viking fridays – raiding party.

First things first – this *great* piece of artwork was drawn by Karen JL – thank you, Karen!  You must have been a fly on the wall at my triplets’ birthday party this year… it looks just like clumsy old dad putting his foot in it!

Raiding party, you ask?  I’ve been away for a while on a raiding party (business), and generally unplugged from my everyday life.

What spoils of war did I bring back with me?

Hmm, let’s see, I have a couple of heads, an eyeball, 92 silver coins, 8 bottles of wine…

Actually, we went out to our sister site in Central Canada, to conduct research into my current area of focus at work.  We met a great bunch of people who have unique experiences and perspectives on things, a bunch of people who were willing to share that with us.

So that is something that could be considered a war trophy.  Spoils of war.  But there was more.

And it wasn’t the 50 percent off t-shirts I bought at the airport, either (though the kids liked those very much).

It was a good time to reflect, to refocus.  By good fortune, I met someone who once shared a dream that I now have, and it reaffirmed that dream for me.  You see, he has already achieved his dream, through persistence and hard work.

I have met someone not unlike me – who is right now living that dream.  He is much like I am, he worked at the same company where I now work, he has many children as do I, and he is now living in the land of his dreams.

As will I.

*Those* were the spoils of war I brought back with me that are of greatest importance.  The experiences, the words of encouragement from that man, for he said to keep trying and never give up.

The knowledge that there is someone out there, just like you, who has achieved a dream just like yours, or very close to it.

If you are lucky, you may bump into this person by accident, as did I – if you want to accelerate things a bit, seek out people like yourself.  You might find them online, or in your town.  They might be someone you’ve already met through blogging, either at your own blog if you have one, or in the comments at another’s blog.

Even if you cannot seek out someone like this – know that you can do it, because someone else has done it.

And now is the time for you to do it.

Lower the sail, grab your oars, row like the wind to attack!

The spoils of war await all with the courage to take them.

viking fridays – a shield for its shelter.

Hew wood in wind, sail the seas in a breeze,
Woo a maid in the dark, for day’s eyes are many,
Work a ship for its gliding, a shield for its shelter,
A sword for its striking, a maid for her kiss.
- The Hávamál

What is it that our Viking friends are trying to tell us today?

Well, other than “if you’re going to get frisky, do it in the dark!”, to me it’s something I strongly believe, and have said many times.

Right tool for the job.

For example, making the computer work for you.

Often at work, I see folks trying to make diagrams using PowerPoint, when Paint.NET or GIMP are free, and much more powerful – yet, good old IT would scold you for using them, as they’re not “approved”.

And yet, it goes much further than that, in my opinion.

I think it can be applied to people.

You, me, all of us, are perfectly suited to doing one thing, better than anyone else who has ever lived, or ever will.

You are the tool (stop laughing, Friar!), and it is up to you to find out what job you are “right for”.

Some folks will say, I’m happy doing what I’m doing, or, it’s good enough, because I don’t believe I will ever find “the right job”.

That may be true.  A tool can “sort of” fit a job.

I can hammer in nails with a pair of pliers.  Or my cell phone.

But a hammer works better.

Or if all I have is a Viking battle axe, I could say, “hmm, what can I do with this Viking battle axe?”

I can crack eggs with it.

I could (gently) use it to play with my cat.

But somehow, I don’t think it is the right tool for those jobs.  Kind of like a square peg, trying to fit into a round hole.

No, a Viking battle axe is good for chopping off heads!

(Just ask Olaf.)

So, if you’re happy doing what you’re doing, keep on doing it.  If you feel you are not quite there yet, you could keep on looking – there is a “job” you are “right for”.

Even if it is only a hobby that keeps you sane away from your real job… and remember, that hobby could become your “real job”, if you work at it.

So now you have your marching orders – grab your Viking battle axe, and your shield, and go on the attack!

(PS – this picture is not a picture of Friar and I after too many pints.  We’re better looking.)

never lose anything again. not even waldo.

THE STORY:

The two-cent boss was pulling out his hair, pacing back and forth, because he couldn’t find “the file” in his email.  In spite of his best efforts, he had lost that one critical file.

He had spent many hours tweaking his custom folder sets in Outlook – a sub folder for each project, a sub-sub folder for each month in each year in each project.  Just like he had done “way back when” in paper space.

Except, back in the “good old days” – the golden days – the two-cent boss had help from a document clerk, who knew her way around the paper space filing system.

You see, it was very easy in those days to find things in file systems.  All you had to do was ask the document clerk, who would have some idea of “when” the document had been filed, and then go look for it in the appropriate place.

Plus, you could rapidly flip through the folders looking for your files.  Or rather, the document clerk could do it while the two-cent boss was busy doing something else.

Enter the computer.  The two-cent boss had a bigger boss, who had a much bigger boss who liked to count beans, and the much bigger bean counting boss decided that the two-cent boss could do things on his own now that he had a computer.  “You don’t need a document clerk now, you have a computer.”

Except that the poor two-cent boss failed to change with the times.  He did things in cyberspace the same way he had done them (err, the way his document clerk had done them) in paper space.

Folders, inside of folders, inside of folders.  And he manually went digging for them using good old Windows Explorer.  It went something like this:

Click-click.  Damn.  That’s not it.

Click-click.  Damn.  That’s not it.

Click-click.  Damn.  That’s not it.

Click-click.  Damn.  That’s not it.

Click-click.  Damn.  That’s not it.

Click-click.  Damn.  That’s not it.

ARRRGGGHHH!!!!!

(Digging for stuff inside of folders inside of folders inside of folders doesn’t make sense electronically.)

The two-cent boss failed to do one thing.

Make the computer work for him, not the other way around.

The smart employee came to the rescue.  He had installed (against the company policy, I might add!) an indexing search tool called Copernic Desktop Search.

He could have installed Google Desktop Search, but good old IT Security had blocked it via the McAfee software that was on all computers at company.

(Fortunately for the smart employee, IT Security wasn’t, and still isn’t, that bright…)

He could also have installed Windows Search 4.0, except that it only came out a few weeks ago, and this story happened back in 2006.

Anyway – the smart employee asked the two-cent boss what was wrong, and the two-cent boss said he was looking for “the file”.

The smart employee said, “just a second” – typed some text from “the file”, filtered the search to include “the two-cent boss” as the sender, and…

BOOM!

There was “the file”.

The two-cent boss was impressed, and asked how the smart employee had done it.  The smart employee told the two-cent boss, who was somewhat intrigued, but of course installing third-party software was “against company policy”.

(The company would rather you take 1000 times longer to find things than install some software that they don’t understand, and can’t be bothered to understand.)

The moral of the story is that if you don’t want to lose things anymore (barring a computer failure, which can be countered by a good backup strategy), you could be just like the smart employee.

THE SOLUTION:

Install one of these programs, and it will help you find what you seek – instantly.

Make the computer work for you, not the other way around.

I’ve used all of them, and as far as recommendations, I’d say it depends.  If you are a dedicated Gmail user, then I’d go for Google Desktop Search as it will index your Gmail too, and it has a lot of plug-ins to add features.  Copernic Desktop Search has a better interface (to my eyes, anyway), as does Windows Search 4.0 – so if you don’t like or trust Google, try one of the others – all of them can be easily uninstalled, if you want to try a different one.  These all work on any modern version of Windows.

If you run Windows Vista, it also has built-in search that you can access – just press the Windows key, and start typing.

There are many other search programs out there – but the ones I’ve mentioned seem to be the biggest players.

If you run a Mac, then you can use Spotlight to do the same thing… and it’s built right in.  Google Desktop Search also exists for Mac, though I’ve not used it.  Spotlight works well for me, and Gmail’s built-in search does the rest.

(If you run Linux, I’m assuming you’re smart enough to install a search program like Beagle, or you that you know how to use slocate from the command line…)

I won’t be so bold as to suggest that you change the way you organize your files and folders on your computer – keep on doing what works for you.  However, one of these programs might come in handy if you are under the gun and “click-click, damn” isn’t working for you.

You have a multi-gigahertz multi-gigabyte powerhouse at your fingertips – let it do what it does best!

Find “the file”, and get back to writing that book, starting that business, spending time with your family… or just do absolutely nothing with the time you’ve saved, but read a really long post like this one!

If you have any questions about any of these search programs, feel free to ask in the comments, or send me an email!

–

Bonus points: can anyone tell me what is really weird in the picture above?

viking fridays – everything you always wanted to know about life change*

*But were afraid to ask…

Today’s Viking Words of Wisdom are short and sweet, and can be summed up perfectly by Friar’s picture.

The secret to life change, to productivity, whatever, can be summed up as this:

1. You have to take action somehow; and

2. What works for me may not work for you – so you have to create your own plan.

That’s it.

The Vikings knew this – hey, they were people of action, right?  Nobody chops off heads without action!  And, they definitely made their own rules, with all the horned helmets, kilts, Wunderbars and pillaging.

So while there is a lot of great stuff out there telling us how to be a better person, change our lives, find true happiness, and so forth, it all starts right here.

Inside of you.

Believe me, I’ve read it all.  And what have I learned?

Something quite similar to what I learned when I had my first child.  A good friend of mine said to me, “everyone you meet will give you words of advice, opinions, tips on how to raise children – tips that worked for them.  It might work for you, or it might not.  You have to figure it out yourself.”

So by all means, go out there and read all of that great stuff about Getting Things Done, Zen to Done, 7 Habits – it’s all good.  But strangely enough, a lot of this stuff has been said many times before.

Even way back when by the Vikings.  Don’t believe me?  Just look at this quote:

Wake early
if you want
another man’s life or land.
No lamb
for the lazy wolf.
No battle’s won in bed.
- The Hávamál

I quoted this one before, in my post wake early.  So this isn’t new, but many productivity experts go on about the virtues of rising early.  You could change the language slightly, put it on a PowerPoint slide and charge people $1000/hour for it!

And it does work – for some people.  For others, not so well.

So I haven’t told you anything new today – or have I?

If you remember one thing, remember this:

“You know what you want to do, where you want to go – don’t be afraid to ask for directions.  Start your journey when you are ready.  But in the end, you’ll likely have to make your own map, because only you will know when you have arrived at your destination.  The answers you are seeking are inside of you, and if you look deeply enough, you will find them.”

can’t fly without wings? fake it.

Buzz Lightyear was just a toy.  But he believed he could fly, in his own way.  Learned to fly without wings.

But he was just a toy.  He should have known better.  He should have accepted himself as the lesser being he was, as one of the commentators suggested at Men with Pens today.  A fair opinion, but I see it differently.

No.  Buzz accepted himself for who he was, and worked with it.

There is no such thing as a lesser being.  We may not have all of the resources we need, but we can make up for it with resourcefulness.  Tony Robbins speaks of this in a TEDTalk.  Take a few minutes to watch this video, it is well worth your time.  (Thanks to Michael Martine for pointing me to this video a while back.)

No one person is better than any other one person.

For instance, Bill Gates is no better than any of us.

What was Bill Gates?  Resourceful.  When IBM approached him for an operating system to go with the first IBM PC, he did not have one.  But he *told* them he did.  He faked it.  He accepted himself for who he was, and worked with what he had.

He purchased 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products, licensed it to IBM, and the rest is history.

Bill Gates was resourceful.  He was clever, no doubt, but he was resourceful.  He had guts.  I admire him for that.

Many of us are clever – but do we have the guts to back it up?

Maybe we can’t really fly.  But we can fake it, just long enough to get someone to believe in us.

Do we have the guts to fake it?

Imagine what we could do…

“To Infinity… and Beyond”, indeed.

viking fridays – the worst sickness.

“The worst sickness for a wise man is to crave what he cannot enjoy.”

The line has stayed with me since I first quoted it from The Hávamál in burn the boats.  Many hours I have spent thinking about it, thinking about my place in life, and how I got to where I am now.

When I started this blog, I intended to write (mostly) inspirational pieces about life change, as I went through it myself, and with a little luck perhaps inspire someone else to think about doing the same.  I believe I’ve been successful in both regards.

An unintended but very welcome side effect for me has been that as I’ve explored some of these things, I’ve come to know myself much better than I did at the beginning of my journey.

How did I get to where I am now?  Well, that is a result of choices, and that is how all of us arrived at our current locations.  Sometimes choices are made for us, yet, we can react to them and make our own choices to adjust the course of the boat, so to speak.

Probably the most important thing I’ve learned, and that I would like to pass on, is tied in with the quotation above.  In spite of all I’ve written here, I know that I’ve ignored some of my deepest inner feelings and passions for a long time, for too long.  I’ve worked in an area that isn’t particularly suited to me, and I arrived there due to my own choices.

“…the fact is that you are where you are and what you are because that’s what you have chosen. You can do amazing things with your life, but nobody else can change your situation for you. It’s entirely up to you.”

I refuse to waste any more time.  Time to choose another path, steer the boat in another direction.  And once at my destination, set it ablaze.

(I’ll continue to work where I am for now, as I build my boat, of course.  Mrs. Viking and the little Viklings wouldn’t be happy if I got crazy with the torch just yet.  But I’d better get going on it, everyone’s probably tired of hearing about it!)

So what was it that I’ve been ignoring?  Well, I suppose that those who know me know I like the productivity side of things, and more importantly, I like technology and computers.  A lot.

Which may be the understatement of the century.

Strange how things just seemed to line up.  I was sitting back with a glass of wine, observing a few things one night (thanks Kelly), and I noticed on my Feedburner stats that the largest spike of external traffic I’d ever received since starting this blog was over the few days I was commenting on Melissa’s post A is for Apple.

Imagine that – I comment about one of my deepest passions on someone else’s blog, and BOOM.

Hence the picture – the “WUNDERBAR!” moment.  I’m not sure if anyone remembers the commercial with the Vikings finding the treasure chest full of Wunderbars, but they get all crazy and start screaming “WUNDERBAR!”  I couldn’t find it on YouTube unfortunately…

Something I’d been sitting on some time was an idea for a productivity consulting business with a heavy technical flavour.  I assembled my notes and sent them to a good friend for a critical evaluation.  I’m sure that it is full of holes, but that’s okay.  I plan to fill in those holes.  And another good friend of mine has been kicking me in the ass for what must be years to do this.

I will offer my own unique spin on it that will provide value, because no one else can do what I can do, as well as I can do it.  The same applies to all of you, by the way – no one else can do what you can do, as well as you can do it.  Don’t forget that.

That is just the beginning of course, as success in this area would give geographical freedom to pursue another plan more effectively.  It just all seems to click.  And I will still be able to work on my books, and other hobbies.  Beautiful.

Am I a wise man?  I don’t know.  But I have had this sickness inside for a long time, this craving.  I’ve been eating dog food now for a little while – it sure is tasty, and I’m still really hungry.

Beware of Viking.

More to follow soon, here and at another great blog (which I’ll leave as a surprise – I’ll let the creator of that blog unleash it to the world).

dog food.

The trick to being really good at motivating other people to take action, is to be able to do the same for oneself.

To eat one’s own dog food.

I took a two week vacation this summer and I actually did use it as a vacation.  A vacation from all that seemed to have been troubling me.  That which was driving me to want to effect change in my own life.  That which inspired me to write words that are intended to inspire others to change.

I spent a lot of time reflecting and re-reading some of my own words.  It was good.  In no small part did I start this blog with the purpose of kicking myself in the ass to get going on my own things (of course, Dave Navarro’s big boots always help).

To force me to burn my own boat.

To make me eat my own dog food.

Towards the end of my vacation, I thought to myself, “did I really accomplish all that I set out to accomplish on this break?”

At first, I thought, “no, I didn’t get much done at all”.  And then again, I would say that I did, because I spent a lot of time with my family – which I had intended to do – and I was able to unwind from work, the main reason for a vacation you might say.

And then, upon much reflection, I’m still able to say that the fire of change burns deep within me.  Often times when people take a vacation, whatever it is that was bothering them prior to the vacation goes away, and they feel much better when they return to work – at least for a little while.

In fact, one of the last notices on my company’s internal web site prior to my vacation said exactly that – “employees feel much better about their jobs when they return from a vacation”.

Of course they do, Einstein, they’ve been freed from something that they might, quite possibly, detest more than anything else in the entire world.  What a stupid thing to say…

So the fire still burns deep within me.  In fact, the fire seems to be spreading (thanks for the drop in, Tom, and the kick-ass post).

That is good.

And you know what, I’ve been writing at this blog for quite some time now.  The way I see it, it’s like a big, bad bowl of dog food that I can eat.

And I’m ravenous.

More to come on Viking Fridays.

(Special thanks to Harry of Men with Pens today, for the help with the CSS image code for WP 2.6 – as you’ve said at your blog – Great Service Deserves a Great Mention – so thank you.  Without you and James, I wouldn’t be here.)

viking fridays – burn the boats, revisited.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking since my last post, a lot of time thinking about burning boats.

One of the very last comments by Albert @ Headspace asked:

“I am making my umpteenth come-back at cycling. The important first step is losing the 40-odd pounds of weight that I have packed on since I last raced bicycles with any effect. Any ideas on how to ‘burn the boat’ on this one? Sure I can imagine that my life depends on it etc. My how can I really commit this time. Your thoughts?”

Don’t worry, I go through the same thing.  I start on something, and then get sidetracked.  The main thing is to keep at it.

Fall down seven times, get up eight times.

There is a how, but I think there also must be a why.

And believe me, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that.  I have a very busy life, and most probably so do you, so I do not consider myself to be particularly gifted in this area.

It would be all too easy to succumb to it and just exist.  Let the wind carry me.

And yet, I keep at it.  Why?

Because I can.

Because I still have that privilege.  Others do not anymore.  I have learned from watching how others embrace mortality that we must live each day like it is our last, for it very well may be our last.

I made the decision that saying I’m too busy is bull.

So that is the why.

And the how?

How do you burn the boats?  You are special.  Don’t ever forget that.  There are certain things that you can do better than anyone else who has ever lived, or ever will.

Maybe all you need to do is take stock.  Sometimes I forget to do that, or I get so busy with minutia that I forget what it is that makes “me” uniquely “me”.  And then, like some kind of magnet or compass, I return to my passions.

The mind alone knows what is near the heart,
Each is his own judge:
The worst sickness for a wise man
Is to crave what he cannot enjoy.
- The Hávamál

Ah yes, the Viking connection (some people were probably thinking, “where the heck are the Vikings?  I paid for Vikings!”)

You know yourself what you love to do and what you are capable of achieving.  The worst thing you could do is to ignore the voices inside, and continue to dream of it and not do it.

This time of year is a good time to take stock.  A traditional celebration of the first harvest, a holiday the Irish called Lughnasadh.  A time to celebrate with family and friends, and also a time to reflect.

Ask yourself, “What are my talents, my skills, my passions?  What can I give back to the world?”

Look carefully at the answers.

That is how to burn your boat.