Out With 2010, In With 2011

By Tommy Leung on 12/27/2010 in Life

One of the biggest blizzards to hit New York has left the city covered in snow, the subway system handicapped, and work offices closed all over the city. With only a few days left before 2011, I was wondering how I was going to fit in the time to write a year in review and make a few new years resolutions public.

The blizzard solved that for me.

I don’t live in a place where I have to shovel snow and there really is no need to go outside. I called my gym and no one answered so I guess they are closed too. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to brave the gusty winds and mountains of snow so high that cars are half submerged if they didn’t have to.

So after procrastinating by browsing Facebook, Twitter, and doing some online shopping, I figured it was time to write this up. Mad Men Season 3 on Amazon Video on Demand and Donkey Kong Country Returns are both highly alluring but, they’ll have to wait.

2010 Review

From where I’m standing, 2010 was a pretty damn good year. I’d go as far to say that it has been the best year in my adult life–most of the awesomeness fell into the second half of the year. I ended 2009 with these thoughts and, looking back, they were a pretty solid spring board for what became of 2010.

I talked about doing the opposite and I won’t say that I consciously tried to do everything that way but, I entered the year open to thoughts and ideas that were counter to prevailing wisdoms. I like to think that I’m always open to contrary thought but, it’s always easier to just follow the herd and not have to think. We’re all only human.

I was–with little doubt–much more focused in 2010. Just looking at this blog shows a greater effort in terms of quantity and quality of content. It’s easy to look back at what one has done over the course of a year and marvel at all that was done but, it was a planned effort throughout to do each piece little by little.

I don’t remember all my resolutions for 2010 but, I do remember a few: work less, play more, do more of my work, and get to 10% body fat. I failed pretty spectacularly in the first two because I worked more and played less. I did do more of my work as all my personal branding should show and I made it to 10% body fat–according to skin caliper measurements used to track progress throughout the year.

While I failed at the first two resolutions, I can’t say the year would have benefited from less working and more partying. Those two resolutions don’t fit with my umbrella goal of being highly successful. So naturally, a year that was predominately productive wouldn’t have played out any other way. We, at TinyMantis and SMASHWORX, released Propaganda Lander–our first publicly available game that we built from design doc to shipped product–and had the best financial year since I’ve been there. I am damn proud of what we did this year and can’t wait to make 2011 even better.

2011 Outlook

With everything that I’ve learned in 2010 from new ideas to new habits, I can’t see how 2011 is going to be bad. That doesn’t mean I’m going to sit on my hands. I still have some lofty resolutions for 2011.

2011 will be the year that I turn 25. I thanked God in 2010 that I was just 24 and not yet 25. For some reason I didn’t want to get any older then. I don’t really care right now. I don’t see what difference it really makes. Come hell or high water, I intend to be more awesome year after year.

Years ago, when I was younger–maybe 17, I made a vague goal to myself to be in incredible shape at 25. A body that could grace the covers of Men’s Health would probably fit the bill. I never forgot this objective I had set for myself although the prospects looked pretty bleak in the two years prior. I would have understood if I just considered such a goal childish naivety and tossed the whole thing aside but, even if I’ve done everything else wrong, I’ve made sure to keep quality people, friends, and acquaintances around me to act like  bumpers in a bowling alley.

When it comes down to it: we really are only as good as the company we keep.

Thanks to great friends and the paleo diet, I feel like I can achieve any fitness goal I put my mind to. 2010 saw a reboot for my passion in weight lifting and strength training. I put in serious gym time and–more importantly–resumed my quest for knowledge on the subject. 2010 might be the only year that I didn’t skip going to the gym for months at a time.

In 2011, I resolve to attain the coveted six-pack/washboard abs. I think that’ll satisfy my teenage dream. Quantitatively this means I’ll have get down to sub-10% body fat–around 8%. This won’t be a walk in the park but, I’ve never been closer or had more tools at my disposal.

I won’t bother resolving to work less because that’s an absurd resolution in the greater scheme of things. I will, however, resolve to play more but, in the sense that I’ll see my friends more often. All work and no play does make Tommy a dull boy.

I will further continue my personal branding endeavors and do it better in 2011. I was–mostly–feeling around in the dark in 2010. I had no idea what or what I wanted my brand–SuperTommy–to stand for. I still haven’t really figured it out yet but, I have a much clearer picture and learned from a barrel full of mistakes.

While physical fitness highlighted 2010–and will probably highlight 2011 publicly, 2011 is going to be a year where fiscal fitness plays quarterback. In the past, I have been terrible at managing money and curbing impulse spending–or spending in general. My creditors received a great deal of my money in 2010–technically their money that I spent in the past. I intend to completely break up with my credit cards in 2011. We were on and off–mostly off–in 2010 anyway. I don’t like to drag on relationships that clearly aren’t working out.

Despite economists in ivory towers telling us that we need to spend in order to fix the economy, I will save and monitor the Federal Reserve like a hawk in case they decide to devalue the dollar spectacularly–yes, even more spectacularly than they are now.

Writing this all down and making it public keeps me accountable. It’ll be interesting to see where I’m at when I read this over for the 2011 year in review. It could fall short or exceed. It’s impossible to know and that’s the excitement I live for.

Self Perception

By Tommy Leung on 12/26/2010 in Life

I got my parents a digital picture frame for Christmas last year–a network Blu-Ray player this year. They are not tech savvy but, I keep getting them tech gifts–I’m keeping them young. They have since loaded up the picture frame with all kinds of photos from vacations, trips, family dinners, family gatherings, etc. A never ending slideshow of memories.

This Christmas, I was looking at photos on this magical memories device and saw pictures of myself from the first half of 2009 and I was appalled. Appalled that I was a whale.

The best description of my reaction would be a disgusted WTF?!

I couldn’t believe I had ever let that happen! I’ve always been health conscious but, you’d never have guessed it looking at these photos–you’d think I was Twinkie conscious. I was also never aware that I had become that much of  a fat ass. And no one told me. Nobody. Okay, that’s not entirely true. One person did and that might be the only reason why I’m not a Sea World attraction right now.

My parents didn’t tell me and if they won’t be brutally honest, who will? So I told them to tell me next time and don’t worry about my feelings. My Dad said he thought I liked it. WTF?! I also thanked my one friend who gave it to me straight and to do it again if I ever wander down that path.

The key takeaway isn’t that I can’t believe I let myself become a fat ass. Shit happens. 2008 – 2009 was a challenging time. Not necessarily my best years. We all have those. Life isn’t a bouquet of lollipops.

The key takeaway is that I didn’t have a clue while it was happening. While living my life as a whale, I didn’t know I was a whale. I couldn’t see it. I was blind to reality. It wasn’t like I had no mirrors or didn’t see pictures of myself. I did: the mirror daily and pictures here and there.

So, WTF?!

I can only conclude that while we are in the thick of it, we cannot think or see objectively. This is why we need other’s to tell us what we don’t want to hear. Our perception is colored with a biased distortion. Whether it’s our physical appearance, our work, our ideas and opinions, or anything else that we’re engaged in, our ability to see clearly is inversely related to how deeply in the thick of it we are.

What we all need are people who aren’t afraid to sit us down and tell it to us straight. Hurt feelings or embarrassments are not good reasons to purposely and consciously distort reality.

I am thankful that someone had told me. The photos don’t lie. Every photo in the first half of 2009 had me as a whale. I rejoined a gym in May of that year and a year later I looked acceptable. Today, thanks to a grainless diet, I’ve never looked or been better.

Now, for your entertainment, an embarrassing picture of myself and two other pictures documenting my journey from Whale to Wow with a shout out to the epicenter of Internet vanity.

All we need someone to kick us in the ass from time to time.

Two Paths to Life

By Tommy Leung on 12/03/2010 in Life

Life is a series of endeavors. We are always trying to get somewhere and do something. Some endeavors greater than others but–unless we are absolute sloths not worth the air we breathe–we are always after something. It might be winning a competition. Breaking a world a record. Writing a novel. Amassing a fortune. Chasing a dream. Achieving a greatness as we have defined it.

A life without such things to pursue is immensely boring and unfulfilled. One day you are born and one day you will die. If you’ve left no mark of your existence, did you exist? Who would know? Who would care? Besides the air you’ve breathed, the food you’ve eaten, the water you’ve drank, and other resources you’ve consumed, what would denote your existence?

There are essentially two paths to a life lived–a life that leaves a mark proving you’ve existed. One path is to do meaningful work and hone one’s craft like a well tempered sword one would take to a dragon slaying. The other is to kiss your way up to the top through incessant networking that replaces time otherwise spent honing one’s craft.

Kissing Your Way Up

Everyone loves a good people person and it is not a skill to be treated as less than any other. It is just not a skill that should supplement one of production. One where the end result is tied unquestionably to the effort exerted. Where success isn’t tied to the mysticism of the position of the moon and its affect on the tides or the whim of people’s often irrational emotions of the moment.

Being able to work a room should be a complementary skill to one of production.

When it comes down to competing amongst those with similar skill sets, it will be the ability to win friends and influence people that will decide the winner. But, this is not the way to achieve anything real, worthwhile, or meaningful.

Or what is considered all show and no substance.

Putting any majority of one’s efforts into this tactic is a waste of time when the alternative is considered: the path of steadily, diligently, and persistently honing one’s craft.

Honing Your Craft

This is little more than the tale of the tortoise and the hare repackaged but, the timeless story has not lost it’s relevance. You will always be better off spending most of your efforts improving and refining your skills until you’ve produced something truly meaningful and worthwhile.

You will know when you have because you will feel it and others will tell you so. The more strangers that tell you, the more you know it is true. In some areas this is quantified by sales. In others: downloads, views, clicks, interviews, reviews, published articles, number of search results, etc.

You don’t go around chasing people with impressive names and positions at every networking event you can find and try to explain to them why you are good at what you do. An elevator pitch.

Instead, you labor over your work improving it day in and day out. Taking it one step at a time and developing a skill set that could not be obtained any other way. At the end of that road you will have created something worthwhile. Something that proves you existed.

And once you get there, all those people who you tried to connect with but, never gave you the light of day will be knocking on your door. You won’t have to find them, they will find you.

This is the path to life you should take.

What Men Want

By Tommy Leung on 11/27/2010 in Life

The smile merged into a soft, good-natured chuckle, as if the question involved no problem for him, no painful secret to reveal. “There’s a way to solve every dilemma of that kind, Mr. Rearden. Check your premises.” He sat down on the floor, settling himself gaily, informally, for a conversation he would enjoy. “Is it your own first-hand conclusion that I am a man of high mind?” “Yes.” “Do you know of your own first-hand knowledge that I spend my life running after women?” “You’ve never denied it.” “Denied it? I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to create that impression.” “Do you mean to say that it isn’t true?” “Do I strike you as a man with a miserable inferiority complex?” “Good God, no!” “Only that kind of man spends his life running after women.” “What do you mean?” “Do you remember what I said about money and about the men who seek to reverse the law of cause and effect? The men who try to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind? Well, the man who despises himself tries to gain self-esteem from sexual adventures–which can’t be done, because sex is not the cause, but an effect and an expression of a man’s sense of his own value.” – Francisco d’Anconia, Atlas Shrugged

But, in fact, a man’s sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he’s taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment–just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity?–an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience–or to fake–a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer–because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut. He does not seek to .. What’s the matter?” he asked, seeing the look on Rearden’s face, a look of intensity much beyond mere interest in an abstract discussion. “Go on,” said Rearden tensely. “He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body. But the man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises–because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a fraud, she will give him a momentary illusion of his own value and a momentary escape from the moral code that damns him. Observe the ugly mess which most men make their sex lives–and observe the mess of contradictions  which they hold as their moral philosophy. One proceeds from the other. Love is our response to our highest values–and can be nothing else. Let a man corrupt his values and his view of existence, let him profess that love is not self-enjoyment but self-denial, that virtue consists, not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, not in response to values, but in response to flaws–and he will have cut himself in two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make him impotent toward the woman he professes to love and draw him to the lowest type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil will attract him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of pleasure. Then he will scream that his body has vicious desires of its own which his mind cannot conquer, that sex is sin, that true love is a pure emotion of the spirit. And then he will wonder why love brings him nothing bu boredom, and sex–nothing but shame.” – Francisco d’Anconia, Atlas Shrugged

Thanks to a lovely technology known as the Kindle, I am able to easily highlight and clip quotes from Atlas Shrugged to be reviewed later. And in my case, “reviewed later” means “turned into a blog post”. Unfortunately, I still need to type them by hand instead of simply copying and pasting–there might be a way that I am just unaware of. Some of the longest quotations I have are from Francisco d’Aconia. He might just be my favorite character in the whole book but, I’m only 60% of the way through so I can’t yet say for sure.

Needless to say, I despise all the looters, politicians, and Washington-men wrecking havoc in the book. But, I simply adore the protagonist and other central characters.

There’s a lot in the book that I firmly and fundamentally believe but, have been unable to express in words as well as Ayn Rand has through these characters. Turning these excerpts into blog posts is a great second choice until I find the words myself.

Thanksgiving 2010

By Tommy Leung on 11/24/2010 in Life

“You know, Dagny, Thanksgiving was a holiday established by productive people to celebrate the success of their work” – Henry Rearden to Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged

I am still reading Atlas Shrugged and I am enchanted by it. It is more than safe to say that I have longed for a book like Atlas Shrugged but never got around to it even though I knew of its existence. I always found fiction to be little more than a waste of time so I picked up most of the theory and background behind Rand’s thoughts in the works of classic economists and liberals–not today’s loons.

My critiques of current economic policy do not hide the fact that I subscribe to the Austrian school of economics. My political opinion pieces are little short of radical libertarian by today’s standards. While Rand railed against the libertarians of her time–as I would the libertarians from the Libertarian Party of today–I believe the sect of libertarians that I associate with would have been good friends of hers.

I am finally little more than half way through Atlas Shrugged and it appears to just get better and better. Outside of the political and moral, Atlas Shrugged is a fantastic and addictive story. This was also the year that I finished–for the first time–1984 by George Orwell and Brave New World by Auldos HuxleyAldous Huxley. While both are dystopian classics, neither gave me the sense of imminent fear like Atlas Shrugged. Imminent fear in the sense that the atrocities the political class commits in this work of fiction are all to similar to reality.

There’s a whole bunch of blog posts–serious ones–that I want to write but haven’t found the time for between work, my race to 10% body fat in 2010, and reading Atlas Shrugged. I know excuses are lame but, I am managing to squeeze this in without much editing so I expect typos, grammatical errors, and such–at least more so than usual.

My only real intention for this post was to share this post by John Stossel about the origins of Thanksgiving. Hint: it’s a celebration of the principles of capitalism and free trade.

I will cap this off with another excerpt from Atlas Shrugged–I’m enchanted, remember?

“Miss Taggart, do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It’s resentment of another man’s achievement. Those touchy mediocrities who sit trembling lest someone’s work prove greater than their own–they have no inkling of the loneliness that comes when you read the top. The loneliness for an equal–for a mind to respect and an achievement to admire. They bare their teeth at you from out of their rat holes, thinking that you take pleasure in letting your brilliance dim them–while you’d give a year of your life to see a flicker of talent anywhere among them. They envy achievement, and their dream of greatness is a world where all men have become their acknowledged inferiors. They don’t know that dream is the infallible proof of mediocrity, because that sort of world is what the man of achievement would not be able to bear. They have no way of knowing what he feels when surrounded by inferiors–hatred? no, not hatred, but boredom–the terrible, hopeless, draining, paralyzing boredom.”

Not that it is of any importance but, I will be celebrating Thanksgiving with family at a casino: Foxwoods. It really is a rather ironic thing to do after I just explained the origins of Thanksgiving but, I have no pipe dreams of chance riches at a casino–the odds are stacked highly unfavorably. What I do need is a vacation and that’s how I’m going to view this; if I happen to come back with extra money good for me and if I come back with less money: it was a vacation.