This episode was all about how it all began for Tony. If you’re not familiar with this show or the story, Tony Bourdain was a career chef, working in the business for nearly 30 years until writing a book called Kitchen Confidential that propelled him into notoriety and henceforth into popular culture. This book, which I haven’t read yet, but is definitely on my reading list, is sort of a tell-all expose of the culinary culture of New York City. It garnered much praise and not a little criticism for it’s straight-talking illustrations of the places and names behind some of the Big Apple’s finest eateries.

What I found striking about this episode, though, was the transition from professional chef to professional author, and, ultimately, to professional cable television personality. Tony found himself the subject of a documentary that was filmed over the course of several months in 2000. This was the year that his book was published and he went through this enormous life-change.

Before publishing his book, he appears as a younger, skinnier, less gray (and less tan than now!), version of his current self. What’s interesting is his comfort with where he is in life, with his role as head chef at Les Halles. He is clearly at home in the kitchen, making sure that all the components necessary to a fine meal are in the right place at the right time and prepared to perfection. He is in his element as the person in charge of this kitchen and it’s ragtag staff. He’s downright cocky in his confidence.

Then comes publishing Kitchen Confidential. Then the book tour. Then an invitation to lunch from a local, but world-renowned chef. After his meeting, Tony looks shell-shocked. He’s evidently experiencing some sort of inner crisis as he comes to grips with a life that is quickly changing, not for the worse, but undeniably for the better. He describes with some surprise how he is able to pay his rent on time for the just about the first time in his life. Some exaggeration can be expected, but the sense of seeing a man who believes he has seen a miracle is palpable. His life is forever changed in a positive way.

Fast forward ten years. Tony interjects his own commentary from time to time throughout, but it’s most poignant near the end of the program where he still shakes his head in disbelief that he’s made it. He’s comfortable with his new celebrity, even though it hasn’t gone to his head. He’s less arrogant and firmly grounded in his new reality of traveling, talking, writing celebrity. It’s plain to see that he’s humbled by his successes.

The lessons that I take away from this story are several: Work hard, don’t give up, do what you are passionate about, and accept the changes that come with life. When you follow your passions to their natural conclusions, going with the natural current of your life, there will most definitely be great changes. As in Tony’s case, these changes clearly unsettled him and, I’m certain, simply scared the hell out of him. Ultimately, though, he persevered and grew with his passion and with his life and reached this point of balance where it just works.

I’m reminded of that line from Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, where the wise old adventurer advises that the title character should be encouraged to “immerse himself in the destructive element.” This was an admonition for the perenially unhappy character, who had failed in his one big chance live up to the heroic ideal he had always dreamed of, to dive into this role regardless of consequence. The alternative would have been drugs or alcohol or wasting away the potential of his life in some menial, ignoble job.

In Jim’s case, he embraced his passionate desire and ended up paying for it with his life, for better or worse. Tony Bourdain shows us another side of the coin. He definitely embraced his passion for cooking, for creating something wonderful out of a list of ingredients and a mob of unruly misfits. But, he continued on to the next step, transitioning from chef to author to television star, never letting the passion consume him, but rolling with the punches and accepting his journey.

The overarching lesson is one of pursuing your own passion while accepting the twists and turns of the currents of life. Don’t shy away from change, but embrace it and realize that it’s part of the journey to personal fulfillment and satisfaction in life.

P.S. For a great interview from one of my hometown papers check out Anthony Bourdain’s Irresistible Impulses.

Just about everyone knows the feeling of having too many choices or too much information to process. So many sources of information are bombarding us from one moment to the next that we are immersed in a constant flow of data of all kinds. Think about it: radio, television, internet, from the moment you wake in the morning. Even the signs along the road on your commute to work are animated now so that far more information can be packed into that fleeting few moments of attention as you’re rushing past.

I’ve written before about ways of tuning out the information overload and how to focus through the deluge of data. Those techniques are valid, but there is one simple idea that shines through: act now.

I don’t mean to say that you should blindly make a decision, but that you should take the inputs that you have and act on them or choose not to act. Regardless, the idea is to take some sort of action to clear the mental clutter, to flush all that extraneous data out of the buffer of your mind so that you have room to move on to the next task, but, more importantly, so that you have peace.

Yes, peace. This sense of harmony and balance seems to be missing from today’s world. We all rush from one thing to another, rarely completing, really completing and putting an end to each task, before moving on to something else. Do you remember that feeling from long ago in your childhood? That sense of waking up with nothing to do? Nothing you have to do. Wonderful.

I’m not talking about being bored. I’m talking about the freedom to choose whatever you want to do today because yesterday you cleared your plate. You dealt with all of the myriad of inputs and decisively put each in its proper place or appropriately discarded it. This is harmony. This is peace.

Think about this today. How can I complete this task and just be done with it? How can I remove this nagging from my mental space? Make some decisions about the things that are bugging you and move on. You’ll feel peaceful.

What is it that motivates us to do a task or start a project that we’re not all that enthusiastic about? We may be wholeheartedly in favor of the goal that is to be achieved, like organizing my new place, but it’s still a terrific struggle to get moving toward this goal. Those first little steps can be so difficult for some that they are literally never taken.

I’ve found this to be a factor in many areas of my life. While I can find the energy to get up and go to work every day, take care of my family, and take out the garbage, etc, getting beyond the basics almost takes an act of God. Why is it so hard to find time to put away boxes from the move, go to the gym, practice guitar, or write a few pages of a novel?

Thinking back on the last couple of months, the most progress we made in clearing out the boxes and organizing our home was when we had guests coming over to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. We worked our butts off for hours because we wanted to make a good impression on my wife’s parents. This is despite the fact that they are easy-going people who are not at all judgmental.

Regardless, we were able to make some great improvements in the time before our guests arrived. This underscores the importance of having some sort of outside influence as a motivator towards those projects that we’re having trouble starting. With this in mind, I have a few thoughts that may be helpful in kick-starting stalled progress towards our worthy, but rusty goals:

1. Find a motivator outside yourself. Whether it’s inviting guests over to impose a hard deadline on cleaning your apartment, or taking a creative writing class with weekly homework, sometimes it’s necessary to have someone hold you responsible for meeting your goals. Invite friends over to your place, then, or take a class in writing or guitar playing or pilates where there will be someone expecting you to deliver something tangible on a regular basis.

2. Multitask the simple stuff. If you have a box of papers sitting in the corner of your living room that needs to be sorted or shredded, grab a beer, pull up the box, and turn on that Breaking Bad or Californication that you’ve been waiting to watch on the DVR. OK, ladies, you’re allowed to watch Dancing with the Stars. While you’re watching, sort a few papers, you can shred during the commercials instead of fast-forwarding.

3. Focus on the built-in rewards. Having a clean, well-organized place makes you feel good. I don’t think anyone really likes living in a cluttered space. Similarly, it also feels good to work out, to burn away all the stresses that have been building up like clutter in your soul. This isn’t always the best motivator, obviously, because even though we know these things, we don’t always get started. This leads us to another step:

4. Make it fun. If you’re having trouble going to the gym, then it’s probably not fun enough for you to even want to begin. The answer to this is to mix it up. Do something different that will stimulate your motivation and build some excitement and interest. The treadmill is boring? Then join a hiking group or Krav Maga (brutal, but effective Israeli martial art) class. If the story you’ve been working on no longer gets your juices flowing, try writing about something completely different, a topic that you’ve never explored before.

5. Get a partner. I’m not saying that you should go sign up for e-harmony, but aligning yourself with a friend or family member who also needs a little encouragement toward a common goal can be an enormous benefit. Even if it’s someone from work whom you can trade updates with during lunch once a week, this can be the one thing that motivates you to do something before that next lunch date. Maybe you can talk your spouse or neighbor into trying out rock-climbing and then if you both like it, turn it into a regular exercise thing.

I hope that these ideas will prove useful for you. It’s the result of my reflecting on the issues affecting my own life and my own lack of progress toward certain goals. Living a successful and productive life means filling your days with positive activities that benefit you and the people around you. Feel free to leave a comment and tell me about your own experiences.

Near the bottom of the article, though, it struck me that the same advice he gives in the article works well for dealing with disappointment:

If any of this makes you mad, that’s a step in the right direction. Anger is a higher level of consciousness than apathy, so it’s a lot better than being numb all the time. Any emotion — even confusion — is better than apathy. If you work through your feelings instead of repressing them, you’ll soon emerge on the doorstep of courage. And when that happens, you’ll have the will to actually do something about your situation and start living like the powerful human being you were meant to be instead of the domesticated pet you’ve been trained to be.

This is great advice. Instead of just letting the disappointments and stresses of life kick our butts, we need to use them as motivation to move forward. Yes, it’s incredibly difficult to change the habits that have gotten us entrenched in bad situations, but if we’re able to channel that emotion, that discontent, that extreme discomfort, into something useful, there are tremendous strides to be made in success, satisfaction, and happiness.

I know a lot of bloggers will answer that they would do it for free or that it’s a a labor of love, etc. I don’t have any problem with this idea at all. Honestly, much of my blogging has been more of a cathartic, networking experience rather than an outright attempt to make money.

Yes, I make a few bucks from this blog, but not nearly enough to live off of. With that said, though, how many of you are making any kind of money from blogging? Maybe I should start another survey to find out. I think there are probably many bloggers out there who are making some money from their blog even if it isn’t doing away with the need for the day job.

In his article, Mark speculates that there are probably more people who have won more than $25,000 from lotteries than there are making more than $25,000 per year from blogging. I wonder if this is true. Anyone care to admit to being a part of this elite crowd?

I went through a range of emotions as I came to terms with the result of my efforts and as I thought about it, I realized it might be helpful for me to write about. I find a kind of catharsis in writing and also feel that some of you may benefit from my experience as well.

I’m no psychiatrist, but I do believe there are stages that a person goes through in dealing with disappointment just like when grieving. In fact, disappointment could be seen as a loss of opportunity that certainly could trigger the grieving process. With that said, here are the steps that occurred to me:

1. Be hurt. It’s OK. It’s likely that a lost opportunity will leave you with injured pride or injured feelings. Don’t fight this feeling. Just let it happen, but don’t dwell there for long in self pity. Let it go.

2. Allow yourself to be angry. Maybe not everyone will feel this way, but I found myself getting angry after the initial shock passed. This is another emotion that’s useful, but only in the short term in this case. Let it be a motivator to further progressive action, but don’t allow it to fester and consume you. As with hurt, just let it go.

3. Take a little time. Yes, take a breather for a little while and let things sink in. It often helps to give these things a day or two to sink in. With a good night’s rest or two, your perspective on events will begin to change and the other emotions will begin to fade.
Count your blessings.

4. Count your blessings. I’m sure if you consider for a moment you’ll see that there are many good things in your life. Things aren’t as bad as they may seem at times. It may take a bit more than a couple of days, but let yourself enjoy the good things about the life you have.

5. Put a positive spin on events. As you realize that there definitely are good things in your life, spend some time casting the events of your disappointment into a better light. Don’t misunderstand that I’m advising you to lie to yourself. Far from it. What I would like to stress is that there are different ways to view the things that have occurred. You can choose to view them from a positive perspective or you can dwell on the negative. It’s your choice.

6. Get back on the horse. After you’ve taken some time and worked through the earlier stages of this process, it’s time to get back to work. Whatever your disappointment was, don’t allow it to haunt you through life. Remember that there will always be some disappointments and failures in life and that those who overcome the trials are the ones who will be successful. There’s no other path to success.

I truly hope that these steps are of some value to you. Taking the time to write about this topic has been a positive experience for me and I’m ready to get back to work. How about you?

I’m going to be writing some articles about employment issues, including searching for a new job, coping with your current one, and being more happy and productive wherever you may be working. There are so many people out there who are dissatisfied with their lives and a large part of that is due to their work situation or their perspective on their own employment. These are factors that can be changed and the realization of that is the first step toward a better, more positive life.

I have a lot of ideas already, but if you would like to suggest some topics to be included or offer your own perspective on the current job market as well as employment issues or searching for a job, please leave a comment or use my contact form.

Although, there is plenty of information in this article for beginning bloggers, I think the content is much more useful and immediately applicable for those who have already gotten their feet wet by blogging for a while. Regardless, he provides some thought-provoking ideas on how you as a blogger should think about blogging in order to successfully generate money from it. The most important quote I found was this:

There are lots of people trying to blog for income, but they’re stuck thinking like bloggers instead of entrepreneurs. The activity of blogging is not income-generating; hence a blog is not a business. If you think like a blogger, your blog won’t generate much money. In order to generate income from blogging, you have to learn to think like an entrepreneur.

This seems like a very simple and obvious idea, but I think the concept escapes many of us, even bloggers who have been in the game for some time. He goes on to talk about the idea of marketing. The content alone may be excellent, but writing the content isn’t the activity that generates income. It’s the marketing of that content, getting those great articles in front of as many eyes as possible, that opens up doors and ultimately makes you money.

This is definitely food for thought. If you’re struggling to make money as a blogger, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been doing this for years, take some time to think about how you’re marketing your writing. Are you getting yourself out there and really selling yourself to your readers? The time you spend on marketing will be well worth the effort.

I hope to god some kind soul out there living in his mother’s basement will take some precious time away from masturbating to lesbian porn to show me the error of my ways in not upgrading my wordpress installation. Perhaps you can take away the few pennies I make from this little blog and show me the true meaning of life in pure Monte Python fashion.

I’m waiting with bated breath. I need schooling, I’m sure. Somehow, I’ve really screwed up by falling behind the times of the monthly or whatever schedule of wordpress releases. I must be crazy to risk my precious pennies against the ruthlessness of acne prone basement dwellers. I wonder if they put on their Star Wars costumes when they perpetrate their brave acts.

It’s possible that they gravitate more toward the benevolent and courageous Power Rangers of ridiculous special effects fame (No one has topped the pink ranger for sheer vacuous hotness). It would certainly be humbling to be put in my place by a person in such a cheesy rubber uniform. The humanity, the humanity… or rather, the horror, the horror…

Regardless, one of these days I’ll update. Maybe in the meantime I’ll make myself a target of the silly youngsters who sweat and blog in well-starched undergarments for the greater good of all. Ad majorem dei gloriam…

Easton has 200 questions to help you examine the effectiveness and usefulness of your blog from just about every angle imaginable. It’s a lot to absorb in one sitting, but it provides a great starting point to start making your blog better than ever. Go and read it and let me know what you think.