I don't watch TV. I don't read blogs.

[The below was originally posted to my Facebook, kept here for mainly selfish reasons. You can comment on it. ]

I'm your friend. You like me. You like talking to me, listening to me, spending time with me. I stopped a bunch of distracting activities not too long ago and consequently you will have more of my focus and attention. 

You're important to me, and every single day I think to myself, "damn I miss my friends from back in the day." I miss you from Hauppauge. I miss you from the early days at BU. If you're reading this…odds are you are missed by me. 

There might or might not be anything we can do to rekindle our friendship, only time will tell. Either way, as of today, you are missed, and you won't be soon forgotten. Maybe we should chat.

[Everything below is a message I wrote mostly to inspire my future self, do not read it.]

_____________________________________________________________

I don't watch TV.

I don't read blogs.

I don't read the news.

I have no idea what's going on with elections.

I don't know what happened on the last episode of Game of Thrones.

I'm stuck with a lot of knowledge and behavior learned from TV. I know what happened in just about every episode of The Office, The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Friends, Sex and the City, and Everybody Loves Raymond. 

TV…it's there. It's not going away, it will just hop on the Internet so it can be anywhere I want it, anytime I want it. It's not all crap. But it IS all the same. Every TV show is the same fake stuff, all scripted, all with millions of dollars invested. No wonder I liked watching it so much- it's so well made! And if were to go back to it, I would probably STILL like all of it. 

The news, no matter how it's consumed is pretty much all the same; irrelevant to me. I'm not just talking about the mainstream news, CNN, The New York Times, TMZ, and The Wall Street Journal. I'm also talking about the online news that covers topics I'm REALLY into. The sites I like, TechCrunch, FourHourBlog, PandoDaily, and BostInno… they are mostly irrelevant! When I read them all there is simply too much to consume to make any use of. 

Now, know this, the problem is with my behavior. From the time I was a little boy with a bedtime till just a few months ago, I watched and read the news constantly. I'd read while I wasn't watching TV. Or I'd read while watching TV. There are groups out there who would say "Oh well when someone is raised in front of a TV it's not entirely their fault if they keep doing it." Theres some truth in that, sure, great for them. 

But knowing what I know now, it would be irresponsible for me to go back.

I owe it to myself to keep on ignoring TV, the news, and blogs for a long, long, time. 

I started with a 32 day trial from March 19 to April 19.  I committed to cutting out the news, TV (including web video like documentaries and TED Talks), and all blogs. 

Then I realized I had nothing to do! And I went on to new distractions! Fiction books, twitter, Fruit Ninja, and Temple Run. 

Since May 10 I have been following the same regimen, stopping everything above plus no twitter. I started with a commitment to stop these things for the summer. I've extended that commitment to last at least until I'm done with the Fall semester at BU, December 21. 

What's the best thing about this TV/News/Blog "fast"? I learned from the first trial. When removing distractions, other things will inevitably fill my time. Without a plan, I'll just get more distractions!

Now, however, I have added things to my day that I care about. Every day I answer at least one question about the iPhone and post it to the iPhoneHow.To blog. Every day I spend at least one hour working on a new venture.

Even if these things do not work out, if I get bored, I must look for different things to do. There is plenty of things I haven't done and haven't explore. There is also plenty of things that I quit on too early.

Note to self: Be like that Pursuit of Happyness guy and "find something you love to do so much that you can't wait to wake up in the morning to do it all over again." Never mind the fact that you probably read that quote on a blog, just keep going forward!

The Fundamental recipe for Success

Self-Improvement is common to all people across all cultures. In the West, traditionally people aspire to having more. In the East, traditionally people aspire to being more. I firmly believe that there is little difference between the two - a subject for another post. However, to improve in any area of life there are two undeniable determinants of success. The first is time, the second is practice.

Success = (Time) AND (Practice)

Time
Tiger Woods started playing golf at age three. Mozart started composing at age three. The Williams sisters started playing tennis as toddlers. These apparent "child prodigies" only appear to be so because they started so early that by the time they were teens they already had at least a decade of experience.

***

"I want to be exceptional but I'm too old."
"I am too inexperienced to be great."
"I do not have any natural gifts."

Does that sound like you? Stop whining, your cries are falling on deaf ears and blind eyes. If you are 65 and live in a country with modern medicine you can live to be 85. That means you can spend 20 years becoming great. Give it a go, you have everything to gain.

To my peers, University students blessed with youthful energy, amazing opportunities, and fast brains - you have scores of years ahead of you. The time half of the success formula is all but guaranteed for you.

Practice
You watch TV for an hour a day. You read the news an hours day. You Facebook an hour a day. Bad.

You work ten hours a day. You go for a run an hour a day. You clean your apartment or house an hour a day. Possibly worse.

The first three habits are almost universally known to be time wasters. These are activities you bitch to your friends about. They bitch back. Your parents tell you to quit.

The latter three habits are things you bitch about. You friends bitch back. Your parents tell you to keep up the good work.

***

To practice is to perform an activity regularly and repeatedly in order to maintain or improve your ability. Memorize that sentence, think carefully on it, then apply it. Determine one activity that you consistently do and get better at it day after day for one month. Practice is not always fun; practice is not always enjoyable. Practice is necessary for improvement and success.



Why and What Next


For me, this post is a practice in writing. It reminds me how much work remains on my path towards great writing and how much I have already accomplished. I will be writing posts and editing and improving them in the future.

As my amazing high school German teacher always said, "I know where I am going, I just don't know who is coming with me."

A Letter to Hanover Insurance Group

This evening at Boston University the Hanover Insurance Group sponsored the School of Management’s Business Plan Pitch Presentation. The presentations were presented by top performing teams from Boston University’s junior level set of cross-functional courses, collectively known as “CORE.”

Three teams went up on stage in front of an audience of over 150 students and presented their hearts out. The level of preparation was exceptional. The presentations were fantastic. The data was solid. The three teams went up there and showed the audience, which included a COO from a division of Hanover Insurance Group, just how brilliant Boston University Management Students are.

Following the presentations a team judges went out of the room to determine which of the three presentations was best.

In the interim, an esteemed COO from Hanover took the podium. It was clear to the audience what was coming next: A sales pitch.

The COO took the podium to tell the students in the audience that insurance is exciting, that it is great place to work, that it has great programs for graduating students. She went on for five minutes.  Her intention was clearly to motivate students to apply for positions. She failed miserably.

She had a golden opportunity; she had the attention in a captive audience of high-performing students, yet her words fell on deaf ears. Student snickered, yawned, and checked their phones. Towards the end she asked, “who is excited about insurance?!” I sarcastically shouted, “Yeahhh!” Some may think I was rude. Some may think I was justified. Regardless, the reason for the collective response of the audience was clear. She gave a lousy presentation.

She failed for many reasons, but the number one reason is that her words lacked conviction. In her words there was no excitement, no heart, no genuine passion.

Dear Hanover, listen up. As a student at Boston University’s School Of Management, I guarantee you that the best students in that audience were the ones who were yawning and checking their phones. The best students want to work for companies who show that they care about what they’re doing. The best students want to work for companies who give their employees not just a weekly paycheck, but a sense of purpose. If you want Boston University’s best students you will have to get to know them. If you want students who can lead and who can grow into industry leaders, I advise that you step your game up.

My advice, when you have the attention of a large part of the student body, give the student body a speaker who talks from the heart.
Three teams went up on stage and presented business plans that they spent months preparing. The audience could see their effort. Those teams set the bar for future teams and inspire those future teams to push that bar even higher.

If you want to share the stage with our students and receive the respect of all students, don’t tell us that you care. Show us.

Fourni, the Heart of Greece.

[I wrote this essay Summer of 2008. I came across it recently while looking through old files and decided it was worth sharing with the world. Enjoy!]

The cove of Bali.

The island of Fourni is one of the many small Greek Isles accessible almost exclusively by boat. On it resides a population whose numbers can be outdone by most public high schools but it’s the one place on this planet where I can be completely relaxed. My first time going I went with my friends Will and Jon, we travelled alone all the way to Athens where we met up with Gus, Jon’s dad. Gus owns two residences on Fourni because it’s where he grew up. Jon invited Will and I to spend time there for the summer. Now I’m back here, two summers later, and this time Jon brought along fifteen of us to share the Greek experience with.

The Greek experience is what this island is all about, this island is seemingly one of the few places in Europe that hasn’t been afflicted by rampant Americanism. Yesterday morning Gus took four of us to his cousins to see how they make goat cheese. There are no high tech milking machines, nor any automated processes, just a man and his wife and their many goats. They use the same methods and technologies that have been around for hundreds of years and the result is phenomenal. People on the island go crazy for this cheese, if you want some you have to order it days in advance but since Gus is family we were able to get some as a gift. It comes in a cone-like woven container which Gus placed a bottle of wine in when we returned it to his cousin later that day. It’s not exclusively the Greek experience to have amazing cooking everyday for every meal, but it is definitely the Gus experience. This man works wonders in the kitchen, he’s opened my eyes to foods and flavors that I would have never gone near if not for him. His steak. Oh my god his steak, it’s out of this world, the marinade, the perfect amount of time spent on the grill, and the premium meat, they’re all brought together with his magical hands and I can say as sure as sure as the sun shines that his steak is my favorite food in the world. When we stay here most of our time is spent in his house in the cove of Bali, he does have the townhouse in the village of Fourni but it’s nothing in comparison to the beauty that is Bali. He has a tremendous house there, the biggest I’ve seen on the island, a piece of America that Gus brought back to his home country. On the bottom floor are all the bedrooms, four of them, each with their own connected bathrooms. The one I stay in has a door that leads to the lower balcony and gives you a beautiful view of the water which is less than a football field away. Upstairs is the living space, there’s a wraparound couch, a very nice entertainment setup which includes a flat-screen TV, speakers that could break glass, and all the other media amenities you’d expect. Just a few feet further down is a kitchen table and the kitchen itself, it has all the standards you’d expect, a dishwasher, stove, oven, sink, fridge, and exhaust hood. These may seem like no big deal, things you’d expect to find in any house, but on an island where the roads have yet to be paved and where there are just as many people who catch their dinner as there are those who buy it, these are big deals. Next to the fridge comes a bonus, the ice chest. It’s a standalone freezer with as much space as the fridge, Gus keeps most of what he catches in there until he is ready to eat it. You had better believe me when I tell you, Gus catches a lot.

Going back to the Greek experience, one of the things anyone who comes to Bali must do is go out with Gus on one of his spear fishing trips, no need to rush that because he does go out to catch stuff on a daily basis. A product of hard work and a passion for being in the water, at the age of 56 he can go down one hundred feet on a single breath. No, that is not an exaggeration. When he goes down you really have to watch closely because the action happens faster than you realize, before you even see the fish he is aiming at he’ll have speared it and attached it to his water belt and be on his way back up to the surface. Whether it be fish, octopus, or even sea urchins, he can catch them all with ease. I still haven’t gone out with him on this most recent visit but I plan on getting around to it one of these days.

Being in the water here is an adventure that’s incomparable to anything you can do in America. The water is absolutely clear, if light went down to the bottom you’d see the sea floor from any point in the water no matter how deep it is. One of the many activities I enjoy doing while here is swimming out to this orange buoy out near a jetty that marks the end of the cove. From there you get a view of Bali so amazing that you can’t stop yourself from sitting there for at least ten minutes just to take it all in, all you have to do is turn around. I really must bring my camera out there soon so that I can hopefully capture the beauty for the rest of the world to see. Seeing it isn’t enough though, not for me anyway, until you’re out on that buoy, standing on the rope that holds it in place, breathing in the salty air and catching your breath from the swim you took to get there, you can’t hope to realize the true beauty of it. The same holds true for the view from the top of the mountain off to the right of Bali, the trek up there isn’t so bad that I’d call it grueling although it’s certainly not easy, but once you get to the top it doesn’t make a difference how hard it was because all you have to do is take one look around and it simply fades into the past.

Water Fasting Part III: Boredom, Stomach Aches and a Grand Opportunity

This is the final piece of the trilogy. I completed a 24 hour fast, I completed a 48 hour fast, and as of Saturday, January 21, 2012, 9:30 PM I completed a 72 hour fast.

Conclusion: Yes, I think there is room for a 96 hour fast in my future.

Boredom

In this post I won’t be discussing what happened during the fast as much as I will be discussing what has been going on since finishing the 72 hour fast. However, I will say that high levels of boredom and low levels of energy were the main characteristics of the 72-hour fast.  Note: I was simultaneously not reading the news and not watching any TV except for videos TED.com, which may have contributed to the boredom. What was the impact of low energy? On day two and three I tried reading a book I’m genuinely interested in (Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely) and frequently had to stop after a few pages because I could not maintain focus.

Most people who I spoke to as I fasted said that they could never fast because they would get hungry. My quick rebuttal is that a fast is simply not for everyone, and if anyone has a strong desire to fast it is not very difficult nor is it especially grueling. If anyone out there has an interest in fasting or has fasted, let’s talk, I’m interested in hearing your questions and thoughts.

Stomach Aches 

In the two days since ending the fast I ate crappy food, A LOT of crappy food.

“Meal” to end the fast:

Raising Cane’s box combo, which includes 4 pieces of fried chicken, two pieces of Texas toast (I subbed out the cole slaw for an extra piece), “Cane’s sauce”, French fries, and 21 ounce soda.

Munchies later that night:

King Size Reece’s Fast Break

Half a bag of Kettle Brand salt and pepper chips (“share size” …I did not share)

After three days of not eating this mess of food was a wreck on my stomach. Any sane person could easily predict this. I had a hard time falling asleep and a hard time waking up the next day. I woke around 11 AM.

“Breakfast”:

Two large Italian style turkey sausages, made by yours truly

A housemate greeted me less than 30 minutes after breakfast and asked if I was hungry. I said sure why not? Let’s go to Steve’s and get some lunch.

Lunch:

Souvlaki in a Syrian pita with grilled veggies

Fries on the side

12 oz can of Coca-Cola

After eating I went to a meeting, visited a local shop, and was back home to watch the AFC Championship, by now it was around 3 PM. I sat down with my laptop to write up project notes to my team but I just couldn’t get into it, scrapped the idea entirely, and went off to my buddy’s house for the rest of the Patriots game and to watch the upcoming Giants game. On the way, I picked up some cookies from Trader Joe’s for everyone to enjoy. I brought the cookies, shared them with the gang, had a few myself and enjoyed drank a beer. While at TJ’s I also got one of their “fiberful fruit sticks,” which I love so much.

Snack:

3 soft chocolate chip cookies from trader joe’s

1 “fiberful fruit stick”

1 miller high life

Fast forward a little bit, the Patriots win. My friend Ben is hungry. He asks, “Anyone want to get food?” I say sure. We decide to get pizza, breadsticks, and a two-liter of orange soda. We bring them back to the house to eat as we watch the Giants game.

Dinner:

2 slices of “The Works” pizza from Papa Gino’s

3-5 cheesy breadsticks + dipping sauce

20ish ounces of orange soda

I leave before the Giants game is over and finish watching the game at home. Giants win! Super Bowl is going to be exciting. And I decide to get a snack from the local convenience store.

Late-night snack:

King Size Reece’s Fast Break

So for those of you who have lost track the total list of food I had in the approximately 27 hour period following a three day fast is as follows:

• Raising Cane’s box combo, which includes 4 pieces of fried chicken, two pieces of Texas toast (I subbed out the cole slaw for an extra piece), “Cane’s sauce”, French fries, and 21 ounce soda.
• King Size Reece’s Fast Break
• Half a bag of Kettle Brand salt and pepper chips (“share size” …I did not share)
• Two large Italian style turkey sausages, made by yours truly
• Souvlaki in a Syrian pita with grilled veggies
• Fries on the side
• 12 oz can of Coca-Cola
• 3 soft chocolate chip cookies from trader joe’s
• 1 “fiberful fruit stick”
• 1 miller high life
• 2 slices of “The Works” pizza from Papa Gino’s
• 3-5 cheesy breadsticks + dipping sauce
• 20ish ounces of orange soda
• King Size Reece’s Fast Break

We’re talking about thousands of calories. I will make no excuses. This is a perfect example of unhealthy, binge, compulsive, excessive eating. This brings me into the beginning of the end (of this post).

The Grand Opportunity

After reflecting on the days since starting the 72-hour fast the first thing that first comes to mind is the stoic mental exercise of flipping an obstacle upside down to turn a problem into an opportunity. The problem I have is that I lack conscious moderation of my diet. Not eating is, I now know, pretty easy for me. The same goes for nonstop eating. But finding a comfortable middle ground…therein lies the rub. The opportunity is to use this experience as an objective starting point to find that middle ground and to begin experimenting with new healthy recipes and to begin practicing a moderated eating routine. That is the real challenge.

“There is nothing impossible to him who will try.”

–Alexander the Great

As always, let me know what you think; I love to hear what you have to say and really appreciate the feedback!!

-PBS

An Experiment: How to Study Regularly? (Doing the impossible)

The Rant

All students have an issue with studying regularly. It’s fucking hard. Why? Because we’re busy with our lives! Because college courses, even the ones we’re interested in, are dull and boring, ESPECIALLY when we’re out of class.

I am in a cross-functional course at SMG known only by its acronym, CORE. It is one course made of four courses. It is hell by design. I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this sometime in the future but for now all you need to know about these courses is that for me they are a means to an end. I have no inherent interest in them.

In short, I think that the way these courses are taught is inherently flawed (and I think the same is true of 99% of college courses). There are two-hour lectures back to back, 4-5 days a week, every week of the semester, from January to May.  Many studies have shown that passive learning, listening to lectures, is one of the least effective ways to learn, and yet in order to get a decent grade I am forced to engage in this style of learning at least 16 hours a week during the semester.

So why bother showing up to class? Because after I miss two sessions I start to lose points off my grade. I want to do well so that I can get a good GPA and get what my parents paid for.

My challenge to myself is to attend every single lecture of CORE and after every class prepare myself for the next class by doing homework, reading (skimming) the textbook, and reading the upcoming lecture slides.

Interferon Injection

The Method

In his book Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely has a chapter titled “The problem of procrastination and self-control.” This chapter is, in part, about how disciplined himself to take a very unpleasant medicine (Interferon) three days a week for a year and a half to cure himself of Hepatitis C. For those of you who don’t know, Interferon causes nausea, headaches, and fevers and has to be taken by self-injection to the thigh. For patients, this means self-inflicting yourself with extended periods of throwing up, feeling sick, and feeling tired as hell, multiple days a week, for a long long time. Dan got himself to consistently subject himself to this extended discomfort by watching movies. Right as he injected himself he hit the play button on the remote, laid back in his hammock (with his barf bucket nearby), and watched movies until he fell asleep. Essentially, he tricked himself into doing something that sucked by creating a mental association with something he liked. By only watching movies on days he gave himself injections he began to anticipate taking an injection in order to experience the reward of watching a movie.

My plan is to apply Dan’s method of curing his Hepatitis C to my own studying and schoolwork. I love watching TV. Archer? Love it. Louie? Yep love it too. Reruns of The Office that I’ve seen 20 times already? Can’t. Get. Enough. So, starting next Monday, and continuing for the rest of the semester I intend to only watch TV directly after I have prepared myself for the upcoming class.

Wish me luck in the comments below! I’m gonna need it! 

Water Fasting Part II: Life is Unpredictable

I just finished a 48-hour fast and the results are nothing short of outstanding!

I have been at normal to high energy levels for the past two days. Starting at the 43rd hour I started feeling like I had just drank a red bull and now, at the 48th hour, I am still at that level. My body feels great, I’ve got a spring in my step, and my sleep was excellent last night.

The original plan was to do a 72-hour fast after the 48-hour fast, and that plan remains the same, however, I feel so good about the results of this experiment that I am seriously considering doing a fast for an extended period of time (maybe a week?). Before doing something that extreme I intend to meet with an experienced faster for guidance (and if you ever plan to fast beyond a three day period I suggest you do the same).

Going forward

I set out to start my second fast 7 days after the first but did not actually start the second fast until 11 days later. I’ve come to the conclusion that the proper time to fast is when the body signals that it is not hungry.  With that in mind, I’ll update the blog and my twitter (@PeterBSmith) when I start the next fast… likely sometime before January.

One more thing...

I just setup Facebook comments so if you're logged into Facebook leaving comments is EASY!

...comments, questions, criticisms? Let me know!