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books

Testing big ideas, finding your muse, and doing the work you were born to do.

03/16 by The Frug 1 Comment

Thetwomostimportant

By Brad Beckstrom

Do you have it? Have you found it? We all have one. Some long dormant or untested skill just waiting to be discovered. Sometimes we find it at a young age, then the real world, school, work, family become the priorities. As we get older, the skill lies dormant, often gets rusty like an old toy long forgotten.

Schools and family, meaning well, often steer us in a certain direction toward something that fits in a curriculum or is a “viable” skill in the working world. My parents did it, and I find myself doing it with my sons. I guess you can count yourself lucky if you have someone who cares, but all that advice is just a small piece of the puzzle.

It’s on us

It’s still on us, finding “it.”” Things you pick up on in school, your hobbies, books, or websites you find yourself going back to, these are all clues, part of your personal archeology. Ok, so I collected beer cans and read car magazines in middle school. What does that say about me? Well, looking back now, I had an early interest in design. I loved all the different labels, the uniqueness of certain can designs. I was also fascinated with cars, but not for the horsepower or mechanicals. I was interested in the design of early Mustangs, Camaros, and Chargers. Could I combine the best features of each and design my own muscle car? I certainly thought so. I was told “you’ll need a lot of math for that.” I didn’t have a lot of math. How about architecture? “Yep, need a lot of math for that too.”

Itisourchoices

I kept searching. Over the years, I learned that my passions are visual. I picked up photography in my early teens, and again, felt I had found my calling. I was told “that’s a wonderful hobby but you’ll need to study business in college.” My parents called a business degree a “safety net.” That turned out to be good advice as back then a business degree actually was a safety net. It allowed me to apply my creative talents in a 30 year career in marketing and advertising. Little did I know that my search was far from over. [Read more…] about Testing big ideas, finding your muse, and doing the work you were born to do.

Filed Under: Work Lean Tagged With: art, books, Mastery, Muse, The Frug recommends

This Once a Month Habit Will Change Your Life.

12/15 by The Frug Leave a Comment

The 10 best tools for finding truly great books.

IMG_7663

By Brad Beckstrom

Recently Tim Ferriss (Writer and 4 Hour Workweek guru) was interviewing Kevin Kelly Founding Editor, Senior Maverick of Wired Magazine and an expert on all kinds of cool stuff.  Kelly has a crazy two letter domain name kk.org where he shares everything from his extensive list of documentary film recommendations, books, photography and all kinds of cool tools he’s come across. The interview was so fascinating that Tim Ferriss extended it to a second podcast and eventually a third. I highly recommend having a listen.

In the interview Kevin Kelly said one thing that really stuck with me. “ read one book (any book) a month and it will change your life”. I’ve always enjoyed reading, but over the years but I’d gotten more reliant on magazines, blog feeds, apps (like feedly and flipboard) and podcasts. Taking the time to find and read really good books had gotten pushed aside. I was doing quite a bit of reading but the problem with books is that it takes some time to find good ones. I’d often start a book and then not finish it. I might even have two or three books I’ve started on my Kindle app at one time, but after the first few chapters they just sort of trail off.

A lot of the books I’ve read, especially nonfiction, business, and finance books start out like gangbusters then end up trailing off and repeat themselves for the second half of the book. The Kindle app lets you download a sample to your device, but I found the samples are rarely enough to really get a good feel for the quality of the book as they wrap up pretty quickly.

Here’s a quick tip, if a book doesn’t hold your attention at least to the middle chapters dump it.  You wouldn’t go around telling people you’re in the middle of a bad book.  If you’re going to commit the time to finishing a book a month it should really be one that you enjoy, that you can’t wait to get back to. There are a lot of bad books out there but there are still many many good ones you just need some cool tools to find them. [Read more…] about This Once a Month Habit Will Change Your Life.

Filed Under: The Frug Recommends Tagged With: books, Frug Hacks, Great Books, Mastery, saving money, Saving time, The Frug recommends, work lean

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