Professional Geekery

Weekly Challenge: Review Of Patience

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Do you like waiting?

Trick question of course.  No one likes it; people at best tolerate waiting.  Yet we have to wait all the time, and it usually drives us a bit crazy.

Of course waiting patiently is often part of success.  Farmers of ages past had to wait on rain, flows of rivers, and the seasons.  Investors have to be patient to find the right time to buy or sell.

This week's exercise is a two-parter.

First, I want you to sit down for five minutes and write down all the things you've given up on in your career because you decided not to be patient.  What are the repercussions of these actions in your life and career?

Secondly, pick one thing you were looking forward to doing this week and delay it by at least one day.  Do it just to built a little patience.  Maybe in the weeks and months to come you can play with your impatience and purposefully develop your ability to be patient.

– Steven Savage

Weekly Challenge: Educating the Inner Child

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Ever heard the term inner child? I'm sure you have.  As for what it means, well, it seems whatever meaning it once has is now diluted by jokes, assumptions, and pop-psychology.

But, we're going to drag out this tired term for your challenge this week.

You probably think of yourself as mature overall, but there are things where you are ignorant, where you don't know, where you are, in one way or another immature.  Inside the "adult you" are little pieces of yourself that have yet to grow up and mature, parts of you that may be painful to deal with because of their flaws and immaturity.

Pick one of these "inner children", perhaps the ignorance of a subject or a petty and immature behavior.  You're going to work on it.

Take this troublesome inner child, and ask what opportunity is needed for it to grow up – what is the right time, right environment, right situation to let this annoying piece of you mature into something grand.

Now, how are you going to make that happen this week?

Sometimes our problems, our troublesome inner children, are best dealt with by seeking the right situation – and by handling them one at a time.

– Steven Savage

Pro-Fan/Pro-Geek Pride: We Learn, Indeed We Do

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I love technology, video games, and social media.

I love animation, anime, the kinetic visual creativity that it allows us.

I learn a lot from my obsessions.  I learn of new technologies as I follow gaming news – even if they don't relate to my job.  I learn about the complexities of international businesses as I follow anime news.  I learn what actors are doing in what games and what anime, I see trends and future possibilities.

You, the pro-fan, the pro-geek, the hopeful working otaku, ought to be incredibly, insanely proud of that fact that your obsessions are teaching you so much.

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