Passionate Living

LIFE is about stories. It’s about sharing the experience we experience, spreading the love we feel, and enduring the dynamics of the drama. The human heart is inherently fascinated by stories, and how we can learn from the morals and apply the principles and values in our lives.

THE BIBLE is said to be the Greatest Story Ever Told. True, religion gains widespread acceptance through relating stories of the prophets and their miracles, and the outcome that happened to all previous advanced cultures. From these stories in the holy scriptures, each succeeding generation of believers continue their practice in their faith and try to spread the message to those who are willing to listen.

A GREAT STORY is a great story, and with today’s technology the way with which we conduct storytelling is much more advanced than before – as can be seen from the latest major blockbuster success: James Cameron’s Avatar. When before we only relied on drawings, then parchments and open air plays, then evolved to recorded music and pictures, now we can take advantage of moving images and even augmented reality to help us tell our stories. The boundaries in which we can share our experiences are being broken down part by part, day by day.

Low technology high value

However, the greatest stories remain great centuries and even millennia after their release. Much of popular culture products today are based on and inspired by works of great art by great artists in the past. Many movies are remakes of previous classics, or are the modern interpretation of a thousand year old folklore, and much music are cover versions of previous great hits.

One of my favorite stories is Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. This seminal work and masterpiece by the Italian poet is considered to be the foundation with which the modern Italian dialect is built upon. Today, The Divine Comedy has been infused in many popular culture products, such as in the film “Hannibal” and even made into a video game with the title “Dante’s Inferno“.

Dante and His Poem by Michelino

At the time of release, many artists made paintings that illustrate Dante’s journey into the three circles of Hellfire, Purgatory, and Paradise. When I look at these paintings, they still fascinate me and still inspire as much imagination, plot-line, and lessons, perhaps even more than a modern, 3-Dimensional documentary would. The animation captured in these images, and the words in the text, remain of high value even though low technology.

The authenticity of the experience

Other great works include Homer’s “Iliad“, or Alexandre Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo” if you prefer something more “modern”. Even with today’s technology, these classics are much more enjoyable in their original form than when I see them in a modern form, such as movies or animation. It makes me think about the value of a story, since by being a songwriter, I become a story teller by default.

The essence of a great story is what makes it great. It’s not the software we use to create, it’s not the platforms we sign up to for publishing, and it’s not the technology that helps us distribute the work around the world. It’s about the fundamental human experience that shapes our character, and the authenticity of the experience and the desire to share.

I like seeing great works, and I would like to say I appreciate the art in them (although this is an art-form in itself, and may take years to develop a sensitive taste in these great stories). Understanding the essence of a great story can help us to create better stories we want to share in our lives, so we can spread the principles and the values we believe in. This is also called the message.

So, what’s your favorite story? Let us know about it in the comments

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Facebook Logo sticker by Jay Cameron

The advent of the internet has started a shift in modern economy. The basis for major industrial profit motive based economy is gradually being replaced with a much more organic and dynamic economy: the trust economy. With the trust economy, the paradigms and recipes we used to use to achieve success are starting to be obsolete and we need a different and more appropriate one that suits the principles of a trust economy.

The trust economy is also called by many other nomenclatures: the digital economy, the relationship economy, and (one of my favorites) the two way conversation economy [1]. Trust has always been the fundamental currency of our society [2], but the rate at which we are returning to the state of trust is fast enough to make the shareholders and capital business owners of the industrial era try everything in their power to slow down and even stop the process (or at least be in denial that it’s happening). But since the shift is a cultural one, the effect of the change that’s happening also applies to individuals and the quality of our success in life.

The trust economy online is accelerated by the advent of social media [3]: more and more people are using these online channels to publish their own opinions – whether it be professional or just for personal use – and also using these channels for personal branding and building their businesses. As Mitch Joel says [4], each of us is our personal brand now and we are responsible for our integrity and credibility of our online profile as much as we are responsible for our real life profile. That’s why it’s important we learn how to properly display ourselves within these online channels: because our profiles are being used to measure how much we can be trusted.

Managing a professional profile

Facebook is a great example of how we can measure the amount of trust we are worth based on what kind of profile we manage. I think there’s been plenty of good and great articles on the internet about how to maintain a professional purpose Facebook account, but I thought I’d throw in my two cents since I also feel that it’s a very good platform to establish yourself as an authority on your field of expertise. Facebook is a tool that has great potential to lead us to open new relationships and new opportunities (and maybe even meet your future husband or wife), so we should learn how to use it according to what we want to achieve in life.

Unfortunately, I see many of my friends use Facebook for non-professional purposes. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but I believe even in the personal area of life we should keep a certain degree of professionalism and try to provide constant value to the immediate people around us and to our extended community. That’s what I do with my profile: I try to share the information and insights I have about my industry and personal life and hope the value that I contribute will return to me in the form of more trust from my peers and extended stakeholders.

Here is a list of options you can change to have a more trustable Facebook profile. I’m listing them here based on my own empirical experience:

1. Select what you write as your status update. Sharing to people that you’re hungry or need to go to the bathroom is only appropriate for celebrities who already have tens to hundreds of thousands adoring fans who want to know their every move. Unless you’re this kind of celebrity, then I encourage you to limit your status updates to information or personal opinions that are useful and can be acted upon by your community. Examples of these quality status updates include links to helpful internet articles; quotes from a book or a speaker in a seminar you’re attending; or your own take on a solution for the industry. Throwing in the occasional personal status update – like where you’re spending the weekend with your family or how the weather is affecting your mood today – is fine as long as the ratio is still lower than quality status updates.

2. Comment on other people’s status updates. I don’t know if you feel the same way, but I feel that many of my friends want people to comment or “like this” their updates but they don’t want to do it for other people either (or at least do it minimally). Commenting and “like this”-ing on other people’s updates is one of the best and natural ways of building real relationships with people that are on your friend list. Make sure that your comments also give value though, and try to keep the jokes to the necessary amounts only.

3. Connect your other profiles to your Facebook profile, and don’t use ANY applications. This is to manage the content that appears on your profile timeline (or the “Wall”). There are plenty of other publishing sites (such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Posterous) that can be connected to Facebook, so every time you write in these channels the information that you share will also be posted on your Facebook profile. Combining this, and by not using ANY non-essential applications (you know which ones I’m talking about), you can establish a “lifestream” of your internet consumption activity that will allow people to see how you are using the internet to learn and expand your expertise in your industry.

What are your tips to make a more trustable online profile?

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*In the spirit of “those” Facebook apps, if I were asked “which superpower are you?”, I would definitely answer: predicting the future!

*Gretchen Rubin writes about the importance of doing something every day. I think it connects to my 365 Days of Happiness project

*I discovered today that Melody Gardot is a jazz singer. Sure doesn’t look like one though!

[1] The term “two way conversation economy” is borrowed from Ariel Hyatt, a PR expert for independent musicians
[2] Be Authentic, 2009
[3] Social Media on Wikipedia
[4] Mitch Joel is a digital marketing expert. I’m reading his book this month
[5] Photograph by Jay Cameron. Because the logo is a trademark

Trust by Joe Nangle

The title is borrowed from Pete Shannon’s post about social media [1]. Since I’ve entered and become part of the social media enthusiast community, I’ve noticed that there are many people who have taken it upon themselves to write their opinions and insights about social media and how it has introduced a significant cultural augmentation into our lives. The good side of the discussion happening online is that there is a wealth of knowledge to learn from; the bad side of it is it becomes a cheap, ubiquitous, almost abused topic of discussion – as if using the term “social media” makes you become sophisticated and updated person.

What I want to talk about isn’t the evolution and usage of social media by our society and how it changes the way we communicate. What I want to talk about is how this new channel of communication becomes a utility that we can use to build relationships and help develop the quality and quantity in our lives. In other words: how the advent of interactive internet – or Participation 2.0, as Mitch Joel says in his book “Six Pixels of Separation” [2] – becomes a natural system in which nobody can no longer abuse or manipulate information in order to obtain their self interests.

As Pete Shannon says, the people who are most successful in the new media landscape are the ones who understand that the No. 1 commodity online is now trust. It is the thought leaders [3] and prominent bloggers [4] who give outstanding value in an unrestricted manner who receive the most amount of trust from the online community – of which there are 1.5 billion, according to Mitch Joel. Imagine what this level of trust can bring to your business, if you can leverage these social media channels to bring you better relationships with your clients.

Building trust

Of course, that’s business talk, but this isn’t a business blog, is it? The idea I want to put forward is that trust has always been the No. 1 commodity – in all societies in all cultures throughout history [5]. Pete Shannon merely states that it is now apparent that trust is the most valuable commodity online – but all of us should understand that it has always been a base currency for every transaction we conduct in society.

It used to be what we learn in life can be applied online – but now that truth can be reversed: what we learn online can be applied to our physical life. This is what I have been feeling and applying in the context of my physical and digital life – what I do online gives me insights and inspiration to what I can do offline. Building trust as a part of building a personal brand, has brought me to understand better the method with which society makes transactions between the members, with trust as the currency.

The difference is, in the digital realm it is comparatively easy to sniff out the people who are unauthentic and only plan to abuse the trust given to them for their own plans and intentions. It isn’t as easy to do in our physical lives, for what reason I’m not so sure. But I do know that we can no longer say that what we do online doesn’t affect our real lives – it has become an interconnected world.

Trust and transactions

Being authentic is an essential part of providing value to our community, and if we are building an online business or authority then this is an important concept to practice. But even if we aren’t building a business or have a financial motivation behind it, being authentic is still an essential part of living. It is one of the principles with which we become a better person and achieve internal peace and happiness.

Perhaps the industrial age allowed us too much superficiality – so much that we became accustomed to it in an unhealthy way [6]. Since we lived almost a century in that fashion, it has become an integral part of our culture. Therefore it’s a good thing, that the digital revolution is breaking the sovereignty of centralized industrial systems, and return autonomy to the decentralized communities that act in an organic and natural way.

If you want to succeed in the digital arena – and also in the physical arena – being authentic is a principle to keep. We have lived with bureaucratic corporate hierarchy for long enough. It’s time to return to our authentic identities, time to return to trust as our transactions.

What’s your take in the cultural shift that’s happening right now?
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[1] The ‘Alternative’ Social Media Top Ten List, by Pete Shannon
[2] Mitch Joel is a digital marketing expert, who runs the successful marketing blog Six Pixels of Separation
[3] Seth Godin, a marketing expert and one of the highly followed figures in the new media landscape
[4] Chris Brogan, community developer and expert blogger
[5] Again, a similar theme that I pointed out in the one image theory
[6] As opposed to superficiality in a healthy way
[7] Photograph by Joe Nangle. Because it says what is says