LegendaryLife Blog

I had the idea for HowToChinese.com mulling in my head for a while but finally the circumstances were right to give it a real go. I just did some major software upgrades for my other site, WoodMarvels.com and really wanted to put it through its paces and get into green screening. 3D is great fun, but doing only one thing over and over again doesn’t lead to much growth over the long term, you need to infuse some new knowledge into the fold.

How it began

I bought a camera a little over a year ago for the sole purpose of doing some video, so I made damn sure it was able to film at 720p. The camera cost me about 300$US – for a point-and-shoot, on the high-end but I really needed something very compact yet able to take both pictures and video at the highest quality. I did have a DSLR camera, Nikon D-40 which took AMAZING pictures but I also missed a lot of pictures due to its bulk and inability to do video.

300$US point-and-shoot camera… check!

I already love photography after working on a large body of work for another site, DreamClue.com – yes, I took ALL those pictures along with the description. Over 1200 before I needed a break… taught me about SEO and how to take a decent picture through trial and error.

Photographic knowledge and portfolio to dip into for the video… check!

Music production is something I added to my WoodMarvels.com videos for fun and really enjoy it, so I made sure to write a little tune for this video series, not only to break-up the teaching segments into manageable bites but to also allow me to show-off some photography! The “picture breaks” idea was born.

Music production… check!

The gf was a bonus, I never planned on doing the videos myself, I’m a more “behind the scenes” kind of guy but when I approached my gf about this idea… she jumped on it and I’m very happy she did! She was a teacher as was/am/was I so lesson planning and making classes fun came second nature to the two of us. She writes the script, I edit and then we review one last time.

Superstar to head the videos… check!

Using a green screen is great fun, but up until a week ago, I spent about 50 cents (Yes, China is that cheap to live in) and glued some green “paper” to the wall. That was the greenscreen! Headaches with lights, reflections and size… only 2 meters wide, about a meter high.

Suffice it to say, that was upgraded big time about a week ago… the number one headache gone! You can REALLY see the difference in production quality, just compare the videos BEFORE #10 to the current crop. Incredible! New screen is 3 meters x 3 meters (yes, it’s HUGE, folded in two the picture below) but now we have the flexibility to do whatever we want. Total cost about 35$US but well worth it.

The importance of a greenscreen can’t be overly emphasized… it’s what allows Lucky to have any background (static and animated) behind her… far more interesting than just a wall.

That’s all folks!

Other than teaching myself for many years about various production methods, softwares and visiting lots of studios, that is basically how to launch a start-up with little to no investment other than time and passion.

What’s in store in the future?

A lot, suffice it to say, like WoodMarvels.com is bringing woodcrafts into the 21st century, HowToChinese.com plans on doing the same with language learning methods. Most teachers are boring, as are their course material… something that HowToChinese.com never plans to be.

From the moment we are born, our brains are given programs that decide our future, whether we realize this or not… they are incredibly deep within our unconscious and changing them is like walking through a mental minefield.

Brain = Computer. Culture = Software.

I struggle with getting over the software put into me growing-up on a continual basis, questioning it’s value to my life and whether it still remains relevant. For instance, during our formative years in school… I was NEVER taught that I could become my own boss. I was instead taught to become a teacher, a fireman, office worker (yuck!) and the list goes on. Striking things on your own was never part of my programming until much later in life when my parents, who are both teachers by trade, started their own business on the site. Then… the possibilities opened. New software was given to me about other ways of achieving success outside of the corporate/governmental world.

Rewriting our brains software

If you always grew-up thinking of one reality, it’s incredibly difficult for the brain to adapt at a later age, that another reality is possible. I saw a documentary about “child” suicide bombers in Afghanistan who grew-up in abject poverty, told to memorize the Koran and their whole lives that blowing yourself up is the best way to live your life. The result? They look forward to dying! You might say, that’s crazy… but the reality is that they have been programmed by people around them who think and behave int he same way. Trying to convince them that no, this is not the path you wish to take in your future and that these are all lies is like convincing an Evangelical Christian that the Bible is but a book of fairy tales. The mind just cannot believe or accept that this is even remotely possible and hence, regardless of the new information given… simply is unable to change or adapt to the new software given.

We are our software

Whether you wish to accept the fact that your life is closely governed, not by your thoughts, but by the software put into your brain by others, this is sadly a reality. Overcoming this should be a challenge taken up by everybody. Why? Well, innovation and free thinking can only be realized once you learn to question EVERYTHING! I was brought-up thinking like most people, you go to school, university, get married, have kids, work 9-5 at a job then retire. That’s easy enough to follow, it’s within my comfort zone. What is left out through is experiencing life, it’s been brought-up several times in studies that fully half of the adult population HATE THEIR JOBS. The quick answer is, quit your job, find something you love and move on with life… but if you have children, a mortgage, co-workers who are close friends. Well, you can see how challenging a hole our culture has dug for you.

Steps to rewriting yourself

1. Don’t take what you have for granted, ask yourself this very powerful question. If I were to die tomorrow, have I achieved everything I wanted out of life? If the answer is yes, then question if your goals have been too easy (you stayed within your comfort zone), if the answer is no… you have some equally harsh decisions to make.
2. Looking back on life, try to find instances where you “bucked the trend” set by others. If your life consists of being a lemming to marketing and fashion trends… ask yourself why you allow yourself to be so easily molded in the vision of others. It’s when you do something that others around you are not doing that you are truly an innovator, this needs to be cultured. It’s the only true time that your brain is overcoming your internal software. Nurture it!
3. Do something very out of the ordinary for yourself and those around you spontaneously on a very regular basis. Instead of celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December like everybody else… do it two weeks later when the bargains at stores can be had. This will not only save you a lot of money but also exercise your ability to think and act independently.

Don’t forget the reason for a strong culture and belief structure driven into us from a young age isn’t to make YOU happy, it’s to make OTHERS happy… possibly at your expense. Imagine corporations unable to find workers because they prefer to explore the world outside of an office setting, imagine governments having citizens refusing to pay taxes due to wasteful spending… imagine a world where the only limitation placed upon you was your ability to innovate from within regardless of who you were, beliefs, your position within society, economic or geographical location.

The Bottom Line

When life ceases to become a challenge, it cheapens in value.

I feel like I’ve been living in a cave for the past three years, working crazy hours building up WoodMarvels.com and now that I got some momentum going… am finally able to stick my head out and let the sun shine on my face for a change before I head back in and get my Vitamin D from my computer screen once again.

When I started i3DS and my journey into entrepreneurship over a decade ago, I never could have predicted how crazy the ups and downs would have been. One thing though, throughout all these times that I haven’t forgotten about was the value of partners to get you to where you wish to be in life. Whether they are somebody whom you love that keep you grounded or business partners who allow you to enter new markets and spread knowledge of your existence to their client base.  If you run a business especially, partnerships are the way to make something good into something GREAT!

I’ve been so busy in the trenches of relevance that today it struck me how far I’ve come along in my entrepreneurial journey when I took a few seconds to review the headlines on the WoodMarvels.com blog.

• Partnership with one of the world’s largest laser cutter manufacturer (Trotec) showing my stuff at the VIIE Sydney Australia show
• Partnership with one of the USA’s largest CNC router manufacturers (ShopBot Tools) showing my stuff at the 2010 NY World Maker Faire
• new product launches
• hitting a hundred youtube subscribers
• having my products featured at Ponoko.com’s website
• … and the launch of another company!
• … and just for fun, I’ve done all this while moving to another foreign country with nothing but three pieces of luggage to my name with associated headaches!

This all happened in less than 3 weeks! Insane! Cool! I honestly had no idea, I spend a few minutes writing then move on right to the next thing. If the conversations I’ve had with entrepreneurs go through… this month will be even crazier than the previous… and the previous before that one.

The Bottom Line

Passion is a dangerous habit, it makes you forget the pain and live in the pleasure of accomplishment!

I tend to focus on little things and turn them into extremes just so their benefits and costs become more evident – I find this a far more efficient method of coming to a decision than treating things as if they were even. For instance, my last post about jobs being equivalent to alcohol is extreme and so are the thoughts in there… but it blows through all the gray area and makes things far more crystal clear.

Jobs

Maybe I just have a low tolerance for the easy way of doing things, I don’t know why, but I did work jobs that I really enjoyed such as once, at a airport while working towards my pilot license. I learned so much about business, operations, tourism (it was a scenic flight company that was training me) and so for but I also had jobs during my entrepreneurial career that make me appreciate different social and economic pressures must live in. I have a lot of skills, I enjoy new and interesting things and sometimes the only way to do this is through a job but at the end of the day, I find it much more rewarding to be the captain of your own ship than to navigate the waters of life for somebody else.

Thought of the day

If you have trouble deciding what to do or which path in life to take, don’t just put the + and – in two columns… think of the absolute worst and best case scenerios of each and everything will be so much clearer almost instantly as to which path to take.

I realize this way of thinking can be difficult but with a little practice, I find it a very efficient one.

It has been a LONG road from start to finish but I’m proud to say that you can now purchase a digital copy of 2847AD, the science fiction book I wrote and researched for extensively and physical form of 2847 A.D.: Solar Horizons from Amazon! YAHOO!!! This has been a major accomplishment for me, I never knew publishing a science fiction novel could be so much work but now that it’s done, it feels wonderful to have achieved this major goal of mine.

If you wish to follow the journey pretty much from start to finish, I have chronicled it on my blog. I mention this in several other postings but these are the major ones.

• 2847: Going Science Fiction
• 2847AD: Writing Science Fiction is Hard!
• Getting through the home stretch
• 2847AD is finally done!
• Transforming your life from Blah to Legendary now available on Amazon!

What made the book especially challenging is that I tried to integrate almost everything I knew about science and then some, at the time. There is so much information out there, it’s really astounding and trying to condense it into a readable form, not only for me but for the general public takes a lot of effort.

I wanted to write a book that was scientifically accurate while at the same time, within the realm of possibility AND readable by somebody who has little to no scientific knowledge.

I believe I have accomplished this goal. I already started on a second volume of this book but had to put it on the back burner for several reasons, including but not limited to the amount of work I’ve been putting into my WoodMarvels.com company. I love design so much… it’s a true passion, as is writing but I think a long break is necessary to get most of the ideas fleshed-out. The further you jump into the future, the more difficult it becomes to imagine the unimaginable and this is really taxing mentally as I discovered. Exhausting even!

My delight: Hydrogen Sulfide

In the book, I describe in detail why I used this very toxic gas, hydrogen sulfide, as a mechanism for suspended animation during long space travels. Today, I watched a TED video and much to my delight, what I described and envisioned is actually coming true! Yes, they have human trials of this and the results are astoundingly positive. Watch the video to learn more about this important toxic gas

TEDTalks : Mark Roth: Suspended animation is within our grasp – Mark Roth (2010)

The Bottom Line

Research, hard work and tremendous passion can even bend even the most impossible of challenges into reality.