George Kao's Blog, page 13
July 9, 2021
“Go with the flow” vs. Scheduled flow
To be creative, should you "go with the flow" or schedule out your day?
Consider your relationship to “deadlines”.
Some people work well by giving themselves due dates. Others avoid it and prefer to “go with the flow”.Either way can work… as long as we make the choice consciously, and thereby be accepting of the results that occur (or don’t occur).
If we “go with the flow”, we need to accept that we probably won’t reach our time-based goals… or that goals may constantly change based on our whims ...
July 2, 2021
Meaningful self-employment: How to get started?
How to get started building your own business, and making it successful?
Over the past 12 years I’ve coached many self-employed people and I’ve found these to be the overall steps to success:
1. Decide the initial type of business. (It can change over time.)
2. Carve out the time for work. (You can’t expect to just “find the time”.)
3. Get a step by step strategy from mentors and advisors who know your field.
4. Self-regulation, mindful work, resilience… or what I call “joyful productivity”.
Let’s lo...
June 25, 2021
The EADA System for Joyful Productivity
(Eliminate, Automate, Delegate, Appreciate)
Not everything on your to-do list is meant to be done by you.
As you look at each task, does it fit all 3 criteria?
1. Enjoyment: You do (or wish to) enjoy doing it.
2. Expertise: You are (or wish to become) an expert at it.
3. Effect: This task has more worthwhile effects compared to other tasks you could do now.If it passes all 3 checks, then the task is worth your action, with mindfulness and deliberate practice.
If it doesn’t pass all 3 checks, then yo...
June 18, 2021
10 Year Plan for Authentic Business
Here is a plan to help you create a business that expresses your soul -- and allows you to have a semi-retirement lifestyle.
What’s possible with this plan:
By year 2: Part-time income, providing your authentic service.By year 4: Full-time income, with 1–1 and group offerings.By year 10: Full & somewhat passive income, allowing for semi-retirement, and being one of the best in your field.
Although this is called a 10-Year Plan, you might be able to speed everything up, depending on how effective...
June 11, 2021
Hold lightly to your professional title and description
I’ve seen so many people get stuck about how to come up with the perfect professional title or succinct description of their work.
Here’s the secret:
It’s mostly a vanity exercise, unless you come up with a brilliant brand name, but that can take a lot of time. You can simply let it surface organically. If you keep waiting for that perfect name before you start your marketing, you might just go out of business.You don’t need a perfect title or short description to start getting clients.
No matter ...
June 4, 2021
Thoughtful Life Calendaring (TLC) Coaching Program
I’m excited to announce my new 6-month coaching program called TLC -- Thoughtful Life Calendaring.
My expectation is that it will help a lot of you make consistent progress in your business, and create better self-care in your life, too.
We’re only into the launch for a few days, and I’m grateful that 21 people have already started the onboarding process. If the rest of this post resonates with you, consider joining us. I believe you’ll find it very beneficial.
Once you are ready to sign up, go to...
May 21, 2021
Deliberate Practice to Find Enjoyment in Purposeful Tasks
The secret to joyful productivity is learning how to find enjoyment in any activity -- especially tasks that move your goals forward but isn’t naturally “fun” to do -- being able to do what is important, no matter what it is, with a consistency of joy.
This blog post will offer some ways to learn this valuable meta-skill.Muscle Memory
Let’s start with the idea of Muscle Memory.
Most of us can walk and talk at the same time. Yet we’re born with neither ability.
With practice, you can learn to type...
May 14, 2021
Niche mates, not competitors.
How do you feel about the word “competition”? For us self-employed people, that word can create anxiety and resistance. Being “competitive” tends to make human beings less cooperative.
Instead, I recommend using the term “niche mates” — other worthy human beings who occupy the same industry niche as us.
They, too, have families to feed, and dreams they hope to achieve. And, similar to us, they also have hidden suffering in their life that, if we only knew, would inspire our deep compassion.
The wo...
May 7, 2021
Energy Reboot 2
This is a simple spiritual practice that I do, multiple times a day, that has made a profound and positive difference in my work.
Since it takes only 30 seconds, I do it at least 3 times each working hour (except when in a meeting).
I call it the Energy Reboot. Several years ago I published a blog post and video about it: Energy Reboot 1. (If you haven’t tried the first version, it’s a good starting point.)Over the past 6 months I’ve been using a new version, which I’ll describe below. This new ...
April 30, 2021
The 3 Phases of Creation: Play ~ Polish ~ Promote
When doing any kind of creating -- writing blog posts, making videos, or outlining a course -- I recommend following these 3 phases, in order:
Play
Polish
Promote
If we get stuck on the project, or it doesn’t make an impact, we’re probably skipping one of these phases.
Let me explain.(First, I’d like to give credit: the inspiration of this post came from Cal Newport’s podcast “Deep Questions” where he discussed his project framework: friction, flow, finalization. I’m reframing it here into someth...
