10 Hobbies that Separate Winners from Loosers

[Asmoday]

Well, its my first "number" post, with the 10 Hobbies.

I studied a lot of successful people, and noted how they spent their leisure time, in terms of specifically what they developed, and noticed some interesting commonalities.

Article here:

10 Hobbies that Separate Winners from Loosers

Thoughts? Reactions? Constructives? Flameage?

[brendannz]

Good ideas, but one I disagree with;

I don't think languages are such an important hobby. It can be worth taking on a challenge, but it takes A LOT of effort, for possibly no practical reward.

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by brendannz

Good ideas, but one I disagree with;

I don't think languages are such an important hobby. It can be worth taking on a challenge, but it takes A LOT of effort, for possibly no practical reward.

You know, I would have said that *before*, too.

That one, and the survival skills shocked me. I talked with one painter with her own gallery, even she had taken basic CPR and disaster preparedness.

Which, I admit, it might be the mindset that promotes the skill acquisition, with certain mindsets being more successfull -- but its a vice-versa equation.

But, every successful person I got face time with, either knew one or more foreign languages fluently, made it a point to pick up bits and pieces from many languages, or somewhere in-between.

So, I had to list it.

Thanks for your time!

[aelle]

Originally Posted by brendannz

Good ideas, but one I disagree with;

I don't think languages are such an important hobby. It can be worth taking on a challenge, but it takes A LOT of effort, for possibly no practical reward.

Speak for yourself! My life would be nowhere near what it is today if I didn't speak any foreign languages. I wouldn't be writing to you, for one thing.

And, as Asmoday puts it, it works the other way around too. I would be a different person too if languages (and what goes with it - world travel, confronting other cultures, expatriation) left me apathetic.

[Izanagi]

I agree 100% with aelle. Being able to speak foreign languages has completely changed my life.

And speaking of language, what is a "looser"? A person that loosens things?

[brendannz]

Originally Posted by aelle

Speak for yourself! My life would be nowhere near what it is today if I didn't speak any foreign languages. I wouldn't be writing to you, for one thing.

And, as Asmoday puts it, it works the other way around too. I would be a different person too if languages (and what goes with it - world travel, confronting other cultures, expatriation) left me apathetic.

Yep, I am speaking for myself.. I'd like to learn many new languages, it's just a "would it be worth the time I invested into it" matter for me.. otherwise, I wouldn't criticise anybody else who learnt a new language, or anybody who is going to.

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by Izanagi

I agree 100% with aelle. Being able to speak foreign languages has completely changed my life.

And speaking of language, what is a "looser"? A person that loosens things?

Oh. Crap. LOL. That's what I get for writing on sleep-dep. Thanks!

[Twinma]

I only view martial arts as a hobby the rest sound like life skills.

[LVGeneration]

I have one question, how would you define 'winner' and 'loser'? Does it have to do with financial success in your opinion, or more with the level of erudition? Or perhaps a 'winner' would be a person defined by an ensemble of financial abundance, social power, solid education, exemplary family life, all topped off by an exudation of happiness?

So, if a person were not perfect, as my hypothesized 'winner' appears to be, and did not conquer one area of interest, like, let's say, happiness, would that person lose his/her 'winner' status and fall under the 'loser' category? I know, as I'm sure you do as well, that powerful, rich people aren't automatically happy, nor necessarily bright/educated, so are they losers or winners? How about your average John Doe that works at a pizzeria and makes $10 an hour, but finds happiness every day in little things, and is perfectly contented with his life? Is he a 'loser'?

I am very interested in knowing how you (anybody reading this) would define 'winner' and 'loser'. Maybe I should open a new thread for this? Hmmm...

[Asmoday]

For the purposes of this article, while I did study many with sizeable resources, my criteria for winners were:

1) Darkworkers (conscious of it or not).
2) At minimum, living at a level most of us would consider comfortable.
3) Decent health, happy with their relationships.
4) Most importantly, clearly exuding a general sense of happiness and peace.

But no, they weren't ALL six-figure CEO's. But, a good chunk.

[Asmoday]

And, in this case, pizza delivery guy doesn't qualify.

1) Content is not good enough
2) Exhilarated is a better metric for this purpose, and that does, facts be told, require a little more than 10 an hour and pizza smelling clothes.



The guy has achieved equilibrium, happy with survival -- doesn't constitute thriving bliss, IMHO.

[LifeFirst]

So who does this list apply to? People who live in the US?

What about people who live in the slums in Mumbai India??

Are they all losers then?

[Asmoday]

Originally Posted by LifeFirst

So who does this list apply to? People who live in the US?

What about people who live in the slums in Mumbai India??

Are they all losers then?

Ahem: "2) At minimum, living at a level most of us would consider comfortable."

Adjust comfortable to the relative standard of the country, but obviously the article was written for those in the developed nations, or those wealthy enough to access the internet, in general. I highly doubt someone in the slums of Mumbai, who can barely afford food, is cruising their laptop on the local Wifi...

So, no, under those conditions, I doubt those in the slums of Mumbai would be considered "comfortable", or "thriving, living all their wildest dreams", if you asked them, or anyone, for that matter.

Are we going to not examine the success/non-success points the article makes, and be lazy and focus on the word "loser" here? Awesome, lets totally not have a productive discussion, and degenerate into semantics.

[aelle]

Originally Posted by LifeFirst

So who does this list apply to? People who live in the US?

What about people who live in the slums in Mumbai India??

Are they all losers then?

Can you explain why you see this article as americanocentric? I don't think it is.

[LVGeneration]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

Are we going to not examine the success/non-success points the article makes, and be lazy and focus on the word "loser" here? Awesome, lets totally not have a productive discussion, and degenerate into semantics.

Thank you for your response, I now can say I understand where you're coming from a bit more, and I apologize if I degenerated into semantics or came across as lazy. I thought I was contributing a little to the productivity of the discussion by asking an honest question in order to better grasp the meaning of the article, but if I didn't and caused deviation instead I apologize again.

I enjoyed the article and found it interesting, the points you make seem valid. Knowledge building is definitely a good hobby to have, and I would also identify with the 6th one on your list, languages.
But my favorite has to be no. 7, Goal Review: 'We Guru’s keep telling you to do it, and all the time, I find people not f***ing doing it. But, that’s okay. Don’t cry when the person who took the time to write, “Find (Insert Your Name Here), and Kick Their Ass” on an index card, actually swings by your house and achieves their goals". Lol. That was funny. I guess I'd better go make some index cards now, just in case the person that wants to kick my ass did listen to you, Gurus.

On a more serious note, I have many more questions to clarify about concepts your article uses, but I guess being related to semantics I won't ask them here, to ensure the productivity of the discussion. So, although my understanding of your point of view is limited, I've deduced from your article that I am a loser. That's totally OK, I assume it was written for us, losers, anyway, as a motivational/educational tool for advancement to winner status. It's funny, I've never called or thought of myself as a loser before, but again, semantics...who needs it? It's just a word for "I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it", right?

[SomeRandomGuy]

I think the problem with articles such as this is that it only really applies to people who hold the same beliefs as you on what being a "winner" means, or who want to be considered a winner by you.

There are many people who hold the view that winning in life has little to do with status, material wealth, how they are perceived by others, etc. For those people, the article seems less applicable.

That's not to say that the material isn't valuable. I'm just pointing out that it isn't an absolute, as it is presented.

[Brutha]

If you make that claim that you can separate a loser from a winner that way, how about gathering data and seeing whether your thesis holds up?

[Melchior]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

Thoughts? Reactions? Constructives? Flameage?

Very nice, thank you.

[The Rock]

Well, I only agree with the Survival Skills, Knowledge Building, Goal Review, Rhetoric, and the Creativity parts. But things like language acquisition (English excepted) and meditation aren't really necessary. And believe me, I'm speaking from experience. I know 4 languages: Hindi, English, Sanskrit, French. Only English is really useful for most people. Now Hindi is useful for me since I'm an Indian but for non-Indians learning it won't really bring any extra benefit. As far as French is concerned, it has been absolutely useless for me. Unless you intend to stay in a country where the respective language is spoken, learning new language has zero practical value (again, English excepted).

Martial Arts aren't necessary either. Most types of martial arts and actually just made for show and have no practical self-defense value. In real-life street fighting those fancy maneuvers will just get you killed or injured...

[Tympani]

*punches air* Yes! I find this list exciting, and a reflection of many things I've wanted to do anyway. (Martial arts? Learning another language? Survival skills? Hell yes!)

This was very motivating.
I do have a question, though.

What kind of goals are you talking about, here?
Goals that take years to achieve, only months, or does it matter?

My big goal at the moment is to graduate from college with my Bachelor of Science in Geology (still fine tuning the details, but I start next month). And then go on to get my Masters. Is that a good 'index card goal', or should I pick something I could reasonably achieve in less than a year? Break the big goals down?

Thanks for the clarification, and great post!

[Mounds]

I quite like the article. There's a lot of wisdom there. In fact, I practice 9/10, among other things (no meditation for me thanks!).
Also, I find these skills/hobbies to be accessible. If you don't watch TV, you could excel at them. It's probably pretty cheap too. You can go to the library and get books on almost anything, including technical skills.
As for languages being useless, yes and no. In our business (growing produce), we find more and more that were dealing with people who speak... Spanish. How handy would it be if we could speak their language? In the world of business, language definately has it's place. Even more so, body language.
What I took from this article is that you shouldn't let yourself stagnate. Constantly learn, constantly improve.

-Tim

[The Rock]

Originally Posted by Mounds

I quite like the article. There's a lot of wisdom there. In fact, I practice 9/10, among other things (no meditation for me thanks!).
Also, I find these skills/hobbies to be accessible. If you don't watch TV, you could excel at them. It's probably pretty cheap too. You can go to the library and get books on almost anything, including technical skills.
As for languages being useless, yes and no. In our business (growing produce), we find more and more that were dealing with people who speak... Spanish. How handy would it be if we could speak their language? In the world of business, language definately has it's place. Even more so, body language.
What I took from this article is that you shouldn't let yourself stagnate. Constantly learn, constantly improve.

-Tim

In the world of business, it's better to hire someone who's fluent in both English & Spanish than to learn it yourself.

[Captain Drywall]

Someone who speaks two languages is called : bilingual
Someone who speaks three languages is called: Trilingual
Someone who speaks one language is called: An American


Got that one from a Czech friend

[ahazaq2]

Awesome. I love it. It's basically a "How to become cultured and improve your life in general" guide.

[FindingRoni]

Originally Posted by ahazaq2

Awesome. I love it. It's basically a "How to become cultured and improve your life in general" guide.

I agree. I bet more people would feel the same if it had been titled '10 Hobbies to Improve your Life'. I have a problem with labels and what appears to me to be 'name calling'. I'm not saying I don't ever use labels or call names.... but I think we greatly detract from what we are saying when we resort to that.

[Mirius]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

Oh. Crap. LOL. That's what I get for writing on sleep-dep. Thanks!

Unfortunately that isn't the reason. Reading your archive, its a mistake that is really, really irritating I really wish you'd take ten minutes and do a search and replace because it occurs many times in a lot of your posts.

[RagsToRiches]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

Well, its my first "number" post, with the 10 Hobbies.

I studied a lot of successful people, and noted how they spent their leisure time, in terms of specifically what they developed, and noticed some interesting commonalities.

Article here:

10 Hobbies that Separate Winners from Loosers

Thoughts? Reactions? Constructives? Flameage?

Awww geeze man, write with smaller damn paragraphs.

I'm not up for this huge muscular paragraphs at this time of night..

That's advice from a pro-journalist by the way...

[spirit4711]

Originally Posted by Asmoday

For the purposes of this article, while I did study many with sizeable resources, my criteria for winners were:

1) Darkworkers (conscious of it or not).

Does that mean lightworkers can't be winners? (And losers either? )

Nice article. Sums it up pretty good.

One thing on the survival point. I don't think hunting and fishing are necessary skills. You can live off fruit and veggies too. Plus, as most of us are now more used to city environments I think it's better to practice city survival skills. But getting back to nature is a plus, even if it is a risk to the survival of city types .

[Acting Like Godot]

10 hobbies?

Hands up, those of you who can honestly say you have 10 hobbies at the same time, of any kind.

Must be unemployed.

[Cochonette]

Originally Posted by brendannz

Yep, I am speaking for myself.. I'd like to learn many new languages, it's just a "would it be worth the time I invested into it" matter for me.. otherwise, I wouldn't criticise anybody else who learnt a new language, or anybody who is going to.

I agree with you Brendan. If you don't speak a major language like English, then the odds of learning a foreign language benefiting your life vastly are much higher. But if English is your native language, you don't need a foreign language to have a vast amount of life options unless you have specific interests that require it. Personally, I used to be really into study languages. I studied French, Romanian, Swahili, Japanese, and a little bit of Spanish. But now I just wish I had studied more Spanish because there are so many Spanish-speakers around. French enriches my life, but I haven't been able to go to a place where people speak French, so it hasn't been particularly useful. Now I am really tired of studying languages... so much time, for what? I am too busy learning about everything else to study a foreign language at the moment. Eventually I would like to learn Spanish for practical reasons, but other than that, no big deal.

I am pleasantly surprised to see martial arts on there. That makes a big difference in my life. But, really... I am surprised it's the "successful" people all learning martial arts as opposed to just physical/athletic skills in general.

I love this list, anyway. I am going to keep in mind those that I am lacking.