Random Musings

  " Nonviolent Communication shows us a way of being very honest, but without any criticism, without any insults, without any putdowns, without any intellectual diagnosis implying wrongness."         The Nonviolent Communication model consists of two parts, empathy and honesty , and four components, observations , feelings , needs , and requests . When I am expressing what is alive in me using observations, feelings, needs and requests I am using honesty. When I am acknowledging verbally someone else's observations, feelings, needs and requests I am demonstrating empathy.  With NVC  we do the same thing. We practice in a safe place. We find what we do in practice is what we do in live situations. So, if you practice responding compassionately, you are much more likely to be compassionate in difficult situations. The long pause at the beginning of this video is similar to the pause th...

  Courtesy:  https://herbertlui.net/the-rise-of-personal-infrastructure/

"This practice of defining my personal brand has not just let me fully showcase the work I do as an engineer, it’s helped me cultivate and figure out who I want to be to the world." Personal branding is more than self promotion from Neha Batra Source: https://builttoadapt.io/why-a-personal-brand-is-necessary-for-todays-developer-f0f18bfaa033 http://www.thestartupofyou.com/

Lovely Post as we start 2016 "The most simple and basic component of life: our struggles determine our successes. So choose your struggles wisely, my friend" .. and the full post Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room. Everyone would like that—it’s easy to like that. If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to  be happy and have a great family and a job I like,” it’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything. A more interesting question, a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out....

" The process within our brains that creates habits is a three-step loop. First, there is a cue, a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then there is the routine, which can be physical or mental or emotional. Finally, there is a reward, which helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. Over time, this loop — cue, routine, reward; cue, routine, reward — becomes more and more automatic. The cue and reward become neurologically intertwined until a sense of craving emerges. What’s unique about cues and rewards, however, is how subtle they can be. Neurological studies like the ones in Graybiel’s lab have revealed that some cues span just milliseconds. And rewards can range from the obvious (like the sugar rush that a morning doughnut habit provides) to the infinitesimal (like the barely noticeable — but measurable — sense of relief the brain experiences after successfully navigating the driveway). ...

In honor of renowned author  Stephen Covey, who died this morning at age 79  , a short version from  his all-time best-selling book   "7 Habits of Highly Effective People" , which sold 20 million copies.  The short version, highly recommend you buy his book: 1) Be Proactive As human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. We have the independent will to make our own choices and decisions, and the responsibility ("the ability to respond") to make the right choices. You have the freedom to choose your own fate and path, so having the independent will, imagination and self-awareness to make the right move makes you a proactive, and not a reactive, person. 2) Begin With The End In Mind Mental visualization is extremely important. Covey says that all things are created twice: first, the mental conceptualization and visualization and a second physical, actual creation. Becoming your own creator means to plan and visualize what you're going to do and ...

This post seems to have some effect on me.. Read on... . Schools of thoughts here.. It seems there are two main schools of thought about sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same times every day. It’s like having an alarm clock on both ends — you try to sleep the same hours each night. This seems practical for living in modern society. We need predictability in our schedules. And we need to ensure adequate rest. The second school says you should listen to your body’s needs and go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up. This approach is rooted in biology. Our bodies should know how much rest we need, so we should listen to them. And both have issues.... "If you sleep set hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. If it’s taking you more than five minutes to fall asleep each night, you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake and not being asleep. Another problem is that you’re assuming y...