How changing one word can change the way the you think

In Dan Pink's: Whole new mind, there's one small exercise I just fell in love. It asks to change the word "but" to word "and". I've heard same advice in negotiation skills rehearsals, but this is different. This advice is actually referring to your personal problem solving mode.

For example I used to think that I'd like to excersice more, but my kids are so little that I don't have time for it. Then I changed it to "I'd like to exercise more and my kids are so little that I don't have time for it". This got me thinking right away that I could go exericising after kids go to sleep.

Okay, maybe that seems obvious, but this has really changed the way I think for things I'd like to do or have. I've really stopped finding excuses for not doing something, but actually I've started to be more creative on problem solving.

Just try it. It might sound easy, but I bet it you'll find yourself couple of times, but I can't, but I don't have time, but I don't have money etc.. It's not that easy, but it rewarding, I promise.  

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

Is Facebook usage changing ?

Is it just me, but I have this gut feeling that amount of Facebook status updates has been going down. At least amongst my friends there used to be much more status updates during one day than there has been in last month or so.

I tried so search from web some tools or websites, which could prove my point, but there wasn't any. Almost got the impression that this is information Facebook is not sharing with us. Or then they just don't store old status updates.

Also I haven't received any new FB friend invites for some time and also the amount of others making friends are calming down. Could it be that now in FB usage has calmed down. Most of those who will join have joined and rest won't join due to principle.

I'm not saying that FB is in any ways dying, but maybe the dynamics of usage are changing. I would say there's bit more interaction, meaning more comments on posts and then there's much more links shared than previously and discussion is going around those.

Maybe this is specific to Finland or then this is just my imagination, but let's see, if this is one ff these silent signs on social media usage changing. If my guess on this usage pattern is correct, next step could be Twitter having easier way to follow up tweets related to specific links somehow. Kind of like comments on blogs or comments on FB or Buzz updates.

I'll keep on following if this is really a trend.

Book I read - "Cityboy": Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile

From play.com

I've been lately reading just business related books, so it was fun to get my hands on bit more narrative one for a change. Book still is business related and about banking world and more specifically about what's really happening in the banks of London. It's based on true experiences of the writer Geraint Anderson who was working inside the system for 12 years.

Book really tries to shock you. It feasts with dirty details how money, sex and drugs play huge role in a world full of egoistic individuals of banking. Those seem to contain mainly quite young white men. It shouldn't be no surprise to anyone involved in team sports or being part of other manly activity groups that there are lot of men like this in world. These cityboys in London, just happen to get too much money and respect out of the work they do and that makes them act like this.

The other part of the book is really about how screwed up the economic system has been. When people get short term rewards on how well they anticipated the markets and how much commissions their company gets, I can see there's room for cheating and trying to manipulate the market to get more rewards. Book attacks the most toward Hedge funds which are in this book seen as the most greedy form stock markets. Still quite equally it blames most of the cityboys beings selfish, money addicted assholes. Still I wouldn blame only the playes, I'd blame the rules.

I have an insider also in London banking system, an old friend who's been working there for 7-8 years already. I must admit that he's view to normal world is sometimes bit distorted, which kind of a proofs the point of the book. Still I don't believe it's all that bad, there's lot of really talented and motivated people out there, who are not definitely only about sex, drugs and money, but about business itself. Lot's of these cityboys really commit (read: waste) their lives to making money to themselves and their companies.

The book itself is a bit longish sometimes when Geraint tells lots and lots details about drinking and partying. Also it requires a bit of an interest towards stock markets and banking to really follow all the curiosities that are being told. Part I enjoyed the most was actually the epilogue, where author confesses that money and working like hell doesn't really matter that much and didn't really make him happy. Maybe it's just because I'm not in this banking world, and I'm just jealous. But I've really tried to think similarly for sometime already. I do enjoy working, but I still do it only for living and not the other way around.

Often there's one sentence that sticks in my mind after reading a book and the one in this book was: "Everybody just needs to make their own mistakes." That's so true. If you believe in some pattern of living bad enough, there's no one who can convince you to change the pattern. The only way is to really see the mistake yourself.

Written by +Henri Hämäläinen

One more great music streaming service - Grooveshark

I've lately almost abandoned spotify and started to use Grooveshark the most. It so damn easy to just open browser and start streaming music. My main use is for radio type of service where I let the service to decide my music, I'll only give it a hint what I like.

Actually there are two main ways I've been using in this service. Sometimes it's just fun to listen these really popular stuff and for that I just select popular from left column and hit play all. OK, there are lot of stuff I don't really like, but I can skip those easily.

Second case is, I hit Radio button low right and let it start playing different songs for me. Then I'll teach it a bit by liking and disliking some songs and soon I start to get proper music for the current mood. It's just so awesome.

If I wanna listen some specific artists, then I use other services. For me Grooveshark just works perfectly for discovering and listening some good music. I've used it so much lately, I thought it would deserve blog entry.

Give it a try, if you are not familiar with that one already.

Zero complex

I think I have zero complex. I've noticed that I just must get my to do counters to zero when those are existing.

In Gmail, Google reader, work mail and other similars, I have fixation to get unread items to zero. It doesn't mean I need to really thorougly read those, but I at least need to check the headings and see if it's something worth reading later.

Funny thing is, this same doesn't happen with Twitter or Facebook or anything else which don't have that a counter showing how many are not read.

I don't think myself as perfectionist, but certainly this has something to do with completing. I have no idea though where this fixation came from. But I guess it's easy to blame parents about all these things you do subconsciosly.  I just hope my boss is not reading this.. I would be so easy to motivate me by just having huge number on my wall showing unfinished tasks :)

Just wondering am I alone, are there others with Zero-Complex around? Maybe we should set up some support group..