-Daniel Burnham

Took an amazing hiking trip to Point Reyes today. We first stopped at the Bear Valley Visitor Center, grabbed a map, and got on our way… We took the Bear Valley Trail to the Meadow Trail to the Sky Trail then finally to the Woodward Valley Trail to our final destination… The Sculptured Beach.

The most strenuous section was the Meadow Trail, which was more or less entirely uphill. The most stunning part was emerging from the woods to a panoramic view of the seashore.

A highly recommended hike!

When I was at the gym today I felt completely lost. I felt like I was wandering around, not picking up the right weight, and just over thinking too much. It was probably the weakest I have been in a long time. I couldn’t figure out why, until I realized the one thing that I always have with me I had left behind at home. My log book.

I was not able to see what my workout schedule for the day was nor was I able to track my progress. It was the first time I was without it in years. I felt completely lost.

I realized that my log book does more than act as reference for future workouts or as a way to wow myself with all the progress I am making. It is something that really clears my mind and forces me to focus on the task at hand, my workout.

I’ve never used a logbook of any sort outside the gym, but I am definitely going to start exploring other places this might be useful. Not because I feel lost, but I wonder if it will help give me greater focus.

Gatekeepers no longer exist, but their idea still persists. We see them in shows like American Idol, the workplace, and even friends and family. This idea that you need to take a set of steps in order to please the gatekeepers to let you move forward.

It is still within people to believe that you need someone else’s permission, approval, or blessing before doing something great. This may have been true at one time, but now you have no other choice.

You are your own gatekeeper.

One of the easiest hacks I learned for impressing customers, partners, and people in general is to follow up with them as fast as humanly possible. The moment you receive their ping, ping them back.

This does not mean completing the action that they may require of you. It simply means acknowledging them and their request.

For my twelfth birthday my father took me to Abt to buy me my very first boombox, something I had been wanting for some time. This was 1989 and I will never forget walking through the door, stepping up to a massive wall of stereos of all shapes, colors, and sizes. I was in heaven.

The only thing my father said to me was, “don’t even look at the price, just find the stereo that you works the best for you”. So that’s what I did.

I spent a good hour going through each one, easily weeding out several based on style and size, playing with dials, reading the spec sheets, one deck vs. two decks, blasting music, until I whittled them down to the one I wanted. A Sony boombox of my very own. A stereo that I owned up until 2002 when it finally retired.

It had an amazing lifespan and quite a few homes. First as my entertainment centerpiece, then as a music duplication device, a recording device, a guitar instructor, a karaoke machine, then, finally, as a spare bedroom unit.

What mattered was that it was special. It wasn’t just something I bought, but something I had invested in and it gave back 100 fold.

Because of this lesson, I own very few things and have only bought things that matter, that I see as an investment. Things that would bring me more than the short lived therapeutic effects buying can often have. It is never about price.

A British soldier in WWII hid and kept secret a tiny radio while he was a Prisoner of War in Poland. He managed to keep it so well hidden that he was able to retrieve it 62 years later.

(Fast forward to 21:02)

It is funny how we think of history in such broad strokes. There must be thousands of intimate, but powerful stories that are forever lost simply because they were never told.

Technology… the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it. – Max Frisch

Stanley Kubrick’s photojournalism work in Chicago, 1949.

12. Man in front of a Trade and 17. Pump room are my favorite.

I believe it takes less than five seconds for anyone to make up their mind about anything. I believe that the rest of our time is spent justifying our opinion made during those five seconds.

Whether we are meeting someone new or buying a new car or eating at a new restaurant or interacting with a new product, our first impression, those first five seconds, is the one that will forever anchor our opinion. We will always be looking for ways to adjust future messages about that person/restaurant/product to fit into our five second opinion.