Power Hour

So I have designed a new time management technique - the Power Hour. Here's the deal:

Instead of doing one thing at a time, I break all the things I need to do into many small pieces. So for example, instead of saying, read 50 pages tonight in my textbook, I'll say, read 10 pages this HOUR.

Then I include a bunch of other stuff that I need to get done. For example, the first power hour I had today, I applied to 1 job, studied 2 pages of review for my class, wrote 4 measures of music, sent out sheet music, looked at research on currencies, read a chinese article, and sent a friend a message. True, each individual task was quite easy, but in the end I felt like I got more done during that 1 hour than I sometimes do in one entire day.

So essentially, the whole point of the Power Hour is that it makes you really motivated. You see a list of 7-10 EASY tasks to finish (that you basically told yourself, just do this little, and you'll be good). Note: this time management technique won't exactly help you when you're in the deadline for something big, like a midterm, where you need to really bog down and study for 3-4 hours. But if you instead do a bunch of power hours that include a little bit of studying during the times when you have a lot of free time - they can really add up.

So Power Hours are not just a time-management tool - they're a life-management tool. Instead of trying to fix yourself up with an insane schedule, instead, plan a couple of power-hours per day, and see how that works.

How to keep working

Goodness gracious. First of all - I quit playing games. Forever. I still get tempted everyday, every minute. I watch some game videos online. But no, I'm never letting myself sucked into those games again.

I'm at Maryland right now. Woot. I'm so happy to be seeing my family again, to be in the peaceful state that is Suburban America. Being at home is a fantastic feeling. I never want to go outside again.

So now I have really thought about a few things, but I still have trouble motivating myself, overcoming that laziness. It seems that every time I think of a new thing to do, I have a habit of immediately thinking to myself, I can't do it. Is it a habit?

If so, I need to overcome it. I've always wondered why, after all these years, it was so much easier for me to do those "jobs" on those games, than it was for me to do them in real life. Maybe it's because those jobs are easier. Maybe it's also because using your brain is hard. Maybe it's also because the rewards that you get in those games are much better than just doing a task in real life and seeing no reward (in the short period).

So how do I motivate myself? I know that, this has always been my problem. I feel that if I can motivate myself to do anything at any time that I want to, I will be able to achieve ANYTHING. So why haven't I done this yet? Am I too scared of failure, of using my brain, I mean come on...

Here's to hoping I can overcome this newfound laziness. I feel like it has been something that has contaminated me for all these years, and its aftereffects will be felt long after. In order to fight... I have to really put my mind into it. It's going to be hard.

I wish I had a personal trainer... but I don't. I have to do this myself, I have to overcome all of my fears, by myself.

Let's go.

American soft power?

Yesterday was my performance at the Chinese Students & Scholars Association Lunar Splendor at Skirball Center at NYU. The show went very well. However, I had very long periods of downtime, in which I was able to finish this fascinating book.

It's called Confessions of an Economic Hitman, and it's by John Perkins, a quasi engineering consultant who worked covertly for the NSA (National Security Administration). His job was to go to countries like Ecuador, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Panama, Iran, and others, and convince them to take on loans that they could not afford in order to speed up their "modernization"process. The United States and the World Bank would provide these countries with those loans, at first, and then they would feel obligated to return the favor with political benefits (oil grants, trade exclusivity, democratic politics, etc)

Perkins makes the argument that yes, while a lot of these economic deals were struck to keep these countries from communism, they were also done to promote the opportunities of America's "military-industrial" complex, a loose term that refers to the many engineering, construction, and military companies in the US that focus on essentially taking over a country and making them reliant on America.

As a forecaster, Perkins was told to make as optimistic of forecasts as he could, so that the US Treasury would approve, and so that after the two governments met, they would hash out a deal that would often bequeath Perkins' company a lucrative contract. But by doing this, he simultaneously subverted the native population into "modern slavery," which he compares is just as horrifying as the more historical versions.

Why? Because these people have no other options. I was talking to my friend yesterday and she mentioned how these countries, while poor, and knowing that they were getting themselves into a debt that they could not repay, had no other alternative. They HAD to do this in order to get themselves out of poverty. If you try to fight against America, you get labeled a communist, a fascist, a drug dealer, a renegade, etc, etc - and you will be ostracized by the rest of the world at every attempt, suffering from trade embargoes and the threat of potential invasion.

And there are no other economic opportunities for these countries to modernize. But they do it with the understanding that, despite all of America's promises, they will still have large levels of poverty, unrest, a widening rich-poor income gap, and tremendous amounts of debt. They know that in this world if you're against America, you're going to get screwed.

Subway's improving

Over a period of time (within the past 2 years) I had this dislike for Subway and its sandwiches. Maybe it was because of the perceived low quality for it, or because the servers are so rude when giving you food. They will toss food onto your sandwich as if it was the trash pile, and then ask you caustically, "want chips and soda with that?" To which I say no, just a cup for water (cuz I'm cheap) and they would just stay there and glare at me.

But today I went and wow I was impressed. The service was as terrible as usual, but I ordered something I've never ordered before - a footlong Seafood Sensation on their new Flatbread. After adding lettuce, tomato, banana peppers (I'm obsessed with these things), olives, onions, and Chipotle Southwest Sauce (a MUST have for any subway sandwich) I soon bit down into one of the most delicious sandwiches I've ever tasted. The flatbread is an amazing complement to their sandwiches, much better than the other ones. And putting the Seafood Sensation on the 5-dollar footlong is definitely a huge bonus.

Funny enough, there's also a "free lunch" Entourage promotion going on right outside our building. I was tempted to wait there at first (they have some Italian Street Food) but honestly the wait - about 35 people, and the slow service, made it a half-hour wait for some free food that would cost around 5$. Now for someone like me, 5$ is a lot because I don't earn any money. But I still thought, ok, I'm at work, I should focus ON work. Not try and wait for free food.

When I get a real job, of course, I won't care about what I spend on food. I know I won't indulge myself too much, always being frugal, but I will relish the ability to not care if I spend 5 or 7$ on lunch.

Unfortunately, that time does not seem to be coming anytime soon.

Chilling with KTV

I'm at my trading internship right now, and it's pretty funny - our head boss, who's Korean, brought some of his Korean television friends in, and is apparently doing a segment on his company. While I think it's a wonderful idea for publicity, I think it's quite funny that they are doing this segment in the middle of the workday. (Then again, it IS a Friday).

I never imagined that this hedge fund may one day become big, but I sincerely hope it does. The CEO of this company is very nice and has helped me personally many times with my trading. I somehow hope that I can continue trading but unfortunately a series of setbacks have caused me to be less confident than before.

Furthermore, almost everyone from the first class of interns, have left. I'm one of the few left. That makes me kind of depressed - seeing all this new blood, while interesting, also makes me feel old. And a failure, since I didn't really get anywhere except to lose more money.

But what I've decided to do lately was start a new spreadsheet that documents my analysis of each currency, so that I don't forget about it later. Hopefully this will work and help me become more entrenched.

Aston Martin or Porsche?

I'm not a big car guy. In fact, I HATE car analogies. I hate those cocky salesmen who come up to you and say, "let's say you're going to a car dealer. You see a Ford and a Ferrari. What would you rather get?" Maybe that's a good way to sell your product to someone else, but definitely not to me.

I'm not a big car guy. I never knew what a Maserati or what a Bentley was. All I knew was that the higher the MPG, the less you'd have to pay in terms of gas costs. In terms of how smooth the car drives, or how fast it can go, or how sleek and cool it looks... I really don't care.

So if you didn't know, what I do at my Wells Fargo internship is simple - I cold call. Haha, funny right? Cold-calling is one of the most ridiculously hard jobs in the world. Not because it's inherently difficult to do (which it's not, you just have to read a script), but because the mental pressure and anxiety over being rejected is sometimes so oppressive that you can't even pick up the phone.

Anyway, this post isn't about cold-calling. This is about this one conversation I had with this hotshot real estate broker once upon a time. I called him and told him about us, and I told him, we specialize in real estate agents. He said, that doesn't sound appealing to me. I said, you may not have a lot of money right now, but maybe 5 years down the line when you're earning a ton, you'll going to need someone to manage your money. He said, how do you know I don't have a lot of money?

Turns out, he was the real estate agent who brokered an entire office for Paulson & Co, as well as doing some other hotshot deals. He asked me, "what's better, an Aston Martin or a Porsche?"

Everything screamed at me to say Aston Martin, because it simply sounded more luxurious. But since I had never really heard of Aston Martin, I said Porsche. Then the guy hung up on me. That really pissed me off that day, because I had spent over 10 minutes on the phone with this guy, and I really thought he was going to be a lead.

I told my boss about it and we had a good laugh about it afterwards. My boss loves guys like that. He can actually get along with them pretty well. Fast forward a few weeks (almost a month), my boss one day calls me out of the blue, and says,

"Hey, Lionel, Maserati or Bentley?" I said, "uh....... Maserati?" He said "Are you sure?" I said "uh... no, maybe Bentley." He replied "You can't give me two. Choose one." Finally I said, "Ok, Maserati." He chuckled over the phone and said, "that's right, guess who I just called?"

I laughed. "Our friend over at ____?" "Yea, I called him, and the first thing I said was 'Ferrari or Maserati?" Turns out the guy actually had a good impression of me, and he told my boss that he wants to meet.

That phone call made my day. Just goes to show you, never give up on a lead, even if you feel like there's no hope left. People are more affable than you think.

Now, I'm just as hard on other salespeople as that guy was on me. Honestly, if you're a sales guy, you gotta be able to relate to the person, and make them feel like you're on THEIR side.

Like for example, yesterday, I was talking to some Verizon FiOS people who were in my building. They had recently installed the service and were ready to open some accounts. So naturally I went up to them and said, "What's the lowest price you have?"

They said 55$ per month for 15MB D/L and 5 MB upload. I said, that's too expensive. Then this salesman comes out, and obviously, tries to convince me. He asks me what I have right now. I said, Time Warner Cable, but it sucks. He nodded knowingly, and said, "Let's pretend you're going to a car shop. You see a-..."

I stopped him right there. I said, "I HATE car analogies." He took a different track. He used another terrible analogy that I simply hated, and then he said, "it's only 22 more dollars per month than cable." I asked him, how much is that per year. He didn't know. He had to take out a calculator to do 55 * 12.

Now, I'm no math genius so I wouldn't be able to do that calculation on the spot either. But as the sales guy, shouldn't you know off the top of your head, what that # is? You should spit out that 660 the minute it's asked.

So he asked me, what is my major. I was wearing my work clothes - dress shirt and suit pants. What major do you THINK I would be in? He said IT. Clearly this guy doesn't know jack. He asked me where I'm from. I asked him, what do you think? He said, I don't know, California? I said, no, I mean, what ethnicity do you think I am. He said the stupidest answer I've ever heard. "American?"

Honestly, have you never met an Asian before?

So I was hard on him. But honestly if you're going to be that much of a slacker when trying to sell someone, not even being able to figure out what they do, what makes them tick, and have to resort to using cliche car analogies in order to make your selling point, then you don't deserve my business.

Video Game Addiction

Today I was reading this book called "Unplugged: My Journey into the Dark World of Video Game Addiction," in which the author, Ryan Van Cleave, talks about his experiences playing World of Warcraft.

As I used to play World of Warcraft with the same addiction that he did, I wanted to read this book because sometimes reading about other people's experiences is easier than coping with your own. I am struggling with the addiction to another game right now - League of Legends, which unfortunately, is just as fun and exciting as WoW.

Even as I write this right now, I'm still thinking about, how to build my latest favorite champion. I have uninstalled and reinstalled this game countless times over the past few weeks - every day I wake up wanting to play again - I reinstall it, and then, after hours and hours of continuous playing, I feel terrible, and before I go to sleep, I uninstall it.

Unfortunately for me, it's too easy to reinstall. So I keep going back to it, despite hating myself and telling myself, no, don't go back.

Video Game Addiction is like drug addiction. So many people have compared games like World of Warcraft to crack. But here's the difference between the two: World of Warcraft, and other games, are easier to get. And even better - they're not illegal.

Meaning, to get crack, you're constantly under the pressure of having to shell out more money, get caught by the police, face family and societal pressures, etc. With WoW and LoL, all you have to do is pay 15$ a month (or in LoL's case, it's free), and it's completely legal. It's even encouraged by some of your friends and family who think it's a cheap way to spend a night (rather than dump 25$ to go to a bar and get drunk).

Unfortunately, these video games turn you into a monster. They turn you into less than a human being - where you begin to care about nothing else in life except for these games. That is the exact same thing that the drugs do to you, yet this is not drugs, this is a computer game.

So I am ashamed. I feel ashamed to talk to my friends, to talk to my family, because I feel like I'm inadequate. I have struggled with video game addiction for the past 10 years of my life. From Starcraft to World of Warcraft to Puzzle Pirates to Counterstrike to Final Fantasy, unfortunately, when I start playing a video game, I forget about all my relationships in life. I begin to treat that video game as the most important relationship in my life.

This period of time is the most critical for me. As I have stated before, I am trying to find a full-time job for next year. But how can I find such a job if all I am focused on all day is how to defeat the next team in LoL?