What lies within us...

"What lies behind us & what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Oliver Wendell Holmes

(another 1 from Covey notes)

Success

Success is on the far side of failure. T.J. Watson

Another one from my Covey notes, from chapter on "Be Proactive".

"What matters most is how we respond to what we experience." Covey 75

Excellence, Aristotle's take

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle

(read in Covey's 7 Habits...trying to digitize those old notes!)

Gladwell's The Outliers Review

Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, has written another lively book that sheds new perspectives on an important topic. This one focuses on the factors that lead to success for people, and debunks some common assumptions. He emphasizes the way environment & hard work combine for good results.

Regarding hard work, Gladwell gives us the "10,000 hour rule" in which he suggests that to achieve mastery in virtually any field, one needs at least 10,000 hours of practice. He cites as one example the young Bill Gates slipping out in the middle of the night as a teen to program on a nearby mainframe; and the Beatles getting their 10,000 hours through long 8 hour gigs they did in their early days at a club in Germany.

In a chapter “The Trouble with Geniuses Part 2” Gladwell talks about how a stark difference in parenting styles between upper middle class families vs. lower SES families contributes to very different outcomes. He contrasts the story of a guy with an IQ higher than Einstein’s that winds up struggling because of tough family background (mother forgets to fill out financial aid form so he can’t go to college) with parents who had both skills and an inclination to supported their talented children.

But there's also an important element of chance that underlies the story of success. He points out that Gates (and other early tech entrepreneurs) happened to come of age at a time when there was great opportunity in there field, and circumstances provided them opportunities to develop the skills needed to capitalize on the opportunity. And even simple things such as the month one is born can contribute to success (if you want to make the NHL better hope you're born in January!).

I wouldn't quite put this on par with Tipping Point, which was a highly influential work, but this is a very entertaining and interesting read.

Atlantic Article on Joblessness

Some misc. notes on this grim but important article http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/03/how-a-new-jobless-era-will-transform-america/7919/

Disturbing re 20somethings "They’re used to checklists" & “don’t excel at leadership or independent problem solving.” from an author names Ron Alsop

Talks about problems if people get their career started during a tough economic times--they become less risk averse, develop bad habits. (this is layered on top of existing problems w the generation suggested above).

Volunteering as a way to help people stay connected?

Imagination

The man who has no imagination has no wings. - Muhammad Ali.

Twitter Tips #1

I was meeting with friends yesterday about how social media can be used in their new business. I found myself writing a rather detailed email with some follow-up points. Pasting this in here, thinking it might be useful in this form to others, and I may develop into a more full article later on.

I'd underline point that some of the detail on the social media stuff can seem overwhelming, I encourage you to not let it deter you from jumping in & trying. The more you see it as an integrated part of communicating about your business, your passion for pairings, the better it will work out.

That said, the other possible deterrent to starting on the social media (SM is the shorthand BTW) is feeling like you don't know some of the key mechanics, and I realized a few points that could use a bit of explaining. Once you get going on Twitter, an important thing to do is track who is mentioning you, i.e. they include @PairingsWF in their tweet. Generally if someone mentions you a comment back, using the "reply" function (even if it's a simple "thanks for mentioning our shop") is a good idea. So I thought I'd share a few of the basics on how this works.

-First, to see who has mentioned you, when you're logged in and are at the "Home" page (i.e. you see the stream of Tweets of people you are following), in the right-hand sidebar you'll a clickable link @pairingsWF click that, and you'll see the stream of tweets mentioning you. (granted, it will take a little time before you see much here, but there should a couple at least from me!)

-To respond to a tweet at the Twitter web interface, when you are logged in and are at the "Home" page, simply hover over the Tweet and you'll get an option to reply or retweet. The reply option starts a new tweet by you, starting with the handle of the person whom you are replying to. Then you can just compose.

Retweeting is basically sending out the message someone else has tweeted to your followers. The format is

RT @cookingchat we tasted some good wines yesterday

You are basically indicating you find the tweet interesting, useful etc, and the above format shows that it is the person you are RTing that actually made the initial comment. I'm especially inclined to retweet something that has a link to a good article or useful piece of info. You can add your own comment like this

I liked the Nebbiolo best RT @cookingchat we tasted some good wines yesterday

This shows what you are adding to the conversation, and what I said.

When using the Twitter interface, I prefer to manually do an RT (copy and paste the tweet into your new tweet window) b/c using the RT button you don't have a chance to add anything. As I mentioned, tools like Tweetdeck can be downloaded to make some of these functions a bit easier to manage.