Problems – Equally Happy

Procrastination Kicking Your Ass? Kick Back With Controlled Rewards

February 8, 2012 By Gal 1 Comment

This Is Your Inner Procrastinator. He Doesn't Want To Work, He Wants A Nap!

Gal’s Note – This post started out as another part in the Diamonds or Dogs series, but it became something a bit more than just about that. Specifically, it became all about how I deal with my inner procrastinator and handle two blogs, a start up and a full time job.

First, let me be clear, procrastination isn’t something you are dealing with alone. Every one procrastinates. In fact, I would say that the natural tendency of the human brain is to procrastinate. Why? Because we’re short sighted creatures more interested in right now than in tomorrow. It’s not our fault, evolution has made us this way. Evolution has taught us not to spend energy that we don’t need to spend. That’s really good strategy for a creature that lives day to day, minute to minute and needs to think about short term survival, not long term success. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Achieving Success, Introspection, Procrastination Tagged With: Goals, Hard work, Procrastination, productivity

How Do I Start My Own Business, Part 1

January 23, 2012 By Gal Leave a Comment

No, this isn't me

Gal’s Note – Unlike other blogs who’ll tell you that working for someone else makes you a brain dead wage slave, I’m going to tell you that starting a business is not for everyone. It’s risky, takes a lot of work to start and requires a lot of time to maintain. There are no easy solutions here and no easy alternatives to a day job. Some people will like this choice and some won’t. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with working a standard job for someone else and if that’s what you like then by all means, enjoy. In fact, if that’s what you want, I have a few other posts you may be interested in.

Gal’s other note – This was originally meant to be a single post. However, due to the increasing length of the post and my own time constraints, I’m going to make it part of the whole Diamonds or Dogs series. I’ll explore more aspects of starting my own business in the over the new couple of weeks.

So you want to create a business? Here’s a few things I’ve learned over the years, starting up both successful and unsuccessful businesses. The basics of starting a business consist of:

The Idea – What is it that your business will do?
The plan – How are you going to launch your business?
The communication – Who are you talking to about your business and why?
The execution – Putting you plan into action.
Adapt and evolve – What do to after it turns out that your plan was wrong. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Goals, Perfectionism, Starting A Business, Starting Out Tagged With: Business, Diamonds or Dogs, Goals, Ideas, Perfectionism, Starting Out

Products Don’t Need To Be Perfect, They Just Need To Be Good Enough

January 18, 2012 By Gal 1 Comment

This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Diamonds or Dogs

Perfection sucks. It’s the enemy of invention, it’s the thing that holds you back. Trying to reach it might be an ok goal but never finishing a project until it’s perfect is the work equivalent of dry humping, it feels good but you never really get to the point. Sorry, but perfection can go to hell, I’ll take good enough any day of the week.

I say all this because I’m struggling with finishing up Diamonds or Dogs, my gift site. There are so many things I want to do. I need more reviewers, more reviews, a better landing page, a better “about us” and more information on why the site is the way it is. That’s just the beginning of my to do list. However, the more I try to get the site perfect, the more I push off the important task of starting to drive traffic to the site. Yes, I want the site to look good but I also want to start doing marketing for it. I want to start linking to it, telling people about it, running an AdWords campaign and the dozens of other things I will need to do in order to get people to my site. I’m not doing any of those things because I’m working on the landing page… [Read more...]

Filed Under: Achieving Success, Making More Money, Optimization, Perfectionism, Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: Diamonds or Dogs, Goals, Good Enough, MVP, Perfectionism

How Did I Do On My 2011 Goals?

January 2, 2012 By Gal 1 Comment

Back in January I posted these goals as the things I wanted to accomplish in 2011. Looking through them now, I’ve accomplished a lot. Yes, some of these goals failed and some only partially succeeded, but I aimed really high in 2011. I also learned a lot about setting goals and creating plans; information which I am going to apply to 2012 goals. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Finance, Goals, Health, Jobs, Life Lesson, Perfectionism, Relationships, Step 2 - Make A Plan Tagged With: 2011, Accomplishments, Goals, Planning, Success

What Do We Have To Be Thankful For? 7 Reasons Why This Is Indeed A Wonderful World

November 28, 2011 By Gal 1 Comment

I know it seems like the world is in trouble these days. The Euro is collapsing, congress is paralyzed with stupidity, the environment is going to the dumps, house prices are crashing, fuel prices are soaring and Black Friday shoppers are now using pepper spray on one another. So yes, it’s easy to get depressed about the state of the world and it’s easy to fall into that mode of “everything’s awful” and “we’re all doomed”. However, this isn’t just unproductive, it’s also untrue. I look at the world around me and I see wonders. I see incredible people doing amazing things and I am in awe of where we are and how quickly we’re moving forward. So today, I’d like to write down a few of these things I’m grateful for, a few things to remind myself that this is indeed a wonderful world. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Happiness, Introspection, Stress Tagged With: Communication, Environment, Gratitude, Medicine, Politics, Thanksgiving, Tolerance, Travel

Screw Reminders and To Do Lists

July 18, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

I am one of those obsessive people who has to write down everything they need to do. If I don’t write it down, I obsess about it. I think about it over and over, visualizing all the bad things that will happen if I don’t get this done on time. I stress myself out imagining the ramifications of what will happen if I forget to this task and then I obsess about whether or not I will forget it. This is true for everything. From the most important task (get an officiant for my wedding) to the least (walk the dog). Luckily for me, I found a solution to this problem a long time ago. The solution was actually in a book by David Allen called Getting Things Done which I highly recommend for anyone wrestling with organizational issues. It was a simple solution and basically called for me to write things down.

I know, I know, sounds stupid simple, but it really works. Before you start obsessing over a task, just write it down. That way you have a reminder which you can deal with later. In the meantime, you’re free to go about whatever other work you needed to do without devoting extra brain cycles to other stuff. It’s an excellent tip and one that has stayed with me for years. Unfortunately, it’s also that drives me crazy sometimes. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Goals, Perfectionism, Procrastination, Step 2 - Make A Plan, Stress Tagged With: Avoiding Stress, Projects, Reducing Stress, Stress, Tasks, To Do

Oh What A Difference A Week Makes: Lessons In Focus

May 9, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

I wrote last week about my realization that I was compromising my goals and my newfound drive to achieve them. Well, it’s been less than a week since that post but the difference is remarkable. I don’t want to be cliched and say that I feel like a whole new person but I can definitely feel the difference in attitudes and how it’s changing my life.

In the past week I’ve:

Written a new guest post for a major personal finance blogger
Met with one of the CEO of a company I worked for and I’m now helping him out with his new idea for a company
Explored a new hiking trail with my fiancée, Julie
Started training for a marathon
Learned how to make a kick ass blueberry cobbler

Note that not all of these are career related. Some of these are just a lot of fun, but that’s the whole point. Being driven doesn’t mean you spend your entire life in front of a computer pounding out presentations and business plans. It means you throw yourself into the important things in life, whether work or fun, with everything you have, holding nothing back. It means not doing things half assed, including relaxation. If you’re going to relax, relax all the way and stop checking email. If you’re going to work, work hard and stop wasting time on the little things. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Achieving Success, Drive, Goals, Procrastination Tagged With: Drive, Focus, Goals, Success

Come To Jesus Moment

May 4, 2011 By Gal 2 Comments

Ever had a come to jesus moment? I just did.

First, A Definition

A come to jesus moment is that moment when an individual is compelled by the weight of evidence and looming penalty to admit wrong doing.

Yep, I’ve done wrong. I’ve lied to you which is bad enough, but worst than that, I’ve lied to myself. Here I am telling myself that I know it all and I’ve done it all, that my life is perfect and that I have what I want. I almost managed to convince myself of that, until tonight. Tonight I had dinner with several executives from the Silicon Valley tech industry, a CEO from Singapore and a VC or two. I was sitting at one of the best steakhouses in the country with people who run multi billion (that’s with a B) organizations and I was thinking to myself, “what have I accomplished?” I looked around me and I saw men who are leaders, men who were not given what they have but won it through hard work, intelligence and a relentless drive to succeed. These men excelled at everything they put their minds to. They weren’t just great executives, they were also wonderful parents who cared deeply about their children and devoted hobbyists of various sorts. Some ran marathons, some did iron mans but all of them shared a common trait. In all cases, no matter what they did, from parenting and surfing to running companies and marathons, these men threw themselves into the task with 110% of their strength. They held nothing back and never shied from the task in front of them.

Now you may not want to be a silicon valley executive, and that’s fine and dandy, but you still want to be something, don’t you? You still want to accomplish your goals, don’t you? What is it that you dreamed about when you were a child? What was it that you saw in your dreams when you lay down to sleep? Those are the goals you had, the things that drove you forward, the things you wanted to devote yourself to 110%, as these men did to their dreams. And yes, sometimes they failed, sometimes they tried and no matter what, they could not succeed. One of the men was divorced, another had a failed start up a few years back, but they never gave up. No matter what happened, they picked themselves up and rededicated themselves to their goals. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Confidence, Drive, Procrastination, Starting Out, Step 4 - The First Step Tagged With: Drive, Goals, Motivation, Success

Be A Better Buyer or: “Why You Have A $1000 Home Gym Collecting Dust In Your Garage”

March 16, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

A few days ago I talked about the value of selling solutions from a seller’s perspective and I mentioned that you need to understand your buyer’s problem and solve it if you want them to buy. Since all of life is selling, this strategy is effective for anything from selling a product or asking for a raise, to getting a date or asking for a promotion. Always strive to understand the other party’s problem and present what you want as a solution to that problem.

Today, I’d like to talk about that from a buyer’s perspective.

Have you ever paused for a second and thought, “why did I just buy that?” Do you have one of those giant home gym machines collecting dust in your garage even though you spent a good amount of cash on it? Are you spending too much on shopping for things you don’t need? Do you keep finding yourself in a relationship where the other person is not quite what you’re looking for? If so, read on. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Decision Making, Goals, Honesty, Losing Weight, Procrastination, Step 1 - Priorities Tagged With: Buying, Dating, Decision Making, Money, Relationships, Saving Money, Selling

Don’t Use Skepticism As An Excuse For Inaction

December 21, 2010 By Gal 3 Comments

Last week Tim Ferris, of The 4-Hour Workweek fame, put out a new book called the The 4-Hour Body . In it he describes the variety of ways in which he’s hacked apart his body and put together a healthy lifestyle. It’s filled with a lot of tips, entertaining stories and a variety of pseudo science the likes of which every diet book contains. It’s even got a great section about sexual performance with a hilarious addendum on sperm donation. I picked up this book because I like Tim’s blog but I didn’t really have an intention to follow any of the ideas in it.