Kiss My SASS!

Yes, that grubby mug is mine.  I am in day four of a month-long ban on shaving my upper lip.  To celebrate the month of "Movember" I am joining a worldwide movement to raise awareness and money to support The Prostate Cancer Foundation and The Lance Armstrong Foundation.  Since 2003 The Movember Foundation has organized a global movement of men growing "Mo's" (Aussie slang for "Moustache") in the month of November as a way to "change the face of Men's Health.  To date, Movember has raised $47 million globally, making it the world's largest charity event for men.

HELP ME GIVE SOME LIP SERVICE TO A GOOD CAUSE

One in six men will experience prostate cancer in their lifetime so this is a serious men's health issue,  Movember is an easy way to support a good cause.  I don't have to walk or run, I just have to grow a moustache, and encourage YOU to support the cause as well.  I launched my participation in Movember with a clean shave on Dad-o-matic and I have set up a donation page where you can join my team and make a contribution.  I will also be posting more pictures of my grubby mug there along the way.

Please visit my donation page and contribute at any level you can. It really is for a good cause. Together we can change the face of men's health!  Thank you for anything you can do to help.

If you have read this blog for a while you know that I am a big fan of podcasting in general, and the "Podcast Novel" in particular.  I have been entertained and impressed by talented writers and performers such as Scott Sigler, Seth Harwood, Tee Morris, Mur Lafferty, Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff, and many others who have so creatively (and generously) offered their original works of fiction for FREE as podcasts.  Of course I would be remiss if I did not also include in this list of awesome authors the Clone Arranger himself, author of the mind-blowing "7th Son" trilogy, J.C. Hutchins.  JC and I used to work together and I assure you JC is much more than an author - he is a master marketer and and a true entertainer.  His story of seven secret clones is>>>  [ WARNING ::: DATABASE ERROR ::: CONTENT OVERRIDE ::: SOURCE: EXTERNAL ] <<<

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 the post you are now reading is designed to dull your senses to THE TRUTH.  do not live the life of the worker bee, the cog, the well-oiled piston in the MACHINE OF DECEIT!

there is a grand CONSPIRACY afoot.  you have been taught to believe that you are UNIQUE, one of a kind. THIS IS NOT TRUE. long ago, a cabal of scientists created technologies to ensure that ANYONE'S MIND AND BODY can be duplicated.

human cloning isn't NEAR. it's already HERE. discover the truth at http://JCHutchins.net

you are being DECEIVED. break free from the cogs, flee the hive, become A PROPHET OF THE TRUTH!

kilroy2. was here ... kilroy2.0 is everywhere

>>> [ CONTENT OVERRIDE CEASES ::: DATABASE STATUS: RECOVERING ] <<umental.  As I hope the detailed, chapter by chapter, review above demonstrates, J.C. Hutchins' 7th Son: Descent is a must read and I encourage you to listen to him and even better, buy his book (Amazon Link below).  I was so inspired by 7th Son that I even participated in JC's 7th Son Obsidian project with my own 7th Son fan fiction story.  You can listen to my contribution here.

Nobody arranges clones better than J.C. Hutchins does in 7th Son: Descent!

The Twitter Economy is booming. With thousands of apps, hundreds of books, dozens of conferences and seemingly billions of self-proclaimed experts and gurus there is no shortage of information flowing about the particulars of Twitter and the inherent value of so called "micro-blogging" and "real-time communications."

Getting Real

One of the personalities at the forefront of exploring real-time and the "state of now" is my friend Jeff Pulver, among other things, the founder of the groundbreaking "140Conf" which has for many, changed the way business conferences can be approached.  With a wide range of speakers (more than 100 in two days) a tremendous variety of expertise, points of view and topics will be covered, all tied together with the underlying theme of how Twitter, Real Time Communications and Social Media have created a "state of Now" that is changing the world of media, information, advertising, entertainment, charity (and perhaps more).  In his own words, Jeff likens the mood and energy of 140Conf as a concert-like event:

... the #140conf event series really represents what can be best characterized as “Tech Concerts”, especially since the people who are speaking are the rock stars of their respective industry segments and in some cases really are Rock stars. The #140conf events are taking place in venues where concerts happen on a regular basis. And at the end of the day as the event creator, co-host and producer, I am trying my best to provide great days of end-to-end entertainment and engaging discussions.

EnVIZualize The Event!

If you want a quick, colorful and brilliantly executed look at the original #140Conf, the talented Jonny Goldstein has just published a free eBook of his delightful visualizations of the speakers and panels from the NY 140conf.  The picture above is Jonny's rendition of my own presentation, "Everything I Know About Twitter I Learned In Grade School."  Jonny has a real talent for capturing the essence of a discussion in single, creative image, and his eBook of 140Conf is filled with the entertaining and thought provoking highlights of the inaugural 140Conf event.  You can download Jonny's book here (and I strongly encourage you to do so!).  His pictures are worth way more than 140 characters or even 1,000 words, and we are fortunate he is making it so easy to share them.

If you will be at 140Conf in LA I hope to say hello.  You can get more information about attending here.

Disclosure: As mentioned, Jeff Pulver is a friend, so I am biased and delighted to enthusiastically support everything he sets out to do!  I am attending 140Conf LA as a "Character" and guest.

In New York in the early 80's there was a frequently run commercial for GEMINI, a Broadway show by playwright Albert Innaurato.  The humorous ad was memorable for a particular moment when a motherly character tells her overweight son to "take human bites" as he wolfs down her home cooked meal.  The line was funny at the time in the context of the scene from the play, and it still resonates with me all these years later as a mantra for much more than dining etiquette.

Human Bites = Small Attainable Goals

This is not rocket science.  We perform better when we feel confident.  We feel confident when we have a sense of accomplishment.  We have a sense of accomplishment when we are productive and achieve goals.  To regularly accomplish goals, we have to set them to be challenging yet attainable.  To make goals attainable we have to break them down into human bites.  A daily "to-do" list of 100 items is not a human bite.  With a daily list that large you are destined for despair. 5 tasks you will actually complete in a day is a bite sized meal that will leave you satisfied that you got stuff done and feeling motivated to do more.

The Whole Is Equal To The Sum Of It's Parts

Break down big goals into a series of smaller attainable accomplishments.  This works for just about everything.  At the gym faced with 25 reps of your least favorite exercise?  Count them off as 5 sets of 5 and see how much easier it is.   Long term goals can be achieved one year, one month, one week, one day at a time.  Celebrate each small step as an accomplishment and an important move closer to your bigger prize.  

You can't consume an entire meal in one gulp.  Take human bites!

If you track the "social media" mentions of your name, company or brand (which you should be doing on a regular basis) there are times when you may be frustrated by negative comments or bizarre misinformation being spread as the gospel.  However, there are also times when your "vanity" search causes nothing but smiles and you realize that "it works" and "this social media thing is cool!"  This is one of those smiley moments.

They recently opened a "multi-use trail" in my neighborhood. It is a cross between a sidewalk, bike path and horse trail and it has made my early morning walks far more enjoyable than my former treks up and down the local streets.  However, as the trail is new, drivers are not used to it and as I learned this morning, the crosswalks can be dangerous.

Walking briskly, listening to Accident Hash on my Palm Pre, and scrolling through Twitter messages (yeah, the Pre multitasks, as do I), I saw the truck in the left turn lane in my peripheral vision and assumed he saw me.  Head down, I continued across the street.  Next thing I know there are bright headlights, a loud screech, a blasting horn and a shiny chrome bumper six inches from my hip.  I could feel the heat off the grill of the truck.

After a few moments of heated screaming between the driver and myself inanely disputing who should have seen whom, both of us feeling guilty, both of us at fault, I turned back to my business and continued on my walk as if nothing had happened...

But something had happened.  As we are so often miraculously able to do, I had avoided, by a breath, what could have been a life changing serious injury, or even death.  And then I continued on with my routine as if nothing in my life had changed.  And, fortunately, nothing had.  We are resilient beings, us humans...

In this hectic, crazy, stress-filled, happy life we lead, we are always near death.  Any given moment can be our last. Live life accordingly.