Looking out my condo window, I see three cranes putting up massive new buildings. My view will only be partially blocked.

Right now, according to the Seattle Times, there is a major shortage of rentals in downtown Seattle. I get the sense things will change drastically once all the new construction comes online over the next 6 to 12 months.

 ”If renters have a bright spot on the horizon, it’s this: Developers in the central Puget Sound region plan to roll out 20,857 new units between this year and 2011. And that’s just counting apartment complexes with 20 or more units.” - Seattle Times

For now though, landlords are having a field day.

Ran across another good personal development blog. Steve Aitchison’s Change Your Thoughts To Change Your Life. He has some great content, interesting guest writers and also is pretty open about his quest to become a professional blogger.

I do appreciate it when people who choose to monetize their blogs are open about how it is going. This way others can learn from their successes and mistakes. It’s even better when they take feedback from their readers when their ads are getting too intrusive. Steve does both.

Went back to Yoga class for the first time in a few months. Lately, I’ve just practiced at home…..Yoga Today is awesome! Free hour-long video podcasts delivered daily. You can’t beat it….except for actually going to a real class.

You see, there is just something about having other people around that makes me work harder.

On Friday, I managed to reinjure my neck in the weight room. I think the source of the injury is bad ergonomics at work. Spending more than a few hours hunched over a laptop is a recipe for disaster.  Following this up with a heavy day of lifting; focusing on shoulders, was enough to tweak my neck.

I am going to take it easy on the weights for the next couple days. I will train legs tomorrow and keep up with the yoga for a few days to see if that helps.

This article is a summary from a live group discussion (moderated by Ravi Raman) during the April 14th Seattle Personal Development POWERGROUP meeting.

Motivation is not some magic gift reserved only for the exceptional and accomplished few. It is something that each and every one of us can harness to get more done, while enjoying the process. In fact, achieving ANY goal, or completing any task requires some level of motivation.

What is Motivation?

Defined; motivation means: “the PSYCHOLOGICAL feature that arouses an organism to ACTION toward a desired GOAL.”

The letters in capitals are VERY IMPORTANT to internalize.

Motivation is PSYCHOLOGICAL, which means that it is something that comes from within you. It is not some mysterious force that comes and goes as it pleases. It is something that can be understand and indeed CREATED at will.

The results of being motivated are ACTIONS. Action is movement and it is through this movement that actual progress is made. Lastly, all this progress is made toward a desired GOAL. This last part is crucial. Without a clear goal and purpose, it is hard, if not impossible to get motivated.

So it stands that becoming a motivated individual is completely within YOUR CONTROL. It is really a state of mind, that is manifested through the body (via action) toward a specific purpose (goal). Sound simple enough?

The Antithesis of Motivation is Procrastination

Getting motivated on a consistent basis is harder than it sounds. We frequently fall victim to procrastination.

Why do we procrastinate? Ultimately, as dictated through human needs psychology, it comes down to FEAR. This is not inherently bad, but it is somethingthat must be understood. Our brains have evolved in such a way as to ensure that we are safe and protected at all times. Thank goodness for that.

However, while this hard-wiring was great at helping us avoid getting mauled by a saber-toothed tiger thousands of years ago, it is not helpful in pushing you to try new things and drive through fear in a more civilized and modern society. Our SOCIETY has evovled MUCH FASTER than our BIOLOGY. If you want to success in a modern world, you need to be able to cope with this.

Luckily, there are many tools out there to help you.

Had a <small> breakthrough recently. I am a big note-taker. I am always scribbling and jotting things down. Often in a Moleskine or on Post-It notes. I tend to write in list form. It’s just how my mind works best.

My lists usually have “-” marks next to each entry and “–>” marks next to sub-items in a list. I’ll put a star next to key points.

Lately, however, I’ve been numbering all my lists from the get-go. I’ve actually found this makes my notes much easier to read and I am able to recall information much better as well, not only when re-scanning the notes, but when trying to mentally recall.

Not sure if there is some reason why this is so, or if it is a quirk in my brain, but am happy to have stumbled upon it after <only> 27 years!

Indeed.

I was reading Sarah Lewis’s Blogging Expertise and noticed an intriguing pointer to Tim Ferriss’s blog. He’s written a book, “The Four-Hour Work Week” that should be published soon. It is all about being able to do more in less time.

While the topic isn’t anything unique…..his background certainly is.

He’s 29 years old, a champion kickboxer, Princeton graduate, speaks six languages, runs his own multi-national company and is a peak performance advisor for dozens of world-class athletes.

Talk about high standards!  Whatever he is doing must be working. I’ll be checking out his blog regularly from now on, and his book when it hits the shelves.

I’ve been lifting steadily since last May. I’ve had some good progress…and some good regression of progress!

During this time I’ve change my diet around quite a bit. Gone on a few long fasts, cut out all dairy and eggs from my diet, and am now settled into a good groove.

I’m still pushing to get my bodyweight up to 165 lbs. I’m sitting at 151 as of this morning (12% bodyfat). The most I’ve ever weighed (two years ago) was 160.

My STRENGTH is progressing steadily. I’m super happy about that, but the WEIGHT just isn’t going anywhere.

When Rob came to visit a few weeks ago (he’s a Vegan Bodybuilder) I got a wake up call to how much I really need to be eating to gain muscle. I wrote a while back about my experiment with a high calorie diet. Let me tell you. IT AIN’T EASY! Last year I maintained a 3200 cal/day diet for a few weeks and it was almost as hard as going on a two week fast (ok, not quite that hard!).

Really, anyone who thinks that eating a lot is easy hasn’t tried to do it CONSISTENTLY.

Left to my druthers, I will consume about 2000 calories a day (on a vegan diet). When I was lacto-ovo vegetarian, I was probably getting around 2200-2300 a day without trying too hard. My basal metabolic rate is about 1800 day. Since I exercise everyday, and keep active at other times throughout the day (walking around, doing stairs, stretching), I end up most days in a caloric deficit.

This is bad is your goal is to gain weight!

I really need to stick to around 3000 calories a day to gain size at a good pace. So….for the past week or so, I’ve been GETTIN’ MY EAT ON!!! I’m getting around 2600 calories a day and actually feel pretty good eating this much. The biggest trick for me is to get calories early in the day and also in the afternoon. I can’t just rely on big lunches and dinner like I use to do.

I’m slowly gonna keep increasing my calories until I get to 3000 or so.

When I was a morbidly-overweight kid about 15 years ago I never would’ve imagined I’d have to TRAIN MYSELF TO EAT!

Wow, how times have changed :)

I had a very interesting meeting today. Frustrating at times, but ultimately I had a huge learning in what it takes to be a leader. I work at Microsoft, as a product planner in the Windows Division. My job is all about making sure that future versions of our software exceed the expectations of our customers. This is a tall order, given the hundreds of millions of Windows PC’s out there, but it is one that I truly enjoy trying to meet.

I was working with a technical team, helping them hone in on the most impact-ful features they should focus on building in a future release. These folks are subject matter experts for their product area. They are living and breathing their product all day long. They should feel completely empowered to make big decisions so their teams can move forward.

Unfortunately, progress had stalled. People felt dis-empowered not empowered. As a very big company, sometimes people feel that they need to get an “ok” from on-high before moving past any big decision point. There was some logic to this, as there was a higher-level process in place that could impact the overall direction of the team. However, it was clear, that waiting for approval or executive direction was not going to help the matter.

The team was losing forward momentum. The reality was, even our executive team would ultimately respect their decisions, as long as they were well-thought out and based on solid customer data.

It took an extra long and open conversation with the team, but ultimately everyone came around to the realization that they were in charge of their team’s direction. The best thing to do was to move forward. Take a few more steps. Make informed decisions. After all, there was still time for minor adjustments to the plans later on.

Ultimately, the lesson was that even the lowest levels in an organization need to assume that they have full authority to shape their destiny. Don’t wait for someone else to tell you what to do! You have all the authority you need within yourself.

Academia has finally confirmed what we have known for years. I personally feel that PowerPoint is not at fault, it is the presenter. I’ve seen many outstanding PowerPoints in my day, but the majority of folks never take the time to learn what it means to engage and audience effectively.

 From Information Week:

“The brain simply isn’t wired to absorb information in two simultaneous forms as well as it takes in one type of information. Processing the written and spoken word at the same time creates quite a challenge for the mind, according to John Sweller, a researcher from the University of New South Wales.

……

Sweller crafted the Cognitive Load Theory, which deals with the amount of information people can process at once. Sweller believes it is more difficult to process language and retain new information simultaneously.

What really tunes the brain out during PowerPoint? Speaking the same words that are on the screen, according to Sweller.”

There is a measure being put in place that will require all almonds in North America to undergo mandatatory pasteurization.

Apparently, there were two incidents of recall of almonds in the past five years invovling salmonella. That’s TWO INCIDENTS in the past five years. Both cases also dealt with convential almond farms (not organic farms). I don’t know about you, but mandatory pasteurization seems like overkill here.

I eat lots of raw food, and almonds are one of my favorite nuts, and I always eat them raw. They taste way better and are a LOT more healthy for you that way. With pasteurization, you’ll be eliminating a lot of the positive health qualities of these nuts.

Luckily, people are starting to protest. Head over here to sign Seth Leaf’s online petition protesting this mandate.

We Like It Raw has additional contact info for almond growers and packagers that you can voice your complaints to.

Do you need a cup of coffee in the morning to get yourself out of bed? Do you find yourself craving food at odd times of day? Does your energy level seem to be waning with every passing month or year? It’s time to take action! Revitalize yourself and feel more energetic than ever by alkalizing your body.

It is easy to do, doesn’t require any radical change to your diet, and will have a more profound affect on your well-being than any standard “diet” could ever have.

I saw it for the second time last weekend at the Cinerama. It’s awesome. Go see it (twice) if you haven’t already! I’m waiting for the IMAX version to come out in my neck of the woods.

I can’t help but notice the scores of personal development bloggers out there. I read about 25 right now. Another one or two pop up each month.

Some are excellent writers; with well informed opinions, good writing style and frankly, some compelling personal experiences to back it up.

Others….well, let’s just say their sites look like the backside of a VW Bus on a Berkley street corner…..e.g. covered in ads with half-a-bumper. Barely running. Little substance. Written by kids acting as if they were Norman Vincent Peale, Tony Robbins and Deepak Chopra all wrapped into one.

Spewing out tips on “how to attract abundance,” “how to live courageously” and “how to be an oustanding person”….without giving so much as a hint at why I should devote one ounce of weight to their self-proclaimed guru status.

In this day and age, anyone can write about <nearly> anything and can claim to be an expert with no credentials.

What I love about blogging is they enable you to have a dialog with a REAL PERSON. You can learn and interact with this REAL PERSON. The writing is less authoritative and more editorial. It has a sharp tinge of personality. Blogs nowadays are losing that personal touch. Their trying to be mini-e-zines with catchy titles.

I’ve noticed far too many blogs in my little niche of personal development totally slacking on the PERSONAL part of their stories. There are tons of “top 10 lists” or quick references to other blogs (no doubt to drive traffic) but little in the way of helping readers actually get a glimpse into the author’s personality, life and personal growth challenges and success.

Frankly, I don’t look to a 2o-something y/o with a wordpress account to tell me how to live my life “courageously.” At least, not without first knowing what this 20-something has done to warrant my dedicated following.

Net-Net…I am more than a little jaded with the state of many blogs right now. If you are a personal development blogger, tell me about how you are evolving and improving your own life. Tell me about your own personal goals. Hold yourself accountable for the progress you are making (or not making against them). Tell me about lessons you are learning, both mistakes and the good things. That’s what blogs are meant to be, an open dialogue.

Stop trying to act like you are a guru.

If I want to read a top ten list I’ll watch Letterman.

If  this is too much to ask….no worries, I’ll just stop reading your blog.

I was walking across Microsoft campus the other day and noticed a few security guards standing along the perimeter of our sports fields.

Yes, we actually have a gigantic sport field, with a few soccer fields, a ball field and a beach volleyball court. It’s pretty state-of-the-art; made out of “field turf.” This stuff actually feels like grass and has faux dirt (small bits of rubber) that give it a bit of added traction and bounce.

Anyway, after a few minutes, I noticed the guards run out towards the field. Were they gonna start an impromptu game of  touch football? Maybe do a few conditioning drills?

Nope.

A large ball of steel decended out of the grey sky, and our fearless leader hopped out.

Perhaps he woke up late for a meeting and traffic was a bit too severe? Perhaps he made a quick sandwich run to Red Hook? Maybe he was meeting with a VIP downtown?

Whatever the reason, you know you’ve made it when you show up to work in a Helicopter!

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” - Wayne Dyer

Welcome to sethigherstandards V1.0. Beta.

We’re still working out the kinks but this new design sure does seem to suit the site much better. What do you think?

“Be the change you want to see in the world” - Mahatma Gandhi

“It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” -Tony Robbins