Successful Blog

Open Mic 7pm Chgo Time: Let’s Talk About Stress . . .

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Yes the Mic Will Be on Tonight

Join Us Tonight

With Ari Garber, Special Guest

Stress. Gosh don’t I know it? I’ve got enough of it in my life. But then, you do too. Who doesn’t?

So, I asked a friend who knows a bit about the stress experience — he was a full-time trader and now he works in a firm run by four partners (all Ph.D.s). He and I thought that it’s time we talked about stress. Maybe we have ideas on how to have less stress and more fun.

I introduce, my friend, Ari.

Liz,
Thanks for inviting me to submit the open mic topic for this week. I chose stress as the discussion starter, how it comes about, how we combat it, how we avoid it.

A few basic thoughts to throw to everyone, from my experiences and random mental meanderings.

Stress is caused by our interpretation and attitude towards the circumstances we find ourselves in. Attitude colors interpretation, it prevents us from coping at optimal levels, it can solve 90% of issues by allowing the freedom to creatively address what otherwise might be viewed as a crisis.

Stress is largely the result of our own decisions. We place ourselves in circumstances. We choose to care. We lose self awareness in the moment, and react emotionally. Our attitudes in dealing with the consequences of our decisions then come into play.

Stress is also directly keyed to physiology as well as the psychology. Health is a key factor. If my diet is off, if I have not been to the gym to release some energy in a positive fashion; my stress levels rise. I need to take care of my body as a baseline, to then be able to take care of my brain.

Stress is subjective, and amazingly can be adapted to in some fashion. I used to be a full-time trader, moving, winning, and losing most peoples salary in seconds, hundreds of times a day. Stress for me today is too many things on my to-do list, and too many people wanting to chat with me while I am attempting to accomplish my own goals.

Oddly, doctors say that the stress I feel today is just as negative to my wellbeing as the stress back then.

I cannot be happy without some stress in my life. Without some pressure, I am not producing at my optimal levels.

What causes you stress?

  • What specific little tricks and methodologies do you use to combat it?
  • Do you focus on psychological, physiological, or holistic approaches to deal with it?
  • Do you self medicate? Do you have prescribed medication? I didn’t want to be the alcoholic cliche of a trader, but the heroin was fun… (That was a joke.)
  • Is stress just the luxury of those who have time to dwell on it?

I look forward to hearing everyone’s ideas.

Thanks again Liz for making this available to all,

ALG

Oh, and bring a link about how you deal with stress to share, if you have one.

The rules are simple — be nice.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Metrics: Who Are We and How Are We Feeling?

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Information as Art: A New Look at Stats

In August of 2005, the We Feel Fine project began harvesting data from weblogs. In this metrics of feelings, the system scans the Internet every few minutes for new blog posts sentences that include the phrases, I feel and I am feeling. Whenever possible it also gathers from the blog additional identifying data: the age, gender, and geographical location of the blogger who wrote the sentence.

The database now contains several million human feelings and grows by 15,000+ daily.

Jonathan Harris and Sepandar Kamvar have organized the data into “six movements” — each artful, entrancing, and compelling in it’s presentation of humanity. They describe We Feel Fine in this way.

The interface to this data is a self-organizing particle system, where each particle represents a single feeling posted by a single individual. The particles’ properties – color, size, shape, opacity – indicate the nature of the feeling inside, and any particle can be clicked to reveal the full sentence or photograph it contains. . . .

At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone. It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what’s on our blogs, what’s in our hearts, what’s in our minds.

Click the image below to go explore how we’re feeling.

We Feel Fine 55

The people who wrote these sentences are our readers. They are also us.

What do you think of how we’re feeling today?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Writing for That One Most Important Reader: That Curious, Clever, Intelligent Individual

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How Do You Write for Everyone?

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How easy it is to get overwhelmed when I think of how individual each reader is. How can I possibly meet what they expect, when each of them comes with a different goal, a different history, and a different mind set?

Whatever the subject I choose to write on, I can be sure that some readers will know it far better than I do and some will have never encountered it before. How do I bridge gap to write a piece that meets learners on solid ground while engaging readers with significant expertise? These writing questions are central for anyone who writes for an audience of more than two people they already know.

How do I answer these questions for myself and for others?

I give them the answer Big Roy discovered.
[Read more…]

The Secret to Why Dennis Miller Can Rant in Public and the Rest of Us Really Can’t

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Rant Is a Four-Letter Word

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Something has happened. It wasn’t nice. It happened once too often. It happened to someone you care about. It needs to be addressed. You’re about to write something someone is going to read.

Before you write, check your emotions. They’re running high, aren’t they? Here’s what you need to do before you write.

Go to the local store. Buy 100 ballooons. Blow them up and pop them each one individually — one at a time — slowly savoring the noise. Or do something else that will open a steam valve: go running,

Whatever you do, please don’t write and rant. Rant is a four-letter word. You’ve read ’em. They’re deadly.

So, how come Dennis Miller can rant in public?

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9 + 1 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer

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Where to Start

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It can seem complicated to write for a readership that includes beginners to experts. I’ve done it for over two decades. It can seem like there’s too much to consider to meet them all at their own level.

My experience is that beginners and experts are not that different when they read. They might choose to read different things, but we all do. Beyond that difference of content, beginners, experts, and those of us in the middle — all readers — want the same things from a writer. [Read more…]