What follows is the one pager 0f the Meta-Learning chapter of Tim Ferriss Four Hour Chef (the first part of CaFE is one-paging whatever you’re learning).

It’s forming the foundation of my Mindset & Skill Acquisition Method, and I’ll be putting it to the test in the next few months with an experiment to learn surfing (which I'll be updating about on eddyazar.com).

You can get the full chapter and method notes here.

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“It is possible to become worldclass in just about anything in six months or less. Armed with the right framework, you can seemingly perform miracles” – Tim Ferriss

The other day I was talking to my boss. I was asking him what parts of my work I should put more focus on – what type of work will generate revenue. He said I needed to help him push out more content. Content marketing seems to be the main focus of most online marketing nowadays. Almost everyone is giving away advice and tips.

So I asked him that, I said “You sure about content marketing? Everyone is doing content marketing these days”.

He replied “That’s why we have to create better content”.

Naturally, I replied to that with “Don’t you think the bar is being raised too high? If everyone is giving way free content, then pretty soon paid content will be free content. Don’t you think that because content marketing is so saturated that one day it will stop working?”

“Yes. One day, content marketing will stop working" He said, "But right now, it works. So we gotta go with what works. When I was young, I was caught up in the future, and I ended up wasting a lot of time chasing things that never happened, and getting nothing done.”

During a sales call, after I ask the prospect general questions and when I move on to qualifying the prospect, how do I respond when they don't qualify.

The main qualification is if they have a budget for my services. How do I respond if they tell me they have no budget or if they say a number that's too small?

I don't want to be rude to them especially if its me that contacted them.

It would be pretty awesome if we all had plenty of mental energy to stay motivated and disciplined all day long, to be highly productive and highly creative whenever we needed, and to always feel vibrant and optimistic about the future.

However, the more you try to control elements of your life – whether it is to improve your health, wealth, social life or whatever – the more apparent it is how finite and scarce this “mental energy” can be.

In particular, it seems that whenever we use willpower – in any form and for any reason – we are using up resources from this pool of mental energy, much faster than the pool is replenished.

Psychologists have carried out plenty of experiments that strongly appear to confirm this model of willpower – Jason Shen and Sebastian recently put together a great post about it here: http://sebastianmarshall.com/developing-willpower-by-jason-shen which is very much worth reading if you haven't already!

Psychologists have also shown[1] that decisions on matters that affect us can deplete the same mental resource as willpower. In some sense, these decisions and willpower are the same:

Most things in life that matter: SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY.

Meaning: You don’t need to be smart. You just need the ability to get over yourself and do the hard work.

“She’s not really smart. She just works hard. I can also do that if I try.”

That above is the most AMATEUR, PATHETIC, and LIMITING mindset I (and most smart people) have.

It doesn’t matter if you can figure out stuff most people don’t understand. Doesn’t matter if you can come up with witty lines every once in a while. Doesn’t even matter if you can come up with brilliant ideas that can change the world.

This is an excerpt from my May 2013 Monthly Financial Review. I thought it was worth reposting here.

A lesson in negotiation

I've been reading a lot lately, mostly business and personal development books. Here's a quote from Sebastian Marshall's Ikigai:

Since studying the brain extensively during my neuroscience degree, I’ve had a particular curiosity about the extent of which it is possible to improve cognition. But now as an over-worked medical student getting closer and closer to finals, I’ve taken a more practical interest in this topic rather than purely curiosity! As such, I thought I’d share a few of my personal techniques to get the most from your cognitive abilities!

Here, I explain my preferred nootropics and review piracetam and the uses of combining l-theanine and caffeine.

Welcome, Sebastian, to SETT, and hats off and kudos to Tynan, the creator of SETT, for creating a new blogging platform that will allow the communities of our three great blogs to explore and learn about each other.

Ever since Tynan first told me about SETT, I've been a fan.  I always wanted my blog, DanielOdio.com, to be about more than just me sharing my thoughts with my readers.  I wanted it to be a conversation we could all have together, so we could all learn from each other.

Now that Sebastian's blog is joining SETT, readers will have easy ways to pique their curiosities around the things we all write about and share thoughts and expertise with each other.  And that's amazing.

Tynan's blog is about world travel, good habits, freedom and minimalism.  I'd also add that it's about self optimization, and being proud of who you are, and what you accomplish -- and doing it in really fun ways.

My blog is a sanctuary for entrepreneurs to learn from each other.  A place to learn about angel fundraising, about how to build yourself as a brand, how to get massive amounts of press for your startup, about why you should productize your expertise , a place to learn from startup mistakes and how to be uber efficient with a computer and much more.