Michael Andrew's Blog, page 67

Icarus

I've decided to make a new category for my blog "Netflix", simply because I feel as though the company, as well as Amazon Prime, has dealt a catastrophic blow to the traditional movie industry. Were it not for comic book films, and a handful of very talented directors (think Chris Nolan, Martin Scorsese and the like) the movie industry (as in going to the movie theater) would already be in it's death throes. Disney will start its own channel when it's contract with Netflix expires, look at what HBO and others are doing: they are creating their own movie studios, producing their own films, and delivering directly to the customers in their homes. I still LOVE going to an actual movie theater, and I think they will be around for at least a few more years, but everything seems to be going direct streaming now.



Netflix is leading the charge with creating their own content, and one documentary that I saw this week was called Icarus. It was an absolutely explosive documentary about the Russian doping program for the Olympics. Truly mind-boggling crazy. Highly recommended if you're up for documentary.



The thing that I love about documentaries is that they are fairly inexpensive to create & they have the best shot in actually turning a profit for an independent filmmaker. Check it out if you get a chance!

The Dark Tower

I know this is a week late, but it simply wasn't in a theater close to me until this weekend.



Long story short, Ive been looking forward to this film for such a long time, and while it is ok...it isn't what it could have been. Its been many, many years since I read the first book in the series as a teenager. The film is a very, very shallow coverage of what could have been, instead of an EPIC tale on the level of Lord of the Rings, we have this short and shallow overview.



Many interesting easter eggs (think other Stephen King movies) they are literally everywhere, suggesting all of Stephen Kings films occur in the same universe.



It's best as a rental.

Self Doubt – Episode #020

Good morning everyone. Michael the Maven here from the Maven Nation. Today, we're going to talk about self-doubt. I don't know if Lavell was the original person who came up with this quote but it was something he always said to us that you doubt yourself more than anyone else. You, this is something internal and let me tell you a little about doing microbiology research.  A big part of it is using something called gel electrophoresis which is essential, we make a type of jello that we create this little holes in the jello and we put DNA, different sizes of DNA and this is on one side, it's kind of like a flat slab of this clear gel. I'm sure you guys have seen it on different types of forensic television episode where they put his DNA on one side of this flat slab of gel and put a lid on and turn on the electricity and this electricity is the current that pushes the DNA from one side of the gel to the other. This is a tool that I probably used tens of thousands of times in my grad work. I mean, it was something we did several times a day, no problem. There is something that I notice about that had a huge impact on me and that was when you take something and you put it through a workload which in this case would be resistance; the gel. The gel is resisting the movement and then you put it under stress which should be the electricity flowing through this gel and it's pushing this DNA through this resistance. When you give something a workload or a type of resistance and then you start to stress it out, a very interesting characteristic, something that you can reproduce time and again is that the smaller and the lighter; those particles, those DNAs; the farther they travel.



Think about that is that you have resistance to your dreams. You have stress. You have doubts. This is the resistance and then when you try to go out and attain these goals and you're working, your stress out. The lighter you are the farther you will go. If you look at all the things in your life that are creating this resistance and we come back to this quote by Lavell Edwards, you create more self-doubt than anyone else, what I'm trying to say is you need to be able to identify your self-doubt and figure out a way to get rid of it.



Let me give you a couple examples, I'm always looking for new products to create, maybe an app, it may be a physical product, it maybe a DVD. With each and every single product that I had ever made for some reason or another in the back of my mind, I think, man I hope somebody doesn't hurt themselves and ends up suing me for this. I made some contract maker apps. We had hundreds of thousands of downloads and guess what? It never happened. Nobody ever had a situation where it hurt them enough that decided that they would come after and sue me. I think that is something in the back of the minds of everybody who goes into business. I'm going to get sued for this; I don't know maybe it's just me. That is something that I am creating. It could happen, I guess.  The idea is that I am creating more resistance in my own mind than what reality is.



You look at what some manufacturers create; a nail gun. There are companies out there who make money off nail guns. This is something that's super dangerous that people actually do hurt themselves. Look at a car, the dangers of a car and there are a lot of products out there that are just inherently really dangerous yet these companies stay in business and they are successful. The point is that if you liken your life into electrophoresis; there is a certain amount of resistance that you have to go through daily, weekly, monthly and we could change the concentration of this jello, if it was a more light concentration, the DNA could travel through it much faster, if it was a denser concentration it was a lot harder, a lot slower for that DNA to go in there. The thing that really had an impact on my mind; all things being equal if all the DNA fragments are the same they will go through equal distances through the same resistance, through the same stress. If those DNA fragments are bigger or they have a greater amount that they are carrying, they get slowed down. Coming back to this whole idea that I'm trying to nail home is self-doubt.



Another example that I can give you is when I post videos on YouTube, there's always somebody that will come and criticized me. They'll come and they'll talk about how something was done wrong or I'm stupid, the channels, idiotic; things of that nature. Every day it seems like I get something but what is happening is these naysayers, it's the only thing they can do to slow me down. As long as I'm not breaking the law, I'm not hurting anybody; the only thing they can do is talk. Between my own self-doubt and the naysayers of others, I know that if I can eliminate that off my shoulders and I'm not carrying that weight like a piece of DNA or I'm not going through that extra resistance like gel, I become lighter and I'm going to travel faster and farther. I know it's kind of a mixture of thoughts and ideas about self-doubt but the idea is that you were going to doubt yourself more than anyone else. Learn to recognize it and to reject it and just to move forward and you will go much farther if that's something you're always thinking about.



In any event, thank you guys so much for listening. Have a great day today and I will see you next time.

Update on The Efficiency Playbook Sales & Feedback

Although The Efficiency Playbook was the second book that I've published, the response has definitely been more positive. I've kept the kindle price at $3, and have had continued strong sales since the end of the promotion. It is also doing very well on Audible as an audiobook (surprisingly) and Ive had many people get back to me on it, saying they enjoyed it.



The best part of this book however, is hearing how readers are applying it to their lives. Today at crossfit, one of the members excitedly pulled me aside, wide-eyed and stopping what she was doing to say:



"I used your book today, chapter 5, and it worked GREAT!!"



That just makes me smile, and I have many of these little side conversations with those who have read it. It is very rewarding to me because I think some of the time people don't understand what it is, but when they realize each of these tactics can be directly applied to their lives, it is powerful.



I still need to find new ways to promote it (suggestions are welcome), but for now the kindle version will stay at $2.99 for as long as possible, because it is inexpensive, easy and fast. Thank you guys so much for your feedback!

Michael The Maven Ranked In Top 100 Photography Youtube Channels

How thrilled and honored I am to announce that my Michael The Maven Youtube Channel has been ranked #37 out of 100 in the world for photography channels on youtube! Yippee! Nearly 20 million views!



Here is the sad thing, the game is changing on Youtube and not for the best:



In the past, I could spend a couple weeks putting together a really high quality video, and it would get hundreds of thousands of views, but times have changed. If your video is over 2-3 minutes people lose interest. I'm not sure how much longer people will be interested in high-quality, long length videos. It seems that the market wants the very short quick & fast videos which is really sad, but I am happy to play that game if that's what it takes. It would definitely increase the frequency at which I post videos so it's probably coming.



In any event be sure to check out feed spots top 100 photography channels on YouTube to see who ranks at the top! Ill try to do better!

How well does the new Sony A9 stack up against...

How well does the new Sony A9 stack up against this beast and the Nikon D5? After several weeks of testing and recording, I'm finishing up my Flagship Epic Shootout and it should post to my YouTube channel shortly.

Each of them outperform the others in certain criteria, but the A9 is an entirely different creature, most of it good, some of it has room for improvement - but absolutely cutting edge nonetheless. Some of the results were shocking. #sony #sonya9 #canon #canonphotography #canon1dxii #nikonphotography #nikon #nikond5 #a9 #epicshootout #michaelthemaven

Traction - Episode #019

Good morning everyone! Michael the Maven here. Today, we are going to be talking about the Chapter of Traction, also painfully removed from the "Efficiency Playbook". Traction is a great topic. It sort of niche and it was removed simply because I couldn't express it in a way that I felt fit with the rest of the book. We're talking about friction and friction is bad in all the things in this nature and it just didn't feel right.  So I wanted to cover it here. There are some that we cannot do without friction; in some cases,  friction is a great thing. I refer to good friction as traction.



If you think about a car tire and what a car tire does if the tire is spinning all by itself, it's not really doing any work, it's just kind sitting there rotating, right? A tire needs a road to propel itself forward. The road provides friction; it provides a way for the tire to move and push the car forward. Without the road the tire is more or less useless in terms of transportation. What this means is that in certain situation even as a creative individual as a photographer, a musician or things of that nature. There are situations that you will not be able to move forward without the friction or the traction of another person. This is a very important distinction than bad friction; to be able to identify when traction occurs.



I'll give some very specific examples, as a student of music, I used to take piano lessons, I haven't done it in few years but I had a music mentor; a very talented digital musician, his name is Jason, incredibly talented. We would meet up and we have these sessions, he would teach me how to do digital audio files and digital studio and all that stuff and he was really, really good. Very experienced, very knowledgeable but something that I learned from him was that, when we would meet and have these brainstorming sessions it seemed like we were both benefiting; not only he was teaching me these incredible things but it kind of felt like I was giving him some ideas. I would ask him a question and he would go Oh! You need to go like this and you go like this and he would get into it. Then he would design his incredible music tracks. It was interesting to me that the question that I had inspired to create what he did. In a very subtle way, there was traction there because I had a curiosity about something and he had the knowledge and he was able to demonstrate in a way that was creative and new. There was something positive there.



Now as a photography mentor for almost ten years; I have trained many photographers in different capacities. I've become specialized for being a teacher more so than being a photographer. What happens is, I've seen this time and again. A new photographer brand stinking new will come to me and will have questions about how to operate the camera, how to use Photoshop. Some of these stuffs are really basic and what happens is overtime they become a better photographer than me in whatever specialty it is they're doing. I have seen this so many times. They continue and they keep on working and keep on working and they become professional in some kind of niche. They become world class. This has happened many times. I've limited myself to teaching and instructing beginning and intermediate photographers that is what I'm really good at, not so much the very high end niche, professional work. I'm not really doing it anymore because I like teaching.



That was very instructive to me that during the learning process if I'm working one on one with somebody; how many times I have seen a beginner or novice photographer do something or ask something that inspires me; a photographer pro for almost fifteen years now; I learned from them. If the teacher and the instructor are aware of this, they will actually look for things to learn from the students which defies all logic because even in the book I talked about; you want to get information from people who know more than you but that's basically true. That is not the experienced that I have had in mentoring photography students. I benefit as much as they do in terms of learning, in creating. They will ask a question that will inspire me. As a teacher, I embrace this possibility of learning from those who have passion. I think that's the real word it is; they're excited that rubs off of me. Seeing their excitement "Oh My Gosh, I got this great picture of the sunset." I remember those "You know what! I want to go shoot the sunset now." This happens all the time. There is traction between two people regardless of their experience and their knowledge. There's definitely an exchange. If you were an expert on the field, don't believe that you know it all and you can't learn from everybody. You absolutely can. That is the key distinction between traction which is positive friction with both people benefiting versus friction that hampers you from moving forward and creating something wonderful.



I've even been to relationships, business relationships, and projects, where I have given everything that I've had to the project to help move it forward. There were tremendous traction, we were both contributing, and we were both pushing this project forward. When it's completed, to have the other individual say, well I did this- you didn't do anything. That is not what traction is all about. Traction is recognizing that you have people in your life that have helped you move forward. If it was a good thing; you should try to continue that; keep it going. In any event those are some of the insights that I've had on traction. Tractions are great thing but you have to humble and open-minded to it if you are on the mentor side of it. If you are a mentee you are already green and you are excited to learn anyways so you're good to go.



Those are my thoughts on traction versus friction.

Patriots Day

I originally wanted to catch The Dark Tower this weekend, but there aren't any theaters within 40 minutes showing it, so I had to settle for a Netflix DVD. (It is amazing to me that the Netflix DVD model is still going so strong in our day and age, but the way licensing and digital storage works, it should remain a viable model for many years to come. Almost every single movie ever is available with Netflix DVD rentals.



I have mixed feelings about true crime movies, and Patriots Day was not an exception. There is something that does not sit well with me when the names and likenesses (and in this case actual images of) the criminals / terrorists, as well as there crimes, are archived & perpetuated indefinitely by making a movie about it. On the financial side, the are those who are using the story (a painful one) to actually profit.



The movie was pretty much summary of the events of the Boston Bombing, while there is a very subtle message of hope with interview sou the victims, it didn't justify to me the negatives. I see no strong reasons to see or recommend this film.

Dictation Tools! - Episode #018

Good morning everyone, Michael the Maven here. Before we get into today's tip, I wanted to just make a note about the Bemer Mat in Wednesday's podcast, is that I wasn't suggesting that you needed to go out and buy this five or six thousand dollar device.



You can reap the same benefits by merely laying on the ground. The actual earth. We're talking about something like the sand, or grass, just for 15 or 20 minutes. Get your body in contact with the electromagnetic field of the Earth and then ask yourself how do you feel. It should help improve some of your microcirculation, which has tremendous benefits. And that's really the point I was getting was, there is a Bemer Mat that amplifies it, but you can also do it by getting in contact with the Earth. You know we live in a very modern society so we have all of this insulation of concrete and rubber and metal between us and this field. And so, that was my point.



For today's tip I wanted to point out that most of us can speak much faster than we can type. Obviously in terms of texting, there is a speech to text recognition feature on our smartphones. And I hope you're using that feature. It's the little microphone next to the space bar on iPhones. And so you can talk your text messages and it's a lot faster than using your thumbs.



I'm a little embarrassed to admit I didn't really know about this, but there is a feature called dictation on MACs and speech recognition on PCs that allows you to talk your text into your computer. So, if you're writing a very long email or a report, or you have to type a very long document, it is going to be much faster to speak it than it is going to be to type it.



Now, it's not 100% accurate and it really helps to kind of go by one sentence at a time, but it is way faster for me at least in terms of doing it with voice versus typing. So, check it out. If you have a MAC look up turn on dictation. If you have a PC, look up turn on speech recognition. There's also the Dragon Software that some people use. Again, not perfect, but in the end it's going to save you a lot of time.



That is the tip for today. Hey, I just want to say thank you guys so much for listening. We are growing. Some of you have left reviews. Thank you so much for that. If you guys like what you're hearing, please subscribe. Give me a review. Share with your friends and we'll continue to grow this. I have pretty much an unlimited number of topics that I can share with you and a number of great guests I want to bring in to the show.



I hope you have a great weekend. And I will see you guys on Monday.

Maui Sunset 8-3-17 #maui #luckywelivehawaii #sun...

Maui Sunset 8-3-17 #maui #luckywelivehawaii #sun #sunset