing
Chapter Twelve: How to Visualize
Chapter Thirteen: Rigorously Exclude Your Fears

Part IV: Creating An Action Plan – Your Roadmap
Chapter Fourteen: The Paint by Number Approach
Chapter Fifteen: Always Ask “How”
Chapter Sixteen: Train Your Reticular Activating System

Part V: Doing What Needs To Be Done
Chapter Seventeen: Take Right Action
Chapter Eighteen: Make Time Your Ally
Chapter Nineteen: Create Habits to Keep You Going
Chapter Twenty: Go Over, Under, or Around Obstacles
Chapter Twenty-One: Measure and Track Your Progress
Chapter Twenty-Two: Staying Motivated

Part VI: Financing Your Dreams – Show Me the Money
Chapter Twenty-Three: Go On a Dream Diet
Chapter Twenty-Four: Use Reverse Engineering

Part VII: What Are You Waiting For? Get Going
Chapter Twenty-Five: Keep a Journal of Your Journey
Chapter Twenty-Six: Your Victory List
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ithaca