Adopt and model your best character

Been doing some serious thinking lately about character and traits. I'm sure you would be in concert with me that most successes in life and true joy is a by-product of character and and its traits. The reason many of us (me too) keep going round and round in circles regarding our personal growth and goals is that we're doing it with all the wrong character. The attitude isn't firing up the engine hot enough to last us even two days. We make a personal commitments today to make some life improvements, oopsy, they're gone tomorrow just as fast as they came. My recent battle with my habitual devils has revealed in me default-failure character traits.

To kill the habitual devils I kind of went on in silence in my head. I gathered the peace and quite in my mind and the best solution I could find in my deepest silence to date, was that I need to invent the ideal me. Character, traits, attitude, behaviour, habits and beliefs that are strictly aligned to consistent personal growth and a success lifestyle. Call it using the right gear to climb a high altitude mountain than going only with guinea mouse faith - running on the same marry-go-round hoping to get somewhere (Hah, what insanity in sane man!).

Adopting or even inventing a character that one really wants to emulate is the sure way to get it right. To get the marry-go-forward results. I decided to take the traits of a few successful people and implant them inside and adopt them as daily habits. This comes in the wake of my missing on some of my goals that I recently set. So most important things are going right since the clean sweep, but it's the significant moves that are not happening yet. The moves that could see my life witness a leap to what I've always desired to live. And I believe that could come only with shedding the sheep skin and wearing the lion hide.

I bet you could also try and create, invent, adopt or emulate a character that you believe most demonstrates what you truly want to stand for. This whole character invention thing came to my mind whilst paging through a recent Men's Health magazine: "After all, his success as an actor depends on his ability to inhabit the mind of another person and then stay in character for months," it goes. That piece was about Gerard Butler who played Leonardis in the epic movie 300. And that's what I admire about actors like Butler and Whitaker's character in The Last King of Scotland - they can stay in character for months. They eat, talk, breath and fart like the character they're emulating - they become that person.

If they stay in character for months and their lives don't depend on it, how about you stay in character for years? I know my life depends on it. I bet you'll have become that person you truly want to be - that characters habits, traits, attitude and beliefs will be deeply implanted in you within a year that you become that person. "Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions, said Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Well, I'm going to give it a try and also live like that character - daily, until I become that character. It's bonding with the ideal me. After all, no tax to be paid in trying and I stand a damned good chance of stopping the marry-go-nowhere.

===========================================
"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Cheaters, damned cheaters

I hate Simba. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. But will still buy them - especially if Willards is not available as an option. Simba has gone despicably devilish, and still, they wear their lion smile with pride. I don't mean to rant. I hate ranting. But I've got to express my anger at Simba.

They more than reduced their bag of 30g chips. I bet, and I'll weigh them soon, that the 30g pack of chips that I buy everyday of the work-week doesn't really weigh 30g. To confirm the suspcions of my big piercing eyes, I paraded the near-empty bag to friends and colleagues, and some confirmed that the featherlight bag is no longer stacked to the same level as in the past years. Cheaters they're. Simba thought no one would notice if they replaced that with colourfully hypnotic packaging. 'Damned liars' - as Gollum of The Lord of the Rings fame would put it.

In the past, if my visual memory serves me right, the Simba 30g chips bag was near to full, if not beyond half. Now all their packets, specifically Tomato Sauce and Smoked Beef flavours, carry only a few crumbs. I bet all the more chips baking money went to the branding and the top quality high-gloss packaging - which I immediately tossed to the bin once I finished to TKO the 25 dried chips in it.

Today, just now, I popped open a Willards bag of 30g and munched on countless chips - endlessly. Not as distinctively tasty as Simaba's, but I munched for a longer time. And it was a real snack. So next time I go on a chips hunt, Willard it will be. Unless I'm left no option but the empty high gloss package of Simba - perhaps for decorative purposes in my cold office.

Also see this about being robbed daylight: http://izzonline.blogspot.com/2007/05/helsmall-consumer-helplessness-but.html

===========================================
"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

The Times daily: Is it piggybacking to gain dear life?

Is it me or is new tabloid, The Times, a hyperactive version of the Sunday Times? I would like to bet that it's not me. I went on to the The Times online yesterday and today several times. As is daily habit that I get morning dose of the news from the Sunday Times online, I was left wondering and surprised when I landed up on The Times online pages.


For a moment I thought it was just my PC with ill-functioning history tool. But I was right. I punched in www.sundaytimes.co.za and was let to The Times. I figured that it must be a launch mis-strategy. But I felt the following during my demand for my Sunday Times morning coffee dose:

• That the guardians of the Sunday Times brand would permit the confusion between their brand and The Times brand (sisters I know, but different skins)
• That I, the reader, has to wonder where I'm online -whether The Times or Sunday Times
• That as an online reader of the Sunday Times, The Times is forced on me
• That The Times online is in fact nearly or entirely the same as Sunday Times online - the content is the same, the branding is the same, the site structure and navigation is the same, the columnists are the same, the commentators on podcasts are the same.
• Felt lost in transition when I clicked on the Sunday Times site link and I was still within The Times - kind of in the Sunday Times as the content is the Sunday Times'

Shouldn't you notice any of the above, it means it has been corrected.

I haven't gotten hold of the hardcopy of The Times as yet. And just hoping that it is not, marketing pitch-wise, a hyperactive baby version of the Sunday Times. I must say, I still got to find out, online, where is The Times (content-wise), but the brand of it, the masthead, I'v seen and it looks pretty.

Vincent Maher got hit by surprise when he discovered that: "The web site is also live but, given that it’s the same architecture as the Sunday Times site I am not going to comment until I know whether this is a temporary solution or the real deal."

In the words of one blogger, Uwe Gutschow The Times "...sounds a lot more exciting than it actually is". His views are in concert with mine. He continues to say that: "Their newspaper will definitely interest a slightly more savvy and exciting audience, at least in the beginning".

I'll do long verbatim for once on my blog as Uwe also had some interesting tips for The Times:

1. let users and bloggers create content
   
2. turn everyone with a camera into a journalist and reward them for relevant, valued content
   
3. learn from wikipedia
   
4. employ content producers, not a newspaper editor to run the show
   
5. conceptualise with marketers and companies as to the best way to produce content that will aid in marketing brands
   
6. be bold, innovative and pioneering - we've offered to work with them to do some innovative campaigns for clients to become part of their sales tool and case studies
   
7. print newspapers based on people's profiles by interest, such as international finance, soccer, etc. - pay only for the content you want
   
8. change the business model
   
9. advertising will provide the most revenue, but collaborate with innovators to profit from other forms of marketing techniques

I just wish the new daily, and its brand for that matter, had been created; marketed, and launched on the back of its own neo strenghts and weaknesses rather than of a leading weekend paper. I know it would cannibal up a pint of the strength of the Sunday Times, but potential is there. Especially online.

However, I can't wait to get my hands on a different read from the print version of The Times, for as Israel, I love things new.

===========================================
"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Beauty and the goose, or is it the beast?

The tooth fairy is still having a go at my front teeth. Like really giving them a serious goose, kicking it to the middle of the nerve - which Dr Sic said will be operated into numbness tomorrow at 10am.

And here I'm. Instead of saying a prayer over the forthcoming op, I'm having joy salivating over what The Seatle Coffee Co. beautifully called a 'Triple Chocolate Chilli Tart'. What a sugarrative and prettily designed cake it is - unfortunately, it doesn't taste as beautiful as it looks (talk of beauty outside, isn't beauty inside reflected).


Anyway, I'm washing it down with a tasteful Caffe Latte as my ever wondering mind perambulates (as Fred Khumalo would put it) about how ugly I've been for the past seven days. Ugly as a goose trying to stage a dance in muddy waters - it will end up looking uglier.

That's not to suggest that ugly people are like geese. But surely, I hated my face when it was disfigured by the tooth fairy. This made me wonder then, how do people who, compliments of conventional wisdom, are dubbed ugly feel for the rest of their lives. Especially knowing that change is not near, except for those with fat credits cards and medicacl aids to afford them aesthetological refigurement. Ok sorry, that means plastic surgery.

I don't even have a right to tag anyone as ugly or liken them to a muddy goose. But capitalist TV producers have taught me that there's 'in deed' the beautiful and the beasts in this world. And that's a pity that everyone looks at people through the eyes of the pop-tv images - make it American images at that.

Before my triple dose Gen Payne prescription from the anti-tooth fairy kind doctor, I looked horrible. Ugly. And my smiles didn't stand a pint of chance in a monkey or goose contest. That's when I realised that being ugly can really confine you down the lower radar of the social ladder.

Let's face it. As people, on average, we succeed due to our looks. We got our looks to thank for the pretty partner we have. The cute kids we are blessed with. The bigger upmarket houses we occupy in those 'golden corridor' suburbs (as David Bullard put in his weekend column). This also goes for the the uber-friends we enjoy, the less laboursome jobs, associations and all that uber-blah blah blah crap that we define our lives with.

And in our lives, first impressions last long right? Isn't it possible that the beautiful people - the non-geese - enjoy the quality of the incentives of the first impression that is forged by their beauty? And by the same token, that the ugly people, the goose, get punished for looking less than the blessed? In my mind, as sensitive a topic as this is, it is true. It holds water - not an ocean I know. But some good drops of liquid. And all these thanks to the television imagery of beauty vs the beast - wherein beauty carries the praise flay, and beast the laughable stalk.

I wouldn't, and you shouldn't pretend to, doubt that beautiful people get often promoted at work. Get hired faster than the goose. Get hotter hubbies or wifies. Look better in any masterpiece or crap cloth they wear. In my mind, and yes the latte and the triple chocolate chilli tart are speaking in concert with me, it does hold.

Why did I choose this topic today? Well, I just didn't have a good past week as I thought that I would be disfigured for life before that Gen Payne prescription - and I was trying to ease and acclimatise to the less pretty boy/beast tag. At the same time, I had drawn parallels between death and the healthy life. And again, I had thought a lot about happiness.

Which draws me back to the latte. When I served it, I popped my sugar sachets open and my attention was interested by the quotations at the back. Those Hullets sachets confirmed what I always pondered about regarding happiness:

Happiness is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen as by little advantages that occur every day - BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Happiness is a direction, not a place - SYDNEY HARIS

Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination - RAY GOODMAN

From contentment with little comes happiness - AFRICAN PROVERB

My own: Happiness is not beauty of the body. It is beauty on the inside.

So hey, regardless of what the looks are. Goose or pin-up masterpiece, beauty won't follow automatic. Beauty rages from the inside and will show on the outside, sizzling like the foam of a perfectly boiled caffe latte. It we shouldn't be fooled by beauty or tricked by ugliness - you'll be surprised of the ocean of happiness soaring from the inside.

That's why I wasn't really sad about my disfigured face.

Beauty and the beast? Beauty and the goose? I think don't draw your reality from the television images of what is beautiful and ugly. Draw your own. I just did.

===========================================
"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Master photographer unveiled

Out of vanity, I'm going to assume that Izz is a great photographer as much as he writes in a masterly manner. See the masterpieces taken in my village and home whilst my wife was hibernating there on maternity.

Talia and her grandmother in the background

Extra booze bought for Talia's traditional ceremony

The last breakfast at the village. Yes. It's a bit un-lighter for breakfast - that's village for you

Princess Tinyiko in a 'cake-cage' - compliments of grandfather

===========================================
"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Tooth fairy kicked my ass, no jokes

I'm still aching like hell from that toothache, which, the dentist, Dr Sic, informs me it's infact a naughty nerve that must be cut out.But nevertheless, I believe the tooth fairy wasn't laughing when she kicked my ass. The above is unfavourable pics that my wife hates so much. I hate the fact that I just can't smile even if I tried.

That's as far as my award winner smile goes. And after the nerve op, which I hope never happens since the pain has subsided (yes, heavy cocktail of painkillers - so not really gone, the Dr warns me).

===========================================
"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire

Book review: The Search by John Battelle

The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture

I’m most intrigued by this book by some of the startling revelations on how Google came to be a business, let alone a billion dollar one, that it is today. Most captivating though, was a quote I read in Tom Peter’s Re-imagine. It went something like this: “Google is a bit like God.”

That for me, from outside the pages of The Search by John Battelle, summarised that 300-word paperback in six words. And when I think of it, although a dicey exaggeration, Google shares elements with something a lot more powerful than many modern day blue chips combined.

From the book though, I got the idea that, Google, at least as a business that it is today, is one big accident that happened in a bedroom (dorm). The technology that Google runs on is not necessarily Google's exclusively (the spider-index architecture including the business model).

The author, a dotcom crash martyr, tells a story of two Burger King fans, Larry Edward Page and Sergey Brin and how they took a myriad of ideas of other people, added their youthfull chutzpah and vision to turn them into what is now Google - the second fastest growing tech company in the US.

The main guy, who for me took prominence in the book than the star Phd student pair, was Bill Gross. Gross is credited, based on the author’s research, on inventing the business model of pay-per-click advertising and in fact, leveraged the few other models that failed other companies. His (company) was not a lasting start-child success because it lacked the advantage of Google – search. On search is where the ‘paranoid’ but ‘arrogant’ Brin and Page sold their text ads. And this was leveraged with Gross’ business model. (Google is obviously expanding to other types of ads placement which are more display driven).

But to Google, there is nothing more profitable than text ads. That’s where their bread is buttered and Battelle, seems to suggest, fittingly so, that they owe it all to Gross – the father of pay-per-click. “Indeed, had Bill Gross not given up his argument, had he just followed his gut, there might not even be a Google. Brin and Page might have sold out to Yahoo or Excite or Microsoft, or merged with Ask Jeeves, or gone the way of AltaVista – sinking slowly into the dark oceans of corporate M&A."

On the more cultural transformation side of the Google blinding gold coin, Battelle illustrates vividly what Google seems to achieve: reaching millions not only with search, but a critical cocktail of technological convergences. A global cultural situation where only two men, plus their ‘puppet’ CEO, control what is today the largest database of human knowledge and culture - the "Database of Intentions". It all sits on their fingertips and to paraphrase Battelle, ‘we hope they never get a tempting incentive to sell or hand this sea of information in the devilish hands’. Hopefully, they only hold the keys to the over 130 000 computers that run Google.

Gross 'expertly' convinces you that Google owns the total human clickstream (and you better believe him, unless you also had a lunch with the three musketeers at Google HQ). They own the pulse of the very existence of global business, if not of mankind. And Battelle convinces you to start worrying about government’s bullish interference and the control of such ‘google’ (endless) data. Impressively enough, or scary if you like, Google is said to have grand intentions of turning search into something that has a ‘heartbeat’ of its own. Meaning that it must morphosise to a near-human intelligent ‘being’ that can read what the user/searcher wants and serve it not only the way you wanted it, but tell you what you wanted but did no know you wanted.

For all the techies, try and converge all the internet and web technologies of today, then stir them together with all the Google innovations in a Google blender and drink – tell me the results. We may not leave to tell the showdown in our lifetime (neither may Brin and Page, or better yet, Gross himself). I think the answer there treads sheepishly alongside the concept of “God” – so guess that somebody in Tom Peter’s book may have a point of the potential power in Google.

PS: Google shot from zero to 3 billion dollars from 2000-2004 (‘one nickel at a time’).

For me, The Search was a great read. As educational, informative and scary as Google and search are.

===========================================
"Judge of a man by his questions, rather than by his answers." - Voltaire