Capitalogix

Change may happen in an instant ... but it's easier to recognize over time.

These side-by-side pictures of me were taken almost exactly one year apart (the skinnier one was taken last week).

 

 

While I'm proud of the progress, there's still more work to do.

The result didn't come from Photoshop or fasting; it came from a consistent application of focus and activity.

On a day-to-day basis, my weight went up or down (seemingly randomly). Nonetheless, over time, burning more calories than I ate, measuring results, and adjusting the plan -- led to meaningful progress on many levels.

Change can happen in an instant ... Yet, it's often easier to see over time.

The goal, itself, can act as a compass heading - pointing in the right direction. The best next step is often simply being willing to take the best next step. 

Entropy and inertia are always there if you stop along the way.

It's easy to get distracted by the practical realities and minor urgencies of life. This can pull you off track.

Likewise, while it seems like human nature to focus on how far you still have to go in order to reach your goal ... this can be de-motivating.  A better strategy is to recognize the progress you've made towards the ultimate goal, and use it as fuel towards more progress (or something better).

Samuel Johnson said, "If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."  

Given enough resources, you can do anything you commit to do. Some of those resources include money and time; but I believe that focus and energy are important as well.

As long as you continue to make progress, and don't give-up, possibility turns into probability ... and probability turns into realized successes.

Hope you have a great week.   Sign-up to get this delivered once a week.

 

Related articles

The Big Bull Market in My Ass ...

Gamifying Fitness Works: Doing More to Be Less

Fitbit Shows It Is Always a Good Time to Take Appropriate Action

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

Lighter Links:

• Obvious: FBI can secretly turn on laptop cameras without the indicator light. (Dvorak)
• The Top 10 Tech 'Fails' of 2013. (CNN)
• How Heart Rate Is Related to Fitness and Longevity. (Huffingtonpost)
• Spotify Year in Review 2013. (Spotify)
• 55 Louis C.K. Quotes That Will Make You Laugh And Think. (ThoughtCatalog)

 

Trading Links:

• BlackRock Is Now the Biggest Investor in the World. (Insider)
• World's Best Economies in 2013. (CNNMoney)
• Wall Street Market Predictions For 2014. (BusinessInsider)
• Whitney Tilson: Lessons From A Dozen Years Of Short Selling. (ValueWalk)
• Algorithms Get Smarter. Speed is giving way to instrumentation and fine-tuning. (CME Group)

Here Are Some Links to Start Your Week

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 100 Top Inspirational Quotes. (Forbes)
• 23 Signs You're Secretly An Introvert. (HuffingtonPost)
• 99 Life Hacks That Could Make Your Life Easier. (AG)
• 40 Useful Sites to Learn New Skills. (Marc&Angel)
• 30 Inspirational Songs to Keep You Motivated. (Lifehack)

 

Trading Links:

• U.S. Rethinks How to Release Sensitive Economic Data. (Wall Street Journal)
• Which of These 11 American Nations Do You Live In? (WashingtonPost)
• Mapping Investor Behavior. (AllAboutAlpha)
• A Twitter User Is Worth $110; Facebook's $98; LinkedIn's $93. (Forbes)
• A Proposal To Limit Swiss Executive Pay To 12 Times That Of Low-Paid Employees Has Some Worried. (BusinessInsider)

People Are Awesome - 2013 Video

People can do some pretty amazing things when they put their mind to it.

Here is a ten-minute video compilation that shows "awesome" comes in many forms.

 

 

 

Going to the gym or finishing a project doesn't seem quite as hard after watching this.

Of course, procrastinators (and the clumsy) may prefer the Fail Compilation instead.

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Stores are becoming showrooms for consumers to find items to buy online.

Coming into Black Friday, a new version of the the increasingly popular game "Internet Destruction" is about to let consumers take another shot at destroying Retailing (like they have already done to newspapers, magazines, music and book publishing).

    

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• The Last Thing We Want is Real Artificial Intelligence. (Harvard Business Review)
• Stephen Hawking Predicts Uploading the Brain into a Computer. (KurzweilAI)
• Why You Should Never Kiss a Pig. And other wisdom from a Nobel Prize-winner. (Mother Jones)
• 9 Philosophical Thought Experiments That Will Keep You Up at Night. (Io9)
• Gartner: Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends For 2014. (Forbes)

 

Trading Links:

• Richest 1 Percent Hold 46 Percent Of The World's Wealth. (HuffingtonPost)
• Top 12 Wealthiest Countries. (ThinkAdvisor)
• PC Sales Fall to Lowest Level for Five Years. (Telegraph)
• The 10 Stealth Economic Trends That Rule the World Today. (The Atlantic)
• Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: Algorithmic trading is changing the way the stock market game is played. (TechDirt)

 

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Glad to know some people are keeping their health insurance.

 

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 10 Things IBM Is Teaching the World About Winning in the Next Decade. (Forbes)
• Beware of fake 'Obamacare' sites that want to steal your info  - NBC News. (NBC)       
• Video: Every iPhone Ever Gets Speed Tested Side-By-Side. (TechCrunch)
• 10 Animations that Show How Faces Age Over Time. (TwistedSifter)
• Why Time Slows Down When We’re Afraid, Speeds Up as We Age, and Gets Warped on Vacation. (BrainPickings)

 

Trading Links:

• Google Stock Topped $1,000 this Month, Not Many Tech Stocks Ever Do. (NYTimes)
• The Shutdown Took $24 Billion Out of the U.S. Economy. S&P Cuts Forecast. (BizInsider)
• What Difference Does The New Fed Chairman Make? Less Than You’d Think. (Forbes)
• U.S. Surpasses Saudi Arabia as World's Biggest Oil Producer. (Circa News)
• The True Size of the Shadow Banking System Revealed (Spoiler: Humongous). Also a new way to measure its hidden impact. (Medium)

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

Funny cartoon by Nate Beeler.  Error: The Government has stopped responding.

  

Too bad it's not just a cartoon.

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• 59% Think U.S. More Exceptional Than Other Nations. (RasmussenReports)
• We are #1: 60% of Porn Websites Are Hosted in the United States. (Statista)
• Trouble Using iOS 7? Here Are 15 Tricks To Make The Transition Easier. (Forbes)
• London "Fatberg": 17-ton ball of fat found in London's sewer. (Slate)
• Economist: A McDonald's Hamburger Is the Cheapest, Most Nutritious Food in Human History. At least when starvation, rather than obesity, is your problem. (Neatorama)

 

Trading Links:

• Apple Beats Coca-Cola to Emerge as Most Valuable Global Brand. (The Industry Standard)
• U.S. Third Quarter Earnings Warning Ratio Is Second Worst Since 2001. (Reuters)
• Why Stock Markets May Be Lagging Indicators. (Forbes)
• Time to Graduate to Futures? (TheStreet)
• White House Releases Animated Explanation of ObamaCare. (WSJ)

Hans Rosling: Here's How Data Can Solve the World's Most Challenging Problems

Swedish academic and Gapminder Foundation co-founder Hans Rosling says data doesn't always back up our conceptions about the world.

In the video, below, Rosling explains that our ideas about developed and developing countries largely reflect the reality of fifty years ago, rather than today.

   

This video, The River of Myth, was released to coincide with Bill Gates' annual letter, and shares its emphasis on the power of measuring to achieve progress.

  

Related articles

Hans Rosling - The Health and Wealth of Nations

Why washing machines are important [Hans Rosling TED Talk]

Han Rosling's View of the World Through Public Data on Live Expectancy Vs. Income

Great Guidance from Bruce Kasnoff

What a great thought!  Seek to add value ...

Be generous and expert, trustworthy and clear, open-minded and adaptable, persistent and present. 

 

Simplify Your Future from Bruce Kasanoff

 

Generous means to help others long before – and after – you need their help.

Expert means to be very competent in one or more areas that others value. It also means that whenever you take on a new task, do your best.

Trustworthy means to take ownership of your words and actions, and recognize that you live in a world in which they will increasingly be recorded, remembered, analyzed, and replayed.

Clear means to know what you want and to be able to communicate it effectively.

Open-minded means no matter how expert or successful you become, never stop listening and learning.

Adaptable means to keep your options open, so that when the world surprises you, it won’t be that surprising.

Persistent means to keep trying, even when times are tough and you are tempted to quit.

Present means that although you should learn from the past and be prepared for the future, you should pay close attention to the present moment as it unfolds - otherwise, you will miss a great deal.

 

Click here for the full text of his e-book.

Here Are Some Links for Your Weekend Reading

There is Good and Bad News ... Which do you want first?

 

 

Here are some of the posts that caught my eye. Hope you find something interesting.

 

Lighter Links:

• Here’s How the NSA Analyzes All That Call Data. (GigaOM)
• 10 Most Powerful Militaries In The World. (BusinessInsider)
• A Little Friction Can Add a Creative Spark to Brainstorming Sessions. (Harvard Biz Review)
• Age-Defying. Master key of lifespan found in brain - tests on mice promising. (NewScientist)
• Meet Microsoft, the world's best kept R&D secret. (PCWorld)

 

Trading Links:

• How Much Are the NSA and CIA Front Running Markets? (NakedCapitalism)
• Computer Glitch Brings Down Nasdaq for 3-Hours: What Do We Know? (Slate)
• Are the Super Wealthy Buying Stocks Again? (Wall St. Cheat Sheet)
• Deep-Pocketed Funds Give Up on Speed Game Move Towards Deep Insight. (WSJ)
• Early Exit for Ballmer Amid Course Change at Microsoft. (NYTimes)

Related articles

The Steve Ballmer Legacy: A Very Bumpy Ride

MICROSOFT: 'We Are Well Down The Path' To Finding Steve Ballmer's Replacement (MSFT)

LEAKED: German Government Warns Key Entities Not To Use Windows 8 - Links The NSA