PerfectlyTurbulent

Being the overly friendly and talkative person I am, I happen to hear a lot of stories . Some are personal, suck some, and some are just hilarious.  Its the latter type I plan to bring more to this blog, because seriously, the world is just full of stories from ridiculous people that need to be exploited for our own pleasure.

With that in mind, I only decided to write about this most anecdote because frankly I find it hilarious.

A friend of a friend is a 24 year old female, lets call her Ruby, whose goal it is to become a police officer. Semi-normal enough goal.

This girl has recently applied to be a cop but was turned away from the academy after failing the fitness test. She just wasn’t strong enough.

Now, I understand we all think in different ways, and use various methods to achieve our individual goals.  I figured I would ask a few friends of mine, if put in the same situation, how they would proceed if they were this girl?

You should answer this question as well before proceeding with this post.

I received the following possible answers from my cavalcade of friends:

A) Hire a personal trainer

B) Buy P90x and start training

C) Girls shouldn’t be cops

D) Get to the point already this story is boring me

E) Take Steroids

If you were to have said E) Take Steroids to achieve this goal then you and Ruby would be BFFs because this is what she has proceeded to do.

Hilarious.

And the saga continues as Ruby has embraced her new life as a juice pig by also deciding to date her steroid dealer (what a catch!), and has somehow managed to find a steroid using police officer to coach and train her for her next fitness test.  Seriously.

Notwithstanding, Ruby also met said police officer coach when he was nice enough to let her off of a DUI charge he pulled her over for.  No, don’t worry, you did in fact read that correctly.  This pillar of society pulled over a drunk driver and quickly thought to himself, “We need her help protecting the rest of society”.

Each and every day I find more and more reasons backing up my operating view about the world: that everyone is messed up in one way or another.

And don’t kid yourself, you’re on that list, as am I.   There is no such thing as normal.

In fact, I’d like to go so far as to say for those people out there that appear to be normal, they are usually the most radically twisted.

The important part is to keep it to a minimum and try really hard not to venture too far into the void. Because once you cross that line, well, I guess taking steroids seems to the rest of us, like trying a new cereal.

If you have any crazy stories you’d like to share, please let me know and I would be happy to have you guest post on this blog or just leave the story within the comments area.

And if you happen to get pulled over by a female police officer within the next few years that looks like she could carry your car back to the station, that’s probably Ruby.

Here is a play-by-play of my recent trip to the mall.

I had an hour to accomplish my goal, return some Christmas presents, and leave with enough time to make it to my next appointment, such is life.

I parked in a random spot, and upon entering the mall I see Subway realized I was hungry.  After finishing my sub I start making my way towards the store.

On my way to the store I bump into an old friend of mine and we begin chatting about the holidays, our lives, and she asks me to join her in Guess to give my opinion on a couple outfits she wants to buy. I look at my watch and realize, why not, who am I to deprive this girl of my opinion on her fashion choices.

 After a fashion show worthy of Next Top Model, we part ways I manage to get back on track, my deadline is looming.

 As I get to the store my phone rings and I instinctually answer, it’s a friend of mine that needs some input on a project he is working on. I look at my watch and decide to give him 5 minutes.

20 minutes later I am in returning my items and realize I have left my receipt in the car and must retrieve it.  After returning from my trip back to my car on the other side of the mall, I return my items and stand there watching the clerk impatiently, while tapping my foot like a 6 year old who hasn’t peed since recess.

 All in all, I was 15 minutes late for my appointment.  This is just one example of how distraction leads all of us to incomplete objectives or sloppy results.

This entire situation could have easily been avoided if I would have done the following to remove the possibility of distraction and interruption.

•  Take 2 minutes to call the store to access their location in the mall and park my car outside the nearest entrance
• Leave my phone in the car
• Eaten after my goal was completed. Nobody ever died because they went an extra 15min without food.

 In today’s society we are all victims to distraction and it is the one giant factor keeping most of us from truly unlocking a side of our minds just brimming with human potential.

 Regardless if the cause is email, text messaging, phone calls, empty relationships, family members, negative thinking or even a bladder that has you in the bathroom every 20min (by the way, you might want to get that last one checked out), all of these are DISTRACTIONS and INTERRUPTIONS.

 We never seem to realize that these small interruptions are keeping us from being the productive, positive, healthy, people we want to be.

 Consistent notable productivity is IMPOSSIBLE with distraction and interruption.

 So today I have chosen to change this and started the 90-Day Wake Up Productive program by Eben Pagan (who runs a $20 million online business as well as business coaching).

 In the introduction video, Eben lays out the 11 Principles of Productivity:

Here are the principles I found most important and my opinion and explanation of them:

 #2 Time Management Is Not About Time At All, But About Managing Ourselves

  We all want to believe that we are different from everyone else, that we are special, and that we function independently from everyone else.   This is both arrogant and misguided. The vast majority of humans function in exactly the same. We are creatures of deep rooted habits.

 We like to think that we CHOOSE to be how we are, when in reality, if you take an overview snap shot of your life, you will find you are likely the same person you were at age 16.  Of course, the externalities of your life have changed, but YOU are pretty much the same.  

 We do not choose success or failure like we choose combo number 3 at Taco Bell. Instead, we must manage ourselves to ensure a level of productivity we are not currently accustomed to.

 #4 Habit IS Destiny

 This adds to principle #2. Once we accept our commonalities as humans, we can begin to deconstruct who we are, so to begin developing structured systems to slowly remove the habits we have built throughout our lives.  

 Once these old counterproductive habits have been removed we can slowly begin to create new, life affirming habits that keep us more positive, more productive, and more forward moving.

 “First you shape your habits and then they shape you”

 #7 Your Future Can Be An Extension Of Your Past Or Something New That You Create

 You can see the principles that resonated with me have a pattern.  I believe it’s important to always

reassess the person you are, make immediate changes where you see deficiencies and dangerous habits.

 If you find your entire existence is merely a reflective of the friends you keep (which is often the case) and you are not happy with your life, your answer is simple, it’s time to sever those relationships and forge new ones.

 Remember, I said the answer is simple, but I never said it was easy.

 #11 If You Want To Wake Up Productive, You Must Take Your Thinking To The Next Level

 “You can never solve a problem on the level in which it was created” – Albert Einstein

 If we are to become the people we wish we could be, we cannot accept our current knowledge, wisdom and habits sufficient.  We must FORCE ourselves to evolve.

 All of these principles have already challenged me to give presence and value to all of the distractions I know have been robbing me of productivity, yet I have done nothing to avoid.

 Here is the short list:

•  My Blackberry- phone calls, emails, text messages, instant messaging, blah blah, ahhhhh!!
•  TV shows- this one is going to be difficult. I have to cut out 80% of the shows I currently watch and set up structured times or a set number of hours for leisure television. I mean seriously, I watch waaay too much House. It’s a flat out problem.
•  Facebook- Within the last month I have almost completely have Facebook under control and am quite pleased with myself.
•  Negative thinking – I have quarantined off most of this side of my brain for the majority of last year, but now I think it’s time to put it to sleep entirely.
•  Negative Relationships- These are friendships or acquaintances that require more time and energy than they give back in positive emotions. We all have these, and I address it more in a post you can find —– HERE

 To write this post, I had to turn OFF my Blackberry and my wireless connection on my laptop, lock myself in my room in total silence and vow not to check email until this first draft was completed.

 I must admit that my mind is going a bit crazy, raging against my desire to single-task focus, but I already feel a little bit more productive. 

 We all have to remember that we are our own worse enemies and that we cannot simply CHOOSE to be different people, we have to FORCE that change.

 If anyone has any questions about productivity that I may be able to help with, please feel free to get in touch.

 Here is to a productive 2010!!

 Happy New Year!!

Every time I think North American news has even the slightest chance at a few days of reasonable coverage (minus FOX and fiends, of course), something ludicrous happens. Leave it to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show to fuel my fire.

I was in Toronto this past weekend celebrating a friend’s 30th birthday, and everytime we would turn on the television or pick up a paper I would see a smattering of articles and photos about Tiger Woods and the low impact, non-critical, car accident he was involved in on Thursday evening.

When I first saw the report on CNN, I watched for a couple minutes, they announced Tiger was not in critical condition, and so I changed the channel to probably something like Mad Men.  No big deal.

Umm.. wrong.

Apparently, its the biggest deal ever.

Apparently, the fate of the world is now resting on the fidelity and personal life of Tiger Woods.

Wait a minute? It doesn’t?!?  Well then why the hell does anybody care about this?

So Tiger Woods was in a car accident? Umm… WHO CARES?!?

So Tiger Woods possibly cheated on his wife… is anyone really surprised? Is this the first spouse to ever be unfaithful?

The media and interest in this subject is completely unbelievable to me. When will people wake up and stop assigning any sort of importance to professional athletes?

THIS article is a perfect example of the idocy and general uselessness of athletes.  Ron Artest admits to drinking Hennessey at  half time during NBA regular season games.  I can’t even decide what’s dumber, the fact that he drank during games, or the fact that he is now admitting it publicly.

The deep fascination with sports and athletes continues to boggle my mind, however Tiger-mania has certainly taken the cake recently.

Tiger Woods is just like everyone else, except he has millions of adoring fans, millions of dollars and a publicist.  The fact that he has to apologize to people for his private actions is appalling.  It doesn’t matter if Tiger Woods is sleeping with a harem of women outside of his marriage, he’s not, and never claimed to be a moral authority.

He’s just a dude that hits a tiny ball, into a tiny hole, over miles and miles of wasted green space.