Maximizing your day

read it today word by word, my blood becomes hot

2009-09-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

I felt tears was rolling in my eyes, and blood was hot.

I read this article 5 years ago when I joined SCU, and this article
was mouthed by almost everyone I met there (another one is "you are fired").
Today, accidentally I reread it and watched the youtube video, couldn't
believe five years have passed.

If life is left with limited amount of time, what can be done if only:

You get to find something you love to do
you get to find someone you love
You get to follow your heart and intution
You get to live every day as your last
You get to be in love even you are rejected
You get to stay hungry and stay foolish
You get to live every day with passion
You have to trust your gut, destiny, karma or whatever
You have to look in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
============================================================

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

与君一席话

2009-08-08T00:50:00.000-07:00

似灵魂之相交已久. 数个话题,个别细节或有遗忘, 但让人耳目一新.
须细细体味一番. 今日已MAXIMIZED!

Thanks, Tom

2009-07-21T23:57:00.000-07:00

你在BRITISH OPEN 的表现让我看到了黑暗的CHANNEL的一丝亮光.
是你让我看到了60岁还如30岁一样身材矫健,谦逊,好学.
要以"球技精湛"还形容你,有多少人能当得这四个字?
290的开球,丝毫不逊色比你年轻二十岁的PGA.
简洁,有效而精确的挥杆,让人看到了什么是学无止境,
更让人感到鼓舞:传统高球技术并没有过时,更重要
的是对技术精髓的深刻理解. 向你致敬. Salute, Tom!

今天练习的心得:
好的影响重复100便都不多. 坏的影响一次都多.
没次错误都是好事,但必须想清楚为什么出错.
越要打的远,越要慢,轻松,耐心.

v1home video and secretinthe dirt

2009-06-08T00:47:00.001-07:00

http://www.v1golfacademy.com/default.asp

Thank you! You may now return to V1 Home and click Next.

For your records, your registration code is: KLPHQ-GG7DJ-4MLDT-9RXTK-BJZBJ

Click here to print this page to ensure that you do not lose your key.

http://secretinthedirt.com/

points from comparison of Zach Johnson and Tigers

2009-01-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUl82HFvFVM

1) At address, putting more weights on the left side is normal practice for tour players. How much is per player's preference. This address characteristic will affect the spine angel at the back swing and down swing.
2) during back swing, leave side is left un-moved, because most players have difficulty to move from right to left at down swing.
3) Zach puts more weight at the left side, left side doesn't move at back swing, causing spine angel tilts more to the right. At down swing, his spine angel doesn't move much.

Tiger has more neutral weights at both sides, left side moves a bit to the right but not much at back swing, spine angel tilts a bit more to the right but not much. At down swing, his spine angel moves more to the right side due to bigger lateral move (spine angel move is because of head is still while hip move laterally) .
4) The lowest point of the down swing is determined by the location of the lower spine

down swing - correction of previous mis-understanding

2008-12-03T14:53:00.000-08:00

http://www.golflink.com/tipsvideos/video.aspx?v=26034

golf diary of 11/28/2008

2008-11-28T15:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday played badly at Summit Point. A little frustrated but with reason. I spent almost 1 week last week to adjust my swing, trying to put thing together. The changing swing confused my game yesterday.

Anyway, today my brain seemed to be clearer than yesterday. And here is what I found, tried something without hitting the ball, feel good:
1) Set up gesture: should feel the weight of butt. should feel pressure at the joint of foot and base of leg while the lower part of leg leaning forward 70 degree. The joint of hip and lower back should form one line (consciously smooth this line straight and move the chest a bit forward will have the effect of increase the pressure of the angle-lower leg joint, making your body more balanced. At that state, you will feel a bit like skiing gesture)

So 3 things I feel today:
- upper body (chest) stick forward
- butt stick back ward, should feel its weight
- stand a bit taller until you feel the pressure at the joint of angle and lower leg. The reason of doing this is because I have a tendency to over bending my knee, in such case I won't feel the pressure.

2) backswing: the distance between hand/arm and body should enlarge. When the hand passes the toe, they should be exact over or even outside of the toe. Because I have big chest mussel, this will give me more space to swing.

3) Down swing. Should aim my hand at the center of the body as the release point. Previously I aimed the release point far too early, thus caused the right shoulder dipping too much and right arm folding too much, which cause fat shot.

4) Re-emphasis, weight shift should from behind.

Improving of swing is a painful process. Normally everything dips, i meant performance. Then things gradually becomes better. Remember, If golf is too easy, it won't be that fun and won't isolate smart people and average. So be patient, and enjoy the pain and enjoyment.

I read something which is great!

2008-08-19T14:05:00.000-07:00

"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." -- Mark Twain

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind." --Zen Master

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved."

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it."
"Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many."
"Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books."
"Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders."
"Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations."
"But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it." --Gauthama, the Buddha

"There is a principle which is proof against all information, which is proof against all arguments, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance; that principle is contempt, prior to investigation." -HERBERT SPENCER

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." -- Mark Twain

6/19/08 driving range

2008-06-20T02:00:00.000-07:00

Setup:

upper arms pressed the sides of the chest. It is NOT upper arms in front of the chest. This is very critical to leverage the body to help the swing. If your upper arms are in front of the chest, body won't contribute to swing.

Backswing:
slowly back and up. when it reaches the chest height, hands should be in front of the chest.

6/15 driving range

2008-06-15T23:25:00.000-07:00

Set up:
1) loose up and sink shoulder, spine straight
2) butt is stick out, feel the heaviness
3) Let the arm fall freely

back swing:
1) take off within you
2) roll left foot, don't lift up the heel and stick on the toe (it is a bad habit need to fix ASAP)

Down swing:
1) Lateral shift is not enough and hesitant. Fix this problem probably can fix the flat shot problem.
2) Follow through is not enough

"hit with chest" on greenside pitch shots

2007-06-19T00:38:00.000-07:00

Don't swing all-arms on greenside shots.

On the backswing, if your chest moves away from the ball, your shoulders and arms also move.
If you chest moves back toward the target, your shoulders and arms will follow.

Golf Diary (6/14/2007)

2007-06-15T00:56:00.000-07:00

1. Down swing's plane is a little shallower than the back swing's plane
2. Right hand's wrist is bowed at the follow through (golf digest, don't understand yet)
3. Hand's pressure
4. flat left wrist
5. right hip doesn't collaps until the end of impact.

Reread Tiger Wood's book about driver swing

2007-06-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

1) Shift weight
2) turn hip. His hip is almost fully turned when his hands are at chest's height during down swing, at which point, his shoulder is still square with the target line.
3) arms movement along with hip and shoulder turn. He makes sure his arms are EXACTLY in front of chest during down swing. Because he has a faster hip and shoulder turn, he has to guarantee his arms can align with hip/shoulder move.

Golf Dirary (6/9/2007) Rancho Canada

2007-06-10T01:18:00.000-07:00

Complete weight Shift
snap the left leg (straighten left leg as least)
Complete follow through

Good things:
Driver:
1) Arms swing faster.
2) Hip turns faster
3) check point at impact is better, club head is square.

Putting:
1) stand up more, arms are straight.
2) align with the hole better.

The problems of today's game:
Driver:
1) left leg failed to stand firm and not even mention snap the left leg for
extra length.
2) Follow through needs improvement

Iron:
1) flat wrist problem getting worse. Haven't gotten the habit yet. It has ruined
at least 10 shots. Need to go back to driving range to improve.
2) hip clappsed too fast, causing opening up the club face. Need to practice against the wall.
3) mixed up iron shot and driver. high number Irons are to hit down. Drive is to hit up. Low number iron is to hit flat.

Chipping:
1) hit down, not hit up.
2) change the grip a little bit. have progress at the beginning, worse later. need to practice.

Golf Diary (6/7/2007)

2007-06-07T23:43:00.000-07:00

18 holes today at SV Municipal golf course. A few lessons:
1) When playing wood, remember two points:
- Lazy arms: Arm moves faster than body. To activate this memory, do some practice swing
before hitting the ball. When arms are lazy, many times hit a right sliding ball.
- Lazy hip: hip should be cleared out at the early stage of down swing. Failing to do that would cause the opening up the club head, sliding right.

Golf Diary (5/31) -- Flat Wrist

2007-05-31T23:26:00.000-07:00

Something that confused me for a while after watching the "Professional impact" Youtube
video. I have known it works after tring at driving range but I am confused how can I unclock my left wrist so quickly on down swing. Until today I came realized what "flat wrist" means.

Paradox of Influcence

2007-05-06T01:15:00.000-07:00

How can I influence someone to my point of view?

1. Invest Time: Begin at the end, what is the outcome you need? What is the likely outcome they need? Research how the person fits into, or doesn't fit into, the situation. Identifying what you know and what you don't know from other sources. Next, plan the meeting. What questions will you ask? What quesitons are you likely to be asked? Schedule a face-to-face where you won't be disturbed. Depending on the issue and the circumstances, you may need to meet several times.

2. Focus: Focus all of yourr concentration and attention on the other person. Your mind works four to five times faster the nthe average person talks so it takes concentrated effort to focus all of your thinking on the other person. Train yourself not to mentally challenge (in your mind), but to accept, everything they say. It is the only way you can truely listen to everything they say. Be genuinely interested, lean into the conversation; it is terribly flattering.

3. Ask Questions: Ask quesitons about their favorite subject, themselves. Ask about their background, accomplishements, the biggest problems or challenges now or in the past, and what they think the future holds short and long term, etc. In most cases, it's desirable (1)to have questions well in mind by writing them ahead of time, and (2) to take notes, you'll need them later.

4. Reveal: Share some brief, not too personal, information about yourself. You don't want to convey the impression that you're interrogating the other person; you do want to build a relationship. And what you do reveal should parallel what they have revealed.

5. Ask for Opinions: Ask the other person for opinions about the issue(s) you wantto discuss. Be a reporter; ask quesitons that start with what, where, when, how, who and [judiciously] why, being careful not to raise defenses with your why questions. Soften your voice, slow your rate of speech, and get a slightlhy pussled look on your face when you ask why questions. Selectively ask, "How is the important to you?"

6. Listen Actively: Truely listen, carefully and actively (nod your head, use encouragers like, Humm, Interesting, and Then What) , and keep taking notes, if appropriate. It's not only flattering for you to put their words in writing, but it also helps you remember, and you both know you have a record.

7. Summarize: After you have exhausted your questions, summarize what the other prson said in three to five key points(from your notes. Then ask: "Have I got it" If you don't have it exactly right, she'll set you straight on-the-spot. Make adjustments to your summary statements until the other person says, "Yes, you've got it." Do NOT move to Step 8 until you get this response. Why? The Paradox of Influence: People must first be convinced they thoroughly and completely influence you before you can influence hem!

Golf diary 4/22

2007-04-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

Lessons learned today:
1) Keep head still while back swing and down swing. You head moves up naturally when you hands pass the initial position and when your right arm leads your head up. This is very important, which is the #1 priority to hit a solid ball.

2) Check your back swing.
-- When your club is parallel with the target line, check your wrist. Make sure it is not pointing down ward, which is a weak position.
-- clock your wrist all the way to the top.

3) Down swing to the initial postion, which is the impact postion. This is a very important check point. Most of time when you slice the ball, your hands are not at that position. How to ensure this?
Compact swing:

your arms should free fall while down swing. When you anxious to hit a long ball, your arms swing out wards, causing slice.

check point: Your right elbow should be at the right hip when your hands at the hitting position.
When you begin to down swing, your arm fall independent of of the body first. You can imagine a minor "C" move, like tennis. So the club plane is little less steeper than the back swing plane.

4) Swing after hitting the ball. Use your left leg as the pivot point. Your body is behind the ball, swing by extending your arms as much as possible along the target line. Your left leg straightens up while swing, even can "snap" a little bit to gain more power.

5) Relax Relax Relax. Don't use too much power. You don't have to swing too fast to gain distance. The distance of the ball is decided by the speed of the club head, NOT how fast you swing the club.

Life lessons from golf

2007-04-20T16:30:00.001-07:00

I have learned quite a lot from today's game. We two were arranged to play with a guy from Finland. I got started to play at course just about 6 months ago, this is the first time I played with a stranger. Thay guy was about 6 feet tall, hitting more than 200 yards with Driver. Any how he is quite a couple levels above us. At the beginning, I felt the obvious pressure and asked myself to focus and give my best. After a couple holes, I found out he is a nice guy, patiently waiting for us after driver because sometimes his ball was 50 yards longer than mine. He gave me some hands when i hit a nice ball, really a good encourager.
He tried my driver which everyone said it's a crappy one, hitting a better ball when using his own driver. "It is a nice driver, nothing wrong with it, only the difference who plays it", really verifying my thought that as long as you are good, you can swing any clubs.

We didn't speak much chinese in front of him for the purpose of being polite. And we focus more on playing then sharing experiences. Any how, I played much better than last a couple times. I pondered what made this time a little difference. A few things:

1) This guy helped to frame a relaxed, focused and friendly culture. He didn't speak too much, but he is a good encourager and a patient guy. This helped me to play a better game. Some how in our culture, we critize more than encourage. We don't want to praise others for doing something good, instead, we use others ways to treat others' achievement. We just don't have this culture habit to sincerely praise others. Another thing is we don't have patience. Everyone wants to be fast and complains others who are slow. While you playing with people in different level, you get to be patient. Many times, we are afraid of being slow because other people are chasing you, so we are forced rush ourself. Such psychology would mess up the rythsm and make you loosing your game totally.

2) He is really serious at playing, but quite relaxed. He didn't show emotions, just calm and composed. His game started to worsen a bit at 9th hole, he just said "I am loosing my game now". But thinking about us, we are quite emotional comparing to him. A good ball and bad ball could make our emotion up and down, with many reasons, ie. peer pressure, too much self critisism etc. That is in chinese culture and society, we became much more emotional than in the U.S.. We compared, we are eager to suceed, we think too much about face etc.

3) Believe in yourself. While we didn't share much experience, we played better. Why? we have to believe in ourself in this circumstances. We have to be independent. While sharing definitely is good, we have to understand that this game is talking about to forget what you have done for the last ball and focus on the next one. This game is about focus at playing while on the course. Too much things in brain will distract you.
This game is about believing in yourself while sharing with others. While there is disagrement, be the independent and critical thinker. Don't make any judgement before research, think and verify it.

4) Be real to yourself. There is nothing to hide and pretend on golf. You have to be honest on every detail which either you get it or don't get it. You have to be very clear on every check point while swinging, anything vague in your mind will cause problem at the end of the day.

5) Be the most forgiving person of yourself in the world. This is Tiger Wood's words. Don't beat yourself up. Praise yourself for every tiny improvement, and draw the lesson to better your game next time.

6) This game and life share many common traits: They are both a journey to discovery yourself, continuously overcome your weakness and become great.

7) Many times we want to have a quick fix by changing some external stuff, such as club equipment,or getting some tricks to lower the score. At the end of the day, such quick fix won't help much. What we are looked externally was reflected from our internal state, such as our confidence, capability and psychological stableness. So if you want to change, change internally first: Your clear understanding of swing mechanism, the feeling of solid hitting the ball, being able to grap details, and lastly consistancy. Your score will gradually improve if you improve internally on these things other than quick fix. In real life, it is very similar. We want to gain more and more skills, while forget that improvement internally is more important.

8)Emotionally detached. Being emotional could be the #1 killer of the game. Always remind yourself to be consciously detached from the result, focusing on the details and on improving your swing.

9) Know what to say and what not to say at the course. Always say "you have done well in this xxx , and could be better by doing that...", which shows your appreciation to your parther and being real to help him. Other than that, don't need to share too much of your feeling and experience;over doing so could be redundant and counter productive. In real life, we have got the similiar experience. Many times it is so sensitive to say too many things. So knowing what to say and what not to say becomes very critical in human relationships.

10) This game is about friendship. You not only get to give yourself the best to the game, and also know your partner's strength and weakness, so you know how to take care of his psychological need, while protecting yourself. Being over independent or being overly harmony-seeking would cause problem. Why saying that? In golf games, many people want to compete with you, even your best friends. When they win, they might unconsciously step on your ego. And when they loose, they might need some comforting. So you get to be very strong pschologically when you play badly, and to be simpathy when you are playing better than others. Such delicacy is hard to control in the game. And from it you can tell whether you are more mature or not. While knowing no one is perfect, you should always look at the good traits of your partner, and avoid to touch his weak and ugly spots. Thus, you can keep the interest to continue to keep the relationship with him, and would not want to change him.

11) Free of ego. This is the game that you can only play from well to great by being free of ego. Always looking for self-improvement, never being disturbed by others, never thinking of showing off in front of your partners, always focusing on details. While it is similar to being emtionally detached, it has more to do with forgetting about competion, face-saving etc.

12) Be a good observer and thinker. Before you hit a ball, have your mind's eye see what is going to happen with your swing first, then you know how your swing will be before it happens. It helped me a lot. It is called virtualization or meditation. This skill can apply in real life, which I used it and read it on books.

Next wave coming?

2007-04-20T16:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0507/162.html

A few points interesting to me in this article:

1) Mobility will become increasing popular. At least what it means to us: Cisco employees are less limited to where they work.

2) Digital content related business will be booming, such as data center, media distribution/storage through internet etc. It is likely Cisco will acquire more companies in this arena. See the quote " But we haven't seen anything yet. While Yahoo... indexed many billions of Web pages, more pages are hidden behind corporate firewalls or in databases waiting to be indexed. By some estimates, this so-called "dark Web" is 500 times the size of the Internet as we know it.

3) A new revolution, or real revolution is being seen which is other than the one at early stage during 1998-2001. So maybe the 2nd wave of internet bubble is going on starting from now to 2010 or 2011. see the quote "Today we are seeing a new Internet-driven revolution, an entirely new level instant, complex collaboration across the global human network."

4) vedio technology will be the driver of this round of bubble. see the quote "Video-based technologies are driving this collaboration"

5) Anticipating the change of human networks. I can see the colaboration of technologies and people become increasingly complicated in the future. Just like cisco is emerging from a "box" company to a "solution" company. see the quote "Our task is to find ways to leverage these and future technologies across the human network to change for the better how we live. ". So cisco will buy more human networking companies or evolve toward this direction.