We, The people

When citizens self organise, the government of the day may be rendered a mere follower.

In this age, with so many great tools for organising and collaboration, what we need is, a common goal and the will to act without self interest. Without a doubt, There is purpose in self organising around things worth achieving.

The question is, can we agree on the things worth achieving? If we truly set aside self interest are we able to, collectively, obtain success? Put differently, could we align our interests?

All these notions are challenging as it involves a more mature society, which demands a more mature individual.

Is enough, enough?

When is enough enough? How long are we delaying our lives as we struggle for someone else’s picture of perfection? How many more years should we put into building a fortune, for our old age? We all need to read the story below na make up our one minds.

The Mexican Fisherman and the Investment Banker (Author Unknown)

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellowfin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them.

The Mexican replied, “only a little while.”

The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish?

The Mexican said he had enough to support his family’s immediate needs.

The American then asked, “but what do you do with the rest of your time?”

The Mexican fisherman said, “I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife, Maria, and stroll into the village each evening where I sip wine, and play guitar with my amigos. I have a full and busy life.”

The American scoffed. “I have an MBA from Harvard, and can help you,” he said. “You should spend more time fishing, and with the proceeds, buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats, and eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middle-man, you could sell directly to the processor, eventually opening up your own cannery. You could control the product, processing, and distribution,” he said. “Of course, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles, and eventually to New York City, where you will run your expanding enterprise.”

The Mexican fisherman asked, “But, how long will this all take?”

To which the American replied, “Oh, 15 to 20 years or so.”

“But what then?” asked the Mexican.

The American laughed and said, “That’s the best part. When the time was right, you would announce an IPO, and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions!”

“Millions – then what?”

The American said, “Then you could retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play guitar with your amigos.”

Source: http://renewablewealth.com/the-parable-of-the-mexican-fisherman/

I came across this story while reading: https://m.signalvnoise.com/enough-1d48019c7335

Tribe of Mentors: Quick Review

The book contains 100+ interviews with highly successful people, the mentors. These people share their best advice and struggles.

If you don’t like reading, this is the perfect book for you. You can start at any point and stop where you like.

In this book Tim Ferris asks all mentors the same set of questions. Some people chose to only answer a subset of the question and others used their creativity to see the questions from a different perspective, which I found most interesting.

Tribe of Mentors contains various interpretations of the word “success”: Financial, professional and health to name a few. You will find that, not all the interviews appeal to you, but there are quite a few pearls of wisdom.

There were so many commonalities between the answers. One of the more noticeable things were Meditation, they all practice some form of it.  It was also interesting to see lots of repeating advice, which shows that there are only a hand full of fundamentals that you need to practice in order to become successful.

One thing I really don’t like about this book is that it consists primarily of Americans, to truly be a tribe you need people from the African continent. Well not really, but you know what I mean. I would have loved a more global approach.

The most Important habits that almost all the mentors practice are:

  1. Reading
  2. Meditating
  3. Exercising

I also learnt about a few interesting products:

 

I have taken some more notes that I will share with you going forward. This will cover the top quotes, best advice and top interviews from my perspective.

My favourite. quote from this book, which really bring everything together is:

“It is the quality of your relationships that determine the quality of your life” – Esther Perel

How to blog regularly

Blogging is a learning process. You learn to organize thoughts. You learn to overcome the fear of publishing those thoughts. This helps you to become better at communication, just like Journalling.

I used to do a terrible job of regularly updating this site until I discovered scheduling. Scheduling is an amazing strategy, it is also my secret weapon against the fear of publishing.

I often get so nervous before I publish that I have often stopped short of hitting publish. What will people think, right? Well, with scheduling, I push that fear out and away, forward, somewhere in the future. There it looks so harmless. Then, one day, I see the post popping up on my feeds, by which time it is too late to cancel, so I just go with it.

I love this feature, as I’m not always inspired, but sometimes I get 4 to 5 ideas in one go. Then I can either draft them or start writing them to schedule them.

1 Post a week. That’s all only release one, even if you have ten. Until you master regular writing discipline. 1 per week will help you maintain a good cadence and also improve your writing skills.

PHP database management in a single file

I’ve found this nice little thing that quickly allows you to have a MySql GUI.

It is called Adminer and it just works! Database management in a single file:

https://www.adminer.org/

Add it to your base web directory (public_html or something similar ) and viola.

Disclaimer: only use on development environment.