Some Inspiration From The Web Oct. 20 – Nov.7

Several articles that are all quite connected in that they are pushing the basic concepts to fight fear and become an idea generator. These articles all can help you be more innovative, insightful, better business person, or just a better person, apply the knowledge where you can in your life.

Last week, The Next Web published an article entitled The Era of Entrepreneur!, in which they discuss 5 defining elements of an entrepreneur. These 5 elements don’t just apply to an entrepreneur but, anyone wishing to change something. The discussion won’t help too much if you’re not interested in business so, I provided the list below.

  1. Be Independent
  2. Think Different
  3. Be Prepared
  4. Be Patient
  5. Ignore Everyone

Over at theBridgeMaker, they have written 7 Must -Have Personal Growth Strategies. This article has a more focused thought into Thinking Different and Being Independent in order to grow as a person.

The NYT has an article on Pursuing Big Ideas that has 10 items that will help anyone seeking to get the creative juices flowing. These different approaches will provide you with plenty of ways to think differently or “not think at all “.

Spiritual Blog provides 2 articles, the first is 10 Paths to Individualism. The article analyzes 10 Socratic quotations into finding ones Individuality.  The second is a set of 10 Insightful quotes from Plato, no analysis.

That is all of the inspiration and now I’d like to take a moment to point out another element of economic stupidity, in the secondary-education’s foundation. The NYT has posted a story that states the Downturn is driving tuition UP. The fact that multiple stories have been written on the subject of tight lenders even to students means that the majority of this money will be coming from the government. I’ve already done several articles, College is Taxing Our System and Education pt 2. on the shear absurdity that is government subsidization in this sector

Some Inspiration From The Web

A man’s wealth comes not from what he carries in his wallet but, what he carries in his heart.

So we’ve all dealt with and continue to deal with the volatile markets of this past week and likely to come back next week though more subdued. Most of us are still probably a bit worried about what’s going to happen in the coming months. I don’t think we should focus on that it’s just not good for general mental health, though we should all be knowledgeable about what is going on around us. I feel like providing some positive inspiration and news for such a down time.

How to Overcome the Fear of FailureSuccess Soul This isn’t just about personal failure though it focuses on solidifying oneself. This is something for everyone, we all have our personal pillars that we rely on so that we can keep standing even when we are weak. If our pillars are weak they won’t be able to support us when we fall so we all need to fight the fear and buckle down for the coming months.

What Does it Mean to Be Rich?Get Rich Slowly A good analysis of what rich is and what it may be. He describes a really interesting situation that he went through recently that makes you think. Even if you feel poor, infact, you may be richer in comparison to the majority of the world?

The Best $20 You’ll Ever SpendGet Rich Slowly This post is directed more towards people who want to build their knowledge through networking. This is great for people seeking to become independent of the workforce, start a business, or just become a better leader. This is honestly the simplest way’s to enrich you mind of working strategies and new ideas, it’s also inexpensive.

Is All This Paranoia About a Startup Depression Justified?The Next Web This is an honest explanation of the positive aspects of the collapsing Web 2.0 arena. If your interested in where the boom tech sectors(e.g. Web 2.0, Clean Tech, etc.) are likely to go, this is a great example of what is going to happen during the coming months.

Lastly the story of a sheriff in Cook County, Ohio that is standing up against banks to help people stay in their homes. He’s refusing to do instant foreclosures and giving the families 120 days of leniency.

We’re In A Death Spiral, But There Is Life Here

We all know that the economy is collapsing shouldn’t be any surprise to any person paying even the faintest bit of attention. Lately, there have been quite a few people instilling fearing with headlines, e.g.(NYT and Robert Scoble). I’m getting sick of all the fear mongering so I’m going to post some positive and inspirational links.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. ” ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address is still one of the most inspirational speeches to have been given by a president. I beg you to listen to his words or read them as they bear wisdom that may help us turn this situation around. Just look at that jewel above and how the media channels are spouting fear to the masses.

A Responsible bank CEO speaks out about the bailout, the CEO of BB&T discusses 14 points that don’t make sense about the bailout. This may be tinged with a bit of fear but, atleast there are some banks that didn’t deal in the illogical financing, that got us into this mess. We need to find more banks with this kind of respectable handling of their customers’ money.

Today, the seeds of the next big thing are being planted, this is provision for inspiration. It is providing the knowledge of what has happened in the recent recessions and their outcomes. We all have the ability to build the next big thing, don’t quite your day job but, most definitely don’t stop trying to redefine the world of tomorrow.

Tyler Durden’s 8 Rules of Innovation, will help you if you decide that you want to redefine the future. “Your life is ending one minute at a time,” so you better go do what you want before your time runs out. This interpretation of  some of most notable quotes from the book and movie are remarkable.

I hope that they people have read this find this at least a small distraction from the turmoil around us. We need to have solidarity in our lives not instability. Surround yourself with people who can speak honestly about the current environment but still provide us with the strong front that we need.

Links From August 11-27

Something extra for you this week. Some links I really enjoyed the past 2 weeks. Decided I needed to post them before they become to old and irrelevant.

Robert Scoble on passionate user adoption and Ubiquity. This is just something that I enjoyed reading especially after using Ubiquity for several hours yesterday. If you want to use it I recommend reading the tutorial and watching the video.

An article, from Business Pundit, on the enlightenment complex that we see stateside also developing in the Chinese culture. A bit of an insight into why my generation, for the most part, feels so damn entitled. Also, suggest why depression is on such a climb.

This is one of several articles that prompted my last post. It is promoting some smart financial advice on steering clear of private lenders. However, it all so shows weak decision making on behalf of the government, in allowing people weakened by the subprime mess increased loans.

A really thorough and thought provoking conversation with Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of ‘The Black Swan‘ and ‘Fooled by Randomness‘, provided by Portfolio.com. It looks into his life and how he removes the noise of now.

As somewhat of a bibliophile this last one is just an amazing list of 50 Essential Novels, provided by Leo Babauta at Zen Habits. It is such a substantial list of both classic literature and current hits that are certain to last for a long while. I recommend checking this list out if you enjoy reading.

Wasted Too Much Time With The Dark Knight

Link Dump today, I was busy studying the different aspects of the Joker and forgot to write something. Movie was a bit bland wouldn’t recommend it without Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker, he literally carried this movie for me. So I’ll leave some of the things I found of interest the past 2 weeks.

I-Power is an interesting idea from Kevin Rose. Basically, the idea is to add background software to the Iphone and hardware in your home that acts as switches. The Iphone sends out a gps signal that registers on the hardware when you leave the range it shuts everything off and when you enter it comes back on.

Content and Community video from Gary Vaynerchuk, an amazing guy, is something I enjoy because he cuts out the BS. He gives it to you straight, it’s not about you it’s about the customer. This applies to life not just a vlog.

20 Strategies to Defeat the Urge to Do a Useless Task over at Zen Habits something that really strikes a chord with me. Recently, I was asked how I manage so many social media sites, approximately a dozen. I replied with, “I guess I’ve just become atuned to doing it.” This lists the processes that I use and some I don’t, it lets you have some flexibitility.

Innovation Step By Step Instructions from Musing on Marketing provides a pretty simple guide to innovation. It’s something that anyone looking to innovate a market should read. I plan on looking at it when I need to clear my mind and drop back to the basics.

Forrest Gump: How to Build Your Self-Confidence over at Success Soul is about being creative, confident, and how to lead. It shows the values that truely matter, not the knowledge that we are forced to believe matters. It is there to prove that you can do what you want and the wisdom all came from Forrest’s lips.

Well, that’s what I have for you tonight, be back with new stuff on Friday.

Where I Plan On Going

I’ve recently become encumbered with several other projects that take priority over the blog. That paired with the fact that the works that I have complete, I feel aren’t worth my time and ultimately yours. So, I’m going to update you on the progression of where I see the blog going and provide a link dump to some content I enjoyed in the last couple of weeks.

I plan on keeping the schedule of 2 posts per week, Monday and Friday, however occasionally it will be a link dump or something else. I plan on writing about an innovative or inspirational person once a month and also about items that I found innovative. So I’ll get along to the link dump.

The 7 Secrets to Warren Buffet’s Happy and Simple Life over at Success Soul looks into the 7 rules that Warren Buffet lives by. Most of this are about living a simple life and not becoming jaded by fame or fortune. Pretty interesting post about the richest man in the world.

11 Ways to Build an Extraordinary Life over at Steve-Olson looks at 11 things that your going to want out of life and he sums them up perfectly. This is how I live and it’s kind of cool to see this in text. It kind of tells me that I’m pointed in the right direction, but I can still advance further.

25 Visionaries Who Created Empires from Virtually Nothing at Business Pundit looks at some of the biggest names in the world of early industrial business to computers to entertainment. This is missing several people that I find inspirational, however, they didn’t create empires. Several of the people on this list are actual on my list of innovative and inspirational people.

A post at the NY Times on Web Literacy vs Conventional Literacy. This is pretty interesting as several of my friends and I, all in our late-teens to early-twenties work both sides of the line; we read books regularly and we stay up-to-date with blogs and other web sources. I actually would rather read a book than multiple pages of an e-book or large source of data.

And finally just a really interesting idea, TechCrunch brought up an interesting project for people. They asked for A Dead Simple Web Tablet after hearing about a rumor about Apple working on one for sometime this Fall. So they posed the question to the people if they could design a thin tablet that runs linux and uses Firefox as it’s main use.

The Top 5 TED Talks That Inspire Me

I enjoy thinking about innovative ways to do things and TED offers an amazing way to look through the eyes of influential people in different areas. The conferences may be elitist gatherings but; rather than keep this knowledge locked away they have begun to share their ideas for change. So I decided I’d give you a list of the talks that I enjoy.

1. Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

A speech on how capability should no longer be based on educational standard and how creativity is a new way to develop one’s capability. Imagination is a the ultimate gift to a child.He takes an astounding non-conformist view and presents it excellently.

2. Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

Gladwell speaks about how people base their judgements. He delves into human variability in choice.A very interesting insight in how to develop a product that will be diversly accepted, increasing it’s aspects to fit or providing more with different aspects.

3. Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

Schwartz looks at the inverse of Gladwell’s talk and how over variation in choice can cause more harm than good. Showing that our world is becoming so simplified for groups that the world is being diluted in complexity.

4. Larry Lessig: How creativity is being strangled by the law

Larry is showing how people are being restricted further and further from modifying the IP of another and creating something new. This talk is quite motivating in the way that you think about recreating it has been around for century’s and now people are labeling it piracy. To go along with this I recommend reading The Pirate’s Dilemma.

5. Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen

Hans Rosling delivers a speech that talks about the inefficiency in the development of current thought, from pre-conceived notions. He displays the data in a fascinating way that enthralls you as you watch it move through time.