Personal Development for Smart People Forums - General & Introductions

Anna Conlan

Angela — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:57:15 GMT

I would like to wish our good friend, Anna Conlan, the very best in the bold move she's making in her life -- beginning a whole new adventure in a new land! I'm really excited for her, and wanted to invite you to wish her well in this move.

They have the Internet where she's going, don't worry. :D

My Intro

Mr Anderson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:14:39 GMT

Hello everyone and thanks for taking the time to check out my 1st post! Just a little intro about myself. Found Steve's website to be a great source of information and it also helps to push one's perceived limitations. I have been into this kind of self actualization for most of my life through martial arts, philosophy, music and meditation. I've always wanted to be well rounded a Renaissance man of sorts. I then put that development on hold to go to Chiropractic School.
Found that route to be unfulfilling in many capacities. Thought it was what I wanted to do but realized that there is a greater calling for me...my own "personal legend" as it were. I am now trying to put this into action while continuing to improve myself and helping others improve themselves as well.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to seeing and learning from everyone on this forum.

I would rather die of thirst than drink from the fountain of mediocrity

A somewhat rambling introduction

Ravmar — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:23:30 GMT

Hi, thank you for reading my introduction. Never heard of Steve Pavlina until this week when Amazon.com suggested his book based on my buying history. Normally I would take hours to craft a well organized post for a first impression, but I'm going to be spontaneous this time, following the forum's suggestion to "be afraid and do it anyway". I suppose I'm afraid that it I make too many typos then no one will take me seriously. Or if I ramble on no one will want to read the post. Most of all, I'm afraid if I take the spontaneous option, I will have squandered the opportunity to make the best first impression, and will never have that opportunity again. But I'll experiment with a different style of writing than usual and see how it goes.

Steve's words have resonated with me in a powerful and unprecedented way. I've been reading his blog and book for days, just stopping to eat and sleep. Superficially, I have much in common with Steve, having attended an all-boys Catholic high school, having degrees in math and computer science, plus a background in the computer game industry.

More deeply, he writes about things I've thought to myself but never heard anyone else say. If I reviewed his blog, I think I could come up with a list of ten examples, but I'll just describe one.

In How to Make Lots of Money During a Recession, Steve writes:

Quote:

If I had to choose between being homeless and getting a full-time job, I�d go the homeless route. Having a job would be 10x worse.

That is a such a rare statement in our world. It just so happens that I have quit jobs before even without knowing what would come next, thinking to myself "I don't care. I'd rather be homeless than keep working here." I'd like to think I was being courageous, but more likely I was simply burnt-out.

I had decided to quit my last job teaching high-school in November 2008, right before the bank failures started. It would have been difficult for the kids had I left left in the middle of the year, so I stuck it out until graduation. Watching the recession unfold over those months, you'd think I'd be grateful to have a job and change my mind, but I didn't. I never regretted leaving that job. I loved the kids and they liked me, but trying to get them to learn math, a subject many of them hated and feared was too overwhelming. There were other reasons, but this post is already too long. :)

Anyway, I put a lot of effort into job-hunting, and any other year I think I would have found a job by now. I was feeling hopeless for a while, but I eventually decided to forget finding a job and make a video game on my own. I got discouraged again when I fell behind schedule (December 25 is an important deadline in this business, and it looks like I'll miss it.) That's when I randomly went to Amazon and found Steve's book. You can see why I'd be interested in the words of a successful self-employed game developer. I've gone from hopeless to hopeful, and identify myself as self-employed rather than unemployed. I consider the recession a gift, because it saved me from being trapped in a job I hate again. I may not see any profit for a long time, but I am lucky to have family to support me.

It breaks my heart that so many others are struggling in this economy.

Hello Everyone

Angelique — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:15:11 GMT

Hello, Everyone.
I am new to the forums but have been reading Steve's blog for a couple of years now. Why am I registering now?
I made an official commitment today to a purpose of growth and figured this might be a good place to get some information on tackling my first area: Self-Discipline. This is going to hurt, I know it. :)
My plans are to be an entrepreneur, so the self-discipline will come in handy.

Angelique<--- is goofy, enthusiastic, a nervous scaredy-cat that jumps anyway, not a neat roommate :o , caring, dorky, funny, and talks way too much at times while shutting up completely at others.

Hi There!

nikkiana — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:12:39 GMT

I'm Nikkiana. I found my way here because someone I follow posted a link to Steve's recent blog entry Intimacy Abundance and Label Free Relationships, and started reading some other blog entries and forum posts and sounded like an interesting space to be around...

So.... hi!

Introduction

Ben Mural — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 07:37:15 GMT

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum here, but I've read every blog post on the site and recently read Steve's book as well. Steve Pavlina has been a huge positive influence on me and continues to inspire me to grow. I hope by using this forum I can make new friends who share my interest in personal development. Two of my other passions are writing and music (listening to, performing, composing, songwriting, etc).

Brief Intro

AttackLife — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:49:42 GMT

So I stumbled across this interesting website via google and decided to join up/contribute. I've been browsing this site since yesterday and there's a lot of good content here.

I'm a 20 year old Internal Affairs undergraduate student with a minor in business administration. My main hobbies/interest are hiking, boating, baseball, basketball, and reading. From an early age I've wanted to eventually become my own boss. My grandfather was a master plumber, master electrician, a damn fine carpenter, and owned multiple residential properties and a few commercial properties as well. He sparked my curiosity, which I hope will evolve into an ambition, to become self-employed.

My parents did an excellent job raising me, although my mom can be neurotic at times :p.

Cheers from Miche (Serenity Hacker)

Serenity Hacker — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:17:58 GMT

Hello All,

I'm new to the forum and have been reading Steve's blog for quite a long time. What a wonderful place to discuss, share thoughts, insights, and inspirations! So, I thought I'd finally join!

Looking forward to poking through what's happening now, reading up, and contributing to the community when I can.

Thanks a bunch!
Miche

Happy stinkin' birthday, Dan Linehan!

Angela — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:24:01 GMT

Our darling sweetheart senior member and ex-moderator Dan Linehan is celebrating one of my very favorite birthdays to day.

Wishing you the happiest of the happiest, Dan!

Mwah!

Podcast (what are you listening right now)

mikola — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:13:25 GMT

Hi.
What are you favorites mp3-podcasts about personal development? What are you listening right now?

3 year anniversary of this forum!

seeker5 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:28:28 GMT

This month.

Hello hello!

Explinfin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:41:41 GMT

Hey everyone! I'm glad to be here at the forums.. I'm a 23 year old man from Canada. I've been reading Steve's site for a couple of years and have really found it extremely helpful! I decided to give the forums a go.

Lately I've been feeling really great.. It used to be weeks before I'd have a single good day, but now it's weeks that I go without having bad days! I'm doing great with a new blog that's seeming to be attracting a lot of attention for it's short life! It's just a baby, but healthy for sure!

I'm into alternative topics, alternative news, natural health, and things a lot of people might consider strange. I read a lot of books, run multiple websites, and am hoping to step up my business online to quit having to work a full time job.

I just wanted to say hi, and leave a little intro.

Cheers!

Allyxr is...

Allyxr — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:00:22 GMT

Okay, so this is my third attempt at writing my introduction...third charm's the time, right? ;)

metrics
Age: 27
Height: 5'3"
Weight: ~168 lbs
Alignment: True Neutral
handedness: cross-dominant (precision left, strength right)
education: bachelors, environmental studies
Permaculture design Certificate
employed?: No.
Birth order: The baby, youngest by 11 years

Past: I'm a child of alcoholic parents. They were the type who would binge for weeks on end and during this time I would be pretty much on my own until I couldn't stand it anymore and would call a brother or sister to get me out of there. I remember having the run of the house as young as three or four.

This means I am very good at staying out of trouble and thrive on solitude. My different perspective and lack of social skills made me the odd one out in school, resulting in a positive feedback loop.

I never really pursued any interests, if it involved money or taking me somewhere, it was always a huge hassle for my mother--she would complain the entire time.

I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up -- I still don't. 11 years ago, my mother died of alcoholism and all the drinking ended. And since then I really haven't changed much. Oh, I've tried al-anon and such, but the support group thing really isn't my style. Everyone is so gushy there--its annoying! And they expect me to attend meeting for the rest of my life, for better or for worse. This is something that I am unwilling to commit to. According to them I will NEVER be a normal person, I will ALWAYS have the psychic virus known as alcoholism and if I don't keep it contained by following their program, I risk infecting other, innocent people. I don't like the message. It's not very uplifting, in fact, it's downright fear-based. I don't respect anyone who uses scare tactics or intimidation. For now, I think I'll just try to keep my eyes open and my knees loose, and deal with problems as well as I have capacity to. I do see the problems and some things in my life are an either side of assertive, I'm not sure what to do about most of them, or the proposed solution is quite unpalatable.

I have also tried the one-on-one route with a therapist. Not much came of that. I.d.k., maybe they were a hack. I would've done the same, and much cheaper, with a tape recorder and a bobble head.

I started visiting this site in the fall of 2006 when I was still in college. The most influential article for me was "10 reasons you should never get a job". As hyperbolic as the article was, Steve was right on. He put into words exactly how I felt about the several jobs I have had. Most of bosses were reasonable people, I had never had any of the nightmare ones that people talked about. Well, once, but she transferred before any major scarring could occur. The ones I don't like are the middle management, they are the lords and you are the serfs and they let you know about it -- especially if they were hired on, the promoted ones were much nicer because they understand what it was like to be us. If Steve had ever been a temporary employee, he would have mentioned the phenomenon known as "Temp-Cooties", where your coworkers shun you because you are not a REAL, PERMANENT employee. No one wants to get caught cavorting with a possible spy!

So yeah, my views on getting and keeping a job are pretty strong ones, much to the annoyance of concerned love ones who think they know what's best for me better than I do and take it upon themselves to harangue me about getting a job every time I see them, which results in me wanting to avoid them; what has been seen, cannot be unseen :eek:. I can't go back on what I believe, and still be true to myself. Trouble is, it's so much easier to be against one thing than to be for something else. I have just enough self-respect to not want a job. And while I have many ideas for self-employment, I don't seem to have the ability to act on them. At the root of it is a lack of courage. The only cure for cowardice seems to be courage :confused: .

I have adopted the paleo diet. And it cleared up what I thought was depression. After eating wheat, especially bread, I get this very mild gut pain, so mild that I actually feel it as much in my head and as a general fatigue. Sugar will do a similar thing although that is right away. This week I was tested for food allergies and celiac disease, I'll know my results next week.

So since being on this diet, my energy levels have gone up, am not so bloated or depressed. And I have lost about 9 pounds so far. I was getting frustrated, though. I have all this energy, I actually want to fix things in my life. But I never had anything to show for it. So I grabbed a piece of lined paper and wrote down the hours of the day. By each hour, I would work on each task. That was a great day. I tried it again and nothing came of it, I did some of it and then wandered off, distracted.

I tried it again but I guessed the amount of time and put several items in an hour and got really behind that I just quit mid-morning. Hofstadter's Law applies. Tomorrow I'll probably go back to one item per hour. Even if it is a simple quick task, it all evens out because some of the larger tasks take longer than a hour.

Hello

Annemieke — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:39:29 GMT

My name is Annemieke and I am from the Netherlands. I have been reading on this forum for about a week now and think it is really very interesting.

I already found some great blogs through this forum and especially like the 'common sense' combined with the 'beyond the measurable' which is the overall feeling I get from many people here.

I am very interested in individual development and also how that 'develops' in history.

Most of the time I am more a reader than a writer on forums, but here I wanted to react a few time already. And now that I introduced myself I actually might do that.

Enabling forum avatars

Steve Pavlina — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:03:31 GMT

We're currently doing a little experiment with enabling forum avatars. The avatar is the little pic next to my handle. For now they're available for mods and admins, and if it looks good, we'll open it to senior members next, and if that works, then to regular members.

If used intelligently avatars can add a more personal touch to the forums, but they can also create more of a moderation burden if abused, so we're not committing fully to this yet -- just testing the idea for now to see how this affects the community.

Avatars can only be static pics -- no animated stuff.