Category Archives: Introductions to…

Top 3 Business Books for Mental and Financial Independence

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve read over 100 business books, courtesy of ignoring homework and summers uninterrupted by school. Most business books begin to blur together after a while, because the concepts which they rely upon are, for the most part, the same. Theoretically, by reading any combination of business or self-help books with a discerning eye, you can pick up the key ideas for our generation. This series of posts will cover the books I’ve found most clearly illuminate those key ideas.

Photo by Kamil Porembiński, Click for Flickr

I’ve arranged the most useful books into a framework similar to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which distinguishes between habits of Independence and habits of Interdependence. It is exactly what it seems: Habits of Independence involve self-mastery, while habits of Interdependence involve success within an organization.

Stephen Covey’s classic is missing one element, though – being so focused on habits of individuals, it forgoes a bigger picture view that I found in other resources. So, to paraphrase Mr. Covey’s imperatives and add one of my own, I divided these resources into three categories, each of which I’ll cover in its own post:

  • Individual
  • Organizational
  • Universal

Make sure to sign up for updates at the end of the post to get the series as they come.

These are the three books I found the most helpful for developing a mindset of changing the world for the better, whether it’s your personal life, your business or organization, or literally tackling a world problem.

Disclosure: The links provided are Amazon Affiliate links. If you do decide to purchase through them, I receive a percentage of the revenue.

Top 3 Books for Individual Independence

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

This is a classic, and for good reason. As advertised, it goes over seven simple, yet profound habits that will change your life for the better, if applied. Again, while they are simple concepts, it’s remarkable how easy it is to forget those steps when starting any new venture. I found Habits 4 and 5 the most shocking and useful:

  • Habit 4: Win Win Solutions (or nothing at all)
  • Habit 5: Seek first to Understand, Then to be Understood

A quick rundown of the 7 Habits can be found on Wikipedia for those who don’t want to buy the book or can’t afford it. Even so, you can find a copy at your local library or bookstore and leaf through it. It is worth writing the habits down on a piece of paper and carrying it with you until they are ingrained in your mind.

Give it a try.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Getting Things Done is another classic, though I found it to be more of an actual toolkit than a mental toolkit. In it, David Allen describes a state of productivity Zen that can be achieved by having everything accounted for and in its proper place, in an exterior, trustworthy system. The most important concepts I got out of GTD were:

  • Commitments, problems, and ideas that are not written down or otherwise recorded negatively affect your energy and thus, your performance.
  • These thoughts must be placed into storage and reminder systems that are utterly reliable and thus not a source of worry in themselves.
  • Every project should have a “Next Action” that is actionable and explicit. “Meet with Mark” becomes “Call Mark to confirm meeting time and location”

David goes on to describe many systems that he uses to remain productive. After trying many of them, I finally heeded his advice to read the book more like a toolkit or a cookbook than a bible, and cherry picked the systems I liked.

This website covers almost everything in a thorough manner, but again, this book is well worth reading through. If we were computers, we could read something once and follow it to the letter, but we’re human. It sometimes takes a few hundred pages to hammer the thought in just right.

The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated

There is one driving thought behind all of Timothy Ferriss’s works, and that is the Pareto Principle:

From Wikipedia:
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80-20 rule, the law of the vital few, and the principle of factor sparsity) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

The 4-Hour Workweek applies that to concept to income. How can you best use your limited time on Earth, and how can you create disproportionate cashflow with almost insignificant behavioral changes?

There is such a significant body of tools and methods in this book that it is almost impossible to summarize other than what I have already said. Suffice to say that it is a compelling read.

So now you know how to achieve any goal and why it matters ( 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) as well as what to do at the right time and the right place (Getting Things Done). Furthermore, you should know that almost anything is possible (The 4-Hour Workweek).

In the next post, I’ll cover books I found useful for Organizations.

Questions? Comments? Did I leave out a book, or should I take one off the list? Comments are love, so leave a comment! And don’t forget to sign up for updates by email.

Family

Posted on by
Reply

Whenever people ask how it’s been living with my cousin, I’ve found it pretty difficult to explain. I instinctively want to say, “It’s like living with family,” but I’ve found more and more over the years that family, tragically, does not mean to others what it means to me.

My earliest memories are of family. They are of kissing my newborn cousin. Running with my cousins through the halls. My uncle’s scratchy mustache. My aunts and my grandmother cooking, beautiful aromas wafting through the house. My dad coming home at 11:30 and me and my siblings staying up (so late!) to surprise him. Running underneath the tables of a restaurant during a family gathering, playing tag with my sisters and cousins, and then being carried out of a car, only semi-conscious, afterward.

Then, as we grew up, we cousins figured out how to buy candy for each other. Remarkable how money worked to share joy! And then we grew into our other shared passions – pogs, Pokemon, and videogames. We held sleepovers as much as possible when we discovered how the phone worked. My aunt’s house is the first number I memorized, and it’s still in my muscle memory. In this day and age, where cell phones dial for us, I still remember most of my cousins’ house numbers.

To me, it’s simple. Family, and I mean my extended family as well, means tranquility. Peace. That is our shared story. I can always tell my family the complete truth. I hold no ill will toward any of my family, and none, I hope, hold any toward me. I have been amazingly lucky and blessed.

I recently graduated. It’s a turning point, I suppose. But I have such a strong sense of peace from the idea of returning home that I feel relief and joy rather than fear, as so many graduates do.

So when people ask me how it’s been living with my cousin, Kevin, I respond, “It’s like living with family.” And I know that I need to explain that, but I don’t. There’s too much to explain. Too many funny stories, too many family camping trips, too many proud moments.

Thank you. You are my family. You made me who I am. You inspire me to be someone better.

And sometimes you forget and leave me in gas stations, but that’s alright.

It builds character.

Do the Impossible

Posted on by
3

On Saturday, I walked across a stage and was presented with a certificate. And so, after a long, tumultuous journey, I graduated from the University of Illinois with a Bachelor’s degree in East Asian Languages and Culture.

My GPA is terrible. My major is irrelevant to my interests. I pissed off countless professors, organizations, and administrators. But I wouldn’t change a thing. Personally, I’ve had a rich and rewarding five years, full of friends who have taught me more than a college class ever did.

But if I’ve learned one thing during college, I’ve learned that life is exactly what you make of it. So how do we make the most of this tenuous existence, this brief mortal coil? I can’t say the exact right answer for you, but…

Here’s what I did, and what I’m still doing.

  1. Do everything.
  2. Do the impossible.
  3. Nothing is impossible.

I’m SURE you’ve heard the advice that you should do what motivates you, do what you like, and to follow your passions. That’s true…if you know what you like. If you don’t know what you like, that advice is pretty useless.

1) Do Everything

You don’t know what you want? That’s fine. Doing everything you can possibly think of should help you figure yourself out. Study abroad in Zimbabwe. Help feed the homeless. Tutor a child. Tutor an adult. Pancake club? Alright. Hang gliding? Skydiving? Bungee jumping? Great. Public speaking? Wonderful.

Try it and move on if it doesn’t work out for you.  Keep an open mind, but when it starts to feel shitty, move on to the next thing. There is SO MUCH to experience in this world, there’s no point in getting dragged into something you don’t want.

And when you find something you do want to do, you can always pursue it. You can always come back for it, to explore as deeply as you could wish for.

2) Do the Impossible

You know that thing you’ve always wanted to do, or try, or be world-class at? Or that personality trait that you’ve always admired in the person you look up to? Or an impossible dream of yours?

Remember your dreams. Make a list. Then title it “To-Do”.

It is impossible to jump into the air, spin like crazy, and land safely. It is impossible to silence people in an entire building with just your voice. It is impossible to learn fifteen dances in four weeks and then perform them.

It is impossible to write a novel in a month. It is impossible to walk from Urbana to Chicago in 36 hours. It is impossible to live out of your car for an entire semester.

3) Nothing is Impossible

Those are all examples of things I have done. I better than succeeded for some, I outright failed others, but overall, I learned more than I could have ever hoped.

When you set yourself to achieve something impossible, your heart races when you think about it. You get up to pace around the room.  You think about what you’ve done to prepare, and even then, you feel like you’re not ready.

And you’re not.

But that’s okay.

You will fail. It is not, in and of itself, something to celebrate, but if you truly challenge yourself, it is inevitable. Failure is only another word for not having succeeded yet. Babies fail  at our day to day activities constantly. We celebrate when they say a single word, take a single step, and then before you know it, they’re speaking in full sentences and running headlong into the future. Celebrate small successes, because they will build.

Learning from those failures, meanwhile, is something to truly celebrate. Sure, I didn’t walk all the way to Chicago. Was it the heat? Was it the time constraints? Physical preparation? For 6 years, I failed to complete National Novel Writing Month. I ran out of ideas. I didn’t give it enough of my day. I limited myself too much. Perhaps most traumatically of all, in another time and age, I failed in my role as Executive Chair of MAASUand resigned. I learned not to do what I don’t believe in. I learned not to take responsibility without accountability. I learned, much later, that the pain of failure is only a tenth of the pain of believing that you are a failure. But learn, I did.

When facing the impossible, failure is almost overwhelmingly the outcome unless you try harder than you ever have before. Train harder, run longer than you ever have for that marathon. Plan obsessively for hours to figure out how you’re going to put that performance together in three days. Seek out pivotal people who have been in your shoes, people who have started that business, reinvented that industry, changed the world. It’s the passion of panicking, and it’s incredibly powerful.

When you finally manage to do what you once thought was impossible, it’s like being given the keys to the world. Anything is possible. You’ll see that it always was, but you never imagined or never believed in your own potential.  You’ll curse the time you wasted and promise never to misapply yourself again.  You probably will, but that’s another story. After doing the impossible, you’re euphoric and triumphant and you have every right to be.

Do the Impossible. Redefine it. And remember, you measure your own success.

"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level."

Shoring up the Sand

Posted on by
1

Remember playing on the beach as the tide rose, making sand castles and divots? Do you remember watching as the water ran into the moats and tore down the shifting walls?  And then rushing to repair them before the next huge wave came pounding in?

Shoring up the sand.

That’s what I’ll be doing.

It’s been hard to avoid noticing over the years that dependability is my worst weaknesses, and yet it’s one of the most important traits to have.  For instance, the little community that has sprung up around the Champaign Urbana Tricksters (CUT) is primarily a function of my going to trick session every Friday.

There are countless examples, but that is the one nearest and dearest to my heart right now.

So, in order to shore up the sand and prove that I can be dependable, I’ll be posting every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Let’s start with this month and see where that takes us.

Let’s go!

What Flying Taught Me – Tricking for Life

Posted on by
5

I am a Tricker.

This means that I can jump into the air, rotate 360 degrees along whatever axis I please, and land without damaging myself.

This is the least of what flying has taught me.

For me, tricking has a long history. If you boil tricking down to its essential concepts, it is simply:

  1. Jumping
  2. Rotating

I started both at a young age. In fact, many do. Both are very natural motions: jumping, and rolling, really. As a child, I copied a move from Sonic the Hedgehog while play fighting with my older brother. I employed the Sonic Dash (AKA front roll) on him until he sidestepped and I ran into a wall. That was tricking, pain and all.

Tricking was there when I started to copy moves from the martial arts movies I’d seen. The fancy kicks, jumps, and spins. Tricking was there when my brother taught me the butterfly kick, which I would tweak and improve through the years. But mostly, Tricking was there when I hobbled on a bad ankle, bruised shins/waist/knees, dirty and scuffed arms.

Tricking was there when I looked up at myself in my reflection and thought about how cool it would be to place a foot on a reflected surface, foot to foot, almost like my reflection actually was a real body, equally and oppositely balancing me. Then running at it, placing my foot beautifully just so, living that dream, and then, with nowhere else to go, flipping over backward.

A wall flip

Tricking was also there when I tried the second time and landed on my face. In fact, Tricking was laughing at me. I had failed the second time because I had hesitated.

What flying taught me was fear. Visceral fear. Fear of death. Fear of injury. Fear of the unknown. But most of all, what Tricking taught me was to be afraid of fear itself. Besides the cliche, the physical reality is that hesitation and fear must be erased from physical performance in tricking, otherwise injuries increase many times. Incomplete moves are much more injurious than completed or overly rotated moves. If you stop halfway through a backflip, you are upside down and headed for the hospital at 9.8 meters per second squared.

What flying taught me was to fear, then, as I picked myself up off of the floor, dusted myself off, and cataloged my injuries, to hate fear. To hate the small voice inside that clung to me as I leapt, froze my muscles as I tucked in tight, screamed bloody murder as I saw the ground rushing up for me, then smugly said “I told you so. Don’t try that again,” as I lie, broken, on the floor.

What flying taught me was to hate the weakness in me that limited me to what I knew. It taught me to assess the risks and the rewards. It taught me that when you rise to the occasion, you do so with your entire heart and soul or you risk pain and suffering and debilitating mental and physical scars. It taught me that to even barely succeed, you must first set your sights as high as you can, and then leap toward it with everything you’ve got.

That’s why I walked to Chicago. That’s why I lived out of my car for a semester. That’s why, every year, I write a book in a month. That’s why I will continue to live my life to the fullest that I can, because I don’t even know what I’m capable of until I push myself higher. And I plead that you do the same.

This is what flying taught me.

The Art of Seduction

Posted on by
Reply

     A few years ago, I was challenged by a friend to read Neil Strauss’s book The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pick Up Artists. Basically, it followed the journey of the author, Neil Strauss, as he struggled to gain mastery over the art of picking up women. He made himself into a new person, with a new name: Style. No woman could resist Style.

     After reading through this tome and following the progression of Style from a zero to a pick up pro, I began to apply the concepts and strategies to my own life. It was difficult at first. It seemed like how to be rejected was the only thing I was learning. But slowly, I began to have minor successes, which snowballed into major successes and before I knew it, I had 9′s and 10′s fighting over me in clubs and making me eggs in the morning.

     Yeah, that was all bullshit. A nice story, though, right?

     I read the book, but what I took away from it was at once more and less than the Art of Seduction. What I took away from it was more like footnotes for something more important to me – the Art of Life. What had happened to change Neil Strauss was entirely his doing. The person he had become was completely himself, yet completely and thoroughly put together in a conscious way to attract women. This resonated with me on some level, but I wouldn’t know how to put the pieces together until I talked to a friend about it much later.

     Pickup made me uneasy. Pickup artists struck me as inauthentic, craven beasts who calculated every move. I would read someone’s opinion online that pickup artists viewed women as nothing more than masturbatory aids, and I agreed. It felt that it was demeaning to women and dehumanizing. There was a part of me that was tempted to try it out, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It didn’t fit with what I believed, it could end up hurting people, and I was too scared.

     Years later, I would meet a real pickup artist, though his days were behind him, at least for the moment. We became good friends. Finally, when the topic came about during a long drive, I asked my friend how pick up artists could be authentic, to which he responded that it was “about being yourself…about being your best self,” and furthermore that people only got hurt if you failed to communicate your intentions fully. He said he looked at it more as bringing adventure into girls’ lives. I began to realize that this was something I might be able to get behind. I began to realize that pickup and seduction could be a positive thing.

     But the biggest takeaway for me was that it was about becoming a better person by dint of your own hard work. “Better” was whatever you wanted better to mean…for pickup artists, that meant they attracted women. For me, while that may have played a part, the message was that wasn’t the best me that I could be…yet. And having a clearer idea of who that person was to me was a good first step. I figured if I was my best me, there’s no way I couldn’t also be attractive. Just live my life the best way I can think of, and everything else will fall in order. I still believe it.

     Recently, I began to delve into reddit’s seduction sub-community. After reading this guide and poking around the community for a bit, I found a post asking how pickup artists reconciled their seductive ways with long term relationships. There was a response about how everything was about power, which I didn’t think fully explained how an enlightened PUA viewed it. So I responded:

I’m responding to you because you seem to find this a place of darkness. Some things you should read up on:

Seduction – meaning “to lead astray,” or “to attract,” courtesy of quazzy.

Lifers v Gamers – Lifers use the game to better themselves, gamers use the game to take advantage of people.

With that out of the way, how I reconcile seduction with a real relationship very much so adheres to the definition of “to attract” and the goals of a “lifer.” The primary message of seduction, for me, is “to attract” by being yourself…not someone that you discover somewhere in the hinterlands of your soul, but someone who you create. It’s an uplifting message – that, whoever or whatever you consider yourself now, you can forge someone better out of it, better by standards that you set yourself.

I believe that you do not discover yourself. You create yourself. There’s a great book called “It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be,” and the same goes for your personality. It’s not who you are, it’s who you want to be. If you have that going for you, your confidence will be attractive by itself, and if you want to be even more attractive, you can be that as well.
As for how this works out for long term relationships, the more comfortable you are being yourself, the more agency you have in your personality, the more likely you are to click with the right person, because you are putting out 100% your own personality. The only thing left is to find the right person. And getting to know someone, getting them to open up, is an important part of that.

There is a positive, affirmative way to look at seduction. Just ignore the gamers and the gamer mentality and seddit won’t be as dark a place anymore. I strongly hope that makes you less depressed about this subreddit, especially if you’re going to stick around.

     Basically…the way I see seduction is that if you’re good at life, you’ll do just fine at love.

     Tweakin’ out because I haven’t slept in 25 hours, so I’ll just leave it at that.

The Sing Off (Season 2)

Posted on by
Reply

     I watched the finale of the Sing Off, Season 2, and I couldn’t stop grinning. In fact, an hour and a half later, I still can’t help but grin a little bit when I think about it. As the season wrapped up, I became more and more convinced of a feeling that I’d had all throughout the show.

     Every competition should be like this.

     The artists were united by their craft, but they also weren’t pitted against each other. They were humble. They rooted for each other. The judges weren’t always completely professional, which is a good thing in my opinion, but they were completely honest and understandable. They had insightful things to say. They were supportive. The MC wasn’t an idiot.

     And at the end, there were only winners left. Career wise, all of the groups were set and could book shows just by being on the show, and each one made it by virtue of talent. But besides career and skill, what I really meant was that, in the end, with two groups left, they spent more time hugging each other after the winner was announced than they spent paying attention to the MC who was trying to give them their prize. And that’s what singing is about. That’s what dancing is about. That’s what art is about. It’s about reaching out and bringing people together.

     So, Sing Off Season 3…bring it on!

K, so I’ve been living in a car, right?

Posted on by
2

     I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned so much that I don’t have the energy or willpower to dredge up what I’ve learned right now, on a moment’s notice. So perhaps I shall merely write a list and then expound upon it later.

  • Independence is worth it.
  • Less is more.
  • Strength is what you make it.
  • Life is what you make it.
  • Keep a diary.
  • Don’t park far the fuck away from everything to go to sleep, it’s a waste of time.
  • Don’t park in shady parking lots with nails. WTF.
  • Hang out often.
  • Hygiene improves?
  • Health improves?
  • Cheapness is only worth so much
  • Two sleeping bags. Woot. Maybe three when it gets colder. What a dumbass strategy.
  • Life is easier when someone’s got your back.
  • Lock your doors. If nothing else, less interruptions by potheads when you’re trying to sleep.
  • My dream is a van.
  • I laugh every time I realize I can take my whole life anywhere with a road.
  • Food is a luxury.
  • Whatever I started out thinking this would be, it is now something else. I have no regrets
  • “Where do you live?” *thinks of last place I parked* “I live at *last place I parked*.” It’s just easier.
  • A place to call home is a luxury I yearn for more and more. Constantly dreaming of home.
  • Laundry is a bitch!
  • Computer labs are wonderful.
  • Free stuff is wonderful. But not if it takes up space.
  • Dreams can make any kind of life worth it.
  • Listen and understand.
  • One friend saying “Yes” is worth the world. Thank you.
  • Anything is possible.
  • Anything is possible.
  • Anything is possible.
  • Truth.
  • Love.
  • Hope

     It’s incomplete, but it’ll do. In fact, perhaps a bit too verbose and more than half of it is written to myself. But, in that vein, keep on trucking!

My Girl

Posted on by
2

     Out.

     Her hand rests lightly on my back, just between my shoulder blades. My eyes, closed, wince a little tighter together. I don’t want to hear it. It’s been a long day and I’m sick of the back and forth.

     ”What do you want?”

     ”Just some of your time.”

     ”I gave that to you already.”

     She sighs. Takes her hand back and sits. I can sense that she’s getting low on patience as well.

     ”Look, are we going to figure this out?”

     Now it’s my turn to sigh. I can’t…I won’t just give up that easily. She means more to me than that. I can’t even explain what she means to me. It’s like she’s always been there, throughout the years, even though I only met her a year ago. I feel like we’ve known each other since I was little. I let her answer.

     ”We’re going to figure this out.”

     And yet, my sullen silence says that we are so different. She rises, puts her arms around my shoulders. I shrug her off spitefully, one shoulder at a time. But I can’t help leaning backward into her. It would have been imperceptible to anyone but her. She leans forward into me, balancing me, shifting me back on my feet from my heels, and wraps her hands around my waist, clasping them together at my navel. I tilt my head back so that we’re cheek to cheek, our eyes closed. I breathe-

     In.

     I blink, staring at myself alone in my reflection while the other dancers stare intently at the instructor.

     Sundays are like this.

What is Love?

Posted on by
4

     …baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more

     Don Mach asked me last night what I thought love was. I didn’t realize until then that I had been struggling with that question for over 2, possibly 3 years, or even longer. It took Don, that amazing motherfucker, to get me to come back to it.

     I struggled with it all throughout my one and only real romantic relationship. The two competing themes were “capital L” Love for Real Romantic Love with one person, and “little L” love for friends, family, and community. I didn’t know if there was such a thing as Love, but I knew for sure that love existed. But if Love existed, then what was love? Some kind of less noble, less Loving love?

     I decided that Love was worth believing in, and if I was going to believe in it, I was damned if I wasn’t going to live it. When you are in Love with someone, I believed that we both held on to each other no matter what, that we worked to overcome everything, every emotion, every circumstance, even every thought that would keep us apart. When things didn’t work out, it became a matter of how could I change? What could I do? What part of me or my personality is wrong? I committed, completely, to my girl. Or so I told myself.

     I believed in Love until I could believe no longer. I committed myself to Love too soon, too idealistically. After fighting with my partner and twisting my very soul for too long, I snapped. The religious fanatic broke, his faith now smoke drifting in the air, the only thing left in the aftermath of an explosion.

     Picking up the pieces of my life, I found a little love here and there, pieces spattered on the walls, a little at the bottoms of deep wells, glinting like gold. A door held open, a friend calling just to call, a blanket placed around shoulders rising and falling with reassuring rhythm while half lidded eyes blink themselves to sleep.

     Something I could believe in. Because I saw it every day.

     I found love. It wasn’t hard. It was seeing it that was difficult. I found it in the parks, with old men playing chess and feeding pigeons. I found it in a brother’s over protective watch over his younger sister. I found it meeting up with friends and sharing jokes, sharing food, sharing words. I saw it everywhere. I felt it when I breathed in. I heard it playing on the radio. The whole fucking world ran on love, and that’s just the way I would have it run.

     ”What are your thoughts on love?” Don asked me. I thought about it for a while before I could answer. We finished eating our fast food and sat for a while before I could formulate an answer.

     Love, for me, is you reading this and knowing that I believe every word. Love is you closing this, going back to facebook and commenting on your crush’s status. Love is the sun coming up. Love is driving a friend a few blocks because he’s lazy and you both know it. Love is going running with people in the morning when everyone else is asleep or at night when everyone else is asleep. Love is finding a brother in mind and spirit that you never expected. Love is dancing in class. Love is singing in the streets. Love is letting you know that I love you. Love is listening.

     In a sentence, for me and I think for everyone, love is…

     …well, Don knows my answer. But I’m not happy with it. When it’s in a sentence, it’s just words strung together. I tried several times while writing this, but I just can’t bring myself to just say it. I’m not happy merely writing it here for you to read. I want to live it.

     But more and more importantly than that, I want you to live it with me. So ask me sometime. I’d be glad to hear your thoughts, and in the meantime we’ll keep dancing this crazy dance called Life.

TLH
Kung