halsed.com featuring Darryl Halse

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Excuse me while I wipe this egg off my face.

The new layout here means that it should be easier to comment on entries. It also means that when a comment is submitted I have to approve it before it gets posted. I did not realize this - oops! So apologizes to the commenters, your input should now be available and I will be more prompt with this from now on.

-D

Planning for tomorrow, today.

Flashback: I’m 24 years old and staying with my older brother, his wife, their infant son and their 2 year old. It’s pure madness. The two year old is getting into absolutely everything, the infant is crying, the house is a complete disaster. Mom is disheveled and  looking like she was half-way through getting ready for the day when she just gave up on the process. Dad is more eager to go to work than any man has a right to be. I am dumb-founded.

How can anyone do this?

My brother and I would often retreat to Man Land. Man Land is not restricted to a geographic location but more a mental state of simplicity and understanding. On this occasion Man Land was in his garage (Man Land generally occurs in garages or basements). Indulging in some blissful moments of peace and simplicity, I asked him how he deals with the crazy life that comes with a young family. It’s madness, how do you know what to do? He laughed and explained that they’ve had two years of practice.

That’s when it clicked.

Looking in on this life that was so different from mine I was overwhelmed with how much I would struggle if I were thrown into the mix. But you don’t get thrown into the mix, you ease in. You don’t just wake up with a family of four, you start with one, add another, add another a while later, and eventually add another. It’s gradual and you get used to it as you go.

This was such an important realization.

When you look at a millionaire you can’t help but identify the massive difference between your income and hers. That difference is normally so big that achieving that same success for yourself seems impossible. What we rarely think about is that that millionaire didn’t go from earning $60,000/year to earning $1,200,000/year – just like the family, it was gradual. From $60k to $80k. From $80k to $120k. Etcetera. She worked hard and increasing earnings incrementally each year until she reached her goal. When you break it down like that all of the sudden it doesn’t seem so unattainable, does it?

Here’s the crux of my point: don’t plan for what you want today because if you don’t have it, it’s already too late. Plan for what you want a year from now. Two years from now. 20 years from now. I rarely think about where I want to be today because if I’m not there already it’s a lost cause. Instead I think about where I want to be in the future and start laying the ground works for how I’m going to get there. What tools will I need then to succeed? What skills will help me get there? What road am I going to take?

You will never, ever, wake up and somehow find yourself exactly where you wanted to be – that is unless you started planning on how to get there years ago.

New Layout for halsed.com

Just a quick note to let you all know that halsed.com is now up and running with a new layout. The changes may not look big but here on my end things are much easier to control. You guys get some bonuses too - you should now be able to comment on blog posts with your name (and email/website url if you like) for example.

Hope you all enjoy. I've uploaded all (most) of my posts from the old site. There were about 15-20 from the very beginning that did not carry over because they weren't that relevant (aka: personal). If you're keen to read them too they are still available on my facebook group.

I'll be back to regular scheduled posting shortly.

Cheers,

-D

The Rule of 2 of 3

This is the most valuable pie chart I have seen:

As the title suggests, you can have 2 of the 3 options and you can only ever have 2. For example let’s say you want to build a house. You can either have:

A high quality house in a short amount of time (green & red) but it will cost you more money (blue).

or

A lower quality house (green) but it will take less time and less money (blue & red).

or

A high quality house and costs less money (blue & green) but it will take more of your time for DIY (red).

I have yet to come across a situation where this 2 of 3 approach hasn’t made sense and helped shed some light on a decision. Next time you’re approaching a project, consider which 2 of 3 are important to you, or perhaps which one you can sacrifice, and see how much smoother your planning and execution goes.

I love it.

Putting in the Hard Yards

When you apply for a job and aren’t successful the immediate reaction is to run through all the possible reasons for your lack of success. Generally these tend to be pretty cynical and feature them prominently and you not so much. As a 27 year old university educated business professional I had never before thought that my age would put me at a disadvantage. Little did I know that there exists a trend in hiring that says just that: businesses are hesitant to hire from generation Y. Here are a couple of caveats to get out of the way before I continue: I don’t care what generation you’re from there are going to be some useless slackers. Let’s assume they are getting weeded out in the hiring process. Second, I will say that there are companies that recognize the value in generation Y (hint: these companies don’t hire employees, they recruit them), but they do seem to be in the minority.

So – why do generation y’s make such poor employees?

The general consensus is that we are not interested in putting in the hard yards. We show up at 8:30am, put in our days work, and leave at 5:00pm. If something needs to get done it can wait until tomorrow. We like to socialize, we chat to our friends at work, we check our email a lot, check out our twitter feed, and read up on the blogs. All of this is done when we should be at our desk doing work. And you can forget about burning the midnight oil, we did enough of that in university thank you very much.

Whether this is a true depiction or not is beside the point. It’s out there and if we’re to overcome it, we need to know where it has come from.

Generation Y, like any other generation, is unlike any other generation (clever). More of us are moreeducated than ever before. A university education is no longer a luxury, it has become par for the course. This leads to two important states of mind that will shine a lot of light on our employment predicament.

First is a sense of entitlement.

When we graduate from 4 years of university education we immediately assume that we are now entitled to a minimum salary working for a great company. Oh, and the respect and admiration we will get for achieving this education will be a given. It may seem a bit laughable but can you blame us? We’ve just spent four (at least) years studying everything there is to know about our field. We’ve spent $40,000 on the low side, and upwards of $70,000 on the high side to get this education, often times going fully into debt to do so. Top top it all off - universities operate more like business than places of higher learning. Universities advertise their degrees by unabashedly telling us "You will make more money with this degree". I don't think you can blame us for thinking that we will come out on the other side with some perks.

Unfortunately, there’s a fatal flaw in this way of thinking.

Let’s say I open up a cupcake shop. I rent the building for my store front, buy a few ovens and some baking equipment, invest some money into advertising and branding, purchase all the ingredients I need, and invest a year of my life into developing a kick-ass cupcake recipe. Opening day arrives and I set my very first amazing cupcake on the counter for a reasonable price.

$43.99.

What? I had to rent the store, buy all the equipment, and invest all my time and money into this? Considering all that I have sunk into this cupcake, it’s a bargain at $43.99!

At the end of the day a cupcake is worth whatever a hungry person needing a sugar fix will pay for it. It doesn’t matter what it cost to make. And the same holds true for you, cupcake. I don’t care how long you were in university or how much it cost you: you are worth what someone will pay you and not a penny more. Leave your sense of entitlement at the door.

The second result of this education is curiosity.

The modern concept of higher education is so full of holes that I could market it as a new swiss cheese (thanks Black Adder). It fails on many levels and is often a simple exercise in memorization and regurgitation. However, when you go through that many years of it, there is one exciting byproduct that is hard to avoid:

Curiosity.

Generation Y is a curious group because we've been bred that way. Learning is completely addictive. The more you know, the more you want to know. We want to know why things are being done the way they’re being done. We want to understand the hows so that we can help improve, to make things better, to leave this world in better shape than we found it. You’ll find us asking ‘How does that work?’ so we can follow up asking ‘Ok, now how can we make that work better?’. It leads to incredible innovations both online and on the ground. It also leads to frustrated employers.

Imagine a hammer that would always hammer in nails, but do it reluctantly while constantly reminding you that your construction process was flawed. You'd be forgiven for getting frustrated with your tool but is it the hammers fault or your fault for choosing the wrong tool for the job?

In the classical sense of hard work I will concede that Gen Y is lacking. We don't have that industrial sense of nose-to-the-grindstone determinedness. We are used to getting our mp3s in 3 minutes or less over a high-speed connection, communicating with our thumbs, and making things better. Cogs in the wheel, we are not. But saying that we are not interested in doing the hard yards is untrue.

So let’s make an agreement. We will abandon the idea of entitlement based on education and instead determine our worth based on outcomes. We will do the hard yards, we want to do the hard yards, we’redesperate to do the hard yards. All you have to do is work with us to ensure that we are running in the right direction.

Think about it.

The act of thinking is something that I feel is undervalued. I’m not talking about the thinking it takes to chew gum and walk simultaneously, or the thinking required to drive a car and not end up at the bottom of a lake. I’m talking about the act of thinking; consciously weighing the pros and cons of a decision, determining that what you are doing is the best thing to do, and then going ahead and doing it. I would argue that the majority of things we do we do simply because, well, it’s what we’ve always done. We rarely think about it.

I actively try to be open minded. I will take opinions or beliefs that I hold and ask myself why I feel that way? There are times that leads me to realize the opinion is founded in something as solid as jell-o, and other times that it solidifies my belief – allows me to say “Yup, that does makes sense.” One thing that I think a lot of people believe, but do not necessarily think about, is religion.

My mother in law recently finished reading John Grogan’s memoir: The Longest Trip Home. I have no trouble admitting that I loved his book Marley & Me and so it took little encouragement for me to take up his newest tome. The book is a memoir and details John’s growing up in Detroit, struggling through adolescence, and moving into adulthood. What holds it all together is the accompanying story of his relationship with his devoutly catholic parents. He struggles to understand how his parents adhere to their faith so completely when so many things seems to not make sense to him. I got the impression that many times when he was confronted with a facet of faith he could not identify with, his rebuttal would be: “Yes, but when you think about it…”

When you think about it.

The Longest Trip Home was a great read. Funny, honest, and relatable. It got me thinking about thinking and thinking about religion. My father and I always enjoy great discussions on religion and so I mentioned the book to him to see what he thought. Meanwhile, he had sent me another book: Velvet Elvis.

Velvet Elvis is not a fun book about a boy with undertones of religious commentary, it’s a full on book about Christianity and makes no bones about it. That’s not to say it’s not a good read – but if you’re looking for it in the book store I doubt they’d be on the same shelf. Or aisle. Or store.

I digress. Velvet Elvis is another great read because it breaks down the Christian faith into a much more digestable, understandable format. A few common threads so far are that:

• It’s ok not to understand things
• Relgion is not a set, solid, permanent thing. It’s growing, adapting, changing.
• It’s about the conversation we have with each other – not so much the end result.
• It’s about asking questions.

I don’t relate to a lot of things in the book. I mark each page that contains something I don’t get, something I don’t agree with, or something that doesn’t make sense to me with a yellow tab (as you can see here, it gets a bit complicated). Now, next time I skype with my old man, I can go through and we can talk about the points. We won’t necessarily agree, but we’re both open to having the conversation, to asking questions. Two people on either side of the fence – but we’re both open to thinking.

I’ve often tried to figure out the goal of this blog. Is it about cars? Is it about improving? Is it about telling stories? Yes, to a degree, it is. But the my main goal, above all else, is only one thing:

To encourage you to think.

We get what we ask for…

I used to play a video game where there were four separate points to capture. You would play with 19 or so other players on your team over the internet. Capturing a point gave you a few points and then gave you more points continually as long as you held that point. The more points you held, the more points you would continually gain and when you reached the set amount of points you won. Hurray! The best way to win was to split into three groups of 7 (ish), each group took a point and then you just sat there and defended until you won – it was universally accepted as the easiest way to win.

Except it wasn’t so easy.

You would have your three points and be sitting back defending when you would notice some drooling moron creeping ever closer to the abyss that is the no-man’s land between the points. “Come back!” you would call (type) in your most assertive voice (CAPS). But drawn by the shiny temptation of action, onward he would creep.

Sure enough, he would eventually get far enough away from the safety of the group that he would end up laying face down in a pile of his own drool and innards. Another drooling moron would rush to his aid and before you know it, we’d be over run and lose our sure win.

What does this have to do with anything you may ask? Well, as it turns out, everything.

I recently read this article about the new Ford Focus which was unveiled in Detroit recently. Scanning the pics I made the usual observations. Then I came to the picture of the interior. The seats look racey and the dash looks like the love-child of the Starship Enterprise and, well, another Starship Enterprise. There are so many buttons and shiny knobs that you can’t help but think some of them must be for show and have no practical purpose. How can a car have that many functions? There are THREE LCD screens for crying out loud!

But what really got me was the gear lever. It was most definitely an automatic which didn’t make any sense to me as this was certainly the sports version (look at those seats). But why an auto box on a sporty car? Then I saw them. Sitting behind the wheel with glowy blue arrows on them, speaking of the hidden speeds that they could un leash. Yup. Flappy paddles. (For those of you who don’t know, modern sports cars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis run with two paddles behind the wheel to shift gears. These paddles can shave milliseconds off acceleration and lap times which makes a difference in a hyper car.)

As I mentally lambasted Ford for putting such a stupid option on a Focus something in the back of my head (Maybe my sternum - wait, where is your sternum? What is a sternum??) knew exactly why they had done it. Because we want it.

If I bake you a cake and you then consume that cake, I can safely assume you liked it and would eat it again. If everyone I know is buying gerbils, I can open up my new gerbil emporium with confidence. It’s stupid of us to complain about products we get because, in essence, it’s exactly what we’ve been asking for. The trouble is, we often buy with our hearts and not our heads. These flappy paddles are a prime example of this.

When confronted with the options list for your new Focus, how hard would it be not to tick that box? You mean I can drive around like an F1 car, blipping the throttle and changing gears with these paddles to squeeze every inch of goodness from my little engine? YEEhaw!! When you really think about it though, it’s a bloody terrible idea. The gear changes will be jerky 95% of the time, hill starts and parking will be a nightmare, and you’ll look a complete arse trying to explain it to the people who used to be your friends.

So, fellow consumers, I urge you to purchase with both your head and your heart. For God’s sake think about the options you have before you hand over your cash. Your cash is the only bargaining chip you have, if you waste it on crap then manufacturers will keep feeding us that same crap. You have the power, use it wisely.

Oh – and that Focus actually looks pretty sweet.

How to Keep Your Resolutions

So it’s two weeks into 2010 and I hope I am right in saying that any new year’s resolutions that were going to be made have been made. I’d also dare say that a good portion of those have been abandoned already. None the less, if you’ve made one and are serious about keeping it, I’m here to help. Here are 5 steps to follow to help you keep your new year’s resolution:

1 – Write it down

Write it on a piece of Bristol board that you hang on your bedroom wall or in your day planner. Write it on your whiteboard in the office or leave it as a message on your desktop. The important thing here is that you write it down and write it down somewhere that you will see every single day.

Ex: I am going to learn to play the trumpet.

2 – Make a plan

A resolution to learn to play the trumpet is all well and good but without an idea of how to make it happen, it’s a fairly hopeless venture. Put some pen to paper or fingertips to keyboard and draft a plan of how you’re going to accomplish your goal.

Ex: I am going to budget $200 for a trumpet. Then I am going to join the local amateur jazz band. I will also practice every Wednesday night with my daughter for 45 minutes.

3 – Give yourself some goals

The important thing about goals is that they are attainable and given a time frame. Set some goals for yourself that you honestly believe you will be able to achieve and then give yourself a time frame. Write it down and add it to your plan.

Ex: I will have my new trumpet purchased by January 30. I am going to learn how to play do-ray-me-so-fa-la-tee-do by February 12. I will be able to read sheet music by April 22. Etc… Add the dates to your calendar and check them off as you go.

4 – Find a resolution partner

If at all possible, find someone else with a resolution and keep each other honest. Disclose your resolution hopes and dreams to them, have a chat about your plans and goals, and then keep each other updated on progress. If you can’t find anyone, then take your spouse / parent / dog and give them regular updates on your progress. They don’t even need to listen, the simple act of reporting your success is great for confidence and inspiring you to continue. (also it makes them feel like chumps for not doing anything)

5 – Make a resolution for you.

Don’t make a resolution to quit smoking if you don’t really want to quit. Don’t make a resolution to get fit if you can’t see yourself going to the gym in July. Don’t resolve to donate to charity if you don’t truly believe in the cause. If you are determined to make a resolution, put some thought into it and make sure it’s something that will make you a better person – something you’ll be proud of at the end of 2010.

Personally, I don’t believe in new year’s resolutions. If something needs changing in your life, what’s wrong with starting today? Or yesterday? I think most resolutions start with “This year I’m going to…” where as the best ones always start with “This year, I’m going to continue to…”

But hey, you have to start somewhere.

It’s What’s on the Inside. Isn’t It?

Boxing Day sales are always a double edged sword. You have the potential to score yourself some sweet products at great prices if you’re lucky and in the right place at the right time. On the other hand, you have to elbow your way past sweaty mammas and angry poppas as they curse each other out over who was supposed to save the last Wii and who was supposed to go find an employee to reduce the discount even farther because there’s a hole in the box. A hole shaped like a certain sweaty mammas ironically named ‘running shoe.’ All the while little Jonny stands between them, directly under your feet, wondering what in the world ‘dipshit’ means.

So, a lovely day out with the family then.

This year Danielle and I decided to brave the crowds and see if we could find a couple of things on our wish lists. I have to admit, I was excited. I generally loathe the idea of shopping but on rare occasions when I really want something and can get a good deal on that same something, I get – dare I say it – a bit giddy.

We pulled up to Dick Smith Electronics around 11am and I was delighted to see big red SALE SALE SALE signs all along the front windows. Hurray! We walked inside and I was a bit confused. The store looked exactly the same as it had the last time I had been in. In October. To their credit there was a small bin in the middle of the aisle with a bunch of marked down items in it. A USB reindeer, some Christmas lights, and I think a rare collection of belly-button lint donated by one of the clerks. They also had sat nav systems on for 10% off. That’s it. That’s their big sale. I even found an open boxed Bluetooth Stereo Headset that I wanted but when I went to enquire if I could get it at a lower price because the box was opened or because, you know, there was supposed to be a SALE on, she kindly explained to that: “No.”

How do they expect to fool people by putting up a flashy sign but not delivering on what was promised?

It reminded me of the Kia Cerato. It’s a great looking car, I often catch myself staring at it when I drive by the Kia lot by our house. Each time I drive by I think “man, maybe that thing is worth something after all. It does look good…”. But the thing is, it isn’t. It’s just like the SALE SALE SALE signs. All bark and no bite. Beneath it all, you still have a store with regular prices. Beneath it all you still have a cheaply made, cheap feeling, Korean box-on-wheels.

Do you know what really gets me though? Dick Smiths was full of customers. Shopping around and making purchases of things, some of which at 10% off, but most at full price. Heck, I bought a pair of headphones later that day on sale, but because they were previously returned, not because it was Boxing Day. And the tripod I bought was the same price it is the rest of the year.

Does it matter that what’s on the inside isn’t what was promised to us? Or do we just need to feel as though we’re getting a deal? Do people think about their purchases or do we all just get lost in the shuffle and are so timid that we don’t stop to demand what we should from our products?

I got my answer when I drove home and there, on my quiet little street, parked one after the other, were two brand new Kia Ceratos and do you know what I thought to myself?

“Gee, they really are a good looking little car.”

50 Posts at halsed.com: What I’ve Learned.

I recently published my 50^th post here at halsed.com. Here are some of the most important lessons I’ve learned from the past 50 blog posts:

Don’t promise something unless you can deliver.

When you start blogging you immediately want to let your readers know that you will be blogging twice a week every week about your topic. Here’s a tip: do it first, and then tell your readers you’ll continue doing it. If you start off with promises that you later realize you can’t fulfill, you’ve lost credibility.

Give yourself a schedule.

Decide on a regular writing schedule and stick to it. Decide on a regular posting schedule and stick to it. Making your schedule public is up to you – but remember not to commit to a schedule you can’t adhere to.

Write it down.

Have an idea for a new post? Write it down. Notice something interesting/odd/cool? Write it down. I get most of my inspiration either laying in bed or out with friends and I always make sure to at least write down a few sentences at the time.

Most of my posts are the result of two or three of these ideas combined. Rarely is a post composed of one single idea. As with most great things, a great blog post is a compilation of many ideas, not just one.

Keep going.

Blogs, like Twitter, have a high turnover rate. I have seen at least a dozen friends start a blog over this past year, publish a post or two, and then fade away. Blogging doesn’t get you a lot of reward straight away – it takes a lot of work and persistence to maintain an active blog but it can be very rewarding if you just stick with it.

Edit. Edit. Edit.

No one will read your blog if it’s riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. It doesn’t have to be perfect (I’m sure you could find errors on this page if you looked) but it’s obvious straight away which blogs edit and which slap together posts and publish them without a re-read first.

Watch, listen, and practice.

If you wanted to be a good hockey player you would watch the pros, listen to the pros, and practice what they do.

If you wanted to be a good pianist you would watch the pros, listen to the pros, and practice what they do.

If you want to be a good blogger you should watch the pros, listen to the pros, and practice what they do.

Tell a story.

Each post should tell a story. The best tech bloggers in the world aren’t the smartest IT people; they’re the ones who can tell the best story. The best auto bloggers aren’t the best drivers; they’re the best story tellers.

Acknowledge Comments

As you progress with your blogging you will inevitably get people commenting on your work. Thank them, reply to them, argue with them, but it’s important that you acknowledge them in some way, shape or form. Comments are like currency to blogs and people like to be acknowledged for taking the time to comment on your work.

Monitor your stats.

Most blogging/web hosting services will include some statistics on your site. Google Analytics is a great tool and can help you see what’s working and what’s not working. For example, when I post to Facebook that I have a new post early in the morning I get more clicks. When I do it in the evening when lots of people are active on Facebook I get noticeably less. It was surprising to me but great to know.

Don’t worry about the words, just write it down.

A lot of times I find myself stuck with a post because I’m trying too hard to make it funny or interesting. The trick is to just write it down – don’t worry about the words. You can start out with bullet points, non-sensical sentences, just get it down. You can worry about polishing it up with humor and clever language as you go.

And of course the most important thing of all – have fun!