Be ambiguous about your notes.

Something I love doing is jotting down ideas for future recollection. However, I've found that the more specific I am, the more I get confused by it and eventually throw them out.

When making these videos, I typically will write down ideas throughout the day of possible subjects to speak about. If I get too specific, my imagination gets caught up with the details I wrote, and I find it hard to talk about that subject. However, when I am ambiguous with the note, I find that my imagination runs free, and I can remember better why I wrote that down. Or I will come up with another spin-off idea on which to talk about.

This doesn't work too well to remember things with accuracy, but it's excellent for creative thinking! 

Key takeaways:

1) Be ambiguous about your idea notes

2) Without specifics, your mind gets to run free with new concepts and ideas

3) You do loose accuracy but make up in creative thinking

Train for just beyond your goal

An interesting concept I heard recently was looking past your goal and setting your eyes on something higher. 

The analogy that fits perfectly with this is that of a short distance runner training for a competition. If you are making a fast dash toward the finish line and your goal is to get to the finish line, you will, but your body will start to decelerate as you approach it and come to a walking pace as you pass by. This is why athletes train to run several meters beyond the finish line. That way, their body only starts to decelerate after they pass the end. They don't lose any momentum by slowing down to the destination. 

Applying this to what I see around me if you plan or train for an event and in your training do it harder than necessary, you now can perform that with more ease and accuracy. 

In 'The Talent Code,' the author Daniel Coyle talks about how Brazil produces the best soccer players. In the study, they found that the players played an unusual game that resembled soccer. It consisted of playing in a small enclosed space with a heavy ball that required more force to kick. The athletes grew very good at moving the ball to the desired location with amazing accuracy by playing this game. When they started playing soccer, it was easier than their native sport with fewer restrictions that didn't take long to grow to.

Key Takeaways:

1) Train for just beyond your goal 

2) Working harder at the training will make the ending task easier to perform

3) Challenge yourself for growth

We aren't robots; we have emotions!

When I was around 12 years old, I started listening to pretty much non-stop Dave Ramsey, and a good portion of it went over my head. I found it very interesting through all those hours was how often people tried to modify the plan put forth by Dave Ramsey and inevitably failing in the process.

The most common change people would try to make is 'optimizing' how they paid off their debt. In his baby-steps, Dave Ramsey outlines how you setup your debts from smallest to largest amounts owed. Logically, we would want to pay off the one with the largest interest first, not to have to pay as much overall. However, the reason behind paying the small one-off is psychological; the excitement and power we feel when we get one of saying, 5 debt accounts paid off is higher than seeing 10% paid off. 

We try and optimize our life as if we were robots, not humans with emotions. What makes sense on paper may not be the best in real life. As a teenager and still living with my parents, it makes more financial sense not to pay rent, but the emotional growth I'm getting from doing is worth more to me than the money I would have been able to save. 

Key takeaways:

1) We try to optimize our life as if we were robots without emotions

2) What makes sense on paper may not be the best course of action in real life

3) We forget to take into account the physiological growth that takes place 

Rabbi Daniel Lapin talks a lot about giving and tithing in his book 'Thou Shall Prosper' and its importance in our lives. 

If we learn to tithe our money, aside from helping another individual, it also puts us in a different state of mind. When we give from the first fruits of our labors, we say that it has been such a blessing that we can give a portion back. We are not needy, but rather benevolent with our money and use it to help others and ourselves. 

He gave an example in the book about how giving opens a new channel to receive. Many years ago, in Jerusalem, it was under siege, and people decided to tunnel a passage from inside out behind the enemy lines to bring in food for the city, allowing them to hold fast. Years later, when the city was under another ruler, an attacking army heard of this tunnel and used it to advance on their campaign taking it. Giving is like this: when we give, we open a channel that goes both directions!

Going into a business interaction, if we show that we are needy, you reek of desperation and get across a message that we will provide sub-par service or products. On the other hand, if we go into that relationship with confidence, not needing the outcome to be in our favor to live, but rather a pleasant outcome, we are now better positioned to get to an agreement both parties are happy with!

Key takeaways:

1) Giving our firstfruits puts us in a position of benevolence and gratitude

2) Giving opens a new channel in which we can receive more

3) Showing you're desperate will make you reek of a low-value product

One of the big things I picked up today that I'm still mulling around my head to comprehend fully is that tomorrow will be better than today.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin talks about this in his book 'Thou Shall Prosper' where we are always valuing what we have in terms of a worst-case scenario, where in actuality, that's very rarely the case. Say you splurge and buy a new car from a dealership; the second you drive it off the lot, it drops quite a bit in value. Does this mean the dealership cheated you? Certainly not; our immediate thought is to go to what it's worth if I had to sell it this minute. However, we don't consider the emotional value of what we get, and that if someone. 

I know I'm guilty of this where I value my possessions as if I had to sell them in a pinch, forgetting that if someone offered me the amount I paid for it, I wouldn't take their offer. I paid what I did for a reason, and it's got more value to me in its current state than selling it for what I could make. 

Key takeaways:

1) Value is in how much you would part it for, not how much you could get for it

2) We won't typically sell something at the same cost we bought it at

I was listening to 'Thou Shall Prosper' by Rabbi Daniel Lapin on a drive back home today, and he spoke of an interesting thing he's observed in how our subconscious works. 

He said that your subconscious puts things together faster than your conscious brain does. Sometimes certain children seem very accident prone when everyone around them doing the same thing doesn't get into scrapes. He says that this is often because they don't get a lot of discipline in their lives, and they get to act however they want. Their subconscious sees this and steps in as the parent and allows for mistakes to be made as a punishment. 

When you get into a rut or hitting a limit of some sort that doesn't seem to make sense, it's often your mind that puts the barriers in place, not the real world. Most of the perceived limits are just that, limits we put up in our subconscious that tell us it's not possible to overcome them. Digging down into the deeper reasons why you aren't moving forward will help you better evaluate why your subconscious wants to put up the barriers. 

Key takeaways:

1) Our subconscious tells us what's possible

2) Our minds are often the most limiting factor before getting ahead

3) Dive down into deep reasons as to why you're putting barriers for yourself

Lately, I've been in somewhat of a lower mood than I normally am, and I'm finding my brain is constantly trying to find problems with what I've got and worked toward!

I forgot to consider what kind of content I am putting in my head that's affecting my emotions. I've heard this primarily from Brendon Burchard when he speaks about being aware of what you listen to and read and that it can even affect you several days after the event. 

I did a quick evaluation of the past few days and I've discovered that I have done something different, and that was listening to some new pop music which had a really nice beat and rhythm, but lyrics weren't very good. I've noticed that my subconscious reads things I don't even consciously pick up, so I normally tune out the words and enjoy the music. However, my background brain hears those lyrics and carefully reads them to file into emotions I should be feeling. So an upbeat song with a dark story lasts long past the end of the song. I get the benefits of getting jazzed up by the music, but the dark story gets turned around in my subconscious and then tells me how I should feel. 

I'm still trying to find the right playlist of songs with that upbeat rhythm to them, without dark or depressing stories behind it. I've enjoyed listening to some of Disney music as it's typically got a hopeful background to it! I also enjoy music in other languages, as I get the pop beat's benefits, without understanding the bad lyrics. Another big thing I enjoy listening to is music sung by young people. My favorite group is called 'One Voice Children's Choir.' It's an amazing group with an amazingly hopeful and energetic take on some of my favorite songs; it's an absolute pleasure to listen to them!

Key takeaways:

1) What you listen to will influence your emotions, even days later

2) Even when you mentally tune out bad or dark content, your subconscious picks it up

3) Try to find a playlist of hopeful and energetic songs, even pop in other languages!

I'm going to be totally honest and say I've been dreading making another one of these videos. I'm so close to my goal of 100, and yet I am utterly un-motivated!

While I was thinking through what I'd talk about today, I suddenly realized I completely missed the point of making the videos in the first place! 

I'm unfortunately one for starting many projects and not finishing them, and I've always wondered why I do this. I always get started with excitement and am extremely motivated, but as it becomes a normal part of my day, I begin losing interest in it. Doing each video, I am always attempting to do something a bit better and putting my full effort into them even when I don't feel up to it. 

I think part of the reason is how young I am and my desire for instant gratification, but I think another bigger reason is that I'm missing the point of beginning it at all!

I started these videos with a hazy purpose but knew that it would be valuable, unsure why or what the primary reason was. I'm certain that public speaking will have some major part in my future, so I want to get an early start not to waste time later on. 

A secondary reason was to have a way to share what I am constantly thinking about. I hate to admit this, but I've always felt somewhat misunderstood; being only 17, this sounds like the typical thing someone of my age would say, and I've got no arguments to combat that. I am constantly viewing myself as different and have different reasons behind doing what I do. I'm not even sure what reasons I have behind the things I focus my efforts on, to be completely honest. 

But above all else, the biggest reason was to enjoy the process of growth; I am getting too caught up in the details of learning that I'm not letting myself enjoy the whole journey! 

Key takeaways:

1) I lose motivation when it becomes normal and normally does not fulfill instant gratification

2) I am unclear on the purpose of my projects, and so my excitement dies shortly after my motivation

3) My purpose was to improve my public speaking, share my thoughts, and most of all, enjoy the learning process!

I spent a good chunk of the day working on the swarf toolpath problem I've been facing on the truck project.

I sent an email off to Autodesk to ask for assistance in getting a better surface finish on the side of the cab of the vehicle. The problem I'm having is that it will leave facets and jagged edges on the side face. It seems to stutter as it moves along in its 5-axis motion, and changing the tolerance and smoothing settings wouldn't do anything to fix it. 

Autodesk got back to me this morning with a few changes to my swarf toolpath. They increased the points along which the tool would follow and changed one of the selected settings from 'automatic' to 'entity,' which I'm not too sure what that does. They also checked a box that minimizes axial motion as the tool is contouring the part. However, after running the program, I had a very similar result, with only reduced facets. I did some more playing around with the settings and finally got a somewhat decent finish by adding more points for the tool to follow and using a different selection method when getting the rail guidelines. 

My boss thinks the issue is around the computing for the toolpath; since the two straight line segments are different lengths, it's trying to plot the best course of action for the endmill using one point at the short line and more points at the longer segment. His thought is that if you change the points on both lines to be equal, so say a thousand on the first line and a thousand on the segment; the points should match up and have a more fluid motion. He came to this conclusion by how the corner fillets turned out, which was a mirror finish. The corner radius has the same length and line points on the top as the bottom does and so it doesn't need to compute a lot to get the toolpath. 

I attempted to draw out a bunch of line segments to try simulating the idea manually; however, after I got to 8,000 points, my computer crashed, which wasn't a viable option. The other thought was that since it's trying to convert a straight line into a bunch of smaller segments and getting confused by straight lines. I could turn the straight line into a small ark. However, after trying this out, it didn't make a difference in the final result. 

I also spent a bit of time playing around with my other finishing toolpaths and got some amazing results from slowing the RPM down on the tools I'm using. I really want to build a good tool library of proven toolpaths that I can pick from without having to wrestle with this over and over, and this is the first step toward that. 

Brendon Burchard talks about how to create enduring happiness.

He speaks about how we all break life into three major categories, past, present, and future when we view life. Really happy people look at the past with nostalgia and a positive outlook. They aren't living the past. Be it good or bad, it is in the past, and so learn how to view it with a positive outlook. 

When creating happiness in the present, he talks about two areas to achieve this. Connections, we all find our real fulfillment and joy in the connections we have with other people. We don't find true value from physical things, only from the meaningful relationships we build with those around us. So the more intentional we are about bringing more into those connections the happier we will be.

The second is building appreciation for what you have now and where you've come. We are amazingly blessed to be in the scenarios that we're in, and dwelling upon those things will build happiness. Take moments to feel the present and where you're at. 

Finally, the future. Truly happy people look at the future with not just optimism, but with enthusiasm. Looking to the future with excitement because there is some specific thing that is coming. Ask yourself what is coming along that you can get excited about and build anticipation for. This builds happiness because we are not only hopeful for the future but expectant of what it will yield from where we are going now.

Even if we don't get what we want from what we expect, we learn and grow!

Key takeaways:

1) Happiness comes from three major areas, past, present, and future

2) Look at your past with nostalgia and a positive outlook

3) Build closer connections and appreciation to create more happiness in the present

4) Look ahead to the future with enthusiasm for all it will bring. Not only optimism but specific instances