Professionalism is qualitative, not quantitative.

“Professionalism is qualitative, not quantitative.” / SML.20121209.PHIL /

Some people said that they are not a professional because they don't make any money doing what they do. I find this interesting. What does making money have anything to do with being a professional or not?

To me, professionalism is an attitude. It is a measure of how one approaches an activity. It has nothing to do with the amount of money one makes doing it.

I have worked with countless so-called “professionals” in my years of business over the years and I can tell you that there are a lot of people—regardless of competency—who charge their clients exuberant sums of money but who can never deliver what was promised. I have also worked with countless so-called “non-professionals” who do not receive much pay but are top-notch in what they do.

You are a professional if you can deliver a professional product. You are a professional if you maintain a professional attitude while doing it. You are not a professional just because you do it for a living. You are not a professional just because you have a degree in that field. You are most certainly not a professional just because you are able to make lots of money doing it.

Business transactions are monetary exchange agree by two parties. Business dealings, monetary compensation and professionalism often relate. However, relationship is not the same as equality.

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Do it

Do it.
Do it for you.
Do it for your own happiness.
Do it so your life has meaning.
Do it so you can be.

“Do it. Do it for you. Do it for your own happiness. Do it so your life has meaning. Do it so you can be.” / SML Philosophy / SML.20121212.PHIL.Life.Do.It

Countless humans I have interfaced with in the past have mentioned to me that they want to do something but they don't because they don't know what other people would think about them when they do it.

In his book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” author Stephen R. Covey suggests that moving from dependence to independence (i.e. self-mastery) is key to one’s happiness and sanity. In other words, caring about what other people think is a self-destruction act.

The happiness of others is not your concern—especially if you have not yet mastered self-happiness. You are however responsible for your own happiness. Everything that I do, I do it for myself. I don’t do anything because it makes other people happy. I do it because it makes me happy. The same philosophy applies for what I do for work. Work should be 100% fun. Work should be play and play only.

Once you learn to let go and not mind about other people‘s business, you can move on with your life. Opinionated people who “thoughtfully” offer suggestions to others are everywhere. They will continue to “care” about you and proceed to drive you nuts. In these scenarios, I find it best to initiate a dialog with them. Make sure that they understand that what they are suggesting is not helpful. Ask them to stop. Have the ability to “agree to disagree.”

Unfortunately some of these “caring people” will not stop even after prolonged discussions. In my experience, some humans—for reasons which escapes me—simply do not have a logic unit in their CPUs. These types of humans will continue to send negative waves in the form of opinions and comments as “suggestions” about what you do. When these are constantly present and leeching into your sanity, terminate relationships with them right away. If you can't cut them loose then just move as far away as possible.

Remember: be independent. Be yourself. Be happy. Be responsible for you and yourself only.

Disclaimer: Brainhacking results vary. What works for SML might not work for you.

/ SML Philosophy / SML.20121212.PHIL.Life.Do.It / #smlphil #ccby #smluniverse / #生 #life #思想 #philosophy #opinions #mind #brain #做 #do #人 #people #humans #開心 #happiness #hacks #brainhacks #lifehacks #mindhacks

Control all 3 (connectors + mavens + salesmen). Control the network.

The Law of the Few.
The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts:

1. Connectors = SML#Hub = SML#HR
2. Mavens = SML#Journalism = SML#Media
3. Salesmen = SML#Marketing = SML#PR

— Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point

Control all three. Control the network.
— SML Network Theory

“Control all three. Control the network.” / SML.20121204.PHIL

People often ask me why I am so active on social networks, what I am trying to do, and what my “end game” is. My objective for SML Universe (org) is to give a voice to people who have no voice because of social bigotry. In order to do what I set out to do in order to effect change, Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point suggests that I need to become all three types of people: connectors, mavens and salesmen. And this is what I try to do.

1. Connectors = SML#Hub = SML#HR

I try to go to different universes to meet random people. People who don't do what I do is interesting to me because I don't know anything about them. I am usually interested in things which I don't know anything about so I ended up meeting lots of people who do not seem to relate. Because of this, I find myself often functioning as an HR for jobs, and I am more than happy to send introductions to people because I believe that when awesome people come together they often create amazing, beautiful, and creative things.

2. Mavens = SML#Journalism = SML#Media

When I see interesting things happening when I explore the random universe, I like to blog about them. I enjoy photography so I tend to record a visual record of what I see. Photojournalism is therapeutic and it gives me opportunities to write, so I do a lot of it. It was said that pictures say a thousand words and I certainly believe so. Often people don't have the time to read my essay length blog posts but most don't mind looking at photos. So that works out nicely. I also started turning my photography into videography interviews. I enjoy every opportunity to create as the act of creation gives me the thrill. It is my happiness life hacks. The bonus is that I get to write music as soundtracks so those are all very fun.

3. Salesmen = SML#Marketing = SML#PR

When I publish content I always simulcast to multiple social media networks. Most people believe that they only need to be on a single network, so in order to to reach the entire critical mass I post the same thing to multiple networks, all with very different audience. This works out nicely. Content where people like on Flickr are often very different than those for Instagram or Foursquare or Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr. Since I can't really tell when and why people will like something, covering the entire UGC content media network is important, and is also what I advise / recommend companies in the business of reaching critical mass do when I do marketing strategy for them.

Work should be play and play alone

“Work should be play and play alone. Do what you love — that's the only thing which matters.” / SML.20121203.PHIL

When you do what you love, you will have passion. When you have the passion to do your job, you will be good at it. When you are good at your job, people will love you for it and usually happy to pay lots of money for it.

Don't ever work for money. Money always follow when you do what you love. Money should be the result, not the reason.

Disclaimer: this philosophy works for SML but your results may vary. SML cannot guarantee results for everyone and cannot be held liable for your life nor financial situation.

Delete Perfection + Zero expectations / Happiness Life Hacks

Perfection does not exist. You might as well remove the word from your dictionary right now before it turns you into absolute demise. If perfection existed, I certainly have never seen it, nor have I ever experienced it.

The beauty of imperfection. Abstract in C minor / 20090825.10D.51822 / SML

For a large part of my life, I had been a perfectionist, and I expected perfection from others. Since perfection does not exist, you can imagine how unhappy I used to be. I put in 200% of my effort to the point of exhaustion and all I was left with was depression of failing to reach the impossible goal of being perfect. All I was able to see was flaws in myself, and flaws in others. I got upset when things were not perfect, and it drove me nuts.

I believe that there are certain things in life which you cannot learn no matter how intelligent you are. There are things which you can only learn only when you have lived long enough. Older people have the leg up here. I often tell people that I aspire to attain things which could only be gained through time, and this is one of those things. It took me more than three decades to realize that perfection does not exist. I now embrace imperfection fully. I embrace it through these methods:

1. Zero expectations. I have found that expecting nothing from others is a good way to maintain happiness. When someone promise me that they would complete a task by a certain date, I expect that they would complete nothing. When they do, I get happy. When I order food from a restaurant, I expect them to never show up. So when they do, I get happy. When I decided to meet someone I found on an online personal, I expect that they will look nothing like what they describe to be. When they in fact are somewhat decent, I am happy. It may sound absolutely crazy to live life this way, but I have found this to be a very good life hack to maintain happiness. In the worst case scenario I will just be indifferent. Indifferent is ok because I will at least not feel upset about it. Feeling upset is hazardous to the soul.
2. Ensure that people know that I am imperfect. After I was diagnosed with ADHD + Bipolar, I made sure that everyone knows about it. I identify what I am not good at: time management, organization of physical space, “people skills,” etc, and I make sure that when I do anything which require those specific skill sets that I work with someone who can cover those. I will not work on any project which does not have a good project manager. I am thankful that I have worked with many excellent project managers / personal assistants who know how to work with crazy people like me while not trying to micro-manage everything. I report progress through daily and if necessarily through hourly reports because I cannot estimate time it takes to complete anything. Though I've also wised up somewhat—by following the principle of “under promise, over deliver”, when I think that things will take 1 week to do, I tell them that it would take 4 weeks to complete. Usually it works out to be around 3 weeks. Knowing this is helpful. By working in an agile fashion, it is good for me and it is good for others. This is also my preference when working in teams.
3. Say no to things which are unrealistic. I have a tendency to over-commit. When clients ask me if I can do something within an unrealistically short period of time, I used to agree to them and as a result also drove myself to death—literally. The stress was so high that I had contemplated killing myself. The crazy thing was that since I was a perfectionist then, I decided to postpone suicide because I could not see myself having a tomb with something like “SML, the one who did not finish an XYZ project.” I also considered the possibility that no one would show up to my funeral because I somehow messed up their project. Yes I know that this is all very funny but somehow crazies have their crazy ways to cope with life. These days I just say no. I tell people to go find someone else for things which I think will kill me. Interestingly they usually stay with me because usually when I was given unrealistic requests like that it was because they could not find any humans to do it and I am usually their last hope. Wishful thinking is a common attribute among humans. Humans are just weird.
4. Be thankful. A lot of people that I have met feel “entitled” to things because they have done something else. I promote the idea of “zero expectations” and so I am thankful to those who have done anything—no matter how small—for me. A lot of people have the philosophy that just because someone work at their company, they can slave-drive their employees as bots. Don't do that. Humans are not capable of sustaining high levels of pressure. Since I maintain zero-expectations from others, I am thankful when people have completed the tasks as requested and as promised. It works out ok.
5. Be independent. Zero expectations require that I be independent, so I utilize every opportunity to learn new things and skills. I also spend much time researching productivity tools which would help me cope with my deficiencies better. I utilize hashtags e.g. #sml2do for things I need to do. Using unique but consistent hashtags allow me to then use Google to then track things which are not yet completed. I make sure that there are always multiple point of entries of the same todo lists.
6. Be forgiving. Mastership of zero expectations remove the need to forgive because I will never be upset. But although I don't seem human to most, I am in fact human. Attaining zero expectations has been a difficult journey, and I suspect that it will be a life long journey. So until I am able to reach my goal (which is probably never because perfection does not exist), I remind myself to be forgiving. If I wish that others be more understanding to my own imperfection then I need to be forgiving.

I am writing these thoughts down because Mr James Reeves suggested to me that I should write more. SML Thank You for the suggestion. It does seem that writing it out eases the pain somewhat.