After spotting an article on Medium that said, “Attending art school is a waste of your money”, Chiara knew the author had to be interesting. He is.... and so we're really glad to have him here on GiveGetWin.

Noah Bradley is an artist who’s been freelancing for 5+ years. In that short time, he achieved enough financial freedom to finally work full time on his own art. Chiara brought him to share some really cool insights and lessons from freelancing as an artist, such as:

If you do any sort of art at all, read and enjoy this interview. Then head over to Noah's deal -- course on making money online as an artist, something he’s always found lacking in art school.

"Principles For Teaching Yourself Visual Art" -- by Noah Bradley, as told to Chiara Cokieng

It's worth reading, and especially looking at the illustrations on the right-hand side of the page --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Bulls

Interesting on Buddhist grounds, but also widely applicable to lots of things.

As always, please do your own research and check my facts. If you have any unusual medical conditions or issues with substance abuse, consult a doctor or therapist. But the below is a method I've used soundly to be able to easily cycle off caffeine when I want to.

Why do so? Well, caffeine is tolerance building and chemically addictive. It starts as a large boon and a performance enhancer, but eventually you need to consume caffeine just to get to normal. It can be disruptive to sleep.

You might function better on caffeine or off caffeine as a general pattern, but either way -- you'll benefit from occasionally cycling off it for a month or two to reset your tolerance level and re-experience life without the cycles of caffeine high and withdrawal, just to double-check and make sure caffeine is serving your current lifestyle well.

At the same time, quitting cold turkey is a pretty brutal strategy for most people if you're a heavy user. I'm busy all year round, which presented me with a conundrum -- if I quit caffeine cold, I take a huge performance hit with headaches and sleepiness. Very bad.

With research and experimentation, I came to a method that works extremely reliably. I've never failed to cycle off caffeine using the below method -- sometimes it goes a little faster, sometimes it takes a little longer, but with patience, it simply works. The below is excerpted from a letter to a friend of mine who is performance oriented, and was inquiring about how to do better with managing caffeine and sugar. Here's my notes to him --

Maybe you've gotten into the same trap that I sometimes do --

You fill your to-do list up with a bunch of really hard, really challenging stuff.

And then you look at and promptly freak out.

This, of course, can be paralyzing and generate procrastination.

Yuck, right?

From Drucker's The Effective Executive --

"One company chairman was absolutely certain that he divided his time roughly into three parts. One third he thought he was spending with his senior men. One third he thought he spent with his important customers. And one third he thought was devoted to community activities. The actual record of his activities over six weeks brought out clearly that he spent almost no time in any of these areas. These were the tasks on which he knew he should spend time—and therefore memory, obliging asusual, told him that these were the tasks on which he actually had spent his time. The record showed, however, that he spent most of his hours as a kind of dispatcher, keeping track of orders from customers he personally knew, and bothering the plant with telephone calls about them. Most of these orders were going through all right anyhow and his intervention could only delay them. But when his secretary first came in with the time record, he did not believe her. It took two or three more time logs to convince him that record, rather than memory, has to be trusted when it comes to the use of time."

Truer words have rarely been spoken -- measure what you're doing; your memory can't be trusted.

From TalentSmart --

"Too often in the workplace, punishment comes in the form of a public reprimand or berating, usually involving an impulsive and emotional response by an upset manager. This strategy may make the manager feel good, but it does little to reduce the chance of encountering the same behavior in the future. Instead, public scolding generates a stress response that prevents the offender from absorbing information. Principal Jim Sporleder of Lincoln High School utilizes a zone system (red, yellow, green) to identify when people are able to take in information that will help them to learn and improve. Lashing out at offenders puts them instantly into the red zone, if they aren't there already. It is thus vital to recognize when people are in the red zone, and to give them some time to calm down. Otherwise, your message will fall on deaf ears."

The green/yellow/red mental categorize is very useful for a lot of things, not just giving critical feedback. Assessing G/Y/R based on busyness/stress of prospects for selling also works well. Just mentally looking to categorize before taking a highly leveraged action -- selling, giving critical feedback -- goes a long way towards a performance boost.

If you've been looking to change the world, here's your shot.

What we'll be doing:

- launching the biggest deal GiveGetWin deal thus far, from a really well-regarded and brilliant bestselling author- shooting for $30,000+ in money raised for charity

What you'll get out of it:

- hands-on experience with a major product launch- lessons in getting press and dealing with journalists- an idea of the marketing strategy that goes into driving attention- the chance to work and connect with an awesome group of people- some amazing credibility from testimonials, creative, portfolio, etc.- the knowledge that you've done tons of good for the world

Generating results is obviously and always more valuable than just doing something.

But it's not how we think.

The natural inclination, when faced with a new situation, is to ask:

"What should I do?"

Not, "What outcome do I want?"

Was on BlogcastFM with Srinivas Rao. It was a great time, you can get the whole interview here --

BlogcastFM: Sebastian Marshall on Developing Universal Skills That Impact Your Business

Tons of actionable points. Enjoy.