Tag Archives: learning

Peak Experience

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I just came down from the mountain. An 82 hour life-changing gathering of an amazing community of entrepreneurs, storytellers, and world changers called Summit Series.

A number of friends have been asking about it. I am happy to have that conversation, but it should be in person and over a good meal. So, hit me up to plan that meal.

However, I do want to pass on to you a few ideas I wrote down to remind myself how to live the summit experience every week of the year:

  • Actually talk to the person beside you. You never know who they are.
  • Be willing to be inspired by something you don’t understand.
  • Always think positive thoughts, you never know who is reading your mind. =)
  • Eat every meal with lots of people, even people you don’t know.
  • Stretch. Grow. Drink lots of water. And breathe.
  • Dance every day. And dance like you mean it. Till you sweat.

Summitseries

I now give you permission to fail better

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Practice is the main determinant of success in a particular field.

[ via Scott Adams - The Illusion of Winning ]

Most people I’ve read or listened to recently discussing game mechanics focus on the value of incremental rewards, but I actually believe the correlation between the value of gaming and being “good at life” has more to do with permission (even expectation) for structured failure.

Unfortunately, outside of trying to pwn n00bs or launching a startup, your average person has almost no opportunity to iterate through structured failure. We love games, because that is one of the few experiences where we can practice the next step after failure.

I’m wondering if you could describe one of your core daily functions, and how you might be able to practice failing better to improve – aka “level in life”?

say my name, say my name

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I saw this float down my screen today, and it struck a nerve, because I have the same problem:

Picture 2.png

At least 12 times yesterday someone asked me, “Do you know [name]?” or, “I was talking to [name] earlier, you know them right?” I had to shrug my shoulders and timidly reply, “I think so?” or, “They sound really familiar…?”. Only to discover five minutes later–once we got into the story a little further–that I *totally* know that person.”

I’m not OK with this.

The why is most easily summed up in Dale Carnegie’s words:

“Remember that a person’s name is to them the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

The sound! It really does go that deep. As in, chemicals are released into your body when you hear your name. (I have a whole deeper level of thoughts about this. If you are interested, please ask.)

The how is a little more difficult. Even though there are about 170,000,000 results for “how to remember names”, the tricks haven’t helped much so far. But, @chrisbrogan is going to kick my ass if I make any excuses. So, it’s time to own this weakness.

Here is where I could use your help: I am not interested in a tip, or a list of tips. (I could read google results for 37.4 days to get those). But, if you could tell me a story about your own mini or major breakthrough with names, I truly believe that will help etch the skill into my mind. (Another one of those ‘whole deeper level of thoughts’ thing you can ask me about, if you want.)

When did you have a remembering-names-breakthrough?