Sep

30

Matisyahu - Jerusalem

Filed Under people i like, perseverance, songs, things to remind myself, values | Leave a Comment

I like this song by Matisyahu. The lessons it teaches include:

  • Never forget where you came from
  • Doing unethical things (like selling lies to the youth) is not OK, and one day it will catch up with you. There is a price to pay. I like to think of it as “deferred” payback.
  • I have to keep moving, doing my thing, no matter what life throws at me, no matter who tries to salt my game. There will always be haters who will always be there to bring me down and break my stride, but I have to keep moving. I owe this much to myself.
  • Make a promise to yourself, a vow, that you will never forget your core values, or you deserve to be punished*. Matisyahu talks about letting his right hand forget what it is supposed to do, and fire not coming out of this tongue as his punishment.

* I recently read about a good article on the power of vows. Here’s an excerpt:

When we make a promise, a subtle yet powerful shift takes place in our souls where intentions are housed. A vow is both a tool we employ in order to facilitate transformation within ourselves and an expression of will. Thus, to make an oath is to communicate to the universe and our deeper selves our commitment to the principles most important to us. Fulfilling a sacred vow—whether it is as complex as “’till death do us part” or as simple as “I promise”—challenges us, exercising our willpower and aiding personal growth.

When we speak a sacred vow out loud rather than reciting it in our minds or recording it on paper, our voices project our promises into the deepest reaches of the universe. It is important that we remember that a vow made with the sincerest of intentions has the power to carry on past our earthly lifetimes. A well-chosen vow encourages commitment and dedication.

A sacred vow, once spoken, becomes a part of your existence forevermore. Your view of the world around you may change, and your predominant thoughts and feelings will no doubt evolve with time, but the spirit in which your oaths were spoken will remain unaffected.

Your strength and character will inevitably be tested as circumstances make keeping promises increasingly challenging, but after you have shown yourself steadfast many times, your appreciation of the sanctity of vows will be cemented in your mind and soul.

Sep

30

Extending the number of operations without thinking

Filed Under automation, quotes, things to ponder about | Leave a Comment

We advance our civilization — or at least our own best interest — by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them.
– Dr. Roy F. Baumeister, Social Psychology Area Director and Francis Eppes Eminent Scholar (Princeton University)

The more I ponder about this, the more I find it to be true. The more processes you can automate with a machine, or if human-intervention is required, then the more projects you can outsource, such that the more things you can accomplish without having to actually “having to be there” or actively think about, the more you advance and move forward.

Same with saving money for retirement — you save the money and let time generate more money for you. That’s why good financial advisers always say that young people should start saving for retirement when they are young. So that you can put time to work for you, which in effect, is just another operation which does not require your active engagement.

To apply this concept into my career — I like automating stuff as much as I can. Let the machine worry about the processes. The more the machine can take work off my hands, the more time I have free to do something else and move forward. Some people actually like not automating stuff, because then it gives them some form of “job security”.
Read more

Sep

27

Kara Swisher and I - at DEMOfall 2007

Filed Under people i like, photos | Leave a Comment

Kara and Jay at DEMOfall 2007

That’s right b!tches, that’s me and _the_ Kara Swisher, of the All Things D and Wall Street Journal fame.

I like Kara because she says it like it is. No sugar coated Web 2.0 craplets! Everyone else says the same thing, the “safe” thing to say, afraid of going against the status quo. Not Kara!

Bring on the tough love. For her authenticity and courage of not succumbing to the pressure to conform, I tip my hat.

Sep

23

Inadvertently choosing to be the status quo

Filed Under failure, fear, people i like, quotes, self improvement, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

Some of you have the intellectual capacity to cut through complexity but are indecisive or afraid of being wrong. Can you wait until all the facts are in and the picture is clearer? Here’s the rub: You make a bet even when you don’t make a bet! That is, by not choosing to do anything different, you are choosing the status quo.
– Ram Charan

I’ve written much on this blog about change, about learning to be comfortable being uncomfortable, about not fearing fear, about not fearing failure, and about not settling for mediocrity and not defending the status quo. That quote above pretty much nailed all of the things I’ve written about, the qualities I strive for (or against) — but heavens forbid I become but do not see (so for the people who do know me, please do tell me when I am blindsided).

I am reminded of a blog post I just recently read about an interview with Sallie Krawcheck, CEO of Citigroup’s global wealth management. She talks about how a CEO often at times must make decision with imperfect information. At first, that may not sound like the right thing to do. Shouldn’t one wait until one has all the information?

Now that I think about it, if everyone had perfect information — then the best choice would probably be so obvious, and everyone would place their bet on the obvious best choice. Hence, making the best choice _would_ by definition, be the choice of the status quo. Status quo to me is pretty much mediocrity.

If you’re like everyone else, then you’re just an average person, the mediocre. So how do you break out of the pack and stand out? By beating the status quo. And to obtain results better than the average everybody else, it makes sense that one has to risk some uncertainty, for example, by making decisions with imperfect information. The adage, no pain no gain is true. Risk is proportional to reward. You risk nothing, you get nothing.

The quote above struck a chord inside of me, because after reading it, I start to realize that I have been just that person Ram Charan spoke of. I delay on taking an action for want of a more complete picture — and I implicitly without realizing it made the decision of NOT taking an action. Not actively taking an action is the easy way out for lazy cop-outs, and because inaction requires NO effort, it is usually the preferred choice of the status quo.

For my absolute hate of taking the mediocre path — I will now remind myself to the best of my ability, to be more proactive in making decisions, avoiding inaction, in spite of imperfect information. I’m not talking about taking blind chances of course, I need to practice more in making educated guesses, weighing risk vs. reward, including the cost of inaction. I will not always win, but the more I practice making decisions with imperfect information, I’ll be able to draw from a repertoire of previous choice, and gradually improve my batting average.

If I don’t start making decisions when faced with imperfect information, then I would have implicitly doomed myself to mediocrity. This is a wake up call for me. I need to rack up some failures while I’m still young — it’s something best taken cared of early in life so that you can move on.

Sep

19

Roadtrip Nation

Filed Under execution, failure, fear, goal setting, passion, self improvement, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

I just discovered this thing called Roadtrip Nation today, and it’s actually pretty cool — a bunch of kids going around the country interviewing successful people and learning from them.

Key takeaways from just these four video clips,

  • You have to be prepared to die trying (as 50 cent would say, “get rich or die trying”)
  • You have to be OK with failing
  • Be true to yourself, find your passion. You may not see the immediate impact, so it’s a matter of staying focused, searching inside of yourself, and believing in yourself that you can do it
  • Leaps of faith and terrifying, but you have got to leap
  • Ask yourself what is the worse that could happen — more often than not your world will not come to an end like you thought it would
  • Worrying about the future won’t help. Find your calling, and just do it. Don’t overanalyze.
  • Use your time to make mistakes while you are young, the world is your oyster. The key is to learn from your previous successes and mistakes, and taking those experiences to your next challenge
  • Make the most with what you have, you are ultimately accountable for your own success

Plenty of good ol’ advice from all these video clips. Unfortunately I don’t have the luxury to watch them all at the moment, I got a tonne of stuff to wrap up before my upcoming backpacking trip to Europe

Sep

19

cos(x)^2 + sin(x)^2 =1

Filed Under geeky, humor | Leave a Comment

I love geeky humor and recently joined a group on Facebook called that I fell in love with at first sight: “You be sinx^2 and I’ll be cosx^2 and together we’ll be one” Cute, and I love it.

For the uninformed, it’s a trigonometric identity. Looks like I’ve weeded you off my potential date list :D

Sep

17

Third-world stats and myths

Filed Under changing the world, did you know, ideas, microfinance, passion, people i like, things to ponder about, winds of change | Leave a Comment

The following TED video clip is AWESOME. 20 minutes well worth your time, I personally guarantee it.

Key points for myself:

  • It’s better to be healthy first, then wealthy later (vs. the other way around)
  • GDP per capita is tied directly to infant mortality rate
  • We’re moving towards 1 world, 3rd world countries are slowly pushing out of poverty
  • Cookie-cutter approaches don’t always work, 1 size fits all cannot be applied everywhere
  • Some people are unwilling to share data that can help change the world
  • $100 dollar OLPC initiative is truly changing the world

Amazingly cool graphs! Makes me believe even more in why the non-profit microfinance I am helping out with can really make the world a better place. I would love to one day meet Hans Rosling in person.

Sep

16

Veracity — being honest with yourself

Filed Under failure, fear, quotes, self improvement, stanford, things to remind myself, values | Leave a Comment

I was reading an article published by MarcumSmith and in it, I learned a word that I have not previously known about but whose meaning I am familiar with.

Veracity is the English word for the Latin term veritas, which means truth. But why not just say the word truth if that’s what they meant by choosing it to describe what they found? Truth essentially refers to facts or reality; it implies accuracy and honesty. Veracity, however, differs slightly; veracity is the habitual pursuit of, and adherence to, truth.

Veracity differs from truth in action, not in value. So why is veracity so important—who doesn’t want the truth? It’s not that people don’t want the truth, but what portion we want is occasionally a different story. What part wouldn’t we want? The part that’s hard to hear. What fraction of the truth wouldn’t we want to address? The portion that’s hard to say.

There is a point and time in almost every important business discussion where we might be curiously exploring or intensely debating, and stumble upon brutal facts. If openness and progress are the outcome of humility, and innovation is the aim of curiosity, then veracity is the light that exposes the truth hidden in the shadows of habits and comfort zones.

Admitting your own failures and shortcomings are difficult sometimes. Veracity means to be honest with yourself, acknowledging weakness so that you can move on to address them. I _do_ want people to tell me the part they think would be hard to me to hear. I _do_ want to know the truth that is hard for me to swallow. Why? Because I believe in The Stockdale Paradox, as written by Jim Collins:

Retain faith that you will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties; and at the same time confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

Enough said. Sweeping the dirt under the rug doesn’t mean that the dirt is gone.

Sep

16

Continuously make conscious tough choices

Filed Under business, career, failure, fear, self improvement, things to remind myself, values | Leave a Comment

The world can shape you if you let it. To have a sense of yourself as you live, you must make conscious choices. Sometimes the choices are really hard, and you make a lot of mistakes.
– John Donahoe, President of eBay Marketplaces

Sep

13

MySpace Phast Phlux Phishing!

Filed Under security research, websense | Leave a Comment

I blogged at work tuh-day. MySpacitizens should check it out .. it’s a short read.

Sep

12

Ray Kurzweil’s TED talk

Filed Under changing the world, innovation, passion, people i like, technology | Leave a Comment

I’m somewhat familiar with the name Ray Kurzweil and his works in artificial intelligence, and today I can finally associate a face with that name. Below is a vid clip of a talk he gave at TED. Little things like that makes me truly believe in technology, which I have a passion for. If you have 23 mins to spare, and you somewhat like technology — then you will like this:

Sep

9

Change the world! (with a non-profit microfinance startup)

Filed Under changing the world, microfinance, poverty, san diego, startup, wokai | 4 Comments

I’ve just got back to town from LA (that’s Los Angeles, not Louisiana’s state code — I’ve had someone mix the two up before), and I’m catching up on a couple of things, hence my inability to post to this blog as frequent as I would like. I’ve also been busy shopping for schtuff for my upcoming Europe get-lost-and-sleep-in-an-alley backpacking trip, what a learning experience, but that’s a talk for another time.

In the mean time, I haven’t mentioned this before here, but I am helping out with a non-profit microfinance startup based in Beijing, whose goal is to reduce poverty in China. Currently, I’m seeking for volunteers in San Diego. This is a great way to gain some experience! I’ve just posted an ad on sandiego.craigslist, so I thought I’d cross post here too.

www.wokai.org

Wokai is a nonprofit organization working to build the microfinance sector in China. We envision a China in which no individual is denied choices and opportunities due to the inaccessibility of financial capital. Our mission is to enable Chinese microentrepreneurs to lift themselves from poverty.

We are looking for dedicated, passionate volunteers to help with our PR efforts. If you are interested in learning about microfinance and gaining experience in the nonprofit sector, please contact me

Sep

4

Consciously making hard choices and living through mistakes

Filed Under quotes, self improvement, things to remind myself | Leave a Comment

The world can shape you if you let it. To have a sense of yourself as you live, you must make conscious choices. Sometimes the choices are really hard, and you make a lot of mistakes.
– John Donahoe, President of eBay Marketplaces