Life Tips for Fire Cats 1 - Reproducible Results

Now, you might think that I shouldn't really be writing life tips as my life is obviously a complete shambles. What you've got to remember however is that I've been through the blender a few times and I'm still rocking so why not share some of things that got me where I am in one piece.

My first tip might seem obvious but it wasn't that way for me for a long long time. My personality is such that I'm always seeking silver bullets and big bangs. I want my life to change overnight and I'm perfectly willing to expend colossal amounts of energy to make the happen.

I've written about this before but there are no over-night solutions. Your life is a long term problem and needs long term solutions. That evening you spend two hours pumping iron in the Gym until you almost pass out is all well and good but it's actually completely worthless if you don't keep it up over a period of a few months. The fact that you'll now associate exercise with almost dying is not going to help you stick to that regimen.

Take my writing for example, for the longest time I got things done piece meal. Very occasionally I'd hammer out a few hundred words while sitting on my couch before being distracted by some electronic device in my living room. So, while I might get a lot done now and again it was impossible to find a rhythm. It was very nearly a pointless endeavour.

Now I go down to star bucks and achieve repeatable results. I've found something that's reproducible and that's golden. I go down there with the knowledge that something will get written every time.

My other example is boot camp, I used to be a long time member of various gyms and the pattern I outlined above would always occur. I'd follow an initial burst of energy by falling off almost entirely and slumping into terrible patterns, eating and otherwise. Boot Camp is only twice a week and is right after work. I get reproducible results, even if I am terrible at it.

They're obviously my personal experiences but I think it's an important way to adapt your thinking if you are in any way like me. I naturally seek out things that I feel I can't do and try to prove myself, that's very important too but it must be hedged against predictable and reliable results from some other aspects in your life.

Like I say to my protégés at work. First get something that works, then we can focus purely on making it beautiful.   

Start Again

The birds they sang

at the break of day

Start again

I heard them say

-Leonard Cohen - Anthem-

I'm sitting in Starbucks at the beginning of my two week holiday. I chose the time randomly just as a way to use up some holidays I won't be able to carry over but I'm making good use of the time already, typing away on plans and books and blog posts.

I'm nearing the end of Moderately adventurous and I am so very mindful of my previous experiences with completing a book. The initial sense of satisfaction at completing such a significant piece of work. The following sense of hopelessness as you realized nobody in the world is interested.

I chose a subject this time that I hope will remedy the latter problem. It's more sell-able but of course the possibility is still there that it will go nowhere. What will I do if that's the case? Why, start work on the next book of course.

The first hit was hard, I'll admit that. Receiving endless rejection letters from publishers and agents combined with being stuck in a dead end job at the time felt like a death sentence. I learned something, however, I learned that the best solution was to throw everything away and march on. Try again from the very beginning and do things a little better this time.

A strange analogy but recently I bought a new game for my Xbox. It's called Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Besides being great fun it has an extremely interesting mechanic. You see, you can't win the game. Not the first time at least.

It's impossible, the game's tasks are too much for you when you first begin. You don't have enough health or do enough damage. You're weak and yet you are playing a game meant for somebody so much stronger.

The mechanic comes into play when you fail, finally. When all hope of succeeding has gone. The game does something very interesting, it says, “Reset Story”.

So you start again, knowing the game much better this time. You keep all the strength you've accumulated from before but now have a clean slate. Things come so much easier the second time.

In regards to my novel, I'll do better this time and whether or not I make it to the end is irrelevant. I will start again until I do.

Arby Quinn - Merchandising

Lads, when I received my inheritance of a quarter half acre I had plans. Big plans, well, as big as you could get when restricted to barely enough dirt to fill a pint glass. It wasn't enough to grow potatoes but there was an obvious alternative, a growing source of revenue in what was at the time a country fast embracing the tide of internationalisation.

Read any newspaper article on what makes this country tick, it'll mention tourism. All the Americans brought up on their grandparents tales of the otherworldly properties of their distant home. How fast they forgot the scorn of their English masters and the tight grip of the catholic church, every story they told their family centred around one truly Irish thing. No, it wasn't the green sweeping fields or the endless acres of wandering live stock. It wasn't the worry that hell was around every corner waiting and part of you looking forward to living somewhere warmer.

Guinness. Can any other country be so easily boiled down to a brand? People who visit buy it, get drunk and then visit the official gift shop too drunk to realize that the Euro is actually stronger than the Dollar and spend as much on a brace of t-shirts as they would an extension for their Summer home.

So, that was what was in my mind when I first received that deed for an area of land barely great enough for me to lie down in without trespassing on my neighbour. Arby, I said to myself, you haven't the horizontal to cultivate but you have the vertical to inebriate. It's surprising how little space you need to start brewing if you stack things correctly. And thus was born, Arby Ale and the Arby Ale gift shop.