What’s the difference? The amount of time it takes for feedback to manifest.

If you add fertilizer to your lawn, nothing is going to change for a couple days. You can stare all you want, no feedback is coming. But in the car, the world around you is changing constantly. Steering alone takes vigilant attention: you adjust the wheel every couple seconds as you travel straight down the road. Feedback evolves right before your eyes.

Training your brain is more like driving a car than working on a lawn: you benefit most from immediate, constant feedback.

In the car, you don’t care where you were ten minutes ago, or even ten seconds ago… it doesn’t matter. What matters is where you are now, in this instant, and what direction you’re going and how fast. In the brain, feedback applied to an event that’s a week old is hard to learn from, as the brain is no longer engaged in the event. But feedback on what you were doing a couple minutes ago is relevant and pertinent, and you learn from it.

Sports coaches know this. The most powerful speeches coaches ever give are given directly to individual players as the game progresses. In that moment, the right feedback can change everything. It can be simple: pointing out an opponent weakness, reminding the player of a particular strategy or tactic, or simply telling them “Well done!”. We remember the half-time speeches, but the players get the most from the constant feedback from the coaching staff on the field.

If you want to make change in your life, find people you can trust to give you supportive, real-time feedback. Be open to hearing even the parts you don’t like… that’s where you can grow the most if you’re not defensive about it. Learning isn’t a ‘telling’ event, it’s a ‘hearing’ event. Just listen, adjust, and repeat.

Are you helping someone else grow? Give the feedback you have right away, rather than later. Be candid but supportive. Be honest but respectful. Most of all, keep it simple. Like a driver, you aren’t trying to change everything all at once… you’re trying to nudge the steering a little in a different direction as needed.

In either case, to get the most from feedback, reduce the time it takes for the feedback to reach the target. Shorten the feedback loop.

In the news

• Nice to see we have our priorities straight: Plastic Surgeons Stay Busy in Recession
• Gee, if only I had a little pill to solve all my problems: Psych Drugs Gaining Widespread Acceptance
• Let’s see: we eat the same, we exercise the same, and we have the same health results… we must both have the same bad genes! Obesity ’spreads among the young’

Quote for the week

Feedback is the breakfast of champions. – Ken Blanchard quotes

Healthy thoughts,
Jeff

Sex is good exercise. Not many people get enough activity of any kind during the day, and especially missing is strenuous exercise. Great sex, the kind that leaves you sweaty and exhausted, is the only natural (not contrived) human activity that works every muscle group in the body simultaneously. A single orgasm burns about 300 calories, and works your body’s core muscles. Everything leading up to it works arms, legs, abs, back, chest, plus muscles you didn’t know you had (ever been a while without great sex and been sore in places you weren’t familiar with?). Sex combines cardiovascular and strength training in a single session, and you don’t even realize how hard you’re working… let’s face it, your focus isn’t on the muscle strain.

Sex is good for the mind. Sexual exploration is about imagination, testing and trying new things, and being immersed in the now. Sex facilitates being connected with your senses of touch, smell, taste, sound, and sight without all the filters you normally put on them. If you want, sex can be a path to clear the mind or a doorway to generating new ideas and expanding your creative self.

Sex is good for the emotional heart. Emotional connection requires lowering your guard and being vulnerable. When you do that, you experience emotions that are normally locked up out of protection or defense. Sex naturally takes you there. It puts you in touch with your true self. The endorphin release that goes with sex, and especially with orgasm, turns off the little voice for a while and strengthens confidence and security. Exploring fantasies and trying new things is a pathway to enhanced awareness and connection with the primal experience. The work you put in before and after sex to communicate your wants, needs, desires, fantasies, concerns, and motivations with your partner strengthens your relationship. Sex reinforces trust and establishes bonds in ways that other activities or just plain willpower can’t.

Sex is good for spiritual growth. Sex is similar to meditation in that it gives a context to clear the mind of all the junk you’re carrying around. When you choose to let go of that junk a little, when you open up to your partner’s experience and let your partner in to yours, you feel a newfound connection and freedom that enlightens and enlivens your experience. Sharing such a primal human experience with another involved individual frees the mind to just be for a while. A growing connection with yourself and with your partner deepens your love for life in general.

Want the growth sex has to offer? Don’t just ‘have sex’… sex is not a spectator sport, it’s a contact sport, a participatory act. The healthiest, most beneficial results come from immersing yourself in the experience. For each component above that you include, you get that set of benefits. When you include all of them, the overall results are much greater than the sum of the parts.

Open your heart. Open your mind. Open your spirit. And have fun!

Bonus

On a related and entertaining note, here’s 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about orgasm:

In the news

• What is ’sex’, anyway? Americans aren’t explicit when defining sex
• Some ideas to get you started? Picturing sex: Kinsey explores what turns us on
• Really, I don’t bite: Vaginas with teeth — and other sexual myths

Quote for the week

Sex is the one thing you cannot really swindle; and it is the centre of the worst swindling of all, emotional swindling…. Sex lashes out against counterfeit emotion, and is ruthless, devastating against false love. – D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

Sexy thoughts,
Jeff

There’s a language pattern we often use to give ourselves permission to take the easy road when the hard road is necessary. It follows this form: “I will (X) when (Y)”. We use it all the time. X is what we know we should do, Y is our excuse for not doing it. Why do I use the letter ‘Y’? Why? Why? Your ‘why’ doesn’t matter… what matters is that you have one.

Excuses are easy to generate… we create them all the time, and we’re great at it. We often call it ‘being considerate’ or ‘being compassionate’. We sometimes call it ‘being realistic’, ‘being reasonable’, ‘being practical’, or ‘being careful’. We should call it ‘being lazy’. Because, really, when it comes right down to it, that’s all it is.

It doesn’t matter what your excuse is. If you have an excuse today, you’ll probably have one tomorrow. It may not be the same excuse, but you’ll have one.

Why aren’t you eating right? Why aren’t you exercising? Why aren’t you having that conversation with your boss or your loved one?

Excuses.

The excuse, the Y, the ‘…’ is all that’s preventing you from having a better life experience. Throw it out. Stop the sentence before ‘when’: “I will do it.”

Then go do it.

In the news

• In other words, minor indicators indicate minor problems: Many Kids Outgrow Chronic Headaches
• And retracts after age ‘I got a car’: Ability to Consider Other People’s Thoughts Grows After Age 6
• Uh, well, duh: Younger Teens Really Do Care What People Think

Quote for the week

Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows. – Pope Paul VI

Healthy thoughts,
Jeff

Actually, it’s been going on for some time. There was a University about a decade ago that built a music preferences project that would suggest music you would probably like by matching your less-typical tastes with others who had those same less-typical tastes. Then, by seeing what others like you also liked, it could recommend a wide variety of music to you. And it was pretty accurate… once it got to know my eclectic tastes, it would almost always suggest music I knew I liked but hadn’t yet rated, and the new items it suggested that I purchased I was very pleased with.

Then Netflix came along and started suggesting movies based on the ratings given to other movies. It fairly accurately suggests movies for me based on what I’ve told it so far. Next is the generalized suggestion engine, Hunch, which uses collective user knowledge to figure out your preferences on a wide variety of topics after asking you a few profiling questions. I haven’t used this one enough to know how well it works, but my hunch is that it will work well for the vast majority of people.

Why do I bring these up in WWN? Quite simply, because all of these tools point to one of the biggest problems we currently face in our lives: too much choice.

There was once a time when we had to choose between walking upstream or downstream, sleeping on the ground or in a tree, building an animal trap or lighting a fire before dark. Now we must make thousands of choices daily.

Think I’m exaggerating? Which shirt should I wear? Do I have time to check my email? Did I forget anything? Am I going the right speed? Which station should I listen to? Should I turn left or right? Which lane should I be in? Do I want to eat here or at the next one? Do I want fries with that?

And that’s just a few snippets of your day.

We are overloaded with choices. So much so that we need tools to tell us what to do.

But it’s possible to simplify. Get rid of most of your wardrobe. Get rid of most of the stuff you own. Let someone else drive (carpool, public transportation, etc). Read one book until you’re done before you start another. Eliminate all but the most important three tasks on the agenda each day.

It’s nice to have choice, but too much choice is overwhelming. Get rid of your choices, and you’ll free your mind to focus fully on the few things you deem important.

There are only a few choices each day that are actually important. Figure out which few, and get rid of the rest.

In the news

• Too much stress? Go back to the basics: How to De-Stress a Recession-Riddled Life
• Fixing problems without surgery: Simple Steps Deliver Relief for Tennis Elbow
• Let the blame game begin: Obesity ‘link to same-sex parent’

Quote for the week

Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of yourself. – Robert F. Bennett

Healthy thoughts,
Jeff

While this is presented in the context of sales, most of these items apply to many of your daily pursuits. If you read into this, you’ll see that it all distills down to a few generalized principles: believe in the uniqueness that is you; always work to improve yourself; come from a place of service to others; act with integrity.

Without further ado:

Ten Attitudes of Top Achievers
Brian Tracy

If you think the same way as the top achievers think, you can begin to get the same results they do. Here are ten psychological and practical ways to mirror the attitudes of top-achievers.

1. See yourself as a consultant rather than a salesperson. Believe that you are a problem-solver with regard to your product and how the client can best use it.
2. Become a doctor of selling. Act in the best interests of your “patients” and have a high code of ethics.
3. See yourself as the president of your own sales corporation. Accept 100 percent responsibility for your results.
4. Commit yourself to being the best in your field. Dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.
5. Be ambitious, hungry, and determined to use selling as a stepping-stone to the success you want in life.
6. Have integrity. Be honest with yourself and others.
7. Engage in thorough preparation prior to every call.
8. Be an excellent listener; be extremely customer-focused.
9. Have tremendous courage. Be willing to face your fears of rejection and failure, and overcome them.
10. Be highly persistent. Start your workday earlier, work harder, and stay longer.

To make these changes work you must walk, talk, and behave consistently with them every hour of every day.

In the news

• Take care of the body: Too Much Texting Can Spell Neck, Arm Pain
• … and let the body learn to take care of itself: Kids May ‘Learn’ to Tolerate Food Allergens
• … and the mind, too:For OCD, Not Helping Might Be Best

Quote for the week

God gave us two ends. One to sit on and one to think with. Success depends on which one you use: heads you win, tails you lose. – Anonymous

Healthy thoughts,
Jeff