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How to Overcome Fear November 22, 2009

Posted by Mike in : Mike, Motivation , 1 comment so far

How do you overcome fear? Fear of meetings. Fear of failure. Fear of what your friends and family will think. Fear of anything that does not actually harm you, like public speaking. Some people fear that more than death.

There are two ways to overcoming fear:

The first is by brute force. You vomit in the bathroom, pop a mint, then walk into that boardroom. It’s best to start slow however.  The idea is, it becomes like resistance training with weights. You start off light and work up gradually increasing the weights. Each new situation will always hurt, but the light weights you lifted when you started don’t hurt at all anymore.

Fear is like that. Things that scared you as a child no longer do…except for clowns of course. However, overcoming fear by brute force is inefficient. Takes time and a lot of pain.

There is a second approach. Eliminating fear altogether.

Sounds crazy.  How do you eliminate fear? Isn’t fear helpful? Yes it is but only in the fight or flight response that comes from a life-threatening situation. It is in the non-threatening situations like public speaking where fear is detrimental to the success of that meeting.  As we all say to ourselves, “If I can just relax, be myself, sound professional, don’t mess up, then I will be successful”. That is true to some extent and that knowledge increases the tension, compounding the problem.

The truth is that fear shows that you have made a fundamental error in your perception of reality.

Take for example an overheard work conversation. You hear your boss around a corner speaking to someone else saying “I’m going to have to fire Mike tomorrow, he does not know it yet so don’t tell anyone”. The rest of the day you see people looking at you odd, your gut hurts, you go home and go over all you did and think about what can you change. It’s only the next day at 8am you find out he was talking about Mike in accounting, not you.

All that fear you felt was wrong. Fear is just telling you that you need to change your reality. It’s a warning sign that you’ve got something wrong. You had an illusion about what reality was when it was not.

Now this is going to get a little trippy here, so bear with me.

Have you ever been in a dream and you wake fully frightened and say “I thought for sure it was real!”. You had a fundamental flaw in your perception of reality while you were coming out of a dream state. If you had known that it was a dream, you would have no fear. If you dreamt you were on stage, but knew you were dreaming, you would not care if the audience laughed at you or not, you’d just walk off stage, perhaps flip them off, but you would not have any fear.

All fear is just a perception. And in actuality, all reality is just your perception using your ears, touch, smell, sight, etc. If you could view all reality as if it were a dream, a dream that you own, then you would have no fear.

Usually the cause of the fear is something pretty basic, such as: you don’t want to make people unhappy, and if they’re unhappy, they think less of you and you start to feel unhappy about yourself.

I tried this technique in a board room where I was selling software I had created. I envisioned about an hour before the meeting that it was a dream. I put the people in their spots and saw them all sitting there, talking.

I said, if I’m in a dream, and I don’t get this gig, I’d just shrug, shake their hands and move on.

I go into the meeting, and I’m still breathing heavy. But I look around and keep saying to myself “I’m in a dream. I’m in a dream.”

As we go around and talk, I’m selling my product and the main guy in the room leans back, smiles and says in a condescending voice to the group, “Well, you know what they say about something that sounds too good to be true.” Now normally, I would have laughed and gone: “Haha, well that’s true but…blah blah blah”.

Instead, something clicked in me and I responded like it was a dream. I leaned forward, looked him right in the eye and go in a slow, firm voice, “Then don’t buy it.”

He leans back quick and goes “NO! I just never heard anyone say anything like that before. Please tell me more”. It was surreal…and fun.

Now this technique can take time, try it in a cafe or while walking down a street. Look at everything around you and view it as if it’s a dream. When you can effectively do that, you will get an overwhelming feeling of peace. Do that in a board meeting, on stage, talking to anyone who’s threatening you, and you will be yourself and answer honestly.

View your life as if in a dream and all fear will fade away.  If I had some fancy Budda thing to say I’d insert it here…but all of you reading this are a dream anyway so I’m done.

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Learn how to program iphone apps: HOW-TO GUIDE – First steps November 7, 2009

Posted by Mike in : Mike, Programming , 2comments

That was my Google question. Here are the steps to get started doing that:

Step 1: Get a hold of a MAC. Download the newest Operating System, if you can’t that is fine, Apple has different SDK’s (Software Development Kit) for whatever version of MAC OS you have.  You do not need an iPhone nor a iTouch to create an application for they have a built in emulator that looks and works just like the iPhone, however you will need one eventually to see it live…clever clever Apple.  Gotta buy the computer and the device.

Step 2: Go to Apples iPhone Development Center and sign up.  Sign up for the SDK at the bottom left, you have to create a userid and password, they ask for a physical address also, but once you do this you can download the 1.3 gig SDK for free.  That’s all you need to get started.  When you go to distribute your product, it will cost you $100 dollars to get a license, you can then post it on the Apple site for free, however they will take 1/3 of any charge you apply to your product…again…clever clever Apple.

Step 3: Pick a product you want to create. Don’t do anything with Graphics (animation, etc) or Audio unless you have a very specific product in mind. Those are much harder to learn to start.  I picked something that was a list, as you start to create your product, the need for graphics or storing data on the iPhone will present itself and you will then learn how to do it.  So start easy, its what I have learned is the best way. You can always go back an edit it for additional things.

Step 4: Pick a place to teach you how to program the iPhone. Try the Apple iPhone Tutorials (There are also videos available once you sign up), however I found they are NOT tutorials.  They are instructions.  When I went to learn it I was all excited at what seemed like an amazing array of information on their site.  The problem is they do not show you the complete picture for what they are trying to teach you.  Like me saying “Okay, to change your oil, just take off the old filter and remove the drain plug” and I show you a picture of a filter and a drain plug.  But then I don’t show you were they are on the car and how to get to them.  That’s the feeling that kept coming through on Apple so I had to find others sources.

Step 5: Review the Apple iPhone Human Interface Guidelines.  This is important because if you don’t follow some of the basic items, like NOT making buttons so small users can’t press them, they will reject your application.  But don’t freak on this, the tutorials above will help you keep it within the guidelines.  I recommend downloading the PDF version of the iPhone Human Interface Guideline (look at the top right corner for PDF on the link I just provided).  It’s easier to read and you don’t have to worry about the internet tanking at your local cafe.  Again, this is a LOOONG document, you don’t have to read it, but it would be wise to skim it after you do the tutorials for it has references on branding your product, design, creating custom icons for your product, etc.

Step 6: Get sample code and cannibalize the shit out of it. That is the best way, don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to.  Apple Sample Code is a great place to start.  The biggest problem with this stuff is its sophistication level.  And take it from me, if you open the perfect sample code that does just what you want, but there is so much foreign stuff in there, you’ll end up spending a month banging your head against a wall just to take the MAC and throw it across the room.  So, word of caution, try the above tutorials first, then step into these.

Step 7: Steal $100 dollars to get your product live on Apple store. There is a waiting period for Apple to review the app so be prepared for 2 weeks + to get approval. Go to the Apple iPhone Developer program to pay your $100 dollars and your on your way.

Lastly, I will add additional posts on iPhone development “How to guides” as I learn new things that were a pain in the ass to find out.

If your curious to why I am doing the iPhone applications, you can read the post on Found a way to make money in 45 days!

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