Everyone wants to be successful, but how do we define success? I think it varies for each person.
The problem is, if we don’t know what we’re trying to achieve, how do we shape the path to get ourselves there?
Certain groups define success in certain ways. The extent to which we buy into their definitions can seriously alter the course of our lives, and the lives of those around us.
Everyone has their own agenda; it doesn’t have to be yours.
What Success Looks Like For Realtors:
What Success Looks Like Professors:
What Success Looks Life For the Boss:
What Success Looks Like for Carmakers:
What Success Looks Like for the Careerist:
What Success Looks Like for Religious Extremists:
Or…
And countless other groups, each with their own vision of success. From World Series titles to not being picked last in gym class. From making a fortune to making enough for dinner tonight.
What about these:
Or this guy:
I agree there are risks with viewing success purely as a destination too. But without a destination in mind, how do you know where to turn?
If you know where you want to be, you can create a plan to get there.
And enjoy the journey.
Personally, I’m still not sure what my “success destination” looks like, which is creating some challenges. But in the meantime, I’m working on enjoying the little successes along the way.
The landscape of our country is dotted with interesting place names. As a group, Spanish explorers, missionaries, and settlers in particular really left their mark.
Even on the state level, their influence is felt from coast to coast:
- Florida (flowery)
- Colorado (“colored”, reddish)
- Montana (montain)
- Nevada (snowy)
And I learned something new: California itself gets its name from a mythical island described in a 16th century Spanish novel.
And now for your entertainment. Some names are spiritual:
- Los Angeles – the angels
- Sacramento – sacrament
- Merced – mercy
Others are based on the local flora and fauna:
- El Cerrito – the little hill
- Vacaville – cow town
- Madera – wood
- Los Gatos – the cats
- Campo – field
- Los Osos – the bears
- Dos Palos – two sticks
- Paso Robles – pass of the oaks
- Los Olivos – the olives
- Casa Conejo – rabbit house
- Calabasas – pumpkins
- Las Flores – the flowers
- Borrego Springs – lamb springs
- Fresno – ash tree
- Salinas – salt ponds
- Alcatraz – pelican
- Sausalito – small willow grove
- Milpitas – corn fields
Some are historical:
- Oroville – gold town
- Mission Viejo – old mission
- Goleta – sailboat
- Corona – crown
- Carpinteria – carpentry
Some tell you nice things about the landscape:
- La Mesa – the table
- La Presa – the dam
- Linda – beautiful
- Tierra Buena – good earth
- El Nido – the nest
- Agua Dulce – sweet water
- Buena Vista – good view
- Chula Vista – cool view
- Campo – field
- El Sobrante – the surplus
Others are more mysterious:
- Soledad – loneliness
- Escondido – hidden
- El Cajon – the drawer/box
- Secreta – secret
- Los Nietos – the grandchildren
- Chico – boy, or small
- Calaveras – skulls
And some of my faves:
- Salida – exit – we gotta get outta here!
- Los Banos – the baths – or bathrooms
- Modesto – modest – we’ll tell it how it is: it’s no Linda Buena Vista
- Manteca – lard – We’re really close to Manteca, how am I just finding this out!
And of course the most famous California place name of all:
Anchorman – Definition of San Diego
Get More: Anchorman – Definition of San Diego
For the past week or so, I’ve been using a “language immersion” plug-in for the Chrome browser. It automatically replaces certain text on the page with a foreign language, so you get some exposure to your second (or third or fourth) language during the normal course of your day.
You can pick the language you want to learn — there are over 50 to choose from — and your comprehension level. There is a slider with 5 levels, ranging from novice to fluent.
On the 2nd notch, I end up with bodies of text like this one, from the Seattle Times Mariners coverage:
“Not only le costó his equipo de Seattle an eventual 6-2 defeat la noche del viernes against the New York Yankees, but the non-sinking fastball one-time Mariners mentor Raul Ibanez belted for a three-run homer wound up costing Hernandez bragging rights la siguiente time the pair chat.”
In the live version, you can click on the Spanish text if you don’t understand it, and it will switch back to English.
I’ve found some funky lost-in-translation stuff, but for the most part the app does really well. It’s really cool. For me the goal is to maintain the same speed and comprehension, but just adding in some Spanish practice.
I had it set on Intermediate for a while but I found it was starting to slow down my reading so I dialed it back a bit. Maybe after a little more time I’ll go back up.
Head over to the Chrome app store (it’s free) and try it out for yourself!
Thanks to Ari Meisel for the tip.
For the uninitiated, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich is one of the first “self-help” books. Originally published in 1937, it’s a well-respected classic that helped define an entire genre of publishing.
The book has been recommended to me by multiple people, in multiple circles, over multiple years, so I figured I ought to finally give it a shot.
Actually, this was my second try. I first tried to read Think and Grow Rich several years ago but couldn’t get it into it. But I chalked up that failure to my youthful lack of appreciation for the classics. Maybe back then I just wasn’t ready for the timeless wisdom Hill was about to bestow upon me.
But it wasn’t that. The problem is the book just isn’t good.
I understand this is heresy among business people, but it really didn’t do it for me.
Hill spent years of life studying the nation’s most successful people, and compiled his learnings into Think and Grow Rich. The book is presented as the 13 principles of personal achievement.
The basic premise is this: if you really want to be rich, like really REALLY have this burning desire, you’ll find a way to make it happen.
OK.
Great.
The book is at it’s best when Hill is sharing his anecdotal lessons from Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison. The book is at it’s worst when he’s talking about the subconscious mind and “Infinite Intelligence”. There was a lot of skimming going on there.
Some of the stuff just didn’t make any sense. Hill says faith allowed us to harness lightning and turn it into the electricity that fuels industry. I don’t get it.
Ultimately it’s a lot of fluff and not a lot of actionable advice. Believe in yourself. Don’t let fear get in the way of your dreams. Be persistent. And on and on and on.
It bothered me too that the book was overly focused on financial wealth (though what did I expect from a book with “Grow Rich” in the title?). All the talk of accumulating “riches” made me picture Uncle Scrooge’s moneybin from Duck Tales. I guess the self-help books about happiness and personal fulfillment were still a couple generations away.
One thing that Hill does include that you won’t find in most business books is an entire chapter on sex. It would be an oversight, he explains, to ignore the most powerful of human emotions as a motivator. I would have put that as the opening chapter, as a hook to get people’s attention.
So read it if you must. It probably won’t change your life.
Am I missing the boat on Think and Grow Rich? If you’ve read it, please let me know what you thought.
The average US household receives over 800 pieces of unwanted mail every year, and the average person will spend 8 months of their life dealing with junk mail.
Advertisers love direct mail because it’s a really cheap way to reach customers (one reason the post office is failing), and can generate a positive return on investment even if only 1% of people respond.
But what about the 99% of junk mail that gets immediately round-filed (or otherwise ignored, recycled, or shredded)? Millions of tons of it ends up in landfills every year. It’s unwanted, unsolicited clutter that creates a burden of pollution to produce, deliver, and dispose of.
Oh yeah, and it’s made out of trees.
Paper Karma is an app that aims to help stop junk mail. I just downloaded it this past weekend and have already been taken off the mailing lists for 5 different companies!
It’s super-easy to use. You just snap a picture of the junk mail you don’t want to get anymore, and Paper Karma does the legwork to get you off the list.
Obviously opening the app and taking the pictures will initially cost more time than simply dumping the stuff in the recycle bin, but I think in the long run it will be a net time-saver, plus help eliminate excess environmental damage too.
Direct mailers should be on board too, because it will help them save on printing and postage costs by eliminating the subscriber base that wasn’t reading their material anyway.
Pretty cool app. When I downloaded it, it said “free for a limited time” so check it out soon, and do your small part to reduce clutter and help the planet.
