Flow Is the Antidote for Ego

In today's world, we're always striving for more, more, more. More money, bigger companies, more market share, faster times, longer distances, heavier weights, etc. It's all testosterone, adrenaline, and a lot of ego. It's not all bad, as great things do come from it. But where does it end? How long can the effort be sustained? Often, it ends with injuries, burnout, broken relationships, or simply an aging body or mind that can't compete anymore.

SXSW 2018 Panel Picker Submissions

Here's Jenn's and my geeky and fun SXSW Panel Picker submission for a project we call Bird Feeder 3000.

Bird Feeder 3000: 3D Print a VR/AI/IoT Bird Feeder
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/75106

Watch the video, create a SXSW account if you haven't already, and then upvote us! Votes from the public help us get selected to speak at SXSW 2018. The voting period is from Monday, August 7, 2017 to Friday, August 25, 2017. Feel free to pass it along too.

We both submitted to be speakers at SXSW Edu as well. The voting period for SXSW Edu is the same as above. Here are our SXSW Edu submission links.

Pandora's Headset: The Ethics of VR in Education
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/75305

Letters to a Young AI: Be an Ethical Educator
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/75047

Thanks a ton!

More Metafocus Articles

Here are links to my most recent articles at Learning Solutions Magazine:

Is Virtual Reality Safe for Kids?

Seven Ethical Dilemmas of VR in Education

Don't Break the Spell: Creating Presence in Virtual Reality

Skills Needed to Create a Serious VR Game with a Game Engine

Serious Games: Three Questions About Unit Economics

Let me know what you think!

Enough Is Enough

I am doing enough. I am enough. It doesn't matter whether others see and agree with that. I see it and know it, and that is enough. I meditated just now (Wednesday evening, July 26, 2017) and realized the anxiety that has vexed my health for so long comes largely from not feeling like I'm doing enough, that I could be doing more, that I'm personally not enough. So not true.

How Serendipity Works

SXSW is a serendipity accelerator.

Serendipity works in direct proportion to the clarity of your goals/plans/intentions, the force of the actions you've been taking recently, and the heat of your passion. If you aren't clear, aren't taking action, and aren't passionate about your goals, then serendipity doesn't work. In fact, neither does creation. This was the single most important lesson I came to SXSW to remember and get clear about. SXSW itself is a place to accelerate this whole process, though it works just as well in our regular lives.

Revisionist Me

In the 2000s, I built several businesses--all within the mortgage and real estate industries--and bought several commercial rental properties in Colorado. I was worth millions... on paper at least. In 2007-2008, the American mortgage and real estate markets tanked. In 2009, I filed a personal Chapter 7 bankruptcy, lost everything, and applied to grad school. Those are the basic facts of the story of my late-20s to mid-30s. How I've told this story has evolved quite a bit, becoming a story of its own.

Everything I Know Is Wrong

Everything I know is wrong. 

Why is it wrong? Because everything humans now know will likely be proven wrong, mostly wrong, or at very least woefully incomplete and misguided. Fast forward 50, 500, or 5000 years, assuming we humans don't render ourselves extinct by then, what will historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists of that era see

Gesamtkunstwerk and More

Here are my December and January columns to Metafocus, my monthly column about VR and gaming in the eLearning space for Learning Solutions Magazine. January's exploration of Gesamtkunstwerk is especially interesting.

December 2016
Metafocus: Best Practices for Designing VR Corporate Training Experiences and Games

January 2017
Metafocus: Gesamtkunstwerk VR Games in eLearning

The Law of Zero Sum Learning

When we are young, if we put our heart and soul into becoming excellent at something, that comes with a cost of not learning something else. At age 15, 20, or 25, if we become a star athlete, we simply do not have the hours available in our day, week, month, or year to also become a star musician. If we master the guitar, violin, and six other instruments, we probably are not simultaneously attending med school. If we become a surgeon by age 30, we probably didn't also write the world's next great novel or win gold in the Olympics.

Learning the Five Leverages

As a young man, I decided that if I were to make a difference in the world, and I don't mean a small difference, but put a real dent in the world in some positive way, then I'd need leverage. The world is too big and its momentum too strong for one person to create much lasting change without leverage.

I also realized that five kinds of leverage have much more power than any other in today's world: communication, technology, entrepreneurship, capital, and politics.

Opportunity Funnel for the Soul

Hope is a virtue... to have it, we must work at it.
- Mary Berry quoting her father, Wendell Berry

Entrepreneurship is hard. It sometimes destroys lives and livelihoods. This is precisely its greatest value, the best argument for doing it.

I'm not saying that failure builds character or any such trite nonsense, though it probably does do plenty of that. What I mean is a little more nuanced.

I, Art-Whole

I just got home from an all day yoga/breathing/raw food/meditation/dance retreat, led by the wonderful Maya Papaya. A wonderful experience from start to finish, especially because of all the kind, creative people present. I hope I stay friends with at least some of them, if not all. And the food! Oh, the food. I need to learn to cook like Maya. Who knew raw, vegan meals could be so complex and delicious?

At the beginning, we all shared a word or seed that we were working on internally (mine was balance), and near the end we all shared insights we received from the event, assuming we had something worthy of sharing. Some pretty awesome moments came out of this sharing, but one thing struck me as somewhat...off.

Unremarkable Me

I’m not remarkable. Not lately anyway, and certainly not at Acton. I’m not the top student in grades, top third at best. My team didn’t win the sales challenge nor any of the Operations course simulations. I won’t likely be the teachers’ selection for Student of the Year or whatever they call it. My business wasn’t selected by my classmates for the opportunity pitch project. Perhaps my most lasting impression on the program itself will be my recommendation of Po Bronson's What Should I Do with My Life, which was added to the Life of Meaning course reading list, or, more dubiously, my all-time top scores in several of the Pre-Mat simulation games. Big whoop.

The Difference Between Broke and Poor

I spent the first half of 2010 living and traveling in South America, largely in Buenos Aires. Most of that time, I had no money. As in, I often had to stretch 10 Argentine pesos (about US $2.50) out for a week or two at a crack. I frequently walked five or ten miles across the city to get home for lack of a single peso (i.e. a US quarter) for bus or subway fare. I even went without meals of any kind for two to three days on more than one occasion. Yep, I was that broke. However...

How to Win at Connect Four

Today I and five other Acton MBA classmates volunteered to spend time hanging out with old folks in a rehab nursing home (i.e. old people who are sick or recently had major surgery). Specifically, we helped in the Alzheimer’s and dementia ward.

I’m really behind on my homework this weekend and was up way too late studying last night. The “smart” thing to do would have been to sleep in a bit and tackle my homework all day. Plus, I’m usually more moved by environmental causes than social causes. That snooze button looked soooo inviting. I went anyway, because I knew at a gut level that this was important too, possibly more important than any single homework assignment ever could be. Important to me, to the residents, and to my classmates. I went, and I was right.

Superman Lives in Iowa

I just read an incredibly inspiring Des Moines Register article about my best friend John Craun's dad, also named John Craun. The man is 63 and, even though he only discovered the sport ten or twelve years ago, has literally become one of the world's best endurance kayakers, as well as possibly the world's finest custom kayak-maker.

Dancing the Night (and My Health) Away

Last weekend, I had friends in town, and we ended up staying up late Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. We had a lot of fun, but it also ran down my batteries quite a bit. Add that to my already stressed out state, and, natch, I came down with a cold this week. I chalk this up as more anecdotal evidence supporting my theory that both stress and insufficient sleep weaken the immune system and, thus, age us faster.

Balls, Bones, and Bullets

Last night, I had two really disturbing dreams. In the first, I dreamt that I was diagnosed with testicular cancer and leukemia. A double whammy. I had to make the decision as to whether I would start chemo right away or wait a month or two and give all my alternative health methodologies and theories a try. You know, walk the walk and all that. Then I woke up and had to pee.

Puppy Power

Blog consolidation: I write other blogs with some interesting posts that fit this blog's themes. In the interest of simplifying my life and providing better and more consistent to my readers. I'm combining all my blogs here. This and the next few posts are oldies but goodies from my other sites.

I almost died on Wednesday. Well, not completely died, as in all the way dead, but I did get really worried that maybe I was about to die. I told you in the first post that I'd share some colossal failures, so here's the story.

False Idol

If humanity does not opt for integrity we are through completely. It is absolutely touch and go. Each one of us could make the difference.
-Buckminster Fuller

I had an interesting day. I lost one hero, got to chat with another, and rethought my whole life story.