I’m been working on this with Joel since late Feb. See the YouthSays blog for behind the scenes pictures of what that really means.

Ok. So here we go….

What is it?

Well, check it out and you’ll see.

We’ve signed up over 1,000 users before it’s launch, so I’m pretty optimistic about its success.

Time will tell.

Disclaimer: YouthSays has nothing to do with MindValley. It’s Joel’s venture more than anything else.

I’ve been investing / growing a couple of other ventures with MindValley, will talk about them when the time is right.

… you take a photograph.

Photo by Andreas Till

What do you do with the person you love most in the whole world?

Take ‘em out and shoot ‘em.

~ From Photojojo

Each artist contributed six photographs of the person(s) who is most important to them, taken outdoors in a natural setting. The goal of the website is to portray the people who are loved, cherished, and inspirational to these artists.

This one is sort of my favorite.

See them all.

This is the same run I attempted last year. I only decided today, so this gives me almost 6 days to train for it. I think I’ll just eat a banana or something.

Nadiah, Effa, and Katalina are running with me, too. My guy friends have too many excuses.

Yeah, if you happen to be running, drop me a line. I need someone to trash talk to with.

Here’s what I look for in a T-shirt.

This sort of cut is made to accentuating my humps.

BACKGROUND STORY: The picture (the actual tee in the picture has a print I dislike, though, I rarely wear camels, and shirts with words on them) was made in August 2006 when a friend from the Philippines was coming over. I wanted her to get me some T-shirts from a local Filipino clothes label I really liked (called “Artwork”).

I was alone one night, in deep thought…

I was wondering what I would learn by going through a selection of 213 quotes on “action”.

The one thing I personally took away?

The need for consistency and continuous effort.

Not revolutionary, I know.

But it hints at me quite accurately, as I’ve spent the most part of life on “think smart” to the extent I’m relying less on “work hard”.

Looking ahead, for the ambitions I’ve chosen, I might have to do both.

As MindValley grows in new people and new ventures - how can we maximize happiness and profit?

Let’s tap the brain of a guy who funded 80 startups with a total of about 200 founders, with a pretty good hit rate (conception to acquisition / profitability).

Yes, it’s Paul Graham. One of my favorite brains to tap.

Read his essay “You weren’t meant to have a boss” as he talks about

• Optimal group size for work
• The way humans naturally work in groups
• Struggles in designing a structure to avoid becoming a “big company”
• Lions hunting in the wild

In the article, he ponders the same problems we are trying to solve….

“A large organization could only avoid slowing down if they avoided tree structure. And since human nature limits the size of group that can work together, the only way I can imagine  for larger groups to avoid tree structure would be to have no structure: to have each group actually be independent, and to work together the way components of a market economy do.

That might be worth exploring. I suspect there are already some highly partitionable businesses that lean this way. But I don’t know any technology companies that have done it.”

~ Paul Graham, from “You weren’t meant to have a boss”

Personally, I want to solve this problem. Not theoretically, but I want it to work in action. It’s a great problem to solve, as the solution (perhaps lessons other organizations and startups can use) will unlock a world of talent, innovation, and happiness at work.

Solving this might take some fancy experiments with organizational structure, radical thinking, consistent hard work, a bit of patience, and a group of people who dare… which is why I’m grateful to solve this with MindValley.

We’re doing some crazy stuff right now, but I’ll only talk about it when we have RESULTS. Till then, do share your workplace experiments and thoughts, if any.

(By the way, usually blog posts like this and this go on the MindValley blog, but to reflect how my so-called work and personal are in perfect harmony, I figured I’ll republish selected pieces about management, marketing, and designing optimal work/lifestyle here too.)

Have I raved about my evening with Broken Social Scene yet?

Huh?

You know, Broken Social Scene?

One of my favorite bands of all time?

Going to see them live was the DIVINE PURPOSE of me driving all the way to Singapore.

And it paid off.

Also because there were some other tasty bits:

• I found my other half!
  It is a bowl of beef noodles. Not the soup kind, or the “Famous” one near Alor… this is one has beefy gravy. I kept going for the same dish everywhere I went!
• Reckless shopping
  I spent so much money I just want to forget about it. The result? See for yourself, this month, as I strut about town in radical fashion experiments!
• Road trip games with music heads
  Stuff us into the same car? You get 4 hours of traveling through music history, pulling out the likes of Ini Kamoze and Engelbert Humperdinck, as we played tag team “spelling bee” with band / singer names.. Eg. The Strokes ends with an S, so you have to think of a band starting with the letter S, like Soundgarden. Which ends with N, so um, Nick Carter… I think you get it.
• Immersion in hours and hours of damn good music
  What’s a road trip without good music? Thanks James for the compilations! All 300 songs!

And yeah…

The gig was hands down the best live concert (yet).

That’s kind of a big deal, considering I almost maybe slightly teared midway watching Radiohead in Sydney.

.. nobody cared about the seats any longer. Everybody was on their feet and screaming our heads off to every tune…

From someone else’s  detailed review of “An Evening With Broken Social Scene”

My favorite part was minute 4:25 of this video. Uploaded by ariddesert87.

(I’m referring to the electronica opening for Stars and Sons (orginal song here). Pardon the guerilla-quality capture, you had to be there!)

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH the gig was SO good.

I was standing and dancing and orgasm-ing for 95% of the gig (the other 5% was recuperating)

After all, it was no ordinary band.

Broken Social Scene was there for me during one of the best times of my life (back in Sydney). Their songs were on replay for me for more than 6 months, and along with the Album Leaf, they inspired a few sketches of mine, too.

How nice of them to re-appear in my life, right now, to remind me what a wonderful adventure I’m on. (pic me and Kevin Drew)

The random escape - a Sunday and Monday to Singapore and back… turned out to be the highlight of my year so far.

Special thanks to James, Mei, Kia Meng, and Broken Social Scene!

(me, James, Brad Canning)

Today, I will detail my adventures with wax.

I’ll be going into detail about how I made that, and how you can try it, too. I will also talk a bit about why it is named “natural camouflage”.

Read on »

I know, I know, first MC Hammer, now this.

No, I won’t be a source of offbeat news. This blog post is about finding your bliss.

Please watch this Chinese farmer grow robots for a living to see what I mean.

Look at that man.

And notice that

• He found something he really enjoys doing
• He is damn good at it
• He gets a chance to do it very often
• When he has an idea, he can instantly leap into the creation process…
• He doesn’t give a nut (or bolt) about what other people think

I admire this man. I really do.

Aside from the fact he is also willing to burn his house (and his marriage) in pursuit of his passion, lets imagine if….

• He gets paid boat loads of money to do what he loves.
• His passion also provides something of immense value to the world

Now that’s a sweet deal.

And that’s where I’m headed! (or at least where I intent to head)

In the meantime, I get distracted.

I was building wax sculptures all morning, Friday. Not quite as cool as ghetto robots, but I’ll show you some pictures real soon…