English Recordings

Become a God of Learning Your Trade

Post written by Leo Babauta.

A lot of you are like me — trying to do what you love, and figuring out the best way to do that.
It’s not always easy to do what you love, because:
You aren’t sure you’re good at it.
You don’t know if it will work.
You don’t know if people will like it.
You don’t know how to get better.
You doubt your ability to succeed.
You might spend months working on something, only to have it fail.
And these are tough problems.
But I have a method for beating them. And it’s a simple trick.
Do it in public, and get immediate feedback.
It’s one of the most powerful things you can implement, I promise. Here’s why and how.
The Lessons of Street Performers

Consider the street musician or juggler or magician: they do a show in public, in front of people who have other things to do and haven’t planned on watching a show, and have to convince that crowd not only to watch, but to pay them money after having already seen the show. (Read more.)
That’s an amazing business model. If a street performer isn’t good, people won’t watch. But making a small change in the performance, like a better setup or better patter, can make huge changes in audience reaction and payment.
And here’s the thing: they see the effects of those small changes immediately. There’s no wondering, “Will this work? Will it be an improvement or make things worse?” Because they know if it works, if it makes things better or worse, right away.
Instant feedback is the most valuable thing you can get. It’s better even than a sale, because a sale might result in a satisfied customer or it might not, and a sale doesn’t tell you how to improve.
Whatever you want to do, if you can do something publicly, even in front of a small group, and get instant feedback, that’s pure gold. There’s no better way to improve. There’s no better way to evolve a method or creative process or business model than through this simple technique of constant iteration and natural selection.
How to Be Evolve Like a Street Performer

Blogging is one of the best ways to do something in public. Consider: you write about an idea, and you get instant feedback from readers, in comments, emails, tweets, G+ posts, etc.
When I started Zen Habits, I don’t think I was that great … I wrote a bunch of posts that didn’t thrill readers. I wrote a couple that did thrill some people, and so learned what works best as a writer — more than I’d learned as a writer in the entire previous decade of writing. Through this kind of public writing, instant feedback, and constant evolving, I got better over the course of months, not years.
No matter what you do, you can put ideas out on a blog. You can also put software out to beta testers, as soon as possible, with the simplest possible version of the software. You can test recipes by making them for people, maybe selling them on the street in a cart. Artists can put artwork online instantly. Musicians and actors can put stuff on Youtube. A business can put itself online in as small an iteration as possible, without taking months of blind development.
For some work, it will take a bit more creativity. But use this idea of working in public, getting instant feedback, and evolving through constant iterations to improve better and faster than ever before.
I admit it can be scary. Which is why you can start with a small group, less public but still using the same ideas, and grow the audience as you grow more confident.
Be a street performer. There’s no better way to get amazing at something.

The Many Reasons We Rely Upon Our Clutter

Post written by Leo Babauta.

Clutter isn’t an easy problem to solve, no matter how many times I might tell you to toss it out, tell you that you don’t need it.
A book isn’t just an object with words on it. A jewelry box isn’t just a container. Clothes aren’t just protection from the elements.
Each of these inanimate objects means so much more to us.
We put our emotions into them. We rely upon these objects to fulfill needs in us.
They are our crutches.

These crutches are convenient, because they save us from having to learn to cope with tough things. We’ve relied on these crutches often since childhood, and our culture has programmed them into us. If I point them out, some of you may get angry at me. That’s OK. Anger is an appropriate response — I’ve felt it myself when these issues came up in me.
What are we to do when we discover these crutches? We can’t just toss them out and think we’re done. We have to find new ways of dealing with our emotions and the world around us. Let’s start today.
The Roles of Clutter

These aren’t all true for every person, but I’ve found they’re very common:
1. Security. When we have lots of stuff around us, we feel more secure. Somehow it’s as if we can survive the apocalyptic winter, or at least an earthquake or economic recession.
New habit: Learn to combat fears with information. What’s the worst-case scenario? What could you do in that case even without the items around you? Do you have people you could rely on? Can you learn skills that don’t require clutter? Could you live without? Try it for a little while and see.
2. Self image and self worth. Clothes and jewelry and shoes and handbags make women feel pretty, feel attractive, feel good enough as a woman. Men rely on clothes, gadgets, hats and other accessories, tools, sometimes weaponry. We feel manly and good enough. Buying these things — shopping — is an activity that fills us with more self-worth, or at least staves off the feelings of inadequacy.
New habit: Learn that you don’t need external objects to be attractive or good enough. You are already perfect. Learn to love yourself as you are, without self improvement. Most people aren’t judging you, and if they are, they are not good for you.
3. Memories and holding on to the past. Photo albums, mementos, gifts from loved ones, yearbooks and other school memorabilia, souvenirs, books, trophies, plaques, framed photos, sometimes old clothes … these objects and more hold emotions and memories from the past. They represent good times, perhaps better times, perhaps love from someone special, past glory, shared experiences. But this is living in the past, and while the past is important, it isn’t your life.
New habit: Learn to live in the present. Let the past go, like an old friend who has come to visit and has now left. You can always revisit this old friend later, but there’s no need to hold onto her. Let her live her life, and you live yours. You don’t need objects to represent memories and good times and glory, because those objects aren’t those good times or glory. Those objects aren’t the love that they represent. Live new good times, make new love.
4. Love. It was mentioned above, but it’s actually a separate role. Objects that have emotional value — often gifts or something similar — represent the love of the person who gave them to us. Earrings from your husband, a hand-crafted gift from your child, a book from your parent. We hold onto them because we use them to feel loved.
New habit: Realize that things aren’t love, and that the love is only in people. Go spend time with those people, if possible, and not with things. If the person is gone (possibly dead), realize that the love is in you, not the object, and you don’t need this crutch to feel that love.
5. Possibilities for improvement. Self-improvement books or literature on our shelves we haven’t read, tools for building or making something, exercise equipment or yoga clothes, gardening tools or baking apparatuses, a dusty old bike or running shoes … there are lots of objects we don’t actually use but hope to someday. Holding on to them represents the possibility, sometime in the future, that we will be better. We will improve. We hope, and as long as we hold on to those objects, that hope is alive.
New habit: Squash every bit of hope in yourself. Just kidding. But again, live in the present, not in the future. Do things right now that make you happy, and don’t keep objects as placeholders for some perfect future that will never come. If you don’t use things, give them to someone who will. Maybe keep one, and tell yourself if you don’t use it in the next month, it goes. Mark it on your calendar.
6. Comfort. When we’re feeling lonely or depressed or stressed or frustrated, we often turn to shopping. Buy objects, because they won’t judge you, they will comfort you like a teddy bear or security blanket, they don’t require wooing or coddling in order to be in your life, just a credit card. But they don’t solve any of your problems, and in fact add to your clutter problem and possibly your debt problem.
New habit: Deal with the problems. If they seem tough, deal with them in small steps. Loneliness means we need to connect with other humans, not object. Depression can be helped by talking with people, by getting active. Stress can be relieved by simplifying your life, being active, resting. Frustrating problems are best dealt with by eliminating things or working out better ways of doing things.
7. Procrastination. Sometimes we know we don’t need things but we leave them in huge piles because we don’t want to deal with them. Clutter is procrastination, because it’s easier to leave it and let it pile up than deal with it, just like it’s easier to avoid dealing with problems. Deal with it later, I don’t have time right now. You dread the pile. But putting it off only makes it worse, and the stress of putting it off builds up inside us, deteriorating the quality of our lives.
New habit: Take one piece, and deal with that. Feel good, and take on the next piece. You don’t need to conquer the mountain, but just that first step. Get helped from a friend or partner, and make it fun and social.
8. Excitement. Camping or mountain climbing or skiing or surfing or biking gear can represent excitement in the future. Lots of other objects might also represent future excitement — computers, clothes, jewelry, tools, luggage, and more. Somehow just having these items in our lives means we might someday have more fun.
New habit: Realize you don’t need objects for excitement or fun. You can have fun with nothing. By yourself. Or with a friend. With new friends. Right now, not in the future. And when the future comes, you can still do that, without all this gear.
There are many other roles that clutter plays in our lives, but these are some of the more common ones. Once you start to look at your clutter in this way, you can see that it’s a crutch. That you don’t really need that crutch, because you’re strong enough to learn to live without it. And you’ll be better off without it.

Get Back on Track

Post written by Leo Babauta.

People trying to get healthy and fit all around the country are feeling guilty today after indulging way too much on Thanksgiving — and if you’re outside the U.S., you’ve had this experience on holidays of your own.
You had a great feast, but you feel like you overdid it. And you feel guilty as hell, and you feel like crap.
Toss all those feelings out. And get the hell off your ass and back on track.

I indulge myself nearly every holiday, and feel guilty too — for about a minute. Then I realize that guilt does nothing to get me fitter. I realize the only thing that will get me fitter is eating healthy today — yesterday doesn’t matter — and being active and working out today.
Here’s why yesterday doesn’t matter: one day of overeating makes almost no difference over the long term. And the long term is what really matters, isn’t it? Are we trying to be healthy and fit on one day, or for a lifetime? Over a lifetime, one day means nothing, but what you do on the vast majority of days is what counts.
And so stop the guilt-fest, stop the worrying, and start eating right. Today. Start working out … today.
If you’ve been doing great, that one day was just a day of fun, and you deserve it. Get back on track, and you’ll be great.
If you haven’t been doing great, and you overdid it, you should now have more than enough fuel to start exercising today. Go for a walk, and enjoy the outdoors. Play a sport with family. Do some pushups, squats and lunges instead of sitting around all day. It doesn’t matter what you do, but start moving.
Yesterday came and went, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Today, you will rock. Today, you are the master of your fitness.

Sitting and Watching

‘No matter what gets in the way or which way the wind does blow… I’ll just sit here and watch the river flow.’ ~Bob Dylan
Post written by Leo Babauta.

Have you ever felt that we are rushing through life, that we get so caught up in busy-ness that life is passing us almost without notice?
I get this feeling all the time.
The antidote is simple: sitting and watching.
Take a minute out of your busy day to sit with me, and talk. Take a moment to imagine being in the middle of traffic — you’re driving, stressed out by the high amount of traffic, trying to get somewhere before you’re late, angry at other drivers who are rude or idiotic, completely focused on making your way through this jungle of metal on a ribbon of asphalt. Now you’ve gotten to the end, phew, you made it, wonderful, and you’re only a few minutes late … but did you notice the scenery you passed along the way? Did you talk to any of the other people along your path? Did you enjoy the ride?
No, probably not. You were so caught up in getting there, in the details of navigating, in the stress of driving, that you didn’t have time to notice your surroundings, the people nearby, or the wonderful journey. This is how we are in life.
Now imagine that you pulled over, and got out of the car, and found a grassy spot to sit. And you watched the other cars zoom by. And you watched the grass blown gently by the wind, and the birds making a flocking pattern overhead, and the clouds lazily watching you back.
Sit and watch.
We don’t do this, because it’s useless to do something that isn’t productive, that doesn’t improve our lives. But as Alan Watts wrote in The Way of Zen:
“As muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone, it could be argued that those who sit quietly and do nothing are making one of the best possible contributions to a world in turmoil.”
It’s interesting, too, what we see when we sit and watch. We will notice others rushing, and worried, and angry, and in them see a mirror of ourselves. We will notice children laughing (or crying) with their parents, and remember what we’re missing when we rush to improve our lives.
More interesting is what you see when you sit and watch yourself. You learn to step outside yourself, and act as an observer. You see your thoughts, and learn more about yourself than you ever could if you were rushing to take action. You see your self-doubts, and self-criticism, and wonder where they came from (a bad incident in childhood, perhaps?) and wonder if you are smart enough to let them go. You see your rationalizations, and realize that they are bullshit, and learn to let those go too. You see your fears, and realize what hold they have over you, and realize that you can make them powerless, by just sitting and watching them, not taking action on them.
By sitting and watching, you come to know yourself.
You learn the most valuable lessons about life, by sitting and watching.
And as we know from the observer effect in physics, by watching, we change what we watch.
Take a few minutes today, to sit and watch. It might change your life.

Quashing the Self-Improvement Urge

Post written by Leo Babauta.

One of the driving forces of my life for many years was the need to improve myself. It’s one of the driving forces for people who read my work as well.
It’s an incredibly pervasive urge: we are always trying to improve, and if we’re not, that’s something we should improve.
It’s everywhere. Where does this urge come from? It’s embedded in our culture — in the U.S. from Benjamin Franklin to the early entrepreneurial titans, everyone is trying to better themselves. It goes deeper, to ancient Western ideals of the perfect well-rounded person. But it flourished in the 20th century, from Dale Carnegie and Napoleon Hill to Stephen Covey. And now it’s in full bloom, with blogs. And yes, I’m part of this movement.
So what’s the problem? You could say it’s great that people are constantly trying to improve themselves, but where does it end? When is anyone ever content with who they are? We are taught that we are not good enough yet, that we must improve, and so … we always feel a little inadequate.
This is true no matter how much you’ve accomplished. You might have achieved a thousand goals, but do you have defined abs? Are your boobs big and bouncy? Do you have perfect skin? Have you read every classic in literature? Do you know fine wines, fine art, and every great musician from classical to jazz to punk to rock? Do you have success as an entrepreneur, as a writer? Can you speak several languages, and have you traveled the world? Do you own fewer than 100 things, or a small house? Are you a fast runner, and have you run a 100 miler? Can you Crossfit, or lift 1,000 pounds in the Big Three lifts? Do you have the perfect home, and can you cook gourmet meals? Are you the perfect parent, or have perfect work-life balance? Can you do yoga, meditate, juggle and do magic? Do you brew the perfect cup of coffee, or tea, or beer? Can you recite Shelly, Shakespeare, Homer? Are you good at picking up women, are you the perfect friend, the perfect lover, a romantic husband, a wife who meets her husband’s needs, a master craftsman, a hacker and a programmer, a knitter or sewer, a home-repair expert, knowledgeable in investing and real estate, do you know the perfect system for goals and use the perfect to-do software, is your phone as nice as his, or your bag as nice as hers, do you have cute boots or a manly shave? Are you debt free, or car free or gluten free? Do you give to charity or volunteer at shelters or build schools for Africa? Is your TV as large as mine, or your penis?
Are you adequate? Are you confident of that?
We are never adequate, never perfect, never self-confident, never good enough, never comfortable with ourselves, never satisfied, never there, never content.
And it becomes the reason we buy self-help products, fitness products, gadgets to make us cooler, nicer clothes, nicer cars and homes, nicer bags and boots, plastic surgery and drugs, courses and classes and coaches and retreats. It will never stop, because we will never be good enough.
We must improve. We must read every self-improvement book. When we read a blog, we must try that method, because it will make us better. When we read someone else’s account of his achievements, his goal system, his entrepreneurial lifestyle, her yoga routine, her journaling method, her reading list, we must try it. We will always read what others are doing, in case it will help us get better. We will always try what others are doing, try every diet and every system, because it helped them get better, so maybe it will help us too. Soon, we will find the ultimate solutions, soon we will get there. No, that hasn’t happened yet, but maybe this year will be the year.
Maybe 2012 will be the year we reach perfection.
Or maybe it will never stop, until we die, and that’s a part of life — life is a constant striving for improvement, and we’d hate to ever stop wanting to improve, because that means we’re dead, right? Even if that means that as we die, we wonder if we could have been better, and our last thought is, “Am I adequate as a person?” Even if that means we are never happy with ourselves, at least we are striving to be happy with ourselves, right?
What if instead, we learned to be happy with ourselves?
What would happen?
Would we stop striving to improve? Would that be horrible, if we were just content and didn’t need to better ourselves every minute of every week? Would we be lazy slobs, or would we instead be happy, and in being happy do things that make us happy rather than make us better? And in being happy, perhaps we would show others how to be happy? And crazy as it might sound, maybe we’d start a little mini-revolution of happiness, so that people wouldn’t feel so inadequate, or need to spend every dime on products, or spend all their time on self-improvement.
A revolution of contentment.
Think of how this might simplify your life. Think of how many self-improvement books you read, or listen to in the car. Think of how many products you buy to make yourself better. Think of how many things you read online, in the hopes of being better. Think of how many things you do because you feel inadequate. Think of how much time this would free up, how much mental energy.
Realize that you are already perfect. You are there. You can breathe a sigh of relief.
The urge to improve yourself will come up again. Watch it, like a funny little clown trying to tease your soul, but don’t let your soul feel worse for the teasing. Don’t let yourself react to this little clown, nor feel the pain of his attack. Let him do his dance, say his funny things, and then go away.
Quash the urge to improve, to be better. It only makes you feel inadequate.
And then explore the world of contentment. It’s a place of wonderment.
‘Contentment is the greatest treasure.’ ~Lao Tzu

We have a facility which quickly enables us to create realistic looking mockups with shrink films, so that we can conduct FGI and CLT using such high quality mockups.
No matter what good ideas we may have, if we do not have the facility, we can not gather consumers' opinions accurately.
We use realistic looking mockups and actual showcases in FGI and CLT so that we can gather consumers' opinions accurately.

Weather forecasting as a science is only 150 years old, but who started weather forecasts and how are they different today?
Robert FitzRoy was an amateur forecaster who started the UK's Meteorological Office. His first forecast in August 1861 in the Times newspaper was short but accurate. The first TV forecast in the UK was in 1936, but the biggest change was in the 1950s when they started to
use weathermen and women and magnetic sun and clouds to place on the map. Now we have satellite pictures of the weather all over the world. None of this would be possible without Robert Fitzroy.
But sometimes forecasters get it wrong. There is a very famous case in the UK, where on 15 October 1987 the forecaster predicted that a hurricane in the US would not affect the UK, but the south-east of England then had its worst storm for nearly 300 years.
Before meteorology, people used common knowledge to predict the weather. ‘Red sky at night; shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning; shepherd’s warning.’ is a common saying. It is fairly accurate in the UK, because a red sky in the west, where the sun sets, means good weather, but a red sky in the morning means the sun is reflecting off the rainclouds. This means there will probably be rain, which is bad weather for shepherds.
Several European countries have a saying predicting summer weather. For example in
England we say if it rains on St Swithun’s Day (15 July) there’ll be rain for the next 40 days,but if it is doesn’t rain then it’ll be dry for the same time. Summer weather patterns start in the
first half of July and usually continue for the next few weeks, so this is true about 75% of the time. In France they have a similar saying about rain on St. Gervais' day (19 July) and in Germany the weather on ‘seven sleepers’ day (7 July) predicts the weather for the following
seven weeks.
Nowadays supercomputers receive millions of bits of information about the weather 24 hours a day, but it is still difficult to predict the weather because of the famous ‘butterfly effect’. This means if there is a small change in the air movement in one part of the world, for example a butterfly flapping its wings in China, it might cause a storm in the US. So two and three-day forecasts are much more reliable than five-day forecasts: those extra few days are enough for the weather to develop in a completely different way.

(Mar 16th 2012 01:02 )I went to the Seoul Arts Center to listen to a music concert this evening.
I went there just by myself, then came back home very late.
Right now I`m really sleepy, I can`t stay awake anymore.
So I`d better go to sleep now, and I`ll talk in detail about this story tomorrow. Good night!

(Mar 13th 2012 23:57 )A friend's love letter
• When I returned home this evening, I felt a bit tired, so I had a lower-body bathing
• During/While/When I had a half-bath, I sweat profusely, and it made me get (/ feel) better.
• Then after, I read some of my friends' entries instead of writing an English entry today.
• Through reading those entries in English, I could feel their feelings and thoughts, and I could also learn English through the corrections of their mistakes.

•Among them, one love letter which one Chinese girl wrote to her Japanese boyfriend, was filled with her feelings and thoughts.
• I hope and believe that she will be together with her boyfriend soon.

(Mar 14th 2012 22:08 ) <My son and his bicycle >
• Just a moment ago, my son returned/came back/ home from work, and had a simple dinner with me.
• Then he went out to ride his bicycle.
• He bought this bicycle last Saturday.
• It's a fairly expensive racing bicycle, so he borrowed some money from me.
• He said that he will make payments on it for the next three months.
• Anyway, he really likes riding racing bicycles. /(= Anyway, he really likes riding this racing bicycle.)
• During the past several years, he was not able to ride because he was serving in the military . Anyway, he finally bought it.
• If he ever gets home early from work, he will probably go riding right?
• I hope, and believe, that he will enjoy riding his bicycle happily and safely.
• Fortunately, there’s a bicycle road along a little stream nearby my house.
• However, I am just a little afraid because it's pretty dark outside now.*The picture of today: My son’s bicycle.(The bicycle of my son.)